A Build in the Mitten State...

[240hatchsx]

Hey man this has to be the sickest 240 build yet. I'll be up in MI during October and I wish I could see your masterpiece in person. Also where did you get that neXt Miracle X brace at I would love to get my hands on one of those!

[danshaz82]

wish i coulda make it out to wekfest. i would have loved to see this thing in person. looks great withe the new wheels!

[cjmirabal1]

Sick!!!!!

[SolaraOnBronze]

Thanks guys!

Hey man this has to be the sickest 240 build yet. I'll be up in MI during October and I wish I could see your masterpiece in person. Also where did you get that neXt Miracle X brace at I would love to get my hands on one of those!

I actually found it in a FS thread on Zilvia after searching for a couple of years, haha. You can get them from Japan, but after shipping they are crazy expensive- about the price of a full bolt-in cage, haha.

[240hatchsx]

Yeah I found a website that sells them about a day after showing my buddy a pic of yours and it was like 650 shipped that is crazy for a brace and like you said you can just get a full race cage for that !!!

[cjmirabal1]

still running with no impact/bumper support?

[SolaraOnBronze]

still running with no impact/bumper support?

Nope- I am running the OEM Kouki 180SX crash bar behind the bumper to keep it from sagging.

Took some new shots after WekFest Chicago last weekend:

[Idahos13]

Looks fantastic man!

[danshaz82]

[240sxcl50]

so nasty!!!

[SolaraOnBronze]

Thanks for posting the pic! Pretty cool for sure.

[SolaraOnBronze]

As usual, it has been a long time since I have updated this thread. The car is currently torn down in my garage and is undergoing an engine bay makeover. The engine bay of my car has bothered me for quite a while, so I was excited to tear it all apart and get to work.

Here is a list of changes to the car since my last post in this thread last August after WekFest:

Installed:
Bride ZEROS driver's seat w/ Bride FG rail
Bride ERGO I passenger's seat w/ Bride MO rail
Takata 4PT harness (Driver's side only)
Rear seat removed
Red D-MAX checkered floor mats
S15 Helical differential
Cusco Tension rods
Cusco RUCA
Cusco Traction rods
SPL toe rods
Raybrig headlight housings
6k HID kit
GReddy aluminum pulley set

In Progress:
Wire tuck (fuse box moved to glove box)
Shaved engine bay- holes welded shut/smoothed
Battery relocation
Cusco brass shifter bushing
Cusco spin turn knob
Rewrapped arm rest, door panels, and glove box (now red Bride logo fabric)
Endless 4 Pot front brake system
Z32 rear brake conversion
Chase Bays clutch line
Chase Bays brake booster delete
Chase Bays in-interior brake line tuck
Chase Bays coolant overflow
Chase Bays power steering reservoir/lines

Before teardown:





Engine bay at the beginning of teardown:



As the car sits:





New brakes:



I'm hoping to have the body work done and the car into paint for the engine bay by mid-March. As soon as the paint work on the bay is done, I can work on putting the whole car back together! I'm looking forward to spring and the car being back on the road.

If you're interested, here is an album of the entire process so far this winter:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/camryonbro ... 913676371/

Damon

[ponchs13]

Sexy

[SolaraOnBronze]

I picked these up on Zilvia- just showed up yesterday. I have SPL solid subframe bushings on my car, but they are the first version that does not allow for adjustment to raise the subframe up. I would try to trade them in or upgrade or something, but I am guessing they are not going to want to come out, lol.



Hopefully these will get the arms a bit closer to level and give me a little bit more exhaust clearance. I'll probably trade my subframe for a stock one, have it powdercoated, and toss these bad boys in.

[SolaraOnBronze]

Trying to have the bay ready for paint by this time next week. Still a lot to do!



Tanabe fender braces I couldn't pass up:



PMU rear pads for the Z32 setup:

[Razi]

Nice brakes!
Looking forward to the new engine bay.

[S13Lovell]

If you look at the 1st page, and then the last page of this build i don't think u could have convinced me this was the same car. Absolutely beautiful job man.

[SolaraOnBronze]

^ Thanks guys! I appreciate it.

The weather was unbelievable here in Michigan yesterday, so I decided to get adventurous and see if I could pull the car out into the daylight for the first time in about five months. I got a little crafty and ended up getting the car out of the garage:



It was filthy from all of the sanding and grinding going down in the garage over the winter, so I decided to clean it up a bit... so that it could sit back in the garage some more. :wan:





I worked on the sanding while the car was out in the sun, which was a really nice change of pace. Pretty cool to work in natural lighting for a change, haha.





Got it back into the garage by tossing the subframe on and using my floor jack as a dollie, lol. Really need to get a legitimate dollie to transport this thing to paint:



I ended the evening by throwing down a coat of SEM etch primer. Things are looking pretty solid at this point! Now I just need to find a way to get the car to the body shop as soon as I can. My main car-hauling dude is going to be out of town for a few weeks, so I'll see what I can do.

[SolaraOnBronze]

Every time my car is torn apart, I come to a point where I just need a break from the labor intensive stuff that shows little reward or instant satisfaction. When that time comes, I stray away from the task at hand and focus on installing some little do-dads that look cool. Last night was one of those times. :lol:

I installed my driver's side door panel, Cusco spin-turn knob, and Cusco brass shifter bushing last night. I decided to vacuum out the wire shielding and other crap that was scattered through the interior, and tossed my DMAX floor mats in to have something cool to look at for a while. The hatch was full of parts and random junk, so I got all of that cleaned out and organized as well.











As soon as the bay is painted, I can do the final assembly of the front suspension and brake components, which will allow me to finally get the interior back together. I just need to wire up the digital climate control, install the Chase Bays charge harness, and complete the battery relocation- that will be it for the interior!

As for the car going in for paint, I am really hoping that goes down next week. I'm still working out the transportation aspect of it, but I hope to have it all figured out soon! It sure would be nice to own a truck and trailer right about now, lol. I was, however, able to solve my dollie issue. I wasn't able to track down any pinch weld dollies like Toby did, but I decided to try using my transmission jack. It is height adjustable, seems to be holding the weight just fine, and has a ratchet strap to keep it in place when we lift the car on and off of the trailer:



I think it should work well enough to get the car painted. Less than ideal, but it should get the job done.

[DylanM240]

Top notch! It has come a very long way from when you first got it, I've looked through the build thread and every upgrade you did was in perfect taste, in my opinion of course hahah. I'm currently in the midst of building my black s13 hatch, hoping I can come out with something close to as proper looking as yours!

[Razi]

Nice dolly haha.
How much did you buy your DCC for?
I looked on eBay and they are almost $200.

[SolaraOnBronze]

Thanks DylanM240, appreciate it!

I don't remember exactly what I paid for the DCC, but I think I actually paid $200 shipped as well, haha. It should be fun trying to get that thing to work...

[SolaraOnBronze]

I didn't have a lot of free time this weekend, but I managed to dink around with the car a little bit last night. I decided to replace my clutch and flywheel while the engine is out, mainly due to an opportunity that has come my way that results in an upgrade. My SPEC clutch and ACT flywheel are now for sale in the FS section on Xceed, and both are in perfect working order- hopefully they will find a good home! /shameless plug.

So, I pulled the transmission, clutch, and flywheel off of the engine. The transmission was filthy- I bought it like that from a friend last August and didn't have time to clean it before I installed it, since I was on a time crunch to get the transmission replaced before WekFest at the time. It was nice to get it all clean.

I might toss a coat of silver paint on it before I reinstall it, but we'll see. I like to keep things like the engine block and transmission in their original metal color if I can get them clean enough:



Clutch and flywheel removed:





Lastly, some more goodies showed up from Chase Bays on Friday. I got my battery cables for the relocation, and one of their charge harnesses.



The charge harness is a pretty cool piece. It is a cable that runs from a distribution block to the starter and alternator, eliminating the way this works from the factory- where the starter wire is part of the positive cable for the battery. It should clean things up in the bay a lot.

All I need to do on that front is order a circuit breaker and a distribution block from Toby, and then I will have everything I need to sort out the electrical side of things. It will be nice to see it all come together! Slowly but surely...

[SolaraOnBronze]

Whew, life has been pretty wild lately getting ready for this baby to show up in a few short months. I haven't had a ton of time for the car, but here's the scoop.

I was fortunate enough to score a partial sponsorship with Exedy this week, so I cruised over to their US distribution center (which happens to be about 25 minutes from my office) and picked up my new clutch after work on Tuesday. Their facility is pretty awesome- it was cool to walk into the warehouse and see tons of clutches and flywheels stacked all over the place. The staff has been great to me so far- I really appreciate them helping me out with the build!

I chose to go with the Exedy Hyper Single for my application. I actually had an opportunity to drive a friend's SR S14 yesterday with this clutch installed, and I was really happy with it! The engagement is really nice and the pedal feel isn't too crazy for a street car. I'm looking forward to installing it this weekend if I have the time!













As far as the actual car goes, my friend Mike and I are going to haul it in to the body shop for paint on Monday night. With any luck, the car will be painted and ready to come home a week from today. We'll see what happens, though. I should make a lot of progress after the car is home from paint!

[SolaraOnBronze]

TEASER: NEW POWERPLANT:















lawl jk.

I got a ton of free time this weekend, which is rare for me- so I put it to good use! I can't say it will necessarily look that way from these pics, but that's alright. My first task on Saturday was removing my turbo and manifold from the engine. While removing my old clutch, I noticed that my manifold has a hairline crack in it where the rearmost runner meets the flange:. You can see a bit of the exhaust soot in the pic:



So, that will be heading over to Mike's house tonight to be welded up for now. He is also going to weld my recirculation flange on my GReddy intake pipe shut as well, so it will be good to have those things taken care of. I also installed my Tanabe fender braces and undercoated the front wheel wells, but it appears that I forgot to snap a pic.

Next on the list was installing the new clutch, which wasn't too painful. I've still got to toss the transmission back on, but I'll do that a bit later this week:



Next up was the front suspension. My front subframe and steering rack were filthy, so I spent some time with a bottle of Purple Power getting those things clean. I had originally intended to have a lot of these pieces powdercoated, but I just don't have the cash for it at this point. So, I decided to spray them black instead. It actually came out looking pretty nice for my standards:



I tossed the front subframe all back together so that I can toss it on quickly with the ENDLESS brakes as soon as the car comes home from paint!



And speaking of paint- Mike and I are going to trailer the car into the paint shop today after work! Really excited to finally see this come together. Hopefully it will turn out decent after my first attempt at prep work. I'll ask for an estimate, but with any luck it will be ready to be picked up by the weekend and I can get it home! I'll keep you guys posted.

[SolaraOnBronze]

Well, we got the car dropped off last night without any issues- super happy about that! I went to the shop this morning to talk everything over with the manager again, and thankfully no one messed with/stole the car overnight, lol. He was really cool and seems to think they can probably have it done for me by the weekend- which would be awesome!

Here are some shots of the car making the trip:











The Harbor Freight trans jack actually worked super well as a car dollie, lol. We rolled the back of the car up first, then lifted the front end onto the trailer. It was nice being able to adjust the height of it through the process- went much better than I ever expected it to!

Huge thanks to my friends Mike and Mark for helping me get this thing into the shop. I'll be sure to post up as soon as we pick it up!

[SolaraOnBronze]

I was cleaning the garage last night and realized that I installed the clutch and flywheel without putting the metal transmission plate on first. I'm surprised no one called me on it/made fun of me for it, lol. Took a break from cleaning to correct that and get the transmission installed. Thankfully I hadn't put the trans back on yet before realizing the plate was missing, haha:

[badbob2121]

Looks great!

[Razi]

Hahaha.
Good think you caught that early.

Clutch looks pretty!

[SolaraOnBronze]

I left work a bit early this afternoon and started working on the car. The body shop used some liquid mask on the car that supposedly washed off when you wash the car. To my surprise, it actually did come right off, lol. So, after washing the car, I got it back in the garage and up on jack stands:



A shot of the Tanabe fender braces I tossed on a couple weeks ago:



The bay after a wash:



I reinstalled the front subframe, suspension, steering rack, and NISMO power brace. This was taken before installing the power brace and tension rods:



Another pair of Blitz 03s showed up today. By now, most people probably know that I am selling the TEs and having Yuta at WheelFlip help me out with relipping and refinishing some Blitz 03s for me. A lot of people are mad about this, and I still love my TEs, but I decided to give it a shot and see how it turns out. I'm sure I will own another set of TEs someday, so I am not too stressed about it!



One pair of 18s will be sold this weekend, and the other will be sent to Wheel Flip on Monday. My pair of 17s for the front is already out there in Cali at the shop. I decided to toss them on the car just for fun:



How it sits for the evening:



And lastly, my new door trim/window switch bezels showed up from Russell at NissanParts.cc. It's crazy how different the new ones look! Should freshen the doors up a bit with the new fabric:



I'll be busy with family this Easter weekend, but I should have some time to work on it on Sunday evening. Hopefully the updates will be coming in consistently from this point on!