Vic "Sunny" Hugh: BTCC Legend

Did I buy a former British Touring Car Championship car? Ah, but if only.

Budget Touring Car Challenge, more like it.

Vic Hugh, known to some as Sunny, is my next $2000 Challenge entry. 

A couple of you know who Vic is, others can probably take the hints and figure it out. I don't get to meet Vic in person until mid-October so you all have to wait until then also!

For now, Vic has agreed to not cause trouble in Duster's car port.

Duster is who made this at all possible, by the way. A+, top tier enabling in true GRM fashion. Thanks, man!

You're either welcome, or im sorry. Depends on how October plays out!

It's definitely "you're welcome" this thing is rad.

I'm exhausted but, for now.

Vic Hugh.

Vee Kew.

VQ.

And.

Tomorrow, autocross.

36 hours, just under 1,100 miles, tacos, donuts and autocross. This has been good.

So, I bought a VQ-swapped Sentra that I will be bringing to the $2026 Challenge. It's not just any VQ-swapped Sentra though. Sunny started life as a professional built race car.

Two of these Sentras were delivered, body-in-white, from Nissan Motorsport to Archangel Motorsports / Multimatic to run in the 2003 season of the Grand-Am Cup Series. As I understand it, the Cup Series was a sort of support series to the "big boy" Grand-Am cars. I have been able to confirm through race result records that Sunny ran 3 races in 2003 and at least one race in 2004. I've spoken to both Archangel and Multimatic very briefly about the cars. Neither had particularly rosy memories about them, interestingly enough. Archangel said they were fast, handled great in the dry, were sketchy in the wet and were constantly breaking transmissions. 

The two cars have publicly changed hands a couple of times over the years but Sunny had been advertised for quite a long time since being swapped. I finally couldn't take it anymore and reached out. After talking with the previous owner and explained that I was only interested in it as a Challenge car, I gave him my offer...which he promptly rejected. I had sort of forgotten about it when a week or so later he reached back out to me and said that if I had it picked up that weekend, he'd sell it to me for my offer. 

Duster came through in a gigantic way, was able to scoop the car up and has been stashing it for me ever since. I left Cleveland around 8:45 yesterday morning and got to his house around 5:45. After checking out his beautiful BRG Miata, it was time to meet Sunny in person.

More tomorrow. I'm off to bed.

I took Sunny around the block to get some heat into the oil and then we put him up on the Quick Jacks to change the oil and give it a nut and bolt.

We discovered a lot. Some quite good, some quite bad! This pic sums it up pretty well. Lots of high quality AN lines/fittings, remote reservoir Multimatic shocks, an incredible stainless steel exhaust system, a plywood bumper mount and a hacked up sub frame!

Surprisingly, it's almost totally dry underneath. No oil leaks, no trans leaks, no axle seal leaks. Michael eventually found the remote oil filter in front of the passenger wheel and then it was time for dinner. There was a pretty incredible sunset that evening.

After tacos we stopped by the parts store for an oil filter. I had brought one for a VQ but this setup used a different one. The oil that came out looked pretty good, we put the fresh stuff in and then really got into the nut and bolt. Oh BOY am I glad we took the time to do that. 

During the test drive, it sort of felt like the steering rack and/or sub frame was shifting around. Many of the bolts were quite loose so...that very well could have been the case.

Sunny has a huge rear sway bar and a panhard bar. The passenger side mount of the panhard bar was loose but as I tightened it down, it started to squeeze the bracket. We were missing one of the misalignment spacers. Michael dug through is misc hardware, found a spacer of about the right thickness, precision machined(!) the inside diameter and we were in business.

Wheels came off to nut and bolt in the wheel wells and we were greeted by this clear sign of ultimate frustration.

My guess is a wheel bearing was totally smoked at some point and the grease cap was badly stuck in place so they crammed a screwdriver all the way through and levered it off. 

Then came the most important part of the evening - test fitting the BBS wheels.

Hhhhhnnnnnngggg. They totally make the car. Unfortunately the deal was structured in a way that I won't be able to run these wheels at the Challenge but I was hoping to use them for the autocross yesterday. The tires had a date code of 2016 and were rock hard though so that was a no go. The nutting and bolting continued with the final hackery surprise found in the right front. I'll just leave this here with no comment.

We also came to the conclusion that Sunny was wrecked at some point. Our first clue was that the rear floor on both sides is totally hammered indicating to me a big off-track excursion. We then were investigating why the right rear tire was contacting the fender and noticed that the lip wasn't rolled like the driver's side, the inner wheel well had been beat to within an inch of its life and the back door didn't quite meet the dog leg in front of the wheel. Race car stuff and it actually seems to have been put back together well enough. I implemented precise (!) use of a hammer and got the fender lip out of the way.

At this point it was late. I finished loading up the spare parts that came with the car and I finally got to my hotel a bit after midnight. The guy at the front desk was nice enough to let me leave the truck/trailer/Sunny combo under the overhang.

More later.

You should've seen last night's sunset. Just AWESOME. 

And it was fantastic to spend time with you. And a pleasure to enable. 

You were an awesome host. Thanks again!

Saturday morning I stopped at the gas station on the way to ZMax for the autocross. The 4Runner got filled to the top and Sunny got 6 gallons just in case. A minute or two after I pulled in, so did Duster with a box full-o-donuts. Not the worst way to start a Saturday.

I needed to be out of there by about lunchtime to ensure that I was home last night for my daughter's gymnastics show today and as such, got permission from CCR SCCA to get both my work assignment and runs in during the morning. Between fulfilling my work duty, walking the track, going through tech and attending the driver's meeting we checked the oil, double checked that the wheels were torqued, cleaned the windshield and Duster got the seat slider broken free. Sunny was ready to go.

During my quick test drive Friday night, getting it on/off the trailer and going through tech I had stalled it a strange amount of times. At least I thought I had stalled it. When it was time to go to grid, I started it up, backed out of my spot and it shut off. I started it up again but then it shut off and it would not re-fire. Here's a shot right before it shut off.

The previous owner had mentioned blowing a fuel pump fuse at some point but had only replaced it, never looked into the root cause so Duster and I started with that. I believe I checked every single fuse in the vehicle, pulled a bunch of relays and Duster worked on trying to figure out how to hot wire the fuel pump just in case. Eventually, without knowing why, we got it running again and took it to grid.

It seemed to be running OK but on on the way to the start line (after a full lock right-hand turn) it almost shut off again. I completed the run. At the same exact spot with the steering at full right-hand lock again, it did the same thing. Hm. When I got back to grid I told Duster there had to be something rubbing the steering. Sure enough, his sharp eye caught a wire that had worn through and was grounding out against the steering rack! I still haven't looked into what exactly that wire is but I wrapped it with some electrical tape and held it up out of the way with a few zip ties and we had no other running issues the rest of the day.

I ran in XP because 1) I don't know autocross classing 2) the swap seemed to direct me there 3) the guy at CCR who I had been communicating with runs in XP and 4) all I cared about was giving Sunny a workout. FTD was an XP car and he ran, I think, a 50 flat. A few of the XP competitors were running 57s and Dean in the wild GTI next to me on grid broke into the 59s. All these guys were on slicks, looked to be good drivers and had wicked cars. My first run, first time driving Sunny in anger was a 63. On my second run I missed a gate. At that point I hand shake bet Duster I could break Sunny into the 59s. On my third I saw a 61 when I crossed the line but I had hit a cone. My fourth and final run ended in a 60.3! Damn we were close. After 3.5 runs and on old, used 200tw tires we were sorta-kinda in the game!

Sunny is an absolute handful and 3.5 runs wasn't nearly enough to get used to him. I was also sloppy and a bit all over the place but I couldn't care less. This car is quick, sounds awesome, has a lot of potential and has a lot more character than a 2002 Nissan Sentra should.

Duster helped me pack up and redistribute weight so the truck wasn't squatting so much. We did some chit chatting and then I hit the road which got me home a little after 8 last night. What a great day and a half.

I'm not going to Guac Sunny. What's the plan then?

This will be a very different type of project than Guac was.

There are some mechanical aspects I want to un-hack and there is a ton to look into as far as chassis/suspension setup.

I want to clean the work up of whoever did the VQ swap. It seems a lot of the original wiring harness has been replaced and/or combined with the one from the car the engine came from. The wiring is a total mess.

It needs so much help in the cosmetics department. The huge dents (and ripped open holes) in the rear floors should be fixed, the hood needs to be un-dented (maybe strengthened), the paint has been ripped off in places by vinyl and it just generally looks worse for wear. 

Once the body is kosher, I'm also excited to come up with a livery styled after the 90s/00s BTCC cars. I mostly want to end up with a well sorted, good looking, unique race car.

This will be my entry into the $2026 Challenge, if there's a track day at the FIRM on the Monday after I'll do that but then it's way up in the air what happens with Sunny after the Challenge. I do not need another road race car so I'll probably end up selling it. I'm mentally leaving the door open, however, to figuring out a reason to hold on to it and use it.

Really cool car! I feel like I've come across it's partner at some point online for sale. Multimatic was a LeMans winner in 2000 in the LMP675 class so they were a pretty serious operation even back then. Just think, this car is in a line that leads to today's Porsche 963 run by Penske and GTD/GT3 Mustangs, crazy!

In for more details on the VQ swap and look forward to seeing this run at the Challenge next year. I ran a VQ swapped Datsun back in 2019 and it was a good amount of power.

In reply to adam525i :

I'm sure you've see this and the sister car for sale. The other one is for sale currently, at least it was a couple weeks ago, interestingly enough. I was listening to the Smoking Tire Podcast on the way home and it happened to be an episode where they were talking a lot about the Mustang GTD / GT3 which is essentially made by Multimatic. It was pretty cool thinking about how the car I was dragging home at least had some connection to such a powerhouse shop/company.

In reply to maschinenbau :

I remember your Datsun. I'm looking forward to more details about this swap too, to be honest!

Love it! I always thought that generation of Sentra looked kinda neat.

In reply to Colin Wood :

Thanks! The B13s have always been my favorite body style but this one is growing on me. Probably because it's mine.

Sunday morning after dragging me outside so they could meet Sunny, my kids jumped on pulling the tape off the doors.

I started going through (almost) all of the spares that came with the car. I say almost because despite our best efforts Duster and I forgot to load up one bin - full of spare axles.

Yesterday was pretty jam packed work-wise but I was able to put some time toward the car. First I worked on un-berkeleying the hood, utilizing the high tech hood prop.

I was able to get some of the waviness out but it's going to take a lot more work. I may keep my eyes out for a replacement. Then I couldn't help myself and took a few min to see how the paint might clean up.

Before.

After.

Before.

After.

It's tough to tell in the pics but it's a ton better and really needs a more aggressive first step than I was taking. I'm considering a color change but we'll see.

I think you spent too much time with Duster lol

In reply to adam525i :

I pretty much had to restrain him Friday night so he didn't start paint correction right then and there.

Heeyyy now.....

Y'all ain't wrong. 

But somehow it's still stampies fault.

Nice and I always enjoyed my time with that generation Sentra. See you in Gainesville. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Looking forward to it!

I've been traveling for work the past couple days but I took a short break from work this morning to continue the get-to-know-you process with Sunny. My intent was actually to try to find the cage stamping with the eventual goal of tracking down the confirmed history of this car. This is a well done cage. 

I especially love how the driver-side door bars go through the B-pillar. 

It has been modified, however. At some point, an extra support bar from the front hoop to the cross brace of the main hoop was cut out to put in a passenger seat. 

I may put that bar back in.

I have yet to find a stamping but I did find the sticker of the company who built the cage, called them up on a whim and talked with them for a few minutes this morning. He remember the project well and actually thinks he still has all his files associated with the cars/program laying around. Hopefully that's the case!

EDIT: Oh! I'm not using names here because I don't know whether nor not the people I've talked to about this car want me to but the cage builder's son drove this car and is now a fairly well known racer. Turns out, during his first stint in the car, he had no brakes and ended up using another car/a barrier to slow himself down at one point. I'm guessing that's where the passenger quarter panel damage came from.

I wouldn't worry much about that extra bar. The rest of the cage is already overkill for a Challenge car, and having a passenger seat will be more valuable. 

In reply to maschinenbau :

I totally agree it would be way overkill for the Challenge. Shoot, I'd be perfectly comfortable road racing the car without it. I moreso would do it so that the cage was back to how it was originally designed. 

My quick afternoon work break was also given to Sunny. I did more poking but focused primarily on the rear passenger door which was aggressively zip tied shut. Everything is still present but you can see more evidence of the impact near the striker. 

There were a couple small issues with the latch mechanism also. Primarily, the little plastic cover for the ratchet(?) had partially come off and jammed the whole thing. One of the three mounting screws was also broken off although that wouldn't affect the functionality, really. 

For the second time in my life, a screw extractor worked!

With a little re-alignment of the striker, Sunny now has four functioning doors. Success. 

We're rapidly nearing the end of car season here so I'll have to pivot to getting the various vehicles ready for storage. That said, there are a few local junk yards that have the right generation Sentra sitting in the yard so I may go this weekend in search of a hood if the weather is nice enough. 

Mostly so I can get the hand-written notes off my desk, I'm going to document all the spares that came in the Sunny package here. My purchase of the car/parts was split into three sections - the car plus associated spares, a "brake package" and the BBS wheels plus some spare tires. I've got three separate bills of sale. The extra tires were donated to Duster but they were out of the Challenge math anyway. 

Spares/equipment included in the purchase price of the car:

• Cool suit setup - cooler, lines, shirt (not planning to re-use but it was included), pump, wiring, etc.
• 5x axles
• 2x Hyperco 187B0400 springs (front)
• 2x Hyperco rear springs (no part numbers but I assume they are paired to the fronts)
• 2x Eibach 0600.225.0500 springs
• 2x rear helper springs (unmarked)
• 1x BR930379 Hub
• 1x BR930560K Hub + Bearing kit
• 2x used hubs
• 1x CS650035 Clutch Slave
• 1x CMS20463 control arm
• 1x CMS20462 control arm
• 1x 25477 ball joint boots
• 1x intake tube(s) + silicone couplers
• 1x AEM cone filter
• 1x roll red vinyl
• 1x roll black vinyl
• 1x grip tape
• 1x GForce 2028 Harness
• 1x window net bar kit + weld on cage tabs (RQP705005)
• 1x June 2025 window net
• 2x 17164 exhaust hangers
• Misc. hardware store ducting
• Misc. rivets
• Pop rivet tool
• Misc. hardware
• Various AN/Earls fittings, lines

Brake Package - not included in Challenge maths

• EBC DP4775R
• EBC DP41691R - These actually appear to have been installed, used to bleed the brakes, maybe partially bed in and then removed. It's a bit strange, actually. 
• 2x 604-67040 Geospec Rotors
• 2x 320.42051F Centric Rotors

BBS wheels - also not included in Challenge maths

• 4x BBS Motorsport 3-piece wheels with 0201069 centers numbered 1,2,4 and 6

I had never seen BBS centers like these before so I actually called BBS Motorsport USA to confirm that they were legit and confirm specs. Well, it turns out they are totally legit AND they had 5 NOS centers sitting on the shelf for which they cut me a deal I couldn't refuse...

BBS USA doesn't have any insight as to how many of these centers were actually produced but I've got 9 of them, which is pretty cool. The wheel halves, hardware, etc. actually aren't very expensive - all things considered - so at some point I'll probably build these into full wheels.

Google tells me the stock weight of a 2002 Sentra SE-R Spec V is 2,743 lbs. Here's what a gutted, caged version weighs.

That's without me in it and probably somewhere around 6 gallons of fuel. The engine is offset to the passenger side so RF being heavier than LF makes sense. From what I can find online, the VQ is about 15lbs heavier than the SR20 would have been. Not a bad tradeoff for the power added.

There's certainly a lot to be gained in terms of overall balance, especially in the rear. 

That's awesome! The extra 15 pounds is nothing compared to the extra power.

In reply to AxeHealey :

Awesome score on the wheels and, yeah, can’t recall seeing that BBS model before. Love ’em.