Larry Chen and his Datsun 240Z

If you’ve followed car culture in the last decade, it would be near impossible to have not seen content from the man featured today.

Larry Chen, motorsport and automotive lifestyle photographer has been a major influence on many young car guys/girls in the United States. You may have seen his work featured in countless magazines including Hot Rod and Speedhunters, or even on YouTube in the popular Hoonigan Autofocus series.

But for those unfamiliar, Larry is a California based photographer and videographer who chases down everything from high-end cruisers and lowriders, to drift cars, drag cars, and time attack racers to get their story. The best part? He takes their story and expresses it into something that truly represents the “A Picture is worth a thousand words” mantra.

The early days

Bit by the car bug at a young age, Larry bought a reasonably modified Datsun 240Z on his birthday almost two decades ago. And while it was used for general transportation, Larry found it extremely useful at chasing cars through Canyons, Drift Tracks and more to get the perfect shot. 

It didn’t take long for the car to suffer from a few bumps and scrapes and Larry decided to continue pushing the car away from its stock form and enjoy it for what it was. With a pieced-together disk brake conversion and lowering kit installed, he ran the car in several autocross and time attack events while still driving it on the weekends. 

Gettin’ Serious

But, like most other hotrodders, Larry needed a performance bump and with the narrow engine bay, he had to look for a less conventional powerplant to suit his needs. Working alongside a few Formula Drift buddies, Larry sourced a wrecked Nissan Silvia drift car to steal a few goodies from. 

Transplanting a forged bottom-end SR20 engine and turbo setup, he was able to reuse everything from the exhaust manifold, to the piping, intercooler and intake. He even shoe-horned the JDM Silvia transmission in place of the aging factory Datsun piece.

“It had a different ECU on it when I pulled everything from the Formula Drift car, but it wasn’t suited to be driving a lot and would die at every stop-light”. Larry says switching to the Haltech Elite 1000 was pretty much a plug-and-play ordeal and made a tremendous difference in how the car performed. 

With the Elite on-board, using a WB1 controller allowed Larry and the guys over at Z-Garage to dial in the thoroughbred four-cylinder while still giving it excellent part-throttle control and cold-start manners.
“Putting the Elite 1000 on the car has made a world of difference in how it drives now”.

“I went out and bought it on my birthday, it ran but spit and backfired and turns out it was just out of gas. Since then, I’ve autocrossed it, done time-attacks, track days, chased drift cars.”

“I got married and did a big burnout leaving the reception in it. It’s my car.”

The transformation

Like most gearheads in the world, Larry found he had a ton of downtime during the COVID-19 pandemic and thought this would be the perfect time to show some much-needed love to his Datsun.

The team at Z-Garage stripped everything down and did an extensive amount of metalwork, making sure the streamlined Datsun sports car would stand out amongst the crowd of modern Nissan’s. Finishing the bodywork off after several months of effort with its bright orange paint and genuine Peter Brock ground effects.

Orange Bang

Named after the popular west-coast soft drink, “Orange Bang”, has been a labour of love and his partner in crime for over 16 years. Needless to say, this Orange hot rod will be a family heirloom as Larry plans to pass it down to his kids. He’s happy with its current state and is glad to just get out and enjoy it, but like every project car, it is never finished.

We want to thank Larry for taking the time to talk about his wicked little Datsun, and for choosing Haltech products to deliver reliable, repeatable performance when he is out racing.