February 2005 was the first time I set foot in Bulletproof Automotive, and it rained the entire time I was there. Ben Schaffer had started the company in 2000 and by then was the U.S. distributor for Top Secret, which is how a Top Secret-built D1 car ended up sitting in a Southern California shop waiting for me to photograph it for Modified Magazine. The weather wasn’t going to send me home, so I shot the ORC 350Z in the rain and figured I’d be back. Knowing it was going to be a cover car made a second session an easy call, and a few days later I returned for more photos of the Z, including the frame that ended up on the May 2005 cover, and for the Top Secret S15 that was there at the same time. That S15 shoot will get its own republish on Tunerzine down the road.
Schaffer is worth a sentence of his own here, because meeting him that week turned out to be a bigger deal than the shoot. He went on to write The Real JDM column in Modified, Bulletproof is still in business more than 25 years after he started it, and he later founded Unplugged Performance, introducing his work to an entirely different generation of enthusiasts.
The car itself is a 2004 Fairlady Z that Top Secret built for the D1 Grand Prix in partnership with Ogura Racing Clutch, and it became one of the best-known drift cars of the mid-2000s. Yuki Izumida drove it during the 2004 D1 season before Ryuji Miki, fresh off winning the 2004 championship for Top Secret in an S15, took over the Z for 2005. Youichi Imamura then campaigned it in 2006 and 2007. What really made the car stand out was under the hood. Top Secret pulled the VQ35 and replaced it with a Top Secret SPL RB26DETT from the Skyline GT-R, which at the time made it about as far removed from a factory 350Z as you could get.
The RB runs HKS pistons, connecting rods, and 272-degree camshafts, with a Blitz K5-660R turbo on a Top Secret exhaust manifold. Top Secret also made the intake manifold, oil catch can, custom titanium exhaust, and V-mount intercooler setup with an ARC core, while the wastegate pipe exits through a custom front fender. Fuel comes from an ATL 12-gallon cell through a GReddy rail, cooling runs through an ARC radiator with Samco hoses, and an HKS F-Con V-Pro manages the engine with a Neko AF700 air/fuel meter and a Blitz boost controller. The published specs listed the output as an estimated 690 whp. Behind the engine is a Getrag six-speed from the BNR34 GT-R, an ORC twin-plate clutch and flywheel, a Cusco Type RS LSD, and a Top Secret custom carbon fiber driveshaft.
The chassis was seam-welded by Top Secret and fitted with a Safety 21 competition roll cage. The bodywork is the long-nose widebody kit Top Secret was known for in that era, along with custom front fenders, a custom aluminum front diffuser, and a GT2 wing on custom mounts. The doors, hood, and hatch are custom carbon, the hatch glass is Lexan, the mirrors are Ganador Super, and the headlights run a Bellof HID system. Kei Office coilovers with 896 lb/in (16 kg/mm) front and 448 lb/in (8 kg/mm) rear springs handle the suspension with Esprit front arms. The car sits on custom blue Volk Racing GT-C wheels, 18×9.5 up front with 255/35R18 Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R tires and 19×10.5 in the rear with 275/35R19s. Project Mu two-piece rotors and six-piston front calipers handle braking duties. Inside there’s a Bride seat, a Stack cluster, a set of Defi BF gauges, and not much else.
I shot the car twice in one week, once in the rain and once in whatever passes for good weather in February, and the cover came out of the second trip. More than two decades later, the RB-swapped Z is still one of the cars most closely associated with Top Secret’s drift program, and I’m glad I didn’t let a rainy day talk me out of that first session.
GalleryPhotos by Jason Siu
