m tr4nch's restoration/build thread !! (56k = death)

General discussion forum about the 240sx, and a great place to introduce yourself to the board!
User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

Topless_S13 wrote:This build is absolutely awesome! Keep up the good work!
thanks!!
GoodzKouki wrote:Hey m tr4nch, as always your work is amazing. I was wondering if you were planing on running differant seats at some point, and if so would you be willing to sell the GTR seats to a fellow New Jerseyan :biggrin: ?
thank you sir. i eventually want to get some red dc5 ITR recaro's, but not sure when that will happen. i want to get the car on the road first lol.
Toyojay wrote:A spectacular car! Have enjoyed reading through your years of work! Post updates! :bigthumb:
thank you!


User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

my time's been pretty sparse lately. i've been working on getting the block and head cleaned up.

removed the oil pan and oil pump. the neo's have an N1 oil pump from the factory. and the long crank collar on the neo's is a myth. every one i've seen pictures of has the short collar, including mine.


Image
Image


i also got the gasket material removed from both the block and the head.

during:

Image
Image

after:

Image
Image


need to finish cleaning them up a bit.

CarAudioChris
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2016 11:52 am
Car: 1996 Nissan 240sx w/ RB25DET

Post

Keep it up brother. I will do this one day... Hopefully sooner than later.

User avatar
LSDrift
Posts: 199
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:54 am
Car: 1990 RS13 RB25

Post

This thread is my motivation for my very similar project...any updates!? Amazing work!

User avatar
Flicktitty
Posts: 4252
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2004 11:56 am
Car: 1989 Nissan 240sx 2JZ-GTE Swapped
1994 Toyota Supra
2019 Lexus GX460
1992 Lexus SC400

Post

I'm curious to see what kind of progress has been made in nearly the year since the last update.

Very impressive to see you're still building this car, and not just that you're continuing the build, but the quality hasn't fallen off in the least.

Very Cool.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

CarAudioChris wrote:Keep it up brother. I will do this one day... Hopefully sooner than later.
LSDrift wrote:This thread is my motivation for my very similar project...any updates!? Amazing work!
Flicktitty wrote:I'm curious to see what kind of progress has been made in nearly the year since the last update.

Very impressive to see you're still building this car, and not just that you're continuing the build, but the quality hasn't fallen off in the least.

Very Cool.
thanks you guys. i know it's been almost a year since i last posted an update here. i was trying to make some more progress with things and then post a bunch of stuff completed but everything's been real slow for me because life. but i'm going to gather all the pics i have and make an update post and hopefully have more posts regularly since i'm starting to move nicely on this project again.

thanks for the continued interest! keeps me going. :mike

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

so first thing's first, for the last year and a half i've been working as a fabricator/welder and my skills have improved significantly. i do aluminum mig at work, rarely any steel. figured i would throw this out there considering during the beginning of this thread my welds kinda looked like crap lol.

here are some examples of my work:


Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

also picked up a new mig and tig machine for a good price. i need to get some more tig practice in.

Image


first mig steel bead ran with the new machine, testing it out:

Image

quite an improvement from way back when!

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

made a bit of progress since last year.

took the block out in the driveway, scrubbed it down real good to clean the gasket surface, and to prep the outsides for paint. used like 8 cans of brake cleaner.


Image
Image
Image

taped everything off that wasn't getting painted-

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

used some eastwood high temp 2k engine paint. i wanted a matte black finish but they didn't have straight high temp matte black, so i got the gloss black and some matte clear.

Image

primer-

Image

black-

Image

peeled the tape off the freeze plugs and a couple other parts and then sprayed the clear, and came out like this-

Image
Image
Image



painted some other parts while i was at it. masterseries base coat, then finished off with some eastwood 2k rat rod satin black and some matte clear in a few places.

throttle body, aac valve, power steering pump-

Image
Image
Image

starter-

Image

vtc solenoid and cam gear-

Image
Image
Image
Image

used some of the leftover high temp gloss black on the turbo coolant fittings, since the blue/red earls theme won't match anything. and used leftover high temp matte clear on the power steering fittings.

Image
Image

trans adapter plate cleaned up and painted-

Image
Image
Image

rear timing plate cleaned up and painted. there's a vacuum hard line that runs behind it that interferes with the greddy manifold that needs to be cut off, so i cut the tube and crushed the ends shut with my press.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image


started to clean up the oem fuel rail to clear coat it, but underneath all that dirt was a neochrome-looking finish that i like, and the clear would have made it all dull, so i left it. looks pretty cool.

Image
Image



i then started to dig into the head. cleaned it up the best i could.
cleaned out all the spark plug wells-

Image
Image


cleaned all the carbon out of the exhaust ports and cleaned off gasket material from the flange surface-

Image
Image
Image

cleaned out top end where the cams sit-

Image

ended up having to pull the cams anyways to do the seals-

Image
Image



and FINALLY.... threw in arp head studs and put the head back on the block. i used copper gasket spray to help with sealing a little more, figured it wouldn't hurt. then reinstalled cams with new seals.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image


so as you can see i finally have some engine assembly going on. everything i wanted to paint is now painted for the most part. i just need to get some more things powdercoated, but it's finally starting to come together so i should be updating this thread a little more often.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

can't forget about new parts!


grabbed a nismo timing belt and clear cam cover. should look pretty sweet. :biggrin:

Image
Image


bought a bunch of the new p2m hose clamps to use with my future intercooler/intake piping. they look very good and seem to be of very high quality, i'm impressed.

Image
Image

mocked up on the throttle body-

Image


also picked up p2m carbon hood struts. much easier when popping the hood instead of using the prop rod. best part is it doesn't require any hole drilling.

Image


got a nice apexi filter kit-

Image


caved in and got the tomei titanium test pipe to match the catback exhaust. welds look yummy

Image
Image


picked up a used z32 speed sensor to use in the rb trans so the speedo will read correctly

Image


i know i'm forgetting some things, will take more pics and post them up later!

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

Those clamps are the sexy!

And dude, your welds at the beginning of this thread were still great for someone who literally had 0 experience. You've just improved on a raw talent.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

Hijacker wrote:Those clamps are the sexy!

And dude, your welds at the beginning of this thread were still great for someone who literally had 0 experience. You've just improved on a raw talent.
haha thanks man. yeah i guess i just had to practice a little and hone those skills.

User avatar
LSDrift
Posts: 199
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:54 am
Car: 1990 RS13 RB25

Post

Awesome. I need to put together a build thread for mine. Glad to see you're still at it! This motivates me!

User avatar
LSDrift
Posts: 199
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:54 am
Car: 1990 RS13 RB25

Post

Also, you may have said it earlier in the thread but where did you source all your OEM Nissan stuff from? Lots of this S13 stuff is getting pretty scarce... :/ I'd search through the thread more but I'm having a hard time with things loading due to all the ads...

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

LSDrift wrote:Also, you may have said it earlier in the thread but where did you source all your OEM Nissan stuff from? Lots of this S13 stuff is getting pretty scarce... :/ I'd search through the thread more but I'm having a hard time with things loading due to all the ads...
i've placed orders through a few different places over the years. i used mainly midway nissan- http://www.partsfornissans.com/
also have used http://www.courtesyparts.com/
and https://www.amayama.com/en for oem stuff from japan

and yeah, hard to believe some of the things i've ordered a few years back are discontinued/not available anymore now.

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

I'm running into situations where I wish I had ordered parts years ago when they were readily available. But, all is not completely lost. There's still lots of stuff available. It's just some weird odds and ends

User avatar
LSDrift
Posts: 199
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:54 am
Car: 1990 RS13 RB25

Post

So...a little off topic...but I built the dolly/cart that you did a write up for(which works sweet btw)...and now I'm trying to figure out how in the hell you got it loaded into that Uhaul trailer. Did you use plywood as ramps or anything like that? The dolly makes things a lot easier but it's still definitely like a 4 man job I'm thinking.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

LSDrift wrote:So...a little off topic...but I built the dolly/cart that you did a write up for(which works sweet btw)...and now I'm trying to figure out how in the hell you got it loaded into that Uhaul trailer. Did you use plywood as ramps or anything like that? The dolly makes things a lot easier but it's still definitely like a 4 man job I'm thinking.
no ramps, just lifted it up with a few people. the half rotisserie bar i made for the rear helped a lot for doing that. basically 2 people standing on the trailer can deadlift the car up and onto the rear of the trailer. of course i had the dolly strapped to the car at that point so it would come up with it. then it's just a matter of pushing it back to fit in the trailer.

i moved the car this way i believe 4 times to transport it to different places. but yes it will take you plus another 2 or 3 people to do.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

dropped some parts off today for powdercoating so hopefully i'll get them back in the next week or two.

did a couple random things:

oem exhaust manifold studs installed. was going to use the arp ones but they were fitting super tight and i didn't want to chance anything like stripping the threads or have to tap them, etc.

Image


did some tig for once, welded in the an fittings on the valve covers. i got the fittings from raw brokerage, they are supposed to be press fit for series 1 rb25's but the neo's openings are a hair bigger and they slide in and out freely so they must be welded in place. not bad for my first try on cast aluminum i suppose. didn't even use any filler rod, just fused together pretty effortlessly.


Image
Image
Image


also while i was at it, i decided to chop off the protrusion on the rear part of the intake-side valve cover since it doesn't need to be there. on the neo covers there's a boost sensor iirc that mounts there. cut off with a band saw and then grinded/sanded down smooth.

Image


and lastly, sanded off/buffed out the zaklee website letters on the clear cam cover because it looks really out of place and stupid on there. now you can't even tell it was there.

Image


will have more to post once i get everything back from being powdercoated!

User avatar
centralcoaster33
Posts: 2769
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2005 10:41 am
Car: 240SX #5-1997
Location: Central Coast, CA

Post

Of all the places to advertise your brand, the middle of a clear window shouldn't be a consideration, especially if your business is clear windows! I'm glad to see you found time to post some updates and photos.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

got everything back from being powdercoated, and wow, i am impressed at how well it all came out.

the lighting sucks in these indoor pictures because of the floor so the gold looks really dull.

Image
Image

and for the newer style greddy manifolds that i talked about previously, the water fitting does indeed just thread in with an o-ring.

Image
Image
Image

a little better representation of the color:

Image
Image
Image


and way better pics out in the sunlight

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image


should look pretty sweet once it's all together.
:bigthumb: :bigthumb:

User avatar
LSDrift
Posts: 199
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:54 am
Car: 1990 RS13 RB25

Post

Looking good! You have any plans to go bigger turbo in the future? I noticed your stock turbo outlet pipe/elbow was in that group of powder coated goodness.

240sxier_than_u
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 11:35 am
Car: 1995 Nissan 240sx

Post

Do you have any videos of the build on YouTube? By when do you think you'll have the engine together? I can only image how much stress you probably went through. The car is gonna be perfect when it's completed.

User avatar
centralcoaster33
Posts: 2769
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2005 10:41 am
Car: 240SX #5-1997
Location: Central Coast, CA

Post

240sxier_than_u wrote:The car is gonna be perfect when it's completed.
This thread is like 9 years old, your project seems to be maybe 10 years old and I've been following for at least 6 years. I agree with the above post. Which makes me wonder, are you going to be okay with driving around a perfect car that you personally assembled completely? Will you be all cautious and :ohno: or will you be driving it hard, knowing it's all done tight and reliable :woot: :shifter: ?

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

LSDrift wrote:Looking good! You have any plans to go bigger turbo in the future? I noticed your stock turbo outlet pipe/elbow was in that group of powder coated goodness.
as of right now, not really tbh. i'm not looking to make crazy power with this car. who knows though, that may change in the future.
240sxier_than_u wrote:Do you have any videos of the build on YouTube? By when do you think you'll have the engine together? I can only image how much stress you probably went through. The car is gonna be perfect when it's completed.
no youtube videos unfortunately. i've been playing around with the idea of doing a timelapse video of dropping the engine in the car, i think that would be pretty cool. no idea when it will be together. things keep coming up, time gets stretched out, run into problems, etc. hopefully this summer but i know i've said that like every single year this has been going on for lol.
centralcoaster33 wrote:This thread is like 9 years old, your project seems to be maybe 10 years old and I've been following for at least 6 years. I agree with the above post. Which makes me wonder, are you going to be okay with driving around a perfect car that you personally assembled completely? Will you be all cautious and :ohno: or will you be driving it hard, knowing it's all done tight and reliable :woot: :shifter: ?
yeah i didn't really expect this whole thing to drag out to this many years when i first started it. i think at first i'll be cautious until i get used to driving it again and work out all the kinks. once i'm confident everything is all good then i will definitely be driving it spirited. gotta enjoy the fruits of my labor haha.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

got a few things done. installed new rear main seal, oil pump, oil pan, water pump, and thermostat with the freshly powdercoated housing tube.


Image
Image


went ahead and cleaned up the injectors and replaced the filter baskets, o-rings, and pintle caps. next up is install them into the fuel rail and test fit in greddy manifold to see what kind of spacers i will have to make so the whole thing mounts properly. the neo fuel rail mounts differently than the r33 rail (which the greddy is designed for).

Image


after all of that is done, will move onto installing timing stuff, hot side/turbo, intake side, and accessories!


speaking of timing stuff, i decided to get a fluidampr pulley to replace the old stock one. it had a few chips in it and for the price i got the new one for i figured what the hell, might as well do it now. they have these listed for only fitting the rb26, but it will work with the neo rb25 no problem. the neo uses a 4-rib power steering pulley just like the rb26, whereas the r33 rb25 uses a 3-rib pulley. so the rb25 isn't listed as compatible, although i'm sure you could put the 3-rib belt on there just fine if you had a s1/s2 r33 rb25.

Image
Image

i hope to have things rolling a little quicker from now on. this is the fun part!

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

got around to making some spacers for mounting the neo fuel rail. i cut these out of 1" flat bar that we had at work, they are about 19mm thick (1" wide). everything seems to fit up nicely with the injector adapters i got from madparts.net and new fat o-rings from the r33 fuel rail/intake manifold. it's mounted nice and solid, should have enough sealing pressure around the fat o-rings since it's leaving indentations in them. should be good to go.


Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

wa-chiss
Posts: 2569
Joined: Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:23 pm
Car: 1990 Nissan S13 H/C KA24E
2005 Toyota Sequoia
1976 Honda CB750F Super Sport
Location: San Angelo, TX

Post

Wow bro! I'm extremely jealous right now. This thread just keeps getting better.

Please tell me you're going to use a wiring specialty harness or equivalent for this thing. Nothing like new wires and connectors to hook up to these clean parts.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

wa-chiss wrote:Wow bro! I'm extremely jealous right now. This thread just keeps getting better.

Please tell me you're going to use a wiring specialty harness or equivalent for this thing. Nothing like new wires and connectors to hook up to these clean parts.
thanks! yes of course i got a new harness from them. i think i posted it up on the last page :dblthumb:

wa-chiss
Posts: 2569
Joined: Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:23 pm
Car: 1990 Nissan S13 H/C KA24E
2005 Toyota Sequoia
1976 Honda CB750F Super Sport
Location: San Angelo, TX

Post

wow, don"t know how I missed an entire page...... I see it now. Good thing!

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

ughh damn you photobucket. i may need to go with another image hosting site.
anyways, got a few things in the works right now, will be back to post updates.


Return to “240sx General Discussion”