DeXteR wrote:notice the gear selector...

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

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. Man when I drive Back to chicago I'm stoping by to check that thing out! What are you going to do with interior ?

wow, it's been a while...

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

Dr.Fate wrote: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...

another great silvia vert on our forum! very well done if i may add. best of luck when you get to stage 2 of the project

wow DeX, the vert is coming along nicely! I had always thought that it was for you, but thats awesome that wifey is hands on w/ her baby, and that its a pretty sick ride at that!

Hey Dex,Looks like you and Michelle have gone put some late nights into the Vert. It's good to see you guys back in a Vert. Looks good so far. Did you change over the suspension from the old vert? You're right about the riding high thing... it does look different from your old one... when I saw the pics I thought you did an SR swap or something, but I know you didn't. Weird... maybe the gravitational pull changed up there since your last one and the new one is starting to float... ... secretly I think you snuck in some hydralics on her car.. Looks good.. have you decided on a color yet??

Maybe some of the struts are in 180 degrees off? I did that once when I was installing a strut, and the car was about 3" higher.

yeah, gravity is all messed up lately... i started playing basketball the other day and i dunked for the first time.

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.

buschur racing, a performance shop in ohio mostly known for thier skills with the mitsubishi 4g63 engine, is hosting a sport compact shootout at norwalk next may. so what? well these guys are also the people who put together the dsm shootout which started 15 years ago with just a handful of dsm's and has in the last 15 years grown to be the largest dsm/evo-specific event in the world.

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

Dude.. you have a wife that disassembles engines? You're the luckiest man alive.

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!

Eikon wrote:Your wife rocks!

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.

when i gt my 240 i told my gf that she was going to help me, and so far if she has been at my house when i am working on it she helps me.

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

yeah, installed new carpet. got it from the same guy i got the vlsd from. not sure where he got it though. it's for a hatch, we had to cut and trim to get it to fit better. still doensn't fit well, but it's better than the old crap it had.
Modified by DeXteR at 10:52 AM 11/15/2007

whats the word on the silvert? Did you ever get it painted? any new pics or progress? btw nice work! haha

wow, ok, uhm... my project thread is on the homepage.

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!

apparently there was a hater posting in my thread. unfortunately, i didn't get a chance to read it. however, a friend of mine told me about it, so i'll address a few things.

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...

Niice build!!

yea. sould check out my build it is pretty tight as well. just doing the motor for now should start the body work tomorrow.

Love the car man, i can't wait to start a project of my own, the car looks beautiful

nice build, love the wheels.

wow! great progress!!!

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!!!

Thanks again for all the replies, kind words, and flattery.

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" rods2) design/build an intake manifold VS buy an aftermarket one3) turbo selection4) megasquirt VS modify the stock ecu (rom tune or daughterboard) VS safc or similar5) 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.

This thread is starting to suck, updates or ban.

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.

to you, Zach...

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

looking good keep it up

i wish i had a vert

*Small Update*

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

Dude, this is looking really good. Keep it going!

Bearings and gasket came in yesterday. As usual, delivery guy left them out to be snowed/rained on. I swear, the people who deliver out here (fedex, ups, usps) are retarded...

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.

What taillights are those I see on the previous page? Brand? Where did you get them? Have you fitted them to the car to check fitment? Thanks.