I bought this car stock in 2002 while I was a poor college student. Eventually the car developed rod knock and I ended up getting an SR to stuff in there.
Last year I had a headgasket issue with my SR, and when I pulled the engine apart I found a cracked ringland and decided it was time to build up a little. Then I decided that while the engine was at the machine shop, I should get a half-cage put in. And since I now have a real job, I decided to also paint.. and it just snowballed. I started this recent teardown around January of 09.
Here is the car before I tore it apart..
The car is on Silkroad coilovers with Z32 brakes, T28 turbo, and Carbonetic 1.5 way differential.
A couple pics of drifting..
I pulled out the interior, seam welded everything (first time welding), and sent it off to get the roll bar put in. Then a month or so later I got this back..
The roll bar is built nice.. but the first thing I asked was, "Where's the main diagonal?" According to him new SCCA rules allow you to not have a main diagonal if you run a diagonal through the rear bars. Oh well.. eventually I'll probably get the door bars cut out, and have him put in the front half and a main diagonal.
I bought a pair of GT Spec fender braces, then months later when I was going to bolt them up, realized they are S14 only. It was too late to return, so I started looking up different designs to find what was strongest. I found the convertible actually ran something stock, and built something similar to that since welded is always stronger than anything bolted.
I tore out the rusty battery tray and made this..
I went through the entire rear subframe. Put in all new Battle Version arms, poly bushings everywhere except for Nismo subframe bushings. Boxed in lower control arms and put in new ball joints. Put structural foam in the subframe and painted everything up nice.
Boxed in front lower control arms..
This is the fender tab Flybert suggested putting in to be able to run a tight door/fender clearance and not catch the fender with the door.
D-max hood doesn't fit with Nismo motor mounts.. so I lowered the engine with the mounts. I cut and welded them up, then ground it flat again and welded a big fat strap over the top of it and a couple triangles for bracing. I'm not going to risk these breaking..
Now the hood fits..
Since my car is a compromise street/track car, after I tore out all the stock heavy sound deadening I put in some sound deadening paint to still be light but not be horribly loud on the road.
I painted the interior/engine bay myself (first time) and was really happy with how it came out.
I got the engine back. CP 9:1 pistons, Eagle rods, ARP mains, ARP head studs, Nissan bearings, supertech valve guides, supertech seals. Also getting Apexi headgasket, GT2871R, etc.
I went through my whole chassis harness, pulling out all the power seatbelt wiring and whatever else I didn't need. Then I cut the harness near the front left fender and pulled it all through the frame area and reconnected on the other side to fully tuck this section out of the way.
This is a lot of wires and a lot of time..
Here the engine stuff is pretty much all together. I cut out a couple feet of the engine harness since it is too long for a LHD car and put the ignitor inside the car. Then I combined most of the engine harness into one bundle and sent it underneath the intake manifold. The intercooler is an XS Engineering that Nathan F (CoolBlue) and I cut and welded to turn the endtanks to fit with the headlights in place. This is mounted all the way back at the radiator and coated with some heat dissipation coating. The radiator is a big Griffin core. Power steering is from Brian's Zombie S13. I made new lines and mounted up the cooler.
Here you can see how short the piping is for the intercooler. You can also sort of see the stainless tie-down and stainless battery tray.
A heatshield I made out of some scrap aluminum and coated with heat reflective film.
Power steering cooler mounting
Which brings us to last week (Jan 09), where I finally got to drive the car and break in the engine! Still wet from the test drive.. weather here has been crap for a while. You can see the intercooler a little better in this pic.
And now it's on to get the fiberglass all fitting right, get it all sanded and primered, bring it to someone to paint it, then put all the windows/interior in and drive it!
