Hoffman5982's Super Awesome Driveway Swap- Finally Running

[GrilledCheese33]

You'll love the vlsd. I couldn't believe the difference mine made.

[Hoffman5982]

I can't wait. I've been wanting to install it since about march when I got my first one. Last time I was actually going to install it the vlsd was thrown out. But this one....Its going in

Also quick question, anyone wanna explain to me why I have a speed cut at around 116?

[GrilledCheese33]

LOL I remember when you said your dad did that... It makes the whole way the car drives and slides totally different in a good way.

[Hoffman5982]

Lol yea I remember how mad I was. Still haven't gotten paid back for that. oh well

[Hoffman5982]

Well I said I was going to do it and I did it.

I woke up today and it was nasty outside. According to the weather channel app on my droid it would be raining all day, and it was right. I went and took care of a few things at school and I had decided that I'd have to wait til sunday. I went ahead and picked up some gear oil, and as I was leaving the parking lot of autozone I pull out in front of someone. Not right in front of them like an old lady does, but still enough that I would cause them to have to slow down if I just accelerated at a normal pace. So I gave it a little gas at which point my rear wheel starts to spin. When this happened I decided "fu** it, Ill go ahead and install it today". Nothings more annoying than sitting there with one wheel spinning while your trying to accelerate.

So I go home and immediately jack my car up and go to town. What a pain in the a** to do by yourself. The worse part was when I was unbolting the axles. I had to get up, let down the ebrake, get back under, turn the axle into position, get BACK up, and pull the ebrake. Repeatedly. It took the better part of 5 hours from start til finish. Unfortunately I only took pics of before I installed the vlsd.

Old POS that I will be selling for scrap metal


New hotness. And yes I had to set it on a towel to keep it from getting dirty and scratched on the bottom


Side by side



Once I finished I was too excited to take the time to snap any pics, but it looks damn good under there. Plus it was dark and raining.

I immediately went out to an open parking lot for a little but of fun. I'm used to having to put quite a bit of effort in order to get the car sideways with the open dif. Not really taking into consideration that both wheels spin now, I dropped it into second, popped the clutch, and turned. The rear end shot out without a problem. I was thinking "oh how neat". The the car kept spinning. Like Grilled said, it's a totally different experience. The next try I feathered the gas when I popped the clutch. The rear end shot out and I held it without a problem. It felt great. It's been almost a year since I've done any kindd of sliding. Burning out is also different. Before I could sping until I was doing 80mph without having any trouble(not really 80 but you get what I mean). Now, when I drop it into second the rear end starts sliding outwards. You have to have a bit more control. So overall, this is one of my most favorite upgrades thus far. If you have a j30 in a junkyard near you, I promise it's one of the best 60-80 dollars you will ever spend on your car.


Of course, with my car, one upgrade leads to multiple problems that have nothing to the part that was replaced. My alternator took a step down in health. Now, my amp for my speakers won't come on and when I let off the guess as I shift the lights dim. Hopefully the new alt and bracket will get here soon. Also, my power steering seems to be going out. It shakes pretty bad whenever I turn the wheel and has a really bad whine. I also smell something burning. It smeels like a burning belt, but I haven't messed with my belts and they haven't given me any problems until now.

Just something else to fix. Oh well. Stay tuned

[S14Kouki10]

So did you get an abs driveshaft for the vlsd?

[Hoffman5982]

No I did not. It fit without a problem. There's no weird sounds or anythign so I think its fine. I might have to replace the rear main seal down the road but I can do that when Im replacing the transmission

[Hoffman5982]

Ok so small update, but also a quick review of the Cody Ace Quest alternator brackets

I hit 190k on my odo


I had my alternator checked about a month or two ago and they told I had a bad diode. Whenever I would start the car, especially at night with the lights on, I would have to give it a quick rev so that the lights would get brighter. I saw Cody Ace's thread about his new brackets for the quest alternator on an sr and decided right then I would go that route. I thought that it would be a nice accommodation to my 2 amps I have running my speakers and soon to be installed subwoofers. So I ordered the alternator and then contacted CA about the brackets.

I'll start off with his communication. It was excellent. He replied within an hour. I wasn't expecting a reply until the next day. I asked him if I really needed the belt as I have new belts on my car already. He told me no, which I personally think most people would tell me yes to squeeze a little extra money out of me. I paypalled him the money, and he had it shipped out the very next morning.

A couple of days later I received both the alternator and the bracket, but I hit a lazy streak and didn't get around to installing it for about 2 weeks. Today I finally decided that it needed to get done, especially since I dont have another off day for a week. I removed my old alternator, which took all of 20 minutes. The I got my drill out to drill out the bottom mounting holes so that the bolt could slide through. That only took about 10 minutes with a household drill. Very easy. Next I installed the bracket to the alternator itself and slid the alternator into place. All that's left after that is to slide the long bottom bolt in and screwing the nut onto the other side, and screwing the other bolt to hold the bracket onto the engine. Then of course you want to install the battery cable, ground, and the plug into the alternator. Here's a few pics. My camera was dead so I had to use my phone

SR alt on left, Quest alt on right





That was the easy part. Of course, with my car, it's never that simple. I started it up and noticed that my cluster and radar weren't working unless I revved it. Thinking I recieved a bad alternator I drove to Napa to have it tested. They told me it wasn't even charging. So I went home, pulled the alt, made sure everything was right, and reinstalled it to no avail. I did this a few more times(what a fun day) and on the last time I put my old alt back in, but had the same problem. I knew then that something else was causing it, so I looked around, made sure every wire was secure, and then popped off my fuse box cover. I looked and then saw that the FL100A fuse was blown. Of course. So I drove back to Napa, bought a new fuse, put it in, and turned the key. Everything came on this time. So I pulled the old alt and installed the new alt, again. Started it up, and voila. Worked perfectly. It also seemed to help rememdy my skipping problem. I pressed the gas all the way down and it revved right up without the bogging. The car now feels more responsive and idles a lot better.

So, The Cody Ace bracket was amazing. Very easy to install, and a lot easier to adjust the belt than on the stock bracket. Definitely worth the $50 and I will definitely buy from him again once I decide to install my A/C


Now let's move to my Wiring Specialties Pre-made harness.... Oh wait, I STILL don't have it. Let's do a quick run down from the beginning. Car breaks down. I realize it's the harness. Suck it up and contact WS about a new harness. Im told it would be the next week. The next week comes. I don't hear anything so I shoot them an email. Yury tells me it will be the end of the year. I go out and jerry rig my car to run. The end of the year comes. I email Yury. No reply. Email him again a week later. No reply. Post on the WS thread on this forum a few times. No reply. Email Yury again. No reply. I see on their website that the ETA is Jan 20. Jan 20 comes, I send an email. No reply.

Yury, I want to personally tell you to go fu** yourself. This is by for the worst service I've ever experienced. I have the money in my account waiting to by this fu**ing harness, but you can't seem to get off your lazy a** and email me back. The ONLY reason I will buy this harness is because I have to have it. I will never recommend you to anyone, and I will post as much as I possibly can all over the internet not to buy from you.

Now that's the end of my rant. Hope you've enjoyed.


Also, I'd like to thank Cody Ace for the awesome service and great product

[Hoffman5982]

Ok guys I have some pretty bad/strange news. Maybe you can help me with it.

I am living with a friend about a mile away from my old house. I drove there to meet my mom to help clean the leftover crap out. On the way there nothing out of the ordinary happened. No weird sounds or pops or shakes, nothing. Boost was fine. I pull into the driveway and shut her off, and I see smoke start coming from under the hood. I pop the hood, and see possibly the worst thing I have ever seen on my engine. Oil everywhere on the driver side. I instantly think its my turbo seals, so I remove the heat shield from the exhaust manifold, which had a puddle of oil sitting on top of it. When I get it off, there's no oil under it. The turbo itself is dry except where some dripped onto it. From what I can see, it looks like it came from where the valve cover meets the head. It has a new gasket and everything, so I dont know why it would leak. Now I have seen some people put liquid gasket on it along with the rubber gasket, and some people dont. I did not. Could that possibly be the cause? Im pulling my head without a doubt next week to replace my head gasket, is there anything I should check or replace while its off? This is my only form of transportation so any immediate help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Taran14]

Do you have any oil catch can? because when i had an s13 black top i didnt and when i got back from a trip around the block i saw that my manifold had oil all over, and that my breather was soaked in oil! so if you dont have a catch can running from the block and its just going straight into the valve cover that could be your problem! hope that helps man, by the way nice job on your car!

[S14Kouki10]

I think chase bays make harnesses.

[Hoffman5982]

Chase bays only converts harnesses as far as I know. Can anyone confirm or deny this? At this point Im not really worried about it. I have too much to deal with. All WS is doing is hurting their reputation

[scooz14]

why are you replacing the harness? the bobble between shifts? what do you have to counteract the bov venting to atmosphere?

[Hoffman5982]

The hesitation was pretty much resolved when I replaced the alternator. Im replacing the the harness because I want a brand new harness that' pre converted so that everything works like it did from the factory. Both my first s14 and this one developed a break somewhere in the harness that I had to trace and fix, and I don't want to go through that again in the near future. The wires are all 15+ years old, it's time to be replaced.

[scooz14]

what ecu are you running? wc? what have you done to counteract the bov venting to atmosphere? im trying to help you make your car run better. from the factory, the recirc valve(bov) needs to be plumbed back into the intake track before the turbo but after the maf. what happens is that when the bov vents, you are releasing metered air and your ecu has no way of knowing that. what happens is it will get pig rich every time the bov vents and it will cause a lot of the symptoms that i read you were experiencing. the right way to fix this problem is either recirc your bov or get an standalone ems that uses a map sensor. you can put an safc in and program the decel air settings, but thats a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

just my $.02

[Hoffman5982]

I realize that and I will run it recirc when I finally get the bov adapter welded onto the hot pipe. I'm more worried about the oil shooting out right now though.

[scooz14]

to help with the oil issue, if its sitting on top of the exhuast main, i would say that it is the vc gasket and not the headgasket, but it also could be the oil feed lines at either the block or turbo.

[badbob2121]

just my $.02

uhhh...

to me it sounds like it could be a bad valve cover gasket, i didnt use any silicone or gasket maker when i replaced mine and i have zero leaks, i assume you have tried to observe the leak by rev or maybe jacking the rear end and and running it, seeing if you can spot the leak... by the amount of oil you described it should be easy to spot

have you pulled it apart yet?

[Hoffman5982]

I have not pulled it apart yet, I will be doing that monday. I've been driving the car like I normally do to work and every time I park that car I pop the hood and look and don't see any fresh oil. It's like a freak accident that worked itself out. Im still afraid to drive it though.I guess we will see if I find anything when I tear it apart

[Hoffman5982]

Well it looks like I spoke too soon about the working itself out part. It just happened again

[Hoffman5982]

Ok guys quick question. Im probably going to go ahead and buy stainless turbo lines and then start replacing all of my other rubber lines with ss lines. I found these on enjuku, and they are $20 less than the other ISIS ones that are backordered.
http://www.enjukuracing.com/isis-sr20de ... 10791.html

My question is will they work on the s14 sr? It only says s13 sr. Also, since I'm looking at making custom lines for everything else, what size fitting would I need for say the valve cover and fuel lines? I'm new to all of these AN fitting. From what I've read I'll have to thread the valve cover for the fittings, which isn't a big deal. Thanks in advance

[GrilledCheese33]

I can't believe some of the problems your dealing with man, that sucks...

[Hoffman5982]

Yea, I know. But I'll work out all of the kinks. It will just take some more time. Im going to try to limp down to my parents house so that I have a garage to tear it apart in. With our old house being on the market now, I can't really be doing that stuff in the driveway anymore. Should be interesting

[Hoffman5982]

Ok so quick update.

I took the PCV valve out and cleaned it, although it seemed clean. The next day I drove it down to the new house without a problem. When I got there I noticed that the back end of the car had a nice layer of oil. Later I found that literally, I shi* you not, 100% of the bottom of the car had oil covering it. So obviously it was worse than I thought. I began the tear down at about 3pm and quit that night at about 12:30. I got everything removed down to the block. The next day I removed the front cover and made sure the timing was set on the crank sprocket. The I began putting everything back together with the new headgasket. I finished everything up this morning. Here's a few cell pics of the tear down.




So once I triple checked that everything was connected and tightened down correctly, I started her up. She cranked up, ran for 3 seconds, and died. I found that I had the throttle cable loose, so I tightened it and it stayed running, but rough. Now it hesitates extremely bad. I drove it down the block. and it drives fine, albeit slow on acceleration. I didn't really mess with it as I'm exhausted after 3 days of straight work. I'll be taking my moms car back to AL so I can go to work and whatnot, and should be back down Sunday to mess with it. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

On another note, even though the car hasn't been treating me right, I ordered her fitting and SS lines to replace my power steering line as it's leaking. Next I'll be buying SS lines to replace the water lines on the turbo. I plan on replacing all of the rubber hoses in the bay with ss(I think I like the braided nylon lines more than SS) lines. It will take a while as they aren't cheap, but I've already ordered 3ft of both -6AN and -10AN hose, so all I need are fitting. Thanks to Broadfield I have an idea as to what size fitting and adapters I need for my valve cover. I'm new to this if you can't tell.

I also ordered a recirc adapter for my BOV. So that will help a little. Just out of curiosity, will I completely lose my BOV sound by running it recirculated?

Thanks in advance!

[Hoffman5982]

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[Hoffman5982]

Well this is the last you'll probably hear from me on this build until march-april. Right now the car drives but still leaks oil, and I think it's coming from the main oil pan. I don't want to pull it right now to re do the gasket so Im going to deal with the leak for now and start saving. In march or april Im pulling the engine and completely rebuilding it, OR I might just swap to an rb20 or 25, but it would most likely be the rb20 due to cost. Wish me luck

[badbob2121]

wow, sorry to hear it.... wish there was more advice to offer, but diagnosing is tough when its through a forrum... best of luck with whatever you decide to do

[angelscrx]

Where did you get the Alternator bracket from Cody Ace? I looked on his site and didn't find it? Nice find.

[Hoffman5982]

wow, sorry to hear it.... wish there was more advice to offer, but diagnosing is tough when its through a forrum... best of luck with whatever you decide to do

Im not too bummed about having to go through hell again, just bummed that I haven't been able to truly enjoy the car in over 6 months. I miss getting in and taking off on long cruises and never worrying about it breaking down. Now Im constantly paranoid that something is about to break. But it will be fixed in the end.

Where did you get the Alternator bracket from Cody Ace? I looked on his site and didn't find it? Nice find.

I OM'd Cody Ace on Zilvia. The bracket is $50 shipped w/o belt, and $75 shipped w/ belt. The bracket is great quality and went on with absolutely no problems. Plus, adjusting the belt is MUCH easier. You can't go wrong


Now onto the decision:
SR20 or RB20?

I know the turbo on the rb20 is crap, so I was thinking of maybe swapping the one from the sr over to it. Is this a good or bad idea? I figured if I got the rb, I could part out or sell the sr as a whole and make back most if not all of my money, which kind of looks like a good option right now. Tell me what you guys thing!

[GrilledCheese33]

Well this is the last you'll probably hear from me on this build until march-april. Right now the car drives but still leaks oil, and I think it's coming from the main oil pan. I don't want to pull it right now to re do the gasket so Im going to deal with the leak for now and start saving. In march or april Im pulling the engine and completely rebuilding it, OR I might just swap to an rb20 or 25, but it would most likely be the rb20 due to cost. Wish me luck

Wow that sucks dude. Your thread makes me enjoy my slow KA a bit more lol... But I hope whatever you decide to do turns out for the better. P.S. doing an oil pan gasket isn't too bad of a job, at least on the KA. Sr wouldn't be different I imagine. I removed my sway bar, un bolted motor mounts from the subframe, removed transmission adapter plates, and lifted the motor as high as it would go. Then I had all the room I needed. It was a messy job and honestly cleaning off the 15 year old RTV was the worst part. Took me about 5 hours total and I let it sit overnight with no oil in it to let the new RTV cure. Just a thought.