Another S13 Build Thread

[noobdrftr]

looks damn good

[SR20DET.240]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments, the Nico community has been a big help in getting it to where it is today. My current goal is to start replacing some of the worn suspension components to get it ready for the track this spring. After that I will probably try and figure out what aero parts I want. I am going to keep the exterior pretty simple and clean. After that is done I am thinking of upgrading to the S15 blacktop SR20DET and building it from the ground up with all forged internals. Not looking for any crazy HP numbers, somewhere in the range of 325 or so. Come spring time I should have a lot of updates, since I sold my Lightning I have some cash to play with, as always I will post up some pictures of my work. I still need to take some pictures of my recirculated BOV and post them up, will have those up tomorrow.

[Bumnah]

Change your driving style a bit. leave it in gear longer when coming to a stop. pull it out of gear once you get to a really low speed (like 15 mph)

a good shop is ma-motorsport.com they're in baltimore. the rest in nova suck.

don't put in an safc, it's not needed on a stock sr20.

try the driving habit change, then see how the behaves...

car looks good. btw.

[positron1]

Why should you leave it in gear longer when you come to a stop? I'm just curious because I've been shifting into neutral and coasting to most stops. If I shouldn't be doing this then I'll try what you said.

[SR20DET.240]

I have changed my driving style to compensate for the stalling issue, but I would like to get it resolved if possible. I was just hoping that what I had read about the recirculated BOV would have made an improvement, it hasn't. I will give MA-Motorsports a call, I want to get the car tuned once I add a few more parts I have that haven't been installed. After talking to Jeff at 240sxmotoring I believe that I might have some other issues to sort out with the wiring, problem is that I need to see someone else's car that has the SR20DET wired up to see what isn't wired correctly. One thing that I know is missing is the power steering harness that is supposed to be hooked up to bump the idle when the PS is fully engaged. Hopefully I can hook up with some of the NOVA 240 owners and check theirs out to see what is missing on mine.

[Bumnah]

It's only to keep a load on the engine. If the IACV is having problems holding idle try this. I learned it because like a dweeb i didn't recirculate my bov. Mine would stall all the time. i left it in gear until it back fired or i got it down to a low speed. kept it from stalling everytime. Hardly anyone keeps the powersteering harness in their swaps.

it only bumps up the idle slightly when the wheel is at full lock.

[SR20DET.240]

The only time I have had the car actually stall is when I am trying to back into a parking space with while turning the car or braking and turning at the same time, having the harness hooked up might just be enough to keep it from doing that, other then that I just have the RPM's drop down to 100-200 and then it recovers. I may also go ahead and replace my IACV as I have learned it may not be working correctly. If that doesn't do anything to correct it then it may just be one of those annoying things I have to live with.

[SlamStretchPoke]

lower it more or atleast lower the front down more to get rid of that reverse rake, and some more stretch would look good

oh that that exhaust tip looks mad tacky with that tag thing welded on it .. cut that off and polish it out

[mRodiek]

Your car is reaaaal clean man, I love the blacked out windows with rotas, and the kouki tails. Keep it goin

[HoosierSX]

wow...the higher profile tires actually look really good. i love the look of your car

[SR20DET.240]

lower it more or atleast lower the front down more to get rid of that reverse rake, and some more stretch would look good

oh that that exhaust tip looks mad tacky with that tag thing welded on it .. cut that off and polish it out

Cant go any lower in the front right now, it rubs as it is, once I get new rims and get the camber corrected , and install the overfenders it will probably go a little lower and the tag is welded on, so its staying on there, but I do need to polish it up a little.

[SR20DET.240]

wow...the higher profile tires actually look really good. i love the look of your car

Thanks, I got the tires based on specs I saw on someone elses car. Before the car was lowered it looked like a 4x4. Hehe. I just wanted a set of rims and tires for winter, I should be ordering some new rims and tires soon. Just need to figure out what I want because as of right now the "Elite" wheels are unavailable and that is what I wanted. Next wheels will be 17x ? with a 40 series tire on it.

[SR20DET.240]

Well I cant believe it has been almost a year since my last post on my build thread. I haven't posted anything up for a long time because I had considered selling the car due to family issues, but I have found a solution that allows me to keep my 240 so hopefully I will have some significant updates in the near future. I have not done much to the car since the last post aside from the normal maintenance work and I did purchase a set of Rota P46R's in 17x9 up front and 17x9.5 with a +12 offset. I am very happy with the fitment and will post some pictures up with them on the car within the next couple of days. I also installed a Greddy Profec B Spec II that I had left over from my previous project car. Now boosting to 10lbs. and loving it.

When I finally made the decision to keep the car I sat down and decided which direction to go with the car. My original plan was to make it a track only car but after some serious consideration, I really like driving it too much to just track it a few times a year so I am going to keep it street legal and go to a few driving events when time and money permit.

So, now deciding to keep the car as a daily driver and only tracking it occasionally I am now in the process of restoring the interior and adding some goodies I had previously bought and never installed. Soon to be installed is a new Godspeed intercooler that I have, in order to do that a Dyna Batt racing battery has been procured and I am just waiting on the battery mount to show up.

I had already attempted to install stainless steel brake lines but ran into a problem with the rear ones, the passenger side caliper needs to be replaced due to a bad bleeder and I think that caliper is sticking and I also found that the driver side has a problem where the hardline meets the soft line, the nut is rounded off so I cant disconnect it from the soft line, so today I called Courtesy Parts in Texas and ordered a whole slew of parts. They have excellent customer service and their web site has a complete break down of all of the sub part assemblies.

I also need to replace the brackets that hold the bumper cover to the body when I go to install my FMIC and my car being a Pennsylvania car they are rusted solid, I already tried getting the nuts off and they just snapped off at the studs, so I ordered new brackets and hardware. I also have a bad headlight switch so I placed an order for one of those as well and since I am going to be re-doing the interior I decided to get a factory shift boot, new up console cover and a new plug for whole where the electric mirror switch would be.

As far as the future plans, I am going to be picking up some Q45 calipers and rotors for the front for better stopping power, doing some body work for some of the small rust spots and maybe getting the car painted. I am also going to start restoring the interior by replacing more interior components with new factory replacements assuming that they are available still, upgrading the stereo system in the car with most likely a Pioneer AVIC and then doing a lot of engine bay cleanup. Lots of work ahead but I think it will pay off with a nice looking car and one that performs well on track days. I will post up some pictures this week if I can managed to get the car washed.
Modified by SR20DET.240 at 3:33 PM 1/30/2010

[SR20DET.240]

Ok, a small update, I am in the process of acquiring the parts I need to install my FMIC so knowing I needed a new upper front bumper mount because the nuts are frozen onto the studs and when I attempted to take them off the last time they started snapping I went ahead and contacted Courtesy Nissan in TX. I have to say, they have the best customer service hands down of any dealership I have ever dealt with. I got all the parts I needed at a good price and they have the entire S13 parts catalog online making it very easy to find what you need. Below are some of the parts I picked up:

Bumper mount



New headlight switch

New console top:

And this last image is something I actually was sent by mistake, apparently it is rather rare, a rear wiper dash switch

I am still waiting on my new wiper stalk to show up. I have decided to restore the interior some on my car. I still need a new carpet kit, although I will probably not go with the stock carpet since I dont want the stock grey carpet, instead I want black.

I have a new Dyna Batt battery to go in with a new custom battery box that I picked up, pics on that will have to wait until I paint the battery box and modify it a little, might get that done tomorrow.

[SR20DET.240]

I realized that there are no pics of my new wheels I have on the car, hopefully I can get the car washed tomorrow and take some pics of them. I will also try and shoot some more pictures of the other parts I have waiting to go on the car like the FMIC and battery box. Slowly getting the car put together.

[cheezy240]

Hey man nice build so far. You made it look alot better now then when you got her.But I was wondering where you picked up those seats and how much if you don't mind me asking?

[SR20DET.240]

I actually found the seats on ebay from an importer and got them for about 650 shipped, it was such a good deal I couldnt pass it up. Got front and rear seats, they were in very good condition.

[SR20DET.240]

I went and got a quick wash done on the car, primarily to get the salt off, we still have about a foot of snow on the ground here in VA so with it all melting the car wont stay clean for long, in any case I shot some pictures with the new wheels on the car, sorry but the shots arent very good, didnt have time to scope out a good photo location. The wheels are Rota P45R's 17x9 and 17x9.5 +12 offset.

[HoosierSX]

i liked the other rims better

[SR20DET.240]

Well, these will look better once the wide body kit goes on the car, I already have a set of Origin front fenders, still need to so something about the rear, but I still have the other ones, I just want to change the tires on them because I dont like the 50 series tires. As soon as I find a suitable replacement i will swap them back and forth. I bought the P45R's primarily for the track. The Grids will go back on later.

[huey29]

Love the build great job bringing it back to life..I'm in the process of doing the same thing.. What size tires are you running on there in the newest pictures?

[SR20DET.240]

Well, went to do some work to the car tonight, my neighbor with a two car garage was kind enough to let me use it while he is out of town, so I had my new headlight switch to install, got that done and tested out and both headlights work now. After that was done I thought I would go head and install my new lit key ring but realized that I didnt have any electrical tape so I went back to the house to get some, when I get back to the garage I cant get the garage door to open. The it hits me, the breaker tripped to the garage because the space heaters were on. So now I have my car stuck in his garage with no way to get it out until he comes home tomorrow night. I called him and he is cool with it, but now I have to leave work tomorrow night just to come home and get my car out of his garage when he gets home. Sometimes I think if it wasnt for bad luck I wouldnt have any.

[splintercell]

keep up the progress on your car...im digging it!

http://www.stockinteriors.com

carpet kit

[ZootedS13]

good job bro, i really like what youve done with it so far. keep goin

[SR20DET.240]

Thanks for all the comments guys, I will have some more pics soon, got my Zenki turn signals in and installed, new dual fan set showed up today and I have replaced some interior parts this week. Need to get the camera from my wife so I can snap some pics of all the stuff.

[OM3GA]

Mmmmmm

[SR20DET.240]

Since I have now decided to keep the car and changed the direction of the build I have started acquiring some parts. One thing that I know I needed was better cooling because I have a FMIC to mount in the car, so I picked up a new dual 12" fan setup from 240sxmotoring.com



I will have more pictures of the FMIC and new battery box with my Dyna Batt battery once the battery box is modified and painted.

Next, I decided to do some work to the interior, since this is a 21 year old car and had almost all original interior pieces I wanted to spruce it up a little so I called Courtesy Nissan in TX and got a new console, console top, mirror switch delete plug , factory shift boot, headlight stalk and wiper stalk. I needed the headlight switch anyway since mine was bad, but everything is installed now:







Here is a shot of my old headlight and wiper stalks, you can see they are looking quite aged:



I also splurged a little and got a Nismo shift lable since I had ordered the console cover without the shift diagram on it, I didnt realize that you could order it either way. I imagine it is because you can use the same part for the automatic cars as well:



Last but not least I decided to get the Zenki turn signals for the front of the car. I really like them and it is a subtle mod as most people wont really notice them:



Well, that's about it for the moment, I will be ordering a new carpet kit next to help finish off the major interior work for the time being. Splintercell let me know where he got his kit and for anyone that has seen his build he does top quality work so I am sure I will be very satisfied with my new carpet kit.

As soon as it warms up some here in Northern VA I will start doing a lot more work. I still have a lot of suspension work to do to get the car ready for some HPDE's this spring. Enjoy.

[splintercell]

thanks man...anytime.

FYI you can order oem Nissan parts from Victory Nissan here in VA cheaper. they will beat Courtesy Nissan prices

nothing against Courtesy, but in these crappy times my money needs to go further and ive spent plenty of money with them.

[SR20DET.240]

Thanks for the info, I will have to check them out. You are correct, anywhere I can save some money will allow me to buy more parts
Modified by SR20DET.240 at 2:55 PM 3/1/2010

[SolaraOnBronze]

Looking good! I think I will order a new center console/shift trim as well... that looks clean!