Rogue status xb

Turbo Supra powered. Rear drive. Wide.

Rogue status xb 2jz turbo rear drive conversion

Our good friend and import drag racing legend, Stephen Papadakis, asked us to help with this insane project Xb that he and his crew were building. The Rogue Status clothing company commissioned Papadakis Racing to build this one off, rear drive, turbo Supra powered Scion Xb to compete in the 2010 Gumball 3000.

The Gumball 3000 is a 3000 mile rally run on public roads that has been held annually since 2001. The field consists of many exotic cars and celebrities. This year, the rally included a european leg which started in London running through Amsterdam, Copenhagen then Stockholm. The final stages were back in North America racing through Boston, Montreal, Canada and New York.

We were in the middle of a busy race prep week when we recieved the call from Steph. He was already being very apologetic (usually a bad sign coming from a prospective client). He told us that he was in the middle of a project that had gone slightly awry and needed some assistance. The original shop that had said they could do the widebody project Xb didn't come through after 4 months. And the deadline was quickly approaching...

We accepted the challange and took delivery of the car in June 2010.

The rear drive conversion had already been done by Rob Miller of Nuformz. The 2JZ single turbo motor, six speed trans & drivetrain were in the car, but Steph and his crew had yet to finish off the wiring and get it tuned and running (not to mention prep for a 3000 mile rally). We had the wheels and tires but still needed to determine the final ride heights. The body was a little rough and had a spray canned black paint job which had to be removed before we could do anything. The guys at the other shop had cut the wheelwells (a little too much), undercoated the chassis, painted the interior and engine bay.

With the clock ticking, it was obvious that the body shop needed to start on the body ASAP in order to get it painted on time. So, we needed another vehicle on which we could simultaniously prototype our widebody. Scion stepped in and provided us with another Xb with their factory lip kit installed. Steph wanted us to incorporate the optional lip kit with our widebody. We had to strip the spraycan paint job and completely dis-assemble the doors and all glass. We also had to transfer the measurments for the wheelwell cutouts and ride heights to the donor car. The shell then went off to our paint wizard Bob Cunningham to straighten and apply the Audi pearl grey paint job.

There was a lot of work to do to create the fenders flares and not much time. We called on the expertise of our associate Steve Ritchie to assist in the design and mold making processes.

The factory body panels were protected with a layer of cello tape, then splashed with a layer of fiberglass mat and resin on to which we carefully glued blocks of foam. Rough shaping was started with surform files and 40 grit sandpaper. Careful measurements were taken to assure symmetry of the panels. The roughing out process took four full days and nights of work. When we were satified with the rough shape, we installed the flares to the project xB and called Steph over to look at what we had created. He was very excited and gave us the go ahead to make the molds.

The next step was to get a surface on the flares that we could make molds from. We first coated the foam with polyester resin to form a hard surface and tie the blocks solidly together. We then applied body filler to get the final shaped surface. We also needed to cut in the flush mounting bolt areas. We created those from pieces of hardwood which we waxed and used to transfer their shapes to the plug surfaces. Several coats of poly primer were sprayed on and sanded off to get the parts to a class "A" surface. Sounds easy, right? Yeah right. The "plugs" (the original parts to make molds from) were finally ready after another five days of sanding, spraying and filling. They were givin a final coat of mold surfacing gelcoat, color sanded and buffed.

Since this car was a one off, we weren't concerned with the door openings and attachment to the body at this point. The outer surface of the wide fenders was now complete and molds were pulled from them. We created four outer shells from our molds and fitted them to the body. The mating surface to the body were then created with a FRP material and door cuts made. The door cut reveals had to be finished and we accomplished that with foam/fiberglass bonded to the inside of the panels. Final trimming would have to wait until we mounted the fenders to the actual xB.

Bob and his crew did an amazing job painting the body shell. It was really starting to look like somthing now. We then carefully took our flares and did the final fitment to the shell. Final finishing on the fenders, primer and off to the paint shop along with a few other trim pieces to get shot. We had to assemble everything we had stripped off, made sure the doors and panels were all aligned properly and delivered the car back to the Papadakis racing crew (remember, they still had to get it wired and running). Time was getting short, but the end was in sight.

Final assembly days at Papadakis Racing were a reunion of sorts. Our longtime friend Greg Pyles (GP wiring) was hard at work building a custom harness for the car and connecting the AEM EMS system. Shaun, Aldo and Steph were assembling the rest of the turbo plumbing, fuel and cooling systems. We picked up the parts form Bob (again they were flawlessly painted) and took them over for the final install. We used 3M two sided foam tape and stainless steel flush fasteners to solidly attach them to the vehicle. We were stoked when everyone involved told us how sick it looks. You can judge for yourself.

We have developed another set of originals to fit the factory Xb with the optional lip kit. If you want to put some really big rubber on your Xb, shoot us an email. We are going to be taking pre orders to see if it is worthwhile for us to build production molds for this application.