anyways, we're just going to do an engine transplant. we got the white vert running last night... she lives...

finally got the silvert into the polebarn

face off - chuki vs. silvia

in this corner: damaged, yet unmolested 93

and in this corner: hacked up, beaten, converted 93

teamate fady trying to get the downpipe disconnected

shot of the old vert from the pov of the new vert

almost ready for the pull

out with the old...

i figured this would be the best way to a) drain all the fluids and b) get ther right exit angle

fady inspecting some of the "quality" work put into this car

nearly empty and ready for a cleaning

ok, so that's the pictures. here's a little background and some planning:
as most of you know/remember, my wife and i were victims of a suicidal deer one evening while driving the pictured white vert last october. we did not have full coverage, so we couldn't afford to have it repaired - which is another long story. well it has sat with a cover on it ever since. until yesterday...

we started by cleaning up a lot of the glass on the inside and removing the bulk of the broken HUD windshield i had in there. once enough glass was removed to sit in the car without turning yourself into hamburger, we stuck in a charged battery, cleaned up the plugs a little and fired her up.

she lives

a little history: we owned this car for just over a year when it got wrecked. as she sits, she's got about 220,000 miles on her. ran like a champ till the day of the accident. of course, it had it's 220k problems like coolant and oil leaks and things of that nature, but my wife and i drove it about 3,000 miles on our honey moon through the apalachian mountains and across the outerbanks without any trouble.

anyways, we picked up this silvia-converted vert a few weeks back as a "fresh" slate. obviously it has the silvia front end on it. other "mods" include a 5-speed swap, coupe doors, electric fan (from some car?), emissions deleted, "custom" exhaust, and a few other things here and there. i was told the engine had bad compression and the transmission was about shot. the "wiring" for the lights and fan were not pretty, nor was the "emissions" delete. there were nuts and bolts missing all over the place, brackets hanging loose, lines pinched off, and other signs of a sloppy/careless install. lastly, the exhaust is pretty much a one-piece hodge-podge of exhaust components all welded together. the only flange i found was the one connecting the downpipe to the manifold.

all right, on to the plans:
of course, we're going to swap in the engine from the old vert and hopefully some of the other unmolested parts can be substituded for the parts that have been fiddled with. my other teamate, zach, hooked me up with a working 5-speed that i can change out also. the interior of the new vert is in more dissaray then the engine compartment, so most of the interior will get swapped as well. the coupe doors currently on the car are manual and i'd like to put them back to power, so i'm going to use the coupe doors i have from my old coupe. i'm also going to be doing the HUD swap on this vert too. hopefully i'll get more than just the windshield. another little trick piece i picked up was a digital climate control that is 75% complete. i just need a few sensors and it'll be good to go.

of course, i'm going to put the 962's and cat-back that were on the white vert onto the silvert. i'd also like to get a lip spoiler for the trunk as it's currently wingless. i'm also trying to find an r32 gtr center grill for the front and a zenki lip to top things off. wrap it all up with a fresh coat of paint and i think i'll call that the end of stage 1 in this project. that should get me through the summer. if i can find a tubular header and a vlsd, i'll toss those on too.

i'll update this thread as progress is made and more pictures are taken. thanks for looking.

Modified by DeXteR at 4:19 PM 5/29/2007

Modified by DeXteR at 6:11 PM 5/31/2007



Post Title:
Posted by: ishkabibble at 4:50 PM 5/29/2007

Looks good so far dexter!



Post Title: Re: (tenkawa_akito)
Posted by: gravetolife91 at 2:06 PM 5/30/2007

here's the pictures:

bill and i turning wrenches

even less stuff in the engine bay

zach and fady pulling the dash

here's what's left of the inside

and here's how she sits right now




Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 7:44 AM 6/5/2007

:roll:

whatever, i have other things to do.

saturday, bill, michelle, and i spent all day building tables/shelves for the polebarn (which from now on will be referred to as "the shop") so we could clean up some more floor space and bring in the mir3vo from the elements. needless to say, i didn't get very far on the the vert project, but i do have a lot more room in the shop and one more vehicle.

fady showed up later in the evening to nag me some more and brought bandit along. they lent a hand prepping the ka in the old vert for extraction. we labelled all of the wiring connectors and vaccum lines as we disconnected them. we got the coolant and oil drained and that was about it for saturday.

yesterday, bill came over to work on the mir3vo but we ended up getting a lesson in wiring a dryer from my father-in-law. it's a long story... bottom line is we were messing with live 110 in my basement and finally got my dryer hooked up (much to fady's dissaproval). it was 9pm before we got to the shop to work on the cars. i didn't even get to work on the vert until about 10pm anyway because i had to re-assemble my shop cart that i got from christmas. so once i finally did get to wrenching on the vert, i got a few things pulled out like the radiator and the fan and all that stuff. i drained the transmission fluid and relieved the ac system. again, didn't accomplish much, but didn't spend a lot of time either.

so here's the pictures:

bandit getting his hands dirty

hood's off for the first time

i can't remember what he was saying, but it was funny...

bandit took this picture - turned out pretty nice, i guess...

and this is where i'm at right now

hopefully i'll get some more time into it tonight. maybe the wife will get her hands dirty on this one. she has yet to turn a wrench since the silvert has arrived (although she did man the circle saw and nail gun when we built the tables/shelves). she needs to get in here and work on HER car.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Glyph at 10:57 AM 6/5/2007

Keep us updated as you go! Lots of pics too! Let us know if you need anything.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (Eikon)
Posted by: DeXteR at 11:40 AM 6/5/2007

then i noticed it's for an s14...

thanks anyway. i've got a friend down by detroit who's on the look-out for me. last time he got an s13 zenki lip was at a u-pick yard and only paid $5 for it!!!!!

i'm planning on putting in some more wrench time tonight. of course, pictures will be abundant.




Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Glyph at 9:57 PM 6/5/2007

really starting to get her opened up...

just thought this was a cool shot:

...and the silvert patiently awaits the transplant...




Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 1:13 PM 6/7/2007

I can't stand colored engine bays if they don't match the outside of the car... now if you plan to paint the finished product back to red.. fine.. But I'd at least go with a black paint in there for now.. just my $.02.

Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (Eikon)
Posted by: DeXteR at 1:23 PM 6/7/2007

hopefully tonight it won't rain and i'll have help. that way i can continue to pull the old ka and someone else can get started on cleaning the silvert. while i have the good ka out, i'm going to have to hit her with degreaser pretty heavy as well. it's got 220+ thousand miles on it. that's a lot of messy oil changes and road grime...



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: 94_240sx at 2:04 PM 6/7/2007

Quote, originally posted by 94_240sx »

I wish I could help you with cleaning.

I wonder if there is a name for your condition.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (ishkabibble)
Posted by: DeXteR at 6:36 AM 6/8/2007

Quote, originally posted by 94_240sx »

Looking good. I wish I could help you with cleaning.

i wish you could help me with my cleaning too!!!

don't worry though, i've got a guy. he's probably just as concerned about automotive cleanliness as you are. i'm going to assign him to detail it.

Quote, originally posted by ishkabibble »

I wonder if there is a name for your condition.

OCD comes to mind... but it's different when it's a car. it warrants a not-so-negative name... i can't think of anything creative at the moment.

well, time for another update.

made some good progress yesterday. started out by wheeling the silvert outside the shop to clean the engine bay. i wiped all the heavy, built-up grime off with rags and then hit it with engine degreaser. let it sit for a while and then wiped it down with wet rags. it made a huge improvement, however, just getting the built-up stuff off made most of the difference. anyways, it's pretty much rust free - bonus.

i didn't get a shot from before i started rubbing all the grime off, but just scroll up and observe some of the other pictures. this one is right after spraying it with degreaser:

wax on, wax off...

and this is how it turned out:

i'm happy with the results, but not satisfied. this is just after one blasting of the degreaser. i'll probably do it again tonight and this time use soapy water to clean up afterards. then after it dries, hit it one more time with soapy water. after that, it should be ready for some paint.

then it was back to pulling the engine on the old vert...

there were only a few things left to be done before the motor could be yanked. i started by trying to disconnect the sensors on the transmission but found out that some of them were inaccessible while the transmission and engine were still in the car, so i moved to the inside, and took out the gear selector. sounds easy, but man, there's a lot of junk in there! lots of wires and small screws. to make matters worse, i had to work around the remenants of the busted-out windshield. it made the removal a bit perilous. the wrong move would have meant a trip to ER... no blood, no foul.

so from there i had to cut some sort of exhaust recirculation pipe that was in the way of the steering output to the rack on the subframe. i'm not quite sure what it is for - it's not the egr valve as that was a different pipe that came off the back of the manifold and went around the back of the engine. this pipe i'm talking about snaked around the steering output and went into some valved thingy and then into a small plastic container and then to the carbon canister... it's some sort of emissions crap... whatever. i just cut it off. then i split the cat-back off and disconnected the heater core hoses and it was ready for pulling.

on the way out

almost got it...

victory!

finally!

from here, we just need to clean up the engine, split the trannies from the longblocks, swap a few parts and toss the good ka back into the silvert. i'm looking forward to it. i'm probably going to order a few parts this weekend for it and start talking to my teamate zach about paint.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 7:06 AM 6/11/2007

michelle finally came out and helped. so i put her on detail and bill went to work on his mir3vo. i told michelle to use soap and water to clean the engine bay. then after that, i had her hit it with some brake parts cleaner and a rag. after that was done, michelle and zach started covering everything that wasn't getting painted. then it was ready for paint. i didn't get a single picture of michelle helping... sorry... so here's a picture of zach doing his thing:

i also didn't get a picture of the engine bay after it's third cleaning... oh well. here's what it looks like right now:

one more coat and it'll be great. i really like the look of the flat black in there. it's just rustoleum - nothing special. when we decide to get a "real" paintjob, we'll strip everything down and do it right. for now, a rattle-canned flat black engine bay does the trick.

so while that was going on, i was busy trying to get the steering rack and power steering stuff disconnected from the white vert.

we also set the "good" motor over by the "bad" motor to free up some space in the shop.

we ended the night debating on what this thing is:

it's a solid block of steel - that's it. no threads for something to get bolted to it, no lines for vaccum or fluid, no nothing. just a block of steel. the only explanation that made any sense was the one curt had: it's a dampener for some 3rd harmonics. 3rd harmonics... :roll: figures.

tonight i'm hoping to get the steering rack fully removed from the white vert and get it cleaned up and stuffed in the silvert. also want to hit the silvert engine bay with one more coat of paint. i also need to clean up the underside of the silvia hood and spray it a couple times as well.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 7:53 AM 6/11/2007

I'm not sure what the block of metal is.. I don't recall seeing it on any 240 i've worked on. I wonder if it was there for a spacer... to keep the engine from hitting the firewall or crimping any of the hoses, etc...???

Bet you can't wait to get that car back on the road!!!

Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (Eikon)
Posted by: otto_3478s at 2:49 PM 6/11/2007

took me a while, but i got it out. and it was covered in grime. so i took it outside, hit it with degreaser a couple times, then washed it down with some soap and water. now it just needs a quick coat of paint and it will be ready for installation in the silvert.

i'm not sure i explained this, but the dust boots on the silvert's rack were both blown out and the passenger side tie rod was bent pretty bad. so i decided to just swap the one in from the white one.

sadly, that's my only picture from last night... things were moving along slowly as they were so i didn't feel like stopping to take pictures along the way.

with the rack out of the way in the white vert, i decide to remove the motor mounts. my left hand ended up not liking that. i had to use my "wrench extender" (jack handle) to increase the torque to get them to break loose. well, when the driver side bolt let loose, i smashed the fingernail on my left ring finger against the frame rail. man, i haven't done that in a while and it hurt! it hurt for about 3 minutes before i could even use a wrench again. lesson learned - keep your hand open when breaking bolts/nuts.

on the passenger side, i was more careful and got it off without incident. except that the wires are clipped into a bracket on the top side. so i decided to unbolt that and of course forgot the lesson i just learned about keeping my hand open... when this one let loose, i smashed my left pinky against one of those nissan screw clamps for the fuel lines. turns out, they're a little shart on the edges. i have a 1/4" split from the cuticle.

i haven't smashed my hands up this bad in a long time. i decided to call it a night after that.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 9:22 AM 6/12/2007

LOL... last set of motor mounts we tried to get out were a nightmare... the bottom bolts were stripped and rusted on... so we had to take a sawzall to the mounts... then drill out the plates underneath.. what a nightmare!

Hey.. I've got a favor to ask you...
Can you measure the placement of the passenger side tie rod for me.. I replaced my tie rod end, but spaced out and didn't measure it properly... So I think I'm out of alignment because of it. Maybe you could measure it from the base of the boot cover to the start of the bolt that's up against the tie rod end?

Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (Eikon)
Posted by: DeXteR at 10:14 AM 6/12/2007

the thing is, my pole building is wired off the house breaker box. i have 110 going to the box in the house. my shop is on a 20 amp breaker! so if i want to use the air compressor, i need to make sure the stereo is off, the halogens are off and the ceiling lights are off. the other night when we were working on the cars, we blew the breaker twice because we had too much going on.

in the near future i'm going to get 220 to the house and run it into a new box because the one i have is jam-packed - i've even got a few double-switch breakers. then i'll run 110 out to the shop with the old box from the house. that should give me enough juice to run a welder, big compressor, parts washers, a lift and whatever else i want.

Quote, originally posted by Eikon »

Can you measure the placement of the passenger side tie rod for me... Maybe you could measure it from the base of the boot cover to the start of the bolt that's up against the tie rod end?

no problem... give me a call sometime this evening while i'm in the shop and i'll get the measurement for you. i don't know that my front alignment was perfect though. it'll be enough to keep you from flying off the road if you let go of the wheel at least.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: ishkabibble at 3:29 PM 6/12/2007

Sigh... the benefits of living in Canada.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (ishkabibble)
Posted by: DeXteR at 8:15 AM 6/13/2007

i finished cleaning up the steering rack parts. now i just need to spend some time removing the cotter pins that i sheered off when i couldn't pull them out. after that, we can install it. i've decided to skip painting it.

we also got the automatic transmission seperated from the ka. took off the ac and alternators and the ac bracket. then we dropped the oil pan and removed the bolts for the flexplate.

then she came off nice and easy.

look, a 6-bolt! no crankwalk!
sorry, ^ it's a DSM thing.

seth, i did not get a measurement yet as my tape measure is no where to be found. i'll track it down and get that measurement to you sometime soon.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 8:18 AM 6/13/2007

nice job man i cant wait to see the final product! ur a lucky man with 2 verts in your garage hehe. keep it coming its like watching a TV show



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (krash14)
Posted by: DeXteR at 6:22 AM 6/14/2007

i'm definitely going to forward this to him!

because he's obsessed with clean. you should see his mir3vo project. it's a 95 mitsubishi mirage (1.5 fwd auto) that we're fully converting to an evo 3 (2.0-t awd 5-spd). within 24 hours of pulling the engine and transmission, he had the engine bay spotless.

detailing is his specialty. he likes doing it and he's good. he knows the backside of a wrench too. i'll make sure i get a few more pictures of him doing other things from now on.

no update. i'm coming down with a cold. i'm hoping to feel well enough to get out to the shop tonight though.

seth, i have a note for myself to grab my tape measure and get that measurement for you.



Post Title:
Posted by: krash at 3:35 PM 6/14/2007

the one on my club website is up-to-date, but is in a "members only" section. locally, he wants to keep the project under wraps. we've been catching a lot of flack from another local car club. so our projects have been somewhat top-secret so when we're done we can roll on the rival club and show them what we're capapble of.

but that hasn't been updated in a long time... i should tell him to update. so here's the photobucket album with the mir3vo:
http://s88.photobucket.com/alb...irage/

seth: 6 1/2" to the nut. if i recall, i had an alignment done after i got my new wheels and tires, so that should be right.

now, on to the silvert...

got a few things done last night. i started out by stripping the block down some more and removing some more grease/grime/debris. the motor mounts and accessory brackets have been removed and lightly cleaned. the block needs more cleaning and then i'll hit it with a wire wheel and then paint it.

here's a picture i took of myself:

the block minus brackets and stuff:

we took the oil pan off the other night to gain easier access to the bolts for the flex-plate. here's a shot of the engine guts:

not bad for 212,xxx miles.

here's all the brakets, accessories, and other stuff that's been removed:

looks like the silvert is eager to see this engine:

fady and bandit made an appearance. last time they were here, fady broke one of the oil pan bolts in the timing chain cover. so we spent some time drilling it out and trying to extract it... eh... we tried. we'll see how it turned out later.

so enough of the deconstruction... i don't think i mentioned this, but in the process of removing the steering rack from the white vert, i got hung up on the cotter-pins at the ball joints. i couldn't get them out so i just ran the castle nut off. so then i was stuck with cotter pin material stuffed in the hole on the ball joints. well i finally got a hold of some decent drill bits and was able to remove the rest of the cotter pins.

after that was accomplished i just had to put the rack into the silvert. i finally got to reinstall something! i decided to not bother painting it as i'll probably just replace it in a later stage in the project.

here's the first real progess in my opinion:

more work to be done tonight... should be in the shop pretty late. i'm hoping to get the pilot bushing replaced (zach has one for me), the clutch and flywheel swapped over, remove some of the emissions garbage, get some paint on the longblock and maybe even bolt up the transmission. i'm thinking about adding the typical bolt-on's so the engine won't be dropped in until i decide to make the purchase and the parts show up... i think a header would be a nice addition...

Post Title:
Posted by: Z Style at 7:00 PM 6/18/2007

you've been working on DS for... 2 years now...
let's be extremely liberal and say i've been "working" on "repairing" mine since the accident - i still haven't touched the one year mark here, buddy. in all reality the silvert has only been in my possession for about 5 weeks.

i accomplished nothing on the silvert project this past weekend. firday i helped zach (prodigy) with his car for a few hours and that was the extent of what happened that night (auto-related anyway). saturday my wife and i had work to do around the house and shopping and stuff like that, then my dad came into town and spent the evening with us... yada yada yada... sunday was fathers' day... AHAHAHFGAGHALDFHO I WANT TO WORK ON THE CAR!!!!

i got a little bit accomplished yesterday. got a late start and called it quits early. my friend mark was in town for the weekend, and i haven't seen him in a few months. so i went to his place around 10ish.

i got the longblock pretty much stripped down completely. pulled off the intake and exhaust manifolds and cleaned the block a little more. the block and head need to be hit with the wire brush to remove oxidation and corrosion, then i'll clean it again and paint it up.

off with the exhaust...

off with the intake...

observe the ridiculous amount of lines and hoses they've got crammed in there! i'm going to switch over to an intake manifold that doesn't have secondary valves. the valves are vaccum controlled, so that's one set of hoses and a solenoid i can get rid of. i'm also going to ditch the egr, so that takes care of another set of lines and actuator. while i'm at it, i might as well remove all the emissions crap.

so here's the bare longblock:
exhaust:

intake:

front:

i just dropped almost two benjamins on some new exhaust and intake components from ebay. i've got a header and cold air intake on the way. hopefully they'll get here quickly. while i wait, i can finish cleaning and painting the engine, prep the interior, swap the suspension, and stuff like that. i'll stay busy.



Post Title:
Posted by: Z Style at 6:09 PM 6/20/2007

been slow going the last few days. i should have a good update tomorrow.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 8:58 AM 6/22/2007

tuesday we got the engine cleaned up some more, and started painting the block. bill thought it would be a good idea to use a hose...

it probably would have been a good idea if we would have done a better job sealing it up. eh, no big deal. i sprayed some brake parts cleaner in it when we were done and then dumped some oil in it and cranked it over a few times.

here's a picture after getting it cleaned up...

taped and prepped...

primered...

and painted...

so that's all that got accomplised. we spent the rest of the evening hanging out and chatting. during this time, zach convinced me to do the "hot cam" swap. i have two engines laying around... why not? we weren't exactly sure what cams to use where so i needed to find out. i was hesitant to commit without knowing the extent of work involved, but said i would look into it. i also found out that the engine we pulled from the silvert was an s14 ka. there are some slight differences and i plan to take advantage of some of the parts.

so yesterday at work, i looked into the "hot cam" swap and did some research. the task itself seemed easy enough, so i thought i'd give it a shot. ,before i got started, i needed to do a little touch-up work on the block from the night before.

after my research, i decided that i would use the 248/232 (intake/exhaust) comgination. the s14 has 232/232 and the s13 has 240/248. so i started by removing the 232e from the s14. i didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the timing marks as this engine is getting tore down this winter anyway.

then i pulled the valve cover on the s13 ka and marked the timing positions:

oh, and here's a picture of the finished engine - painted and clean:

i proceeded to remove the 248 cam and set it aside, then install the 232 cam and align it. with that in place, i removed the 240 cam and installed the 248 cam. now in order to use an exhaust cam on the intake side, you need to rotate the cam and sprocket 4 teeth counter-clockwise. this will ensure that you'll have the correct vavle timing and lap to not destroy your engine.

here's a picture of me buttoning up the job:

bill took this picture and i think it's pretty cool.

all done!

the cam swap was very easy. it makes doing a cam swap on a 4g63 seem like a nightmare in comparison. hopefully this will have been worth the effort. if not, it won't be hard to put back.

i also spent some time removing the s14 intake manifold and stripping it down. the s14 does not have secondary valves like the s13 does. also, the s14 one allready has the egr blocked off and a lot of the emissions crap removed. so i'm going to use the s14 manifold instead of the s13 version. i didn't take any pictures of this, so i'll post some comparison pictures in the next update.

lastly, i'm going to share the color that was selected for the valve cover - wild flower blue. now before you get all bent out of shape, this is my wifes car and she picked out the color. i don't mind it having a feminine touch to it.

tonight, the plan is to strip the sound deadener from the car. i'm going to pick up some dry ice after work and get started on that when i get home. i need to remove the panels and carpet from the trunk and then it's all elbow grease from there.



Post Title:
Posted by: Eikon at 9:18 AM 6/22/2007

valve cover is painted and the old exhaust has been removed.

that's it.

seriously.

friday, we were up super late working on fady's tibburon. saturday, curt blew up his dsm. sunday, we pulled the blown 4g63.

here's the pics:

before paint:

after paint:

on the long block:

yeah, i painted the dipstick too. i'm debating whether or not i want to paint the distributor cap...

i did also get the intake manifold from the s14 ka pulled and stripped down. bill cleaned it up a bit as well:

tiburon:

dsm:




Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 2:24 PM 7/2/2007

ok, last monday (6-25) we finally got some dry ice. the pellets don't last very long, especially when your wife calls after you have them dumped out and says, "why didn't you wait for me?" so i had to load them all back up in the cooler... :roll: the dry ice works great though, but since i lost so much waiting for michelle to get back, i need to get some more to finish the job.

smokin' cold.

big curt and i scraping away:

michelle supervising again...

here's a picture of the progress:

later on i pulled the trunk and lights. the trunk is beant and not in really good shape, so i'm going to use the one from my old coupe. the plan was to use the coupe doors, trunk and steering column so i would only need one key for the car. however, the key doesn't work for the doors for some reason. go figure. so now i'm going to be stuck finding a matching set of cylinders and steering column... best bet is going to be the old vert.

the lights are coming out because 1) they're broken on the edges, and 2) i'm getting some nicer, newer ones.

here's me removing the trunk scissors:

a shot of the rear now:

then i put the final touches on the valve cover. i just use an orbital sander to remove the paint from the top of the letters. it works great and the effect is just what i like.

to finish the evening, we pulled the remainder of the exhaust. it's all one piece from the manifold back, and it was all cobbled together.

tuesday (6-26), bill and i went on a parts run. we picked up a vlsd and a new carpet from wolfe (member of some other boards - aspec, xceed, etc.). he gave me a great deal and i'll be picking up some more parts from him in the future.

then we had to run over to visit rich (the guy doing the vk56de swap into an s14) to pick up an s14 radiator for zach. we spent some time checking out his project car and shooting the breeze before we headed home. wow, that vk is huge!

so here's my vlsd and new carpet:

saturday (6-30), michelle and i did a few other things. michelle started putting brackets back onto the engine and swapping a few small parts from the old engine bay into the new one. i spent the majority of my time removing the rear diff.

finally getting her hands dirty:

parts are supposed to start coming in this week, but we're going to be really busy getting zach's car ready for the upcoming drift battle 5. we probably won't get much done on the vert until after the event.



Post Title:
Posted by: ishkabibble at 5:16 PM 7/10/2007

http://www.timhortons.com/en/a....html



Post Title:
Posted by: Juanit0 at 6:41 AM 7/12/2007

FINALLY!! page 2!

anyways, i've been really busy the last couple weeks and haven't had much time to update the project log or actually work on the sil40 vert. i've been really busy at work doing inspections in the field for a windfarm that john deere is putting in the thumb (that's what we call the part of michigan that looks like the thumb of the mitten). i had a lot of 10-14 hour days on that. now i'm back in the office though and have some time to update.

outside of work, i spent a lot of time helping my teamates get zach's car ready for driftbattle that was last weekend. i've got some pictures of the event here. zach's car is the primered widebody s13 hatch. so yeah... i've been really busy.

i did get some time last week to work on the car though. last tuesday i got out of work early (because i went in at 4am), so i picked up my new intake manifold gaskets from napa. then i went to get some more dy ice and finished removing the sound deadener in the floor pan. i'd like to get some type of thermal insulation to put on the driver side of the tunnel because it gets hot there, but i might get some header wrap for that area instead... i'm undecided. any thoughts?

then i spent some time cleaning the intake manifold and removing the transmission and driveline parts from the s14 ka. the clutch wass pretty worn out, so i picked up a new disc from advance auto for $24. i dropped the flywheel off at the machine shop and picked it up yesterday. i also picked up a new pilot bushing/bearing (whatever) to replace the auto one that we ground out from the s13 ka.

last night we got some more work done. michelle, curt, and i put a few hours in. michelle started by removing the rest of the sound deadener from the tunnel. then she went back to the white vert to remove the carpet. she pulled all the interior panels, and then the seats. with all of that out of the way she pulled out the old carpet. we're going to use it to try to trim the hatch carpet a little better before we toss it in the silvert.

here's michelle, hard at work getting the carpet out of the old vert:

michelle and i also bolted up the header:

curt and i spent most of our time on the engine. we finished installing the intake manifold by running necessary vaccum and coolant lines. i bypassed the coolant lines that go through the intake manifold and the throttle body. it seems to me that it would actually heat the intake and throttle body rather than cool it... :roll: i deleted all of the other vaccum lines and just ran one from the throttle body to the fuel pressure regulator. it really cleans up the intake side of things.

then we installed the pilot bearing, flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate. with those on, we torqued all the bolts to spec. before we were officially "finished" curt cleaned up the oil pan and painted it to match the valve cover. afterwards, we sat around listening to talk radio and looking at car stuff on the laptop.

ready to bolt up the tranny:

curt painting the oil pan:

oh yeah, yesterday my grill came in the mail. it ended up being the wrong one! they sent me an s14 kouki grill instead of the gtr grill. so they sent me a message back saying if i sent them $30, they'll ship me the right grill and i can just keep or sell the other one. i think it seems like an ok deal. i'm not thrilled with it, but they're in japan/china so i don't have a lot of good options other than to hope they come through.

also, i spent some more money recently. i ordered the "origin" tail lights a while ago but paid for them yesterday. i've also got an aftermarket antenna that i just ordered. both of those should be coming within a week or so. now all i need is paint.

Modified by DeXteR at 10:38 AM 7/18/2007



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 7:39 AM 7/18/2007

michelle spent almost all of her time cutting and installing the new carpet. she did lend a hand when we bolted a few more parts to the block too. started off with the freshly painted oil pan, then the transmission brackets, and then attempted to put the two intake brackets on. the bolts from the s13 intake didn't fit because they were too small. i don't know if this is a manufacturer thing or if at some point in time the holes were re-tapped because someone was retarded. :?

michelle gave up on the carpet after a few hours and fady and i wrestled with the transmission for most of the night. the thing just wouldn't slide into the crank. once we got it on far enough to stick some bolts in it we forced it in with the other bolts. a lot of time was also spend tracking bolts down. i dont' know how or why, but it seems as though i misplaced a bunch of nuts and bolts... i think the shop is just getting too crowded. i might have to spend an evening tidying up again soon. i finished the evening by bolting the motor mounts onto the brackets.

so here's the half-installed carpet:

in this picture you can see the oil pan and motor mounts installed:

transmission FINALLY in place:

i have a few pictures of some of the goodies that need to be installed at some point in time.

silvia wheel that zach hooked me up with:

the trunk lip spoiler:

the wrong grill:

anyone need an s14 kouki grill?

oh, i tested my electric fans the other day too. i was thinking about fabricating a shroud for these. for now, though, i think i'll just mount them through the radiator.




Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 8:55 AM 7/18/2007

Wish I lived closer.. i'd love to help you wrench. I love car projects!!! Really nice job so far.



Post Title: Re: (Eikon)
Posted by: DeXteR at 10:29 AM 7/18/2007

the intake and exhaust is all coming off next winter anyway, so i didn't see any reason to spend a bunch of money. it's kind of hard to route a turbo from the downpipe.



Post Title:
Posted by: DeXteR at 5:56 AM 7/20/2007

last night curt, bill, michelle, and i were working on the vert. michelle worked on the carpet and interior some more. the carpet hasn't bee secured, but it fits good enough. she got the rear panels and rear seat in. it's starting to look like a car again! after that, she was done.

interior:

curt and bill spent some time working on curt's 4g63. they were cleaning and painting and whatever while i worked on the ka24de. i had bill drop the cat-back from the white vert while i fought with coolant lines for a while. then decided i needed to just hit up autozone to get some new hose. got that all done and was ready to drop it in.

here we go...

come on, bill!

almost...

FINALLY!!!

notice the gear selector...

5-speed swapped vert ftw! i'm really excited to row through the gears with the top down.

it's really coming along now.




Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: otto_3478s at 6:02 PM 7/20/2007

Are you gonna go with the Valve cover color for the body color as well?!?!
That would be pretty interesting!



Post Title: Re: (otto_3478s)
Posted by: BMAR240SX at 6:08 PM 7/20/2007

anyways, stage 0.5 is just to get it running and driveable. no paint (sort of), no aero, no power doors. it will have the HUD dash, cluster, and projector, but not the windshield. we need to either sand off or paint over the black stripe running the length of the car. for a while, the vert and zach's widebody are going to be primer grey siblings.

stage 1 will be completed once it's time to paint. so the aero (trunk lip spoiler, zenki lip, gtr grill) will be added during paint and the HUD windshield will be installed after paint. hopefully zach and i will be ready for paint before the end of august so michelle and i can enjoy stage 1 for a month or so before we put the sil40 vert into storeage.

one of the members on TCEvolution.com photoshopped what i want the silvert to look like after stage 1 paint - black top, gunmetal/dark grey metallic bottom, wildflower blue pinstripe:

now, time for some updates:

FRIDAY
we didn't get started until later on in the evening. i worked on reconnecting the engine harness and michelle worked on reinstalling the trunk. with those done, we installed some non-broken tail lights and the rear garnish.

michelle, messing with the trunk:

the engine with some wiring done:

SATURDAY
we got started in the afternoon. i had michelle swap the rear suspensions between verts. the springs on the silvert had been "modified" (that is, heated and deformed) to achieve a lower ride height. this is not a good idea as it causes the springs to deform into weird shapes and weakens the coil in these spots. i'll take my stock ride height over weak suspension components any day.

here's michelle bolting up the rear struts from the white vert to the silvert:

here's the rear struts from the silvert:

notice how disfigured those springs are! you can see where they applied the heat to the coil where it's rusty.

with the rear suspension swapped out, we bolted up the 255-wrapped 17x9's!

while michelle was busy in the car, i was busy under the car. i installed the vlsd, driveshaft, and the rest of the exhaust. everything went pretty smooth until i started tightening the bolts on the cat delete pipe. with the bolts tightened, the downpipe hits the floor pan... great. i don't feel like messing with this, so i'm just going to put some header wrap on the downpipe so it won't super-heat the floor pan and also keep it from rattling. maybe over the winter i'll adjust this so it's not bumping the floor pan.

here you can see the exhaust and drivetrain fully assembled:

curt, fady, and bill came over later in the evening. bill only stayed for a little while because he had to spend some time with his ball and chain... er... uh... his girlfriend :lol: [just teasing, buddy]. i gave fady the responsibility of figuring out the wiring for the HUD subharness. he made quick work of it, but then found out it wasn't going to work anyway as the connectors were missing. i called zach and he schooled me in the ways of the cluster subharness. it's not going to work without more rewiring, so i'm just going to use his for a while.

michelle and i spent some time swapping the hood and fuel door release cable. yeah, michelle made a boo-boo. when she was bolting up the struts, she somehow pinched the cable. when i pulled the release, to install the fender side markers, the cable snapped. no more access to the trunk and fuel tank... so we just swapped the one from the white vert.

later on in the evening, fady, curt, and i swapped the front suspension. it went really fast with the three of us working at it. again, with the suspension swapped, we could put the front 962's on!

SUNDAY

not much got accomplished. i had to run to midland to get the powersteering/waterpump belt. it's a special order piece that no one in saginaw had. i ordered it from advance auto parts saturday afternoon expecting to pick it up sunday. no such luck. i have to call the manager and give him an earfull. i'm a regular customer there and they're not going to be happy that i wasn't happy.

anways, while i was out and about i made a trip to lowes to get some nylon washers for mounting the electric fans to the radiator. so when i got home, we installed the fans and remembered that i didn't have a crank pulley. we quit working and went to get some smoothies at tropical smoothie cafe.

we'll be back at it again tonight. hopefully we'll get this thing running!



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 10:08 AM 7/24/2007

next michelle and i installed the dash - the HUD dash with the projector. i've been waiting a long time for that. it's been almost a year since i put the HUD windshield in the white vert... i just need bill to repair the cluster subharness that zach gave me and i can put the cluster in and hook up the projector. i hope everything works.

here's the wife and the dash:

after that, michelle put in the steering wheel and got started on the seats. i crawled under the car and hooked up a few more sensors and connectors and the bracket for the clutch line. it wasn't long before michelle got tired and fed up with the seats and called it a night. so i picked up the slack and finished installing the front seats.

interior is really coming together:

silvia wheel and HUD projector:

then i did some more wiring and routed some hoses and things like that. i got the radiator fans wired in as well as the mass air flow sensor. i need a new one though because the connector on the maf is broken so i just have it taped there for the time being. i routed a few vaccum lines for the intake and decided to call it a night. i need to get one vaccum cap and an inline filter with larger inlet/outlet nipples for the ventilator.

the engine bay right now:

the goal is still to get her fired up. i just want to hear her running.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 10:17 AM 7/25/2007

i had some more parts laying in the kitchen when i got home. finally got my new tail lights and also got a new antenna - i have to get rid of that flagpole that comes from the factory. i need to have zach modify the stock antena mount to accept this new antena. it just doesn't bolt on like i was hoping it would. the antenna will go on right away, but the tail lights won't be installed until after it gets painted. there just too nice to rock on a primer car.

i haven't been getting a lot of sleep because i've been putting so much time into this thing. so when i finally got home, i ate dinner and fell asleep. i got about a 2-hour "nap" and finally made it out to the shop around 9pm. i say "nap" because compared to the amount of sleep i've been getting lately (3-4 hours a night) a 2-hour nap is a lot!

so i was working solo last night. i finished up the engine harness and completed the install of my cold air intake. i installed an in-line fuel filter to catch all the crap that comes out of the pcv valve. once that was done, i re-installed my upper strut tower bar to complete the engine bay. all i need to do now is drop in a fresh battery and fire it up.

oh, and here's a shot of the radiator fans installed:

i got the gear oil put in the tranny and diff and installed the gear selector completely. after that, i figured it was time to start getting the body put back together. so i re-installed the doors, fenders, and lights.

on my lunch break, i went and put insurance on the vert. on the way home, michelle and i are going to the secretary of state's office to get the vert registered and plated. when i get home, i'm going to put my exhaust plugs in, drop in a battery, and turn it over! if all is well i'm going to toss the rest of the fender bots in, install the hood, wrap the downpipe and take it for a spin!



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DirftKing102 at 11:16 AM 7/25/2007

first of all, it's her car, so i make her work on it as much as she can. if she's going to be taking credit for the build, she needs to be involved. second, i'm the one who takes most of the pictures, so it's hard to get pictures of myself working. don't worry, i've put more time into this car than everyone else combined.

friday, i got nothing done. i had to work until 8pm then after that my wife and i went grocery shopping. we pretty much went home and went to bed. my gtr grill did finally arive though. it's not as nice as i was hoping it would be, but for the price, it's just fine.

i didn't get a chance to get to the vert saturday until later in the evening because of michelle's family reunion. we spent a few hours reading through the wiring diagrams and trying to figure out what was wrong. michelle got tired and went to bed about the time fady and bandit came out to lend a hand.

fady was telling me about what he did thursday night after i went to bed. and it seemed to me that i would be a good idea to pull the fuel pump and test it out. ended up working well. but the more we messed with the wiring, the more things weren't making sense. i was getting really discouraged until i heard some sparking and fady exclaming "omg! i knew it was a loose ground!"

turns out, one of the engine grounds was not securely fastened. as soon as that got snugged up, all of the electrical systems were once again normal! fady electricuted himself with the coil though when he was checking the spark. LOL. it got him good. so we hooked the fuel pump back up and gave the key a turn. it fired just enough to let me know that it would start. i wanted to let michelle be the one to start it. so we packed up and called it a night... at 4am.

sunday afternoon, michelle started the car and it ran! FINALLY! after months of little sleep and countless hours of hard work, that car finally started. so we backed it out to do some finishing touches, get all the tools and stuff out of it and take it for a spin.

all the vitals looked good and it was running pretty good. i need to adjust the idle get a better hose for the iac (idle air control - right now it's kind of kinked). there's a little bit of shutter when i take off from a stop, but that's probably the fresh clutch disc. also, it's got some serious ride-height issues that need to be worked out.

once we were home, it was back to work to get it ready to drive later that day. we put the rest of the interior back in (except the glove box), vaccumed the carpet, and cleand the seats. we spent some time trying to figure out a way to make the rear seatbelts work for the front... the best we could do was disconnect the lower connection and put it under the rear seat bracket for the front seat. it was ok for michelle, but it wouldn't fit around me. so, the next purchase is going to have to be some harnesses. swe slapped the hood on, gave it a quick wash and it was ready.

so we took the sil40 vert out to our club's weekly gathering/hang-out at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and it seemed to be a big hit. on the way there, one of my egr plugs got spit out. so there went $5 down the drain... and now it sounds like i have the biggest exhaust leak in the world... which, it kind of does. despite the fact that it sounded like crap, all the body lines aren't squared up, the hideous paint job, and the missing grill, it was nice to finally get it out and have some people appreciate the hard work we've put into it.

it was well into the night by the time we headed home and i must say that i'm rather impressed with the projectors. they do a really nice job. it's a big improvement over the flip-up lights. i'd like to see how well the fog lights work, but i don't know when i'll get a chance to test them out.

here's a night shot of the hood on the car:

and a shot of the projectors:

tonight, i'd like to get the body lined up (hood, doors, trunk) the grill put on, and spray bomb a new coat of primer to get rid of that hideous black stripe. i may end up putting the power doors on right now and worry about getting the panels at a later time. or maybe i'll hack up the non-power panels to fit the power doors to make due for now. the reason for this is that the driver-side door lock is broken and the passenger side window crank is missing. but with the power doors i have, the cylinder locks don't work... :roll:



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: otto_3478s at 11:17 AM 7/30/2007

Just blank out the crank holes on the non-power door panels, and you'll be good to go after cutting the switch holes bigger.



Post Title: Re: (ishkabibble)
Posted by: DeXteR at 5:40 AM 7/31/2007

here's some pics i took last night of the car with the hood on and test fitting the gtr grill:

i didn't get much done yesterday. the wife and i had to go to her aunt's surprise 50th birthday and i was just wiped out by the time i got home. tonight, i'm hoping to test the coupe doors and see if everything works and then if all is well, try swapping the manual door panels to the power coupe doors. then i might put the old coupe trunk on and re-align the hood. this is all stuff i wanted to do yesterday, but the lack of sleep over the last month or so is starting to catch up with me.



Post Title:
Posted by: biggie at 5:54 AM 7/31/2007

5-speed... man... I'm jealous.
What an accomplishment! Props on all of you.




Post Title: Re: (94_240sx)
Posted by: Dr.Fate at 12:17 PM 8/6/2007

thanks for the recent (since i last posted in this thread) comments, guys.

Quote, originally posted by Dr.Fate »

I love your car Brother, Now all we need to is slap some Coilovers ( Megan springs will do ), oem side skirts, oem Rear valences and a PIG Lip.

i agree with all of this... i need a huge drop in the front. i'm thinking something is messed up... maybe the lower control arms or something, but i don't remember my white vert sitting this high...

anyways, i do have an update!

since it's been on the road, i haven't really felt the need to update the thread, but things have changed and i should update.

with the coupe doors, we needed to find a better way to keep us in the car if we ever find ourselves in the unfortunate position of hitting something with the vert (or getting hit by something...). since we wanted to take the vert on our road-trip vacation, i needed to find some harnesses quickly. best i could do were some mugen power, ebay knock-off harnesses from some guy in muskegon. when i got them, the one was missing the anchor/adjuster for the lap belt. whatever. i can live with that. they get the job done. they're temporary anyway. so here's a picture of them in the car:

i know, i know... mugen... i needed something! i'll have them swapped out by spring, i promise.

we did some painting and "body work"... i put my power coupe doors on. i got these from the champagne coupe i picked up from zach a while ago. since i only had manual interior panels for the coupe doors, i had to modify them for the power switches. i still need the appropriate panels, but these will get us by until then. i also replaced the trunk as the one that was on there was damaged. power windows work and the door locks aren't broken.

painted the gtr grill black and zip-tied it into place. looks great:

i also got rid of the black stripes on the sides. since i had to paint the champagne doors and the stripped/champagne trunk, i figured i might as well get rid of that ugly black stripe. i also touched up a few spots that were scraped or not painted at all (like the bottosm of the fenders). so now the car is completely primer-gray. it looks a lot better now. i just don't have any good pictures of it at the moment. i don't know if we'll get to paint this fall or not... it's kind of up in the air.

we got our super sweet plate too. here's michelle zip-tieing it into place.

i'll try to get an updated picture soon that shows the whole car. we took it to the dsm shootout last weekend and had to do an emergency alternator replacement half-way to norwalk ohio. the guys got some pictures of that i can post too. well, while i was in there i'm noticing that the front main seal is really not doing a good job of holding oil.

... maybe stage 2 will happen sooner than i was planning...



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: S-13 at 10:19 AM 8/23/2007

i'm the one putting in the late nights... michelle needs 10 hours of sleep, but i only need 4.

ish, i'll have to double check that and pray it's the problem. michelle's the one who swapped the struts and i'll have to ask her if she put them on the same sides or crossed them.

when it quits raining up here, i'll take it out and get some updated pictures.

speaking of rain... i forgot to mention that the top on this car is pretty much worthless when it rains. we drove it to the dsm shootout like i posted last time. well what i forgot to mention is that the shootout got rained out. it started raining late saturday night and didn't let up until sunday night. when we went to jump in the vert to drive home sunday morning, the seats were completely soaked. the seals around the windows are COMPLETELY shot. it doesn't help that the top doens't latch completely on the passenger side.

so sometime i need to get a new top frame. keep your eyes peeled.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 8:12 AM 10/29/2007

again, so what? what does this have to do with the silvert?

the wife and i are itching to get this thing turbo-charged and ready to roll at the sport compact shootout in norwalk in may, that's what.

when i got the vert, it came with an s14 ka that supposedly wasn't any good. whatever. as you've seen, we took the s13 ka from the old vert and used it instead. since i've got two of them now, i might as well just build the ka that was as of two weeks ago just sitting on the floor.

picked her up, put her on the stand and started stripping it down.
all i did was remove the head and oil pan. i did pull one of the rod/piston assemblies out because someone wanted to take some measurements for some scheme about getting some forged rods made. in all honesty, that's why i started this project back up.

however, last week, the wife got the itch to start working on the car again. all right then, get to it!

so she pulled the rest of the rods and pistons out, removed all the remaining brackets, and kept everything in order by bagging and labelling everything - just like i taught her! now she just needs to get a pully remover to take the crank pully off and then she can remove the crank girdle and pull the crank out.

things are going to be busy in the shop in the next few weeks as i've got a couple DSM projects going on right now, bill is working on the mir3vo again, nate has a turbo shadow over here, and michelle is going to be working on the vert a little. on top of that, i'm doing a water pump, timing belt, and lash adjuster job for a guy on his 2g DSM.

dsm1, dsm 2, and the shadow:

mir3vo


Modified by DeXteR at 2:37 PM 1/15/2008



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 8:32 AM 10/29/2007

I thought my wife was cool cause she's into sports.. and I could probably get her to help me work on my car.. but she'd sure as hell never take the initiative and actually work on it herself..

Your wife rocks!



Post Title: Re: (Eikon)
Posted by: DeXteR at 8:51 AM 10/29/2007

story: bill called me last night - upset because his mom called the mir3vo a "piece of crap" because "it doesn't run". i told michelle this.

her reply: "i used to think all your cars were pieces of crap too until i started working on them and got into the whole car-thing."

so she wasn't always so cool. back when we were dating and i was in college, there was a few months that i came home to wrench on my car every weekend - out of necessity. she got pissed because i wasn't spending much time with her. so she ended up coming out to help so she could see me when i was home. she actually started getting into it. after she got the white vert, it was all down hill from there.

now among other automotive enthusiast things, she dissassembles engines too. she also used to hate the idea of me racing. now she wants to build her own race car.



Post Title: Re: (Eikon)
Posted by: idahotuner at 9:01 AM 10/29/2007

is that new carpet you installed? if so where did you get it from?, thanks.



Post Title: Re: (idahotuner)
Posted by: DeXteR at 9:15 AM 10/29/2007

ok, no pressure...

let's rock and roll

i'm going to take this as a sign that i shouldn't finish my dsm right now and should instead finish my vert.

here's the latest story: a fellow TCE member and niconaut, zach (aka prodigy) has had his eye on my white vert since it was killed by the dear last october. I'm running out of space in my shop with the dsm project taking priority and bill's mir3vo project a close second. so i finally broke down and offered the white vert to zach - which he jumped at.

a few days later he comes back to me with a "horse trade." he tells me he'll trade me his best paint job plus body work if i give him the white car. done deal. so the car will be getting paint at the first crack of spring. this means all of the interior is going to have to come back out, along with the engine and drivetrain. we wanted to pull the windscreen anyway to complete the HUD swap, so that's nothing extra.

zach is plenty capable of doing a great job. he did the body work and paint on fedor's car:

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...lated

and he also painted/flaked marcus's car:

i'm sure the vert will look great when he's done with it.

as far as the engine goes, i got the crank pulley removed, so now i just need to get my wife back out there to finish dissassembly. since i'm in the limelight, i might as well get the block cleaned and painted right away and start shopping for some pistons with a lower compression ratio.

i do have some HUD wiring that i need to finish and get the cluster swapped over. there's other little odd's and ends that can be buttoned up while waiting for turbo parts. expect some more updates and pictures in the next few weeks as i'm going to be dedicating more time to this project now that i's featured on the nico homepage... wow.

thanks everyone!




Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 6:12 AM 12/5/2007

zach is a good friend of mine and a fellow tri-city evolution member. i've seen his work and i trust him with my car. he will be doing my body work - end of story.

even though zach is a big fan of big flakes and wild bodies, my vert will stay relatively mild. i'd still like to score some oem aero pieces and am still planning on doing that 2-tone scheme i posted a while ago.

expect a nice update at the beginning of next week. i still need to get my dsm project out of the shop. i've been putting a lot of hours in at work. it's really cold outside. so that's why i haven't been working on the vert much recently.

i think i'm going to find some pistons... i'm thinking somewhere around 8.5-8.8:1 CR...



Post Title:
Posted by: duffman1278 at 1:24 PM 12/6/2007

thats a nice silvert!!!,
your one lucky man, a 5spd silvert, dsm's and a wife that works on cars!

hope you and your wife have alot of great memorys in your silvert!!!



Post Title: Re: (starion1991)
Posted by: DeXteR at 8:18 AM 12/21/2007

I still haven't done much with the vert other than picking up a few parts here and there. I've been spending a lot of time the past week reading and researching to learn about turbo charging the ka24de.

I still need to do some more research. I'm debating a few things:

1) stock internals VS forged internals VS forged pistons on "stock" rods
2) design/build an intake manifold VS buy an aftermarket one
3) turbo selection
4) megasquirt VS modify the stock ecu (rom tune or daughterboard) VS safc or similar
5) metal head gasket VS "felt" head gasket

Lots to think about and lots to decide. Once I figure out what I'm doing internally, the head, block and internals are going to the machine shop. I still need to stop in and talk to my guys - haven't seen them in a while and would like to chat.

I'll update after Michelle opens her Christmas presents.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Z Style at 2:29 PM 12/23/2007

I had to make my 240th post in your thread, Dex. Have a great Christmas, I am sure I will hear what Michelle gets for Christmas.



Post Title: Re: (prodigy)
Posted by: DeXteR at 7:15 AM 12/27/2007

Here's what Michelle got for Christmas:

Q45 throttle body (vh45de), Maxima mafs, and modified oem KA rods.

The rods i picked up on ebay for somewhere around $70 shipped. They're shotpeened, have the big end honed, and the small end has a bronze bushing and drilled for a full floating wrist pin! I'm going to have to get some ARP rod bolts and have the big end re-aligned. I think these should hold up well to the 300-400hp goals we have in mind.

Here's a picture of the small end to see the bushing and oiling hole:

As soon as I can score a set of forged pistons, I'm taking everything to the machine shop. I can't wait

Modified by DeXteR at 2:39 PM 1/15/2008



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: RooSteRH22 at 2:12 PM 1/1/2008

Before I get to the good stuff, I need to explain something. The weather up here got CRAZY this weekend. Temperatures went from low 20's to upper 50's in a matter of hours and the air was super saturated with humidity.

So what?

Well my shop is not heated and not very well sealed off from the environment. So everything got wet from the condensation. Even tools in my toolbox got soaked. So the last few nights I've been drying and oiling tools and parts.

With that being said, I tore down the rest of the block last night. Since there was so much condensation in the shop, I wanted to get the crank out and oil it up and the bearing surfaces before they started getting rusty. There's a little bit of surface rust on the outside of the block and on the flywheel face of the crank, but nothing I'm worried about.

Crank and girdle removed:

Pulling the remaining timing components:

Everything tore down, greased up, and ready for the nest phase:

Don't mind the 4g63 block laying there. I had to grease that up too.

I have a cometic metal headgasket and some clevite 77 tri-metal bearings coming. I'm still shopping for a set of pistons. Once those are sourced, I just need some new fasteners and I'll be all set to take everything to a machine shop.

I said "a" shop and not "the" or "my" shop because I'm not certain if the guys at my usual place are going to want to mess with this. Since I want to get the rotating assembly balanced, I might have to take this stuff elsewhere. I'd really like to get over to my regular place sometime this week to talk the project over and see what my options are.

Modified by DeXteR at 2:40 PM 1/15/2008



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: MoldyOldy240 at 3:23 PM 1/11/2008

Anyways, opened the box to find everything to still be in decent shape despite the fact it was left in the weather and despite the fact the shipper used no padding whatsoever. He just threw the stuff in a big box and slapped a shipping label on it. Whatever, these parts are tough - that's why I wanted them.

Still looking for pistons and doing lots of homework for the turbo setup and other nifty tricks to make this project kick butt.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Alsontime at 1:26 PM 2/2/2008

From what I've gathered, they're from the same company who produces the lights for origin, just repackaged. Quality is top-notch. Why pay an extra $200 because the box says origin?

Well, while I'm at it, I might as well give an update:

I'm still shopping for pistons, sort of... I haven't purchased pistons yet and I haven't gotten to the machine shop yet. I probably won't be doing either for about a month.

This weekend, we had a pipe break upstairs while my wife and I were at work. Our kitchen and bathroom are destroyed. The insurance adjuster is coming out today to assess the damage and hopefully hook us up with getting it put back together. We wanted to remodel, but not right now. We don't have a choice anymore. For the next month, I'm not going to be living at home so I won't be able to do much, other than wait.



Post Title:
Posted by: MellowS13 at 9:27 PM 2/17/2008

I was just going to bump this. Guess someone beat me to it.

I got ARP rod bolts and head studs on the way. I found a guy selling a trio of arias pistons for super cheap. I'm going to buy them and just order a 4th from Arias. He's also going to sell me a new oil pump and cover for some extra peace of mind.

I also received my under-body plate from Nemo, but it's not going on until the end.

For those of you interested in the plans for the engine, I've posted a thread in the KA-T subforum. That thread can be found here Feel free to discuss engine planning in that thread and let's let this thread here continue to be for the project updates. I'm really hoping to get the shortblock off to the machine shop soon to get things moving with the engine build.

I was originally hoping to have this done in time of the Buschur Sport Compact Shootout in May. After going over the plans and prices, I've realized that there is no way that is going to happen. The new, more realistic goal is to have this thing ready for Nopi Nationals in Atlanta this September. I need to remember to save some money between now and then for some coilovers too. If my budget gets too tight, I might have to cut a few things out so I can afford coilovers before September.

Modified by DeXteR at 11:11 AM 2/18/2008



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: milo4891 at 1:22 PM 3/5/2008

i dont know how you have found the time to work on it, hows it been going lately with the project? did you get the shortblock out?

again amzing job, massive props!



Post Title: Re: (milo4891)
Posted by: Harman850T5 at 7:39 PM 3/5/2008

I'm still gathering parts for the KA24DET build that I want to get going on. I just bought those pistons and oil pump and cover last week from that guy I mentioned before. Those should arrive shortly then I'll buy a fourth piston and some rings. I'm also waiting for the ebay guy to get another set of those off-brand forged H-beams so I can get a set of those. Then it's off to the machine shop for balancing and machining.

Here's the short block just waiting for some new internals and it's trip to the machine shop:

After I drop off the shortblock, I'm going to take my head over to a fellow TCE member's house for some port work, a valve job, and a rebuild. Then I'll take it in to get decked for the MLS head gasket.

Here's some of the goodies I have sitting around that I'd like to install this spring or sometime this summer:

Nemo's underbody plate:

HUD cluster (dash and projector all ready installed) and digital climate control:

I do need to find a bunch of the sensors for it on my next trip to the U-pull it yard.

HUD windshield:

This won't go in until after paint - which is on Zach's long "to-do" list this year.

Here's the vert peeking from under the cover, "Can I come out yet?"

Soon, Silvert, soon...



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: delishnick at 3:34 PM 4/16/2008

I pulled the cover off last night to try to wake this beast from it's slumber... to no avail.

The battery was dead, so I pulled my trusty DSM into the shop to try to give the vert a jump. Everything seemed to power up all right, but as soon as I turned the key, it was like I was hitting a battery cut-off switch... Great.

So I test the battery and it's sitting at 7 volts. I grabbed another battery that was at 12 volts and tossed it in. Without the jumper cables hooked up, I tried starting it and the same thing happened. I didn't have time to trouble shoot last night, but maybe tonight I can tinker some more after we work on the house for a few hours.

While I was sitting in my recliner, looking at the vert, I made a decision: This thing needs coilovers badly. Since summer is all ready here and I want to drive and enjoy the vert while we have warm weather for a couple months, I'm going to push the turbo project back. This will give me some extra money for suspension and finishing up some of the other side projects for the vert.

Once my house is done being repaired, there'll be a lot more work going into the vert again this summer. Stay tuned.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 8:34 AM 4/17/2008

So here's the first picture of the season:

So after getting it fired up and driving it around the driveway a bit, I backed it it to get started on getting it ready for this weekend. I put a "new" (used) hose on the IAC source from the intake pipe because the blue silicone hose was all kinked up. The hose I put on was pre-bent and won't pinch shut. Hopefully that will help take care of some of the idle issues.

Next I put the wheels back on. I did add some small spacers to the front that we pulled from a junkyard last fall. I believe they're 5mm, but didn't measure them. They really help make the front wheels sit more flush and I was also finally able to fit the center caps on the wheel.

The last thing I did was rewire my passenger side corner lamp. I really need to get to swapping the white vert's wiring harness over to the sil40 vert. Any wiring the previous owner laid his hands on was a complete hack-job. I can only imagine what the rest of the harnesses look like. Anyways, the lights all work again and I'm happy about that.

So the to-do list for this weekend is:
Switch insurance from storage to full coverage on the vert and from full-coverage to storage on the Pathfinder.
Take the "1HOT240" plate off the Pathy and transfer it back to the vert.
Replenish the coolant
Do an oil change
Wash the car
Get some fresh fuel in the tank
Pull the top cover out of the basement
Switch back to the S13 MAF - I think this might also be contributing to my poor idle and running rich.

My crappy alignment and ride height are really starting to bother me the more I look at the car. Coilovers are in the very near future. I would like to try to track down the source of the horrible front alignment. I need to look over the suspension and try to see if there's anything bent.

The other high priority is a harness bar or a roll bar. I don't like having cheap harnesses bolted in. If my wife and I were in a real wreck, we'd probably both be injured. So I am going to push hard to get a roll bar measured and fabbed so I can take the vert over to TeamTech and have them install sime nice harnesses.

Hopefully I'll make some more good progress tonight and tomorrow.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 1:09 PM 4/23/2008

I discovered the alignment issue when I decided to put the janky deformed coils back on the car. I'm pretty sure my wife swapped sides when she put the struts from the other vert onto this one. I think ishkabibble suggested this a while back, but when I asked my wife about it, she swore she put them on the correct side. I should have just checked a long time ago. So anyway, i put the ghetto heated up springs on to get me by until I get some coilovers.

I seem to have lost my camera as well - somewhere between my shop, my house, my office, and my inlaws' I've misplaced it... I need to find it before I start getting more stuff.

Anyways, we received our Michigan income tax return yesterday. I recently sold some parts and might be selling the Geo tomorrow and received down payment for the old vert from prodigy. With all of that added up, I'll have a sizable chunk of change to blow.

I'm debating whether or not I want to continue messing around with the janky brake upgrade I was gifted with. I have Altima calipers and rotors on right now. Since the install, the brakes have been really crappy. I think it has something to do with the huge pad overlap. I think the s13 hub with the Altima bracket push the caliper further out than it does on the Altima. So I can either try to track down a better sized rotor or do a REAL brake upgrade - Z32 front brake upgrade. I priced it out at lunch and I can do the entire front brake conversion for under $225. This includes a re-manufactured pair of loaded 4-piston aluminum calipers, rotors, and conversion lines. I'd need the rotors redrilled, but that's no big deal. I wanted to do the Z brakes anyway, so I like that idea. However, I do want to figure out how to make these Altima brakes work before I go to the Z brakes.

Next up is coilovers. I'm thinking I'm just going to get those Ksports. I keep hearing mixed reviews from the 240 crowd. I'd like to try them out and give some feedback. I know a few people who say they can get a good deal on them, so I'm willing to try them out. Otherwise, if I come across a good set used coilovers, I might snatch them up.

Lastly, I need to get a harness bar and real harnesses. Again, with some of the connections I have, I can design and draw my own roll bar with a harness bar, and a friend of a friend who works for a Busch Series racing team can build it for really cheap. It would be shipped in pieces, so I would need to have it welded in. As much as I would like to get some TeamTech harnesses, they're expensive. I'm probably going to end up spending $350-$400 on a pair of their harnesses. That being the case, I'll get another better pair of off-brand or used harnesses to get me by for this season.

As I continue to save money and sell off other stuff I'm not going to need, I'll start gathering KA-T parts again. This fall, the silvert will get paint and I'll start building my motor. Stay tuned though, I have a LOT of work to do to the car between now and then.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: stevespeed at 7:41 PM 4/27/2008

I've got a brake upgrade coming and should be ordering coilovers shortly.

There's another little something happening in Dexter's Lab these days as well...

Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 10:28 AM 5/7/2008

I've been gathering parts for the last two weeks. I finally got everything I need, except the time to complete the job...

I'll get an update when it's finished, but that might be a while. Michelle and I are expecting our appliances to be delivered on Friday and we need to get the floor done before then.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 1:01 PM 5/7/2008

I've got a set of 26mm calipers taken apart in my garage. I just haven't worked up the funds to get them powder coated or get the rotors and other stuff I'll need. Plus on top of it all.. they won't fit behind my wheels w/out some spacers.

maybe I'll just save them for my S14.



Post Title: Re: (Eikon)
Posted by: Z Style at 8:15 PM 5/11/2008

Hey, Zach. When are you going to start your vert project log?

I finally got everything bolted up and working properly on the hubs. I still need to bench-bleed and install the BMC, then bleed out the lines.

Those are 26mm Z32 calipers (I believe) with SPL conversion lines and the cheapest rotors I could find. This just barely clears my 17x7 962s with a 5mm spacer. I can't wait to drive it with the new brakes.

I'm going to be ordering up some coilovers this week too. Stay tuned. I'm really looking forward to having some of this suspension and braking taken care of before I start building the boosted KA.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 9:03 AM 5/19/2008

The vert FINALLY has a ride-height worth bragging about thanks to Endura Tech coilovers!

Here's the rear coilovers before initial installation:

These are high-quality units. Everything is beefy and clean.

Here's the rear suspension all installed:

The length from top of mount to about the center of the rear mount on the original shocks was about 24". The coilovers are set around 21" right now. For those who didn't know, the verts come with a LOT of extra bracing. A big portion of it is between the rear shock towers behind the rear seat. I don't know of any top-adjustable dampeners that will fit in the rear without having to "trim" the bracing back there. The Endura-Tech dampeners were no different. A few minutes with the pneumatic grinder and a nice carbide tip made pretty quick work of it. Everything fits great.

The rear upper control arms (RUCAs) are super cheap ebay ones. the welds look decent, but it's just spray painted mild steel. So next time the car gets ripped apart, I'm going to take them to Nate's and sand blast them and repaint them.

The rear brakes have new pads and rotors - all stock replacement stuff - nothing special.

Here's the front suspension installed in the wheel well:

... and from the top:

I have not measured the original front suspension and do not recall what Zach set the coilovers to before installation, but it's not quite low enough.

So now the front has the 26mm Z32 4-piston calipers with 26mm calipers (don't recall diameter) and coated teflon/stainless braided brake lines. I definitely need the 5mm spacer to clear the calipers with my wheels.

In the second picture, you can see the Z32 17/16 brake master cylinder that was a pain to acquire. Also that booster is from the old white vert. I'm not sure what exactly was wrong with the old booster, but once we swapped those, all my braking issues were gone.

Here's a few more pics of the install:

Here's me, adjusting the rear camber:

Michelle, tightening up the coilovers:

This is the mad-tight JDM negative camber that Zach was looking for:

:roll: Michelle was not digging that at all.

There aren't any pictures of Zach helping because my camera died when he was out. He made some serious contributions to the installation of all of this, so thanks to him - especially for rolling the fenders. I would have made a mess of things trying that myself. We used a sledge and a dolly(I think that's what it is) to beat the fender lips in. We did the front and rear. All of them turned out great but need a little touch up from the dolly sliding and bouncing on the fenders.

So after everything was finally installed and tightened up, I drove it to the Hemlock spray-an'-wash place while Michelle followed in the DSM. On the way there, I bedded the brakes by doing 60-15mph stops every few minutes about six times. Then I drove for a few minutes to let them cool a bit before spraying the car off.

Initial impression:
The coilovers are set on the softest setting they can go per the recommendations of Greg (AZHitman) and I must say, it rides great. It's not harsh or bumpy at all. The dampening is almost stock; however, you can tell you're riding on coilovers because it is a little bouncy and a LOT lower. the ride quality is excellent. We took some of the sweepers at twice the recommended speed limit for the curve and it felt great. I'd imagine taking those sweepers at 80+ would be no trouble at all now. I can't wait to stiffen them up and really carve some corners one of these days. Living out in the boonies where they don't take good care of the roads though, I can't get too crazy.

The brakes are awesome. With the combination I'm running, the pedal requires a little more force than normal to really get the brakes stopping hard, but they sure bite down. They're good and responsive to actual input. It feels good because they're not really touchy, but when you need to stop now (panic brake) they're going to stop the car in a hurry.

So that's all for now, except Michelle and I need to figure out a decent temporary paint that won't require a lot of money or time. The only other thing I can foresee adding to the car this summer would be that zenki lip. We'll install a few other things that I all ready have laying around IF we decide to paint it. When we paint it, it's getting completely stripped down which means the engine will be out and I'll get a chance to seal up those oil leaks...

Still a lot of work left to do. I'm really craving boost though...

I'll get some more pictures of the car tonight and share them tomorrow.



Post Title:
Posted by: Eikon at 2:07 PM 5/19/2008

I can see you've been dealing with the same cold weather we have since Michelle is in a sweatshirt. We had frost this morning! It's freaking MAY 19th.. geez I hate Canada!

It would be nice to see a little brighter pics, but I understand.

I've got a set of 26mm Z32 calipers as well. I'm debating whether I want to put them on the 'vert or save them for my S14. I know they won't fit w/out spacers with my Volks, so I might just pick up a set of Q45 front calipers and call it a day on the 'vert.

Anyhow... 'vert is coming along nicely Dex. Keep up the good work.



Post Title: Re: (Eikon)
Posted by: DeXteR at 2:24 PM 5/19/2008

1.) I rarely get to work in the shop during daylight
2.) I'm not going to take the time to set up a photo shoot with extra lights and move them around every time I want to take a picture

Hopefully I'll have enough money left over for a camera after I buy a .45 with my economic stimulus check. Stimulate this, Government:

Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: 94_240sx at 2:30 PM 5/19/2008

It's 94 today here. Hot!!



Post Title: Re: (94_240sx)
Posted by: GoinTopless240 at 2:45 PM 5/19/2008

4-5" ?! That's not a roll... that's a HUGE pull. I don't think I want to try that. I may get some over fenders in the distant future. In the mean time, my 10" tires tuck real nice. I do need to address the fronts. This week I'm going to experiment with some different size whee's/tires that I just so happen to have access to. We'll see what happens.

Quote, originally posted by Nemo »

It's 94 today here. Hot!!

Quote, originally posted by GoinTopless240 »

What is going on with the old Vert/deer catcher? I thought someone was working on trying to repair it.

Yup, prodigy (teammate Zach) is working on it. HERE's a link.

Quote, originally posted by topless »

Are y'all going to NOPI this year?

With gas at $4/gallon - probably not. Really, that's just the excuse I'm using. My KA is still NA, and old and leaky and my paint sucks. So I'm not ready to show it off much. NEXT summer, things should be different.

Quote, originally posted by Piper »

so any words of advise are welcome! lol

Have someone else do it...

I hate body work and making lines match up and all that set, adjust, set, adjust, set, adjust... Nonsense.

Just make sure you've got everything.

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I should have some pictures uploaded later with a little story about last night...



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 1:22 PM 5/20/2008

I hate my camera...

So I got "home" from work yesterday and noticed something - the driver side rear caliper was flipped forward. Great I must have neglected to tighten those bolts when I re-assemled everything (I scare myself sometimes - but you know how the law of averages + Muphy's law can work against you). I thought, no big deal - I can take care of that in 15 minutes.

Not so...

See, we're still at my in-law's (hence the "" around home in the preceding paragraph), so to work on the car, I had to drive it back to my shop. So I kiss my wife and say, I'll be back soon. Well I get it up in the air (which is no longer a quick task), and tear into it.

The top bolt had completely backed out and the piston was no longer contacting the pad. No big deal I'll just turn it back down and slap it back on. Well, the piston would not retract... WTF? It will spin out, but won't go back in. So I messed with it for about 45 minutes before realizing, this is going to be an all night project. See, when I did the rear brakes, the driver side was completely blown out - which was a big contributor to my brake issues in the first place. Also, I had some extra coupe rear calipers laying around from a long ago aborted project. those were all seized up and blown out too. So I don't have any extra parts laying around and I'm stranded at my house.

"Honey... You're not going to like this, but that 30 minute project just turned into an all night ordeal... Can you come pick me up?"

So I called up Zach and he had some extra parts. My wife and I drove over there and swooped up some stuff.

So I tear back into everything and, lo and behold, his caliper was seized up too...

So I said, screw it, I've got enough rear calipers to at least put something together. I proceeded to grab the best looking piston seal and piston and driver side caliper I could and just started putting good parts together. It worked and now the vert is back on the road. I didn't take pictures because I was pissed and in a bind. My story should be sufficient.

Some serious family issues are starting to arise, so I probably won't have any updates for a few weeks unless some things clear up soon. So until then, happy motoring.



Post Title:
Posted by: biggie at 1:55 PM 5/20/2008

I would love to do brakes on my Vert as well, but am in the boat that the 002s won't clear Z brakes.

Looks good.



Post Title: Re: (biggie)
Posted by: DeXteR at 2:11 PM 5/20/2008

I'm hoping to get a chance to stiffener her up in the near future and see how it rides then.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 3:48 PM 5/20/2008

That doesn't sound good.
If there's anything I/We can do to help, just give a shout. Heck if you just want to talk sometime or vent, you know how to reach me.

God Bless brother!



Post Title: Re: (Eikon)
Posted by: nissan_star at 3:37 PM 7/9/2008

Lately, I've been gathering parts for the KA-T build that I'd like to start in the fall. I finally got some decent pistons - Wiseco 9:1 90mm slugs. They're used, but they'll clean up just fine. I might get them re-coated, but not sure yet. Most recently, I won an ebay auction for a set of Eagle Rods. So I've got those sitting in the build pile now with the pistons. I've got a used set of ARP head studs, but I think I'm just going to sell them off and buy a new set as well as a new set of ARP main studs as well.

Then I could head to the machine shop to get some of the machining started, but I want to make sure I have my crank pulley, flywheel, and pressure plate before I go to get everything balanced.

I've been extremely busy these last few months with work at the office, work around the house (still don't have our kitchen finished), and things with the car club. There's a local machinist that comes highly recommended that I'd like to go talk to, but just haven't had the time to do so.

I'll try getting some pictures for the update this weekend.



Post Title:
Posted by: Coolwhip at 10:52 AM 7/11/2008

I did finally get a few pictures of my parts collection, I guess I could post them. Here's the Wiseco pistons:

They need to be removed from the stock rods they're on, cleaned and maybe re-coated.

Here's the Eagle rods:

These are brand new.

Together, I spent under $600 for these. I just need a few more ARP packages, a flywheel, and a clutch. Some day when I'm not pulling my hair out because I'm so busy at work, I'd like to get out early and go visit the machinist I want to do my work... Some day...

Also, not long ago, my whore-of-a-battery finally gave out. I used the same battery in three or four different cars over the last couple years. I didn't feel like buying some fugly WalMart battery, so I just picked up a red top Optima. It will eventually be relocated to the trunk opposite of the hydraulic pump, but for now, it's just bungee strapped down. No pictures - it's just a battery.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Eikon at 6:49 AM 8/12/2008

If you don't drive the car often, make sure you keep that redtop optima on a trickle charger. They tend to drain themselves fairly quickly and are junk afterwards. I'm on my 3rd one now and finally I've learned to keep them on a charger. I've been lucky and gotten them replaced at no charge (very lucky!). But they are wicked expensive, so take good care of them.

Post Title: Re: (Eikon)
Posted by: DeXteR at 7:45 AM 8/12/2008

I have a red top on my DSM. I had it out of the car for about 9 months at one point in time when it was down and it drained itself and died. It was completely shot; but thanks to the 3 year warranty, I got a brand new battery. Once the vert goes to slumber for the winter, I'll probably just stick it in the Pathfinder to keep it going.

Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Piper at 1:45 PM 8/18/2008

Ps dex, i have a new set of tail lights and a totaly new supension, so if you need any stock parts, let me know.



Post Title: Re: (Piper)
Posted by: Z Style at 7:18 PM 8/18/2008

Haha, you are kidding right? We have so many stock suspension parts going to scrap it isn't funny.

Maybe some extra tails would be nice to smoke them though.



Post Title: Re: (Z Style)
Posted by: DeXteR at 6:55 AM 9/23/2008

The reason I even did this is because I'm going to drift the vert this Sunday at a local event. http://projectaspec.com/driftevents.html I'm hoping I don't totally suck. The wife gave me permission to do this in hopes that we'll finally kill the tired old KA.

Another nice modification was the removal of those crappy, haggard, Mugen/ebay 4-point harnesses. I replaced them a much nicer and much safer set of Sparco harnesses. Zach got a great deal on them and passed them along to me. I had to pick up some anchors for the snap-in passenger harness to install them properly. The swap was a breeze and I couldn't be happier with the new harnesses. They're much more comfortable and hold a lot better. My wife, on the other hand, doesn't fit very well in the driver side anymore. The harnesses are a tad too big for her. When she's in the passenger side, she can just slide the seat forward and it's fine; but she can't do that on the driver side as it's uncomfortable for her to drive that close to the steering wheel.

Yes, the picture police has once again failed to post his own pictures... I'll have pictures from the drift event for sure.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Piper at 3:57 PM 9/23/2008

Not to mention my camera is on it's way out the door. Notice how my pictures keep getting worse... yeah.

Anywho, I'll send you the old flea-bay harnesses.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Piper at 2:20 PM 9/24/2008

Well, it's a new season and time to freshen some things up and do some more upgrades. I don't think much is going to happen this year due to my current financial situation, but we'll see what we can do.

I finally got enough junk out of the way to pull it out of storage the other week. Took it for a spin and it still runs strong, but it still has that poor tracking in the rear.

First things first, I have to get this thing streetable again. Most of you saw the rear tires from our ridiculous negative camber last summer. We wore those 255's well into the steel belts. So Zach and I entered into some more bartering and I ended up with his 225/50's. So When I went to pull his wheels and tires off the back of my car, I noticed that there was a LOT of oil on my driver side rear dampener... So I thought to myself, "Hmm... this is probably the problem with my poor tracking in the rear, and not the differential."

So I got in touch with Endura Tech and they're sending me a new dampener since I'm still within the warranty period. I need to swap all the hardware over and send my blown dampener back. While I've got the car back in the shop, I might pull a few things off and do add a few pieces I've had laying around.

I'd like to pull my RUCAs and get those powder coated since they're all ready rusty - good ol' ching ping ebay garbage is effective but cheap. Some CPK ought to give them a little more quality. They'll also match the Suspension Techniques front and rear sway bars I acquired and had powder coated last year. I'm going to need some new bushings and end links for the sway bars and they can replace the whimpy factory units.
The other cool little piece I have is that aluminum "skid plate" that will go under the engine bay.

That will probably be the extent of work on the car this season. If I come into some cash somehow, I might continue gathering pieces for our KA-T setup. I'll also be keeping my eyes peeled for good deals on suspension upgrades too... Maybe get that 6-point roll bar done too. We'll see.

One thing is for sure, we're going to continue enjoying driving this car. The new sway bars should make this thing carve the corners even crisper and make for an even better driving experience. A not blown dampener will help too...

Pictures will come with progress.

Modified by DeXteR at 5:17 PM 4/3/2009



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Piper at 1:54 PM 4/5/2009

Keep me updated, and about the wide body, my little bro is taking the HB for a DD until i get some money to get stuff done on it. So if he wants them back, thats cool if he can sell it. But if he would like to hold on to it for me, I'd really appreciate that too.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: nissan_star at 6:18 PM 4/5/2009

When I say my coilover was blown, I mean the seals for the valving went bad or blew out. I'm still in warranty and they sent me a replacement dampener free of charge. I had to swap the spring, spanners and lower mount and need to send my blown one back. Since I had to pull one of them, I figured I'd pull them all off and clean them up. Living on a dirt road really makes things nasty under the car, especially if the road is wet. So I spent quite a few hours dissasembling my coilovers and cleaning them up. They look almost as good as new now.

I also ordered the hardware I needed for my front and rear sway bars - they're not going to be in for another week and a half. Also picked up the nuts and bolts and spacers fro my underbody plate that I got from Nemo. Lastly, I picked up some nuts, bolts, and washers to replace the factory toe control bolts in the rear. Since I have the adjustable RUCAs on the car I don't need that big clunky thing anymore. And speaking of RUCAs, I dropped my ching-ping, ebay RUCAs off to the powder coater.

I'll post pictures of everything when I start putting the car back together.



Post Title: FN-QR
Posted by: FlatBlackIan at 6:28 PM 4/28/2009

The silence has gone on long enough, quit holding out on us.



Post Title: Re: FN-QR (FlatBlackIan)
Posted by: DeXteR at 12:28 PM 4/30/2009

I'm back to school now, and expecting a job by August if all goes well. So that means not a whole lot coming this summer. I did just upload some pictures of my latest, but I have to go to lab for the next few hours. If I get out of lab at a reasonable time, I'll try to get back online and upload the pictures.

Just a teaser: Sway bars installed, coilovers back on, open diff FTL, toe control arms coming because rear toe-out is dangerous.

Sorry for the wait everyone, but there isn't that much excitement and I've been dealt a not-so-pleasant hand for a while. I'll catch up though.



Post Title: Re: FN-QR (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 3:50 PM 4/30/2009

So, firt things first, I pulled all four coilovers, dissassembled them and cleaned them up. I also pulled my RUCAs since I wanted to get them Koted before I installed them, I figured this was a good time to get them done since I had some down time. Here's what my suspension looked like after I pulled it:

Notice the bottom right dampener is all wet looking? That's they hydraulic fluid that used to be inside the dampener.

I spent a lot of hours cleaning up the dampeners. Why? I don't know, they're all ready fithly again. Endura Tech sent me a replacement dampener pretty quickly and I got all the other parts switched up pretty quickly. Here's a picture showing how clean they were:

The top one was just cleaned, the bottom one was the dampener that was replaced. I had to use my old spring, perches, and collar.

Jim got my RUCAs done pretty quickly too and they turned out pretty well. I cleaned and greased my hime joints (sp?) before putting everything back together.

So I got the coilovers put back in and adjusted.
Front:

Rear:

Then I got my sway bar hardware and pulled my Koted swaybars off the shelf and dusted them off. Here's an overall comparison between the old sway bars and the new ones:

Here you can see the big differences between the old bushings and endlinks and the new ones:

The installation of all the suspension stuff was pretty straightforward. It took me a while to get everything adjusted to where I wanted it. I tried to get zero camber front and rear. Once I got it pretty square, I dropped her down (which was HARD - I'll explain later) and had Michelle take it for a spin. She said it was still squirly in the rear so I pulled the VLSD and tossed the open diff in. Took it for a spin and it was still squirly. In fact, it was worse than the first time I took the car out.

I finally figured it out! Rear toe-out is bad. After some close inspection, I noticed that when I push the camber back out, it pushed the toe out also. So I had to order some adjustable toe control bars and had them sent straight to Jim. In the mean time, it's back to the JDM tyte negative camber.

So my diff was fine... or not. I drained it to change the fluid. When I pulled the drain plug, there was a LOT of metal stuck to the magnet.

After cleaning the metal glob, this is what was left:

Yeah, weld chunks. In a viscous LSD... I can't figure out how or why. So I'm going to try to find another VLSD or maybe try shimming it like I posted in the Tech Section.

Anyways, I'll update again when I get the new toe control arms in. I have to take some pictures of my under-body plate, my "new" boot, and my 4-point harnesses that I still havent posted pictures of. Also, I haven't had a chance to push the vert with the new sway bars, but my wife said she likes them. We've got an S-curve near our house. She said, "Last year, I could take them at about 60mph easy, but it felt scary. Now I can take them at 60mph and it's not scary anymore." It's not because she got used to it. I'm looking forward to testing it out a bit.



Post Title: Re: FN-QR (DeXteR)
Posted by: s13beast at 8:01 PM 4/30/2009

Weird on the diff.

I just had to get adj toe and traction rods on my coupe as well. Its still not back on the ground to get an alignment though.




Post Title:
Posted by: DeXteR at 9:45 AM 5/1/2009

Quote, originally posted by s13beast »

Perhaps someone welded an open diff, then stuck a vlsd sticker on it and sold it to you? just my hypothosis.

No, it's definitely a VLSD. I know the difference.

I know the weld chunks must have been in the housing somewhere when I got it. I drained it and refilled it before I put it in. One way or another, the weld chunks found their way into my VLSD and probably did some damage. It looks fine, but it doesn't lock up like it used to.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: s13beast at 10:15 PM 5/1/2009

I don't say this here much, but you've earned it.

You're a f***ing idiot.

I've driven s13's with welded, open, and visous diffs. I've put the diffs in these cars and had the covers off. I know how they behave and what they look like inside and out. Stickers don't mean s***. In fact, none of my diff covers have stickers anyway.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Piper at 10:25 AM 5/4/2009

Btw, keep up the good work Dex.... hopefully I'll be able to get up there some time and help out/ hang out.




Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: DeXteR at 10:35 AM 5/12/2009

Once I was done, I realized that I had left the key in the on-position since Saturday, so the battery was dead. So I pulled the DSM over the jump her and she fired right up. So I took it out for a short spin to see how the rear end felt. On my way back home, the car just died. Nothing - no power, no electricity at all...

Fortunately, I was on my road and about a 1/4 mile away from my driveway when she finally came to a stop. So I pushed her off to the side of the road and popped the hood. My first thought was that the negative terminal had become disconnected because the terminal ring is all whopped out. However, when I popped the hood, the terminal was still connected. So I walked home and loaded up the DSM with a tow strap and the jumper cables and drove back to the car.

When I hooked the jumpers up, the lights came back on and everything seemed fine, when I went to start it, there was a big spark at the battery and then everything was dead. When I got out, the teeth on the negative end of the jumpers was glowing... Great.

So I figured that this thing is more than just dead now. So I hooked up the tow strap and tried pulling it home. Well, when the steering won't lock (you know it locks when you don't want it to and never will when you actually need it to...) it's hard to pull a car by yourself.

Now it's 3:00am when I got back in the house to wake up the wife. She was a good sport and we had the vert back in the shop in no time. I looked at things for a few minutes and decided to call it a night. It was 4:00am by the time I got to bed.

I'm thinking I'm going to be spending my free time doing that wiring harness swap that I've been trying to put off. I think the shady wiring has finally gotten too bad.

Any one else have any thoughts?




Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: nissan_star at 12:44 PM 5/12/2009

Stupid intake manifold bracket...

Pictures tomorrow if I get a chance.



Post Title: Re: evolution of the vert :dexter's project log: (DeXteR)
Posted by: Truebelieverone at 10:04 AM 5/15/2009

Here's my new Rear Toe Control arms after getting Koted and set next to the old factory units:

Here they are on the car. Notice how dirty the rest of my suspension has become...

Here's the cause of my latest electrical troubleshooting fiasco...

The top two holes bolt to the plenum of the intake manifold and the bottom hole goes to the block. The top two bolts managed to back themselves out and dissappear. The bottom one also came loose. The top of the bracket fell down and hit the feed terminal (which is exposed) on the starter which shorted out the whole car.

Fun.

I've never posted pictures of my harnesses.

I installed these last summer after driving around with those worthless ebay harnesses for a while. I got these from Zach for a good deal and they're amazing.

Finally, this is the under-body plate that I installed a month or so ago.

I picked this up from Nemo last year. It definitely makes jacking the front of the car up a little interesting.

This SHOULD be my last update for a while. Next on the list are either body work and paint or the 6-point roll bar install. I don't know when those will come. If any small things come up, I'll be sure to share.

KA-T is always in development, but I'll be lucky if I can get to that before winter.



Post Title:
Posted by: biggie at 12:03 PM 5/18/2009

I discovered those mani braces were still on my engine when we were swapping, but not anymore.



Post Title:
Posted by: the vert at 7:44 PM 5/22/2009

Paint is needing to get worked out still. The vert is dailied in the summer, so I need to put another DD on the road because this isn't going to be a weekend project. I'll be working on my back-up DD this week hopefully. Then it's just a matter of finding a time that works well for Zach (the guy who's painting the vert). He hasn't gone anywhere - he's a good friend and fellow TCE member.

As far as boost... I should be re-employed come August, so hopefully this winter will begin the KA-T project.



Post Title: Re: (DeXteR)
Posted by: nissan_star at 8:59 PM 5/26/2009

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