Brap brap, WTF? s13b coupe build/ restoration

[nightsleek240coupe]

i have been so inspired by my buddies build on honda tech and other builds on ziptied,and honda-tech so much that i am going to start my build. this time with no bullsh$t.



i started the teardown on sunday.



i marked every single dent on the car,so it can get ready for body prep/work to be painted.(undisided on what color)

i started to pull the kae out of the coupe.



trans fluid everywere

at this point my plans were to swap the kae for a de but the kae was giving me no problems so i am going to keep it in the car until something nicer can be put in.White Comet's wire tuck has inspired me to do the same to the kae,i'm going to do a complete wire tuck to the coupe,get the engine bay repainted,and get the car painted.

so today i started to take the the complete engine bay harness out.i'm going to do a little write up of how to do it.

start for the right side of the car,pull the ecu kick panel off,remove the ecu.remove ecu clip,and remove the gold box that is next to the ecu,disconnect the cilp from the box,remove the gromet,and start to pull the harness out the hole.



disconnect the wiper motor and the cruse control(if you have it)pull the clips out of the lower hole.



start to remove the little holding clips that keep the harness in place.

now disconnect the headlight and headlight motor clips,these are a pain in the a$$ to remove so take you time and dont break them!!

pass the harness out this hole.



know start to take apart the fuse boxes,it's somewhat trickey but you will gt used to it.

pop the fuse off in the box:

then on the side were the fuse connects to is a little clip push it back and the conector should sild out.do that to the rest of the fuse boxes.



now remove the rust collecter called the battery tray if you want.



pull the harness out the left side of the car



remove the rest of the clips and gromets.and pass the harness out this hole.this will take some time,and be careful not to break any clips.



the harness is huge!!

now that your harness is out the bay will look some what like this:now that the harness is out i am going to clean the hell out of the bay and respray it gold.i want to paint the coupe the original champagne gold but that color is hard as hell to make look nice,if any of you guys have any imput on a color combo with gold feel free to let me know.



more to come tommoro!!

Modified by nightsleek240coupe at 9:48 PM 5/27/2009
Modified by nightsleek240coupe at 8:09 PM 9/19/2009

[lonely_coupe]

word!!!

i will be following this build for sure! coupe love man!!!

god, i wish I had both the money and time to totally rip apart and fix everything on my car....

it's my daily, and it has almost 200k on the s***ty a** (but strong as hell and i love it!! *crosses fingers it didn't hear me call it s***ty lol) KA-e

trying to get some Gs together over the summer and see what I can do from there.

keep me inspired with this build!!!

[noobdrftr]

im just about to do the same thing to my fastback

[nightsauce]

good stuff man...i plan to do the same a year from now.

[nightsleek240coupe]

thanks!,today i am going to pull out the dash bar and remove the a/c and heat boxes,and clean the hell out of the engine bay,

im going to do a write-up of how to remove the dash bar.

pics later today.

[nightsleek240coupe]

check out my buddies ef_9 build. me and him built this car from the ground up.

http://honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2565293

[nightsleek240coupe]

so today i made little progress, i took the dash bar out.

here's the write up:

tools you will need a 10mm and a 12mm socket or wrench



start by working on the right side of the bar.there are 4 10mm bolts,on the bar going into the body remove them.(it will take some manuvering)

next drop the steering colum.it's 2 12mm bolts.remove them and screw them in on the top of the bar so you don't lose them.

no on the bottom of the dash bar there are 2 10mm bolts on each side connecting to a bracket on the trans tunnel.remove them on each side.

remove the 2 10mm bolts on the right side of the car next to the door,and remove the 2 10mm bolts holding the a/c box to the dash bar.

remove one clip on the bar then pull out of the car.

it's a good time now to paint the bar i you want because they do rust.and it will lok good even if you don't see it most of the time.(i painted mine a few months ago)

my car will not have a/c or heat so i removed the boxes.



before:

after:

then i got to the engine bay. it was nasty.oil and grease was everywere.

then for about an hour i got to hand cleaning it with purple power.and got this.



but i'm still far from done with cleaning the bay,and this is how she sits today.



and here are a few pics before tear down.



i still need help with a color combo can you guys help with that. if you have any questions or opinions feel free to let me know.

[maik21]

what do you do with fuses on engine bay ?

[nightsleek240coupe]

what do you do with fuses on engine bay ?

they are going to be mounted on the dash harness bar

[sr20deTsomeday118]

sick, clean, subscribed!

[nightsleek240coupe]

update!

i got the engine bay 90% done, and i marked the wires that needed to be extended,and ran the harness on the bar.

[koukicody]

looking good. ill keep an eye on this. i <3 wiretucks

[Mangid]

man, you are tearing into this thing

if you need a hand, i'm right down the street lol

[nightsleek240coupe]

man, you are tearing into this thing

if you need a hand, i'm right down the street lol

i'm going to take off this weekend from working on the coupe because i will be at the eash coast bash on saturday,and atco for the northeast tunershowdown on sunday so i'm booked this weekend,but if you want to help out next weeked let me know,i'm working on this thing by my self,honda guys don't wanna help.

guys help me out with a paint combo!!!!

gold and another color.

[twotwenty]

either black or midnight blue, i think

[Didderson]

Fuk yeah purple power!

Nice build so far man, props on digging in yourself for such a large wire tuck task.

[samxini]

Do you plan on doing any certain type of aero or body kit?Just asking to help to see what color would look good with it.

[nightsleek240coupe]

Do you plan on doing any certain type of aero or body kit?Just asking to help to see what color would look good with it.

i might go with kouki front with a lip,sides and rear valences.but i have been eyeballing bn style aero too.

update!

i worked on the motor a bit today,i started to rip it apart,the block is going to get cleaned and painted,the head is going to get cleaned,every gasket on this motor is going to be new,the upper and lower intake plenums are going to be cleaned,every engine bolt is going to be cleaned and painted,and the valve cover is going to be painted wrinkle black,then i can layout the engine harness on the ka-e to be tucked.



this migt be a stupid question but why is it leaking from this hole on the pump?



the trans is sitting alone wanting to be cleaned



and i got the shifter extended 2 and a half inches.



more to come!!!!

[VirginiaPS13]

Water pumps have a weep hole that faces either to the side or toward the ground. This hole on most pumps is about half the size of a pencil. Water pumps have an internal gasket that seals this hole from the inside when it is still in good condition. As it wears, this hole will begin to earn its name and weep. Small amounts of coolant will begin to seep from this hole and make a trail down your engine.

[lonely_coupe]

ugh... so sick. i think you've made me realize that I can't do anything like this to my car without having another one to drive in the meantime. lol.

yes, thats right... you have made me realize what should be common sense.

damn... what am I gonna do?

[White Comet]

looks really good. i'm anxious to see the wiring finished. i did pretty much the same thing and love how it turned out

[nightsleek240coupe]

thanks white comet,i was hopeing you whould look at my build.

well anyway my plans have changed sligtly

the ka-e head is burnt and i don't want to rebuild something with such a low hp output so i am going to do a swap.i have been wanting to put in a ls1 in my coupe but i don't want to go out the nissan brand so the car will have a vh45 from a q45,i have been inspired by carl h and his ka/vh hybrid swaped coupe,so i will be using a ka trans with a hybrid bellhousing on the vh just like carl to keep cost down.

but the wire tuck will be done on the vh insted of the ka-e.

since it has been raining in south jersey for the past million days i haven't been able to work on the coupe because of me not having a garage yet(a 40x40 poll barn will be built starting tomorro!!!yay!)but today was a good day with no rain,so i pulled out the harness bar agian! and removed the complete car harness.

this is the engine,fuse,dash,trans,and light harness together.



today is the last day this car will have carpet,and stock s13 seats and steering wheel.



the car has some rust but it is only in two spots in the car,they are easly fixable.

i removed the rest of the firewall mat.

i removed basicly all of the sound material but left some spots undone,so i have to finish that,and remove the factory seam sealer to spot weld the full chassis.



the engine bay is done and waiting to be preped and spot welded.look at what the bay used to look like in the beging of the thread,nasty!!! now it's nice and clean.



here's a trash can full of the stuff that i don't need!!



and how she sits by today.



more coming soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Steve Lloyd]

You should keep that rear garnish, those are hard to come by and take up very little storage space.

What does that cooling panel look like?? I might be willing to pay for shipping.

[nightsleek240coupe]

the rear garnish that was on this car was all beat up,i got one that i ordered from nissan a few weeks back,new still in the box,it wont go on until body work is done.

the cooling panel is trashed,not worth buying.

[Kalypso]

looking ghud

[troskinatior]

you should go with gold and black or gold and brown

[nightsleek240coupe]

black and gold sounds real good right now for the look i want to pull off

[Steve Lloyd]

the rear garnish that was on this car was all beat up,i got one that i ordered from nissan a few weeks back,new still in the box,it wont go on until body work is done.

the cooling panel is trashed,not worth buying.

Just trying to look out for you, I spent a month trying to find a good rear garnish, as for the cooling panel, you can only see part of it, that's why I asked.

Thanks..........

[nightsleek240coupe]

thanks for looking out!

[White Comet]

looking good nice progress. i'm a fan of full interiors but to each his own. that rear garnish didnt look too trashed, whats wrong with it?