Website/content/blog/LAKE_REPORT/1-Origins/Mizumi-Origin-Story.md

# Mizumi's Origin Story

>*What is the Lake Report?*
>
> The Lake Report is my blog where I detail work on my project
> car Mizumi, a 1986 Nissan 300zx. みずうみ (Mizūmi), means
> 'lake' in Japanese*

[MIZUMI_IN_DRIVEWAY.jpeg HERE]

I've been interested in cars ever since I purchased my first
car at 16 in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. *Eva* was a 1993
BMW 325i with a 5 speed transmission and an uncomfortable
190,000 miles. Eva broke down, a lot. But in keeping that
car on the road, I found a passion in wrenching away on cars
that has seriously shaped my life. Eva was my first time
working on a car. I did the simple things like fabricating a
cold-air intake and changing valve cover seals. I had some
harder jobs too, when I had to rip out the entire dash to
change a heater core. Eva eventually found her way to the
gas station in the sky, when during state inspection the
frame of the car was described as "crispy" from rust damage.
I, as a minor, was no longer allowed to own that car after
that point. I, as an adult, can respect that decision.

Now since you're on my website, you've probably seen that
I'm a mechanical engineer by training. I completed my
undergraduate education during the coronavirus pandemic,
with COVID putting a real damper on my freshman spring break
plans. Instead of completing online school for the entirety
of my sophomore year, I leveraged my experience with Eva to
land a co-op position at BMW in Upstate South Carolina. My first
co-op rotation was in the Spring of 2021--just in the middle
of my sophomore year. BMW was the first time I was making
any real money, and without any other serious expenses and
only paying dirt cheap rent, I started to collect a nice
little piggy bank. 

This piggy bank was quickly dispatched when I found Mizumi.
On a weekend trip to NC State, I decided to check the local
Raleigh area Craigslist. I found this 1986 Nissan 300ZX
listed for sale at $4,000. In the Z community, this car is
called a "chuki 2+0 N/A analog dash". What that all means is
the car is the old body style (zenki), but with the tiniest
of chnages in that the bumpers were painted, it has just the
2 seats, is naturally aspirated, and the dashboard includes
typical analog instrument gauges. This generation of car,
called the Z31, came in two body styles: a 2+0 coupe, and a
2+2 coupe with barely viable rear seats (think Mustang or
Camaro back seats). I had always wanted a Z31. And now, I
had just set up a meeting with a guy to buy his.

[MIZUMI_PURCHASED.jpeg HERE]

This Z was the exact spec I was looking for, too. The N/A
engine was perfect because I had always been planning an
engine swap. It was the regular 2 seater, and had the
best feature of all: t-tops. I convinced my roommates (who
at this point I had known for 2 months?) that I absolutely
*needed* to see this car. They agreed to the side-quest, and
off we went to meet the previous owner. 

When I went to purchase the car, I arrived at a house with
several large dumptrucks in the yard. To me, this was
naturally a good sign, as Eva's previous owner ALSO had
dumptrucks in the yard. Upon looking at the car, I saw that
it had essentially no rust. This was the moment that I
decided I was going to purchase this car, less something
crazy happening on a test drive. A rust-free car from the
80's is hard enough to come by on it's own, let alone one in
the exact spec you want. This Z was a royal blue color,
which was not a factory option. There was some minor paint
damage around the car, which was almost certainly from a
shoddy paint job. Nonetheless, the car started right up and
ran and only had one minor fault: the brakes. The pedal was
soft, and it was clear that something was not all there in
the front brakes. The car stopped safely, but in retrospect
needed the front calipers rebuilt. I offered the previous
owner $3,200, and became the owner of Mizumi.

I started to drive Mizumi from the previous owners house,
and immediately noticed several issues. First, the tires
were *old*. They were significantly underinflated, and would
need reinflated within a mile or two lest I wanted to
destroy them. Second, the previous owner had installed 5%
tint on all the windows *except* for the front windshield.
This was almost certainly not legal, and give the impression
of standing at the front of a movie theater and starting
directly into the projector. Your eyes would adjust to daily
out of the front, and as a result, could not see basically
anything out of any of the other windows. Third, and most
pressingly, Mizumi overheated within 10 miles of leaving the
previous owner and broke down.

[MIZUMI_BREAKDOWN.jpeg here]

At this point, I'd like you to imagine being one of my
roommates at this point. You've just met this Pitt student a
couple of months ago before moving in with him sight unseen,
several hundred miles away from home, at your first real
adult job. He, on a roadtrip 3 hours from your temporary
home, convinces you to meet an unknown man from Craigslist, to buy an
old car. You are assured that this is all normal. Then, the
car your new roommate has bought immediately breaks down,
and leaves you all stuck for hours while waiting for a
tow truck. Frankly, I'm beyond grateful they did not leave
me behind.

Mizumi never ran again in South or North Carolina after
that. I towed the car to a Nissan dealership in Cary, NC
before paying a silly sum for new tires and brakes on the
car. I traveled back to Cary to try and make the roadtrip to
SC, but once I collected the keys for the car, it just
refused to start in the dealership parking lot. At that
point I decided to have it shipped home to Pennsylvania.

I did eventually get Mizumi running somewhat better once I
returned to PA, but I discovered a nasty truth of my
overheating issues. I had a significant head gasket leak in
cylinder 3 that was burning all of my coolant. I took stock
of the situation, and decided my long term plan of an engine swap
for the car had become the main plan. I removed the engine
from the car, and it's been a work in progress ever since.

[https://youtu.be/pjmYWnOauSE]

In the Lake Report, I'll bring you up to speed on how the
engine swap is going.