My S14's Epiphany "build"

[pepesilvia]

First off I would like to say thank you to everybody on Nicoclub. Whether you know it or not, you’ve probably helped me. Like some of you on this forum, I am a lurker. I don’t post much useful information here. Instead I read almost every post made in the S-chassis section hoping to learn something, then post a dumb comment like “looks good!” to make sure the OP knows someone’s interested. But I do learn something from their posts, almost everyday. So thanks people of nico, new and old, you rock.

Secondly, I would like to state the purpose of this thread. It’s a future build thread. A normal build thread. Up till this point I have done a terrible job documenting the progress of my car, except for a few grainy cell-phone pictures. But I would like to change that. The reason being is because I have felt like I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of hours working on my car and nothing to show for it. Hopefully I can also refer to this build thread as a reminder of why I choose to do everything that I do on a daily basis, if that makes any sense.

Time for some history:
(skip if you dont want a lot to read)

The first time I became interested in anything that moves fast? I was sitting in the back of my moms gold Camry, I was in first grade, and my single-mother and my older brother were arguing of the speed of a certain luxury car. At some point my brother needed someone to prove to my mom that the top speeds he was arguing were legit so he turned to me and said “right? How fast can [blank] cars go?”… And the truth was, I had absolutely no idea. Which was very weird for me because I grew up, admittedly as sort of a know it all. I had gotten into trouble even at a young age for constantly taking things apart and using power tools without permission. So I remember it was during this car ride that I promised myself that I would learn how these things would work. But how? That same year, a certain movie came out that propelled my “need for speed” into a whole new passion. For the sake of not being flamed, I may omit the movie’s title. It is a movie so filled to the brim with “rice” that no amount of soy sauce could take the taste out of your mouth. And somehow, it has withstood the test of time and is still, to this day, one of my favorite movies. Anyway, I was staying the weekend at my fathers house with my brother. My brother lived with my dad and I still lived with my mom. So my presence in my dads household was nothing special to my brother for some reason and this particular weekend my brother decided to go out to the movies with his friends. Fortunately for me, my dad was not about to let my brother ditch me to hang out with his friends, so he forced my brother to take me with him to the movies. (thanks dad). The movie we were going to see was PG13. Growing up in my mothers house, this was strictly taboo. But my dad just said “don’t tell your mom” and bought me a ticket. I had no idea what movie I was about to watch, nor the impact it would have on my life. I walked into that theater with my brothers friends a confused young lad. After it finished, I left with such a passion for modifying cars that I swear I grew a single hair on my chest. Fast forward years later. My dad had just bought my brothers first car, a Pontiac grand am with a VIN that didn’t match the car, purchased from a dealership that closed a week after the car was purchased, in a shady neighborhood that sold the finest meth….. oh, and the car had a V8. Crazy right? That has nothing to do with my story but it was quite interesting. I wish I had a picture of it. At the time none of us thought it was weird, but after he totaled the car by driving it into a boulder, we were informed of how unique the car was by the insurance company or something. Anyway, pretty much since that day I started looking at what I wanted my first car to be… I was 11…. More and more years went by, and in the 7th grade I moved in with my dad. Over the next year or more I expressed my feelings for wanting to have a cool first car that I could work on… and more importantly, one I could work on with my dad. My dad didn’t know much about cars, but he was still a man. And as a man its almost obligatory to know some things about cars I think. Even though my dad didn’t know much about cars, he was much like me. Always learning and innovating. He was the smartest person I ever knew. So for my birthday that year he bought me a scale replica V-8 engine that we attempted at piecing together, but it came with missing parts so it was never fully built. Because of this, my dad had a better idea… why not just buy a junkyard engine and tear it down? It was a very exciting time… but time moves fast and as a kid I took time for granted…. Two days before Christmas my 8th grade year my dad had a heart attack. I was the only person in the house who knew CPR (I was a boyscout at the time) but when my stepmom woke me up and told me my dad passed out I froze and hesitated to perform it. The paramedics had already arrived and took over, but after he was rushed to the hospital he was pronounced dead. They kept telling me that even if I had performed CPR it couldn’t have saved him… My parents divorced when I was very young and I only spent 20 Weekends a year with him. The year and a half I lived with him I blew him off most of the time because I took his company for granted. It tore me up inside, this man who I didn’t really know, but he was so important to me was gone forever…. After years of lawyers and other BS his last will and testament was “created” or something and I was left with some money from my dad for “college and a car”...

and...

Fast forward one more time to age 15. I spent all of my highschool years working and saving up even more money for a car and it was finally time to make a decision. I was about to purchase my first car.



^^^ this super grainy cellphone pic is of what I thought at the time was a real Nissan Silvia that I saw in a junkyard (its obvious now by the mismatched panels that its not legit, but at the time I didn’t know it). I was in awe of the classic-retro-jdm styling of the headlights and body. It was beautiful. And I was sold. I wanted one. So I did some research and found that I probably wasn’t going to be able to find a real silvia, but I wanted any S-chassis at this point… And I finally found it, On ebay of ALL places.



^^^ 30k or so original miles, 1 owner and ZERO rust. Sold! and I brought her home.

This is where I’m going to end this thread for tonight. with that picture as a teaser of sorts. My next update will be filled with every picture I have from start to today, including everything I had done so far…. Sort of like a mini build AND THEN MY EPIPHANY MOMENT... stayed tuned... or don't. whatever floats yur boat

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Looks good!
(note the sarcasm. NOTE IT!)

[pepesilvia]

Looks good!
(note the sarcasm. NOTE IT!)

Thanks man, but its about to get worse. And you, sir, play a very important role in my build. How ironic the only person that commented is pretty much the reason for this “build” lol. More on that later.

Anywho… They say a car is an extension of someone’s personality. And the first years I owned my once-beautiful S14 my personality was…. Immature. To say the least.

The immaturiy Era:

Here’s the night the car arrived in my driveway. I hadn’t even had my drivers license yet so my parents had to pick it up and drive it back.

Interior was 10/10, exterior (paint) was 7/10, It was an automatic SE trim (spoiler, front lip, fog lights etc.) All original. Even had the original head-unit.





Jumped on the hood and scratched the crud out of it. Didn’t notice until the next day. Excitement woops.



^^^ checking the front bumper. Most of the paint was decent, but the SE lip was very bad. At some point I rattle-canned the lip but didn’t mask for over spray and ended up rattle canning the WHOLE front bumper and part of the fenders. (Head shake) the paints still messed up today.



^^^ hugging my girlfriend. That was like 6 years ago and we’re still dating. She didn’t know it at the time, but she would grow to HATE my car hahaha.



^^^^ nice Justin Beiber haircut.

That night I took my car to a dirt parking lot and did a bunch of donuts. DESTROYED the paint… forever

After buying the car, I was broke. I spent all my money on it and my lame highschool cashier job didn’t give me much money for upgrades. So I did little thing here and there to my car. In the process, I ruined most of my car thinking I was making it unique and cool.



^^^^ tinting my windows and bought ebay mirrors. Threw out my OEM power mirrors for NO REASON (headshake). I also LOST those SE foglights... 5 years later I had to re-buy OEM power mirrors sometime in the future and it cost me nearly 200 bucks. Gaaaahhhhhhhh



^^^ I painted my trunk taillights with black paint, and it actually didn’t turn out that bad. I was mostly jealous of kouki taillights but couldn’t afford them.



^^^ bought a super cheap head-unit and some gauges (yes that’s a boost gauge on a car with no boost…. Yet.) and broke/ ruined most of the interior trim doing that. I eventually replaced the HVAC trim and Radio Bezel trim years after this…. Cost me 200 more bucks



^^^ I also decided to break all the trim on the doors and paint the door panel with rubber undercoating (wtf?)… Also ended up replacing this in the future. Cost me 400 bucks for the two doors. And 50 bucks for all the used trim.



^^^ all my awesome drift stickers. Spent more money on these stupid stickers then I like to admit



SOMEHOW, I saved up enough to buy these cheap wheels on ebay. What a waste that was. They were 18x8 wrapped in falken fk452 tires. Even though they were cheap, they NEVER cracked. Unlike my rota’s (soon), which cracked 3 TIMES.



^^^Painted them with silver rattle-can because I didn’t appreciate the chrome finish.

So here’s a story that changed the life of my car forever:

The year I bought my car I become very interested in drifting, not surprisingly. I went to my first FormulaD event that year and thought it was awesome. Today I have a love hate relationship with drifting, and yet I still go to formulaD in Wall, NJ every year…. Anyway. I had a conflict with my aspiration of being a drift king…. I drove an automatic. However this did not stop me from attempting to get my car sideways when the road was a little slick. So one night, just after I had bought these wheels, I was driving home from work in heavy rain, I decided to play with the e-brake on my way home going around these country roads. Less then a mile from my house I went around an S-turn and successfully got my car sideways around the first turn (going roughly 40mph) and tried to get my car to turn around to take the other turn sideways. OF COURSE my car spun out of control and I hit a pole. Hit me right in the driver-side quarter panel. I was dazed and scared. Somehow I started my car back up (engine had stalled) and drove home. When I got home I saw the damage. The rear-driver-side wheel was crooked and there was a dent on my quarter panel the size of a small child. With tears in my eyes I gave my car keys to my step-dad and lied about what happened. Insurance company somehow didn’t total the car, and I wasn’t allowed to drive for awhile. But my insurance sky-rocketed to nearly 500 a month somehow. I drove around with 500 dollar a month insurance after the crash for half a year before I asked my parents why my insurance was SO much. Turns out I had like a super-expensive coverage plan. I somehow convinced my parents to get me the cheapest insurance possible after this and I pay roughly 210 a month now (even after a 4 point speeding ticket).


Anyway, after all of that I got bored of the wheels I had and now one of the wheels was a little messed up so I decided I wanted to fit in with the “hellaflush” and “stance” crowd…. So I saved my money and found some cheap and used rotas on ebay…. The only problem? They were 5x120 bolt pattern, so I used these ridiculous 30mm adapters… finally some fitment. But at a price.



^^^ The wheels stuck out so much that the fenders had to be rolled. What I DIDN’T know was the side I had the accident on was bondo’d like crazy… rolling and pulling the fender cracked all of the bondo which caused my main issues today (more on this later).

Also at this point (if you can see in that picture) I took of my SE spoiler and bondo’d the spoiler holes and rattle canned my trunk.



^^^ you can sorta see the huge adapters on my hub in this pic. And my haircut. (got rid of my Justin Beiber haircut) shaved my head like a man.



^^^ then this. I bought an S13 with my brother. 500 bucks, but it ran. Was planning on turning it into a race/drift car because I finally had some sense not to continue to ruin my car.



^^^ The car was basically a a giant pile of rust. The neighbors complained and called the cops because it was “ruining the value of their homes” (we live in a semi-private, rich, jerk, a**hole community). So a month after it was purchased, it was sent to the “graveyard”. Here’s the last picture I took of it as it was hauled away.

My brother spent nearly 800 bucks on a bodykit that was only on the car for a day. I sold it over the classifieds awhile ago. The lucky guy bought it from me for only like 200 bucks.





^^^ Rotas are SH*T. I will never buy rota wheels EVER again. While I owned them, they cracked 3 TIMES! Here’s a photo of me at my senior prom with different wheels because my rotas were cracked and they cost me 150 bucks to get fixed. I fixed them 3 times, I could have bought a new set of XXR wheels for the money I spent fixing these stupid wheels.



^^^ heres when my wheels cracked in the front lol



I decided to also tint my taillights. I took this picture 2 HOURS before going to my highschool graduation! Niceeeee

Sometime during that summer between highschool and college I got a really good job finally. I was actually un-employed my senior and junior year. So FINALLY I started buying real parts.




^^^ I bought this ebay Dual exhaust, With a test pipe and headers. NO RESONATION. It was LOUDDDD. Got MANY tickets.

Here’s some videos:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv_cYGBPkSw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPqLmIJERy0[/youtube]


And some more pics:





I was pretty satisfied with my car at this point. I had also done random upgrades too like suspension bushings here and there, lowering springs etc. But I wanted some power. I wanted to move under the hood and get the horses kicking…

SO what did I do? I found a reason for that random boost gauge…Stay tuned … (or don’t haha)

[PapaSmurf2k3]

I always try to convince people that money spent on small power upgrades and other random little bits is trivial compared to the adoption of boost

[pepesilvia]

I always try to convince people that money spent on small power upgrades and other random little bits is trivial compared to the adoption of boost

I couldn’t agree with you more!

This part of my build spanned about a years time. Finding parts and figuring out how to “boost” a car. I finally had some money at this point, but my older brother threw down some serious money to see this turbo up and running. So thank you to my brother Justin for making this thing happen!

The best part about putting this turbo in my car was it gave me an excuse to find my way around the motor. Now I know the KA and S-chassis engine bay like the back of my hand. This was the biggest learning experience of my life.











^^^ I drove around like this for awhile, without the intercooler hooked up. It was winter time so The air outside was cold and I never saw any overheating issues.





^^^ then I finally got the front-mount set-up and it ran even better. (you can see my horrible rattle can job fading)

I ran a T25 turbo with 7psi of boost, walbro 255 and a vortech FMU… 10:1 I think.

It was a cheap set-up, but it worked and was definitely fun. I had a good time, but I still knew very little about boosting and I always ran into problems (like oils leaking, and the manifold getting so hot it would smoke) so I kept taking the turbo out every now and again.

Eventually around this time too I decided to mess with the emissions. I blocked the EGR and whatnot. Here’s a video of how it ran:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI7y7jj3LRM[/youtube]

WAHHHHHHHHHH pssssst…. Loved that.

It was cool for awhile, but I didn’t trust my own work for some reason, and my 240 was my daily driver. I didn’t want to ruin my engine or anything else because I was un-knowledgeable.

So eventually I took it out the whole kit and put it on craigslist. Traded everything for these:



I realize now that I got the sh*t end of that trade. Cheap coils for an entire COMPLETE turbo kit…. I even included the oil pan with the welded bung.

But whatever. Also around this time I re-painted my wheels white after they cracked for the third and final time.

I think it was around this time that I finally joined Nicoclub!:



I’m gonna end this post right there. My next post will start the next “era” of my car, which is when I started to clean my car up and appreciate it for what it was.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

So the downward spiral finally ends!

Looks like your wastegate wasn't sealing entirely, or you had an exhaust leak (pre-turbine) on your turbo. You never really got to full boost and held it, it just sort of creeped up and up til you finally got to 7psi.

[pepesilvia]

So the downward spiral finally ends!

Looks like your wastegate wasn't sealing entirely, or you had an exhaust leak (pre-turbine) on your turbo. You never really got to full boost and held it, it just sort of creeped up and up til you finally got to 7psi.

Thats entirely possible. I clearly had no idea what I was doing, and thats just proof. Another bad thing I didnt do when it was turbo'd was change the timing for like the first 2 months. Lucky I didn;t knock and destroy my motor.

I havn't updated this in a little while because school caught up with me really quick and I hate typing... So i'm just going to post some pictures and do a little typing...

Heres some pictures in Chronological order-ish:









Then I made a cold air intake with a leftover pipe from my old intercooler (miata battery from the turbo-era):





Drove like this for a while longer... then one day someone graffiti'd my car with shaving cream and said "this car sucks" and other inappropriate things. I was standing next to my car after I cleaned it off and finally realized my car was riced out... so i did this:



^^^ yup. I took off all of my "drift" stickers. I know this seems insignificant, but to me it felt like a big bold step forward...

anyway.... more pics... and more parts:



^^^ damaged Navan (how do you pronounce navan?) side skirts



^^^ led tailights



^^^Clear corners, covers, and side markers.... I HOMEMADE those headlight covers from plexiglass with my hands and a heat gun LMAO.



Then I got into a small fender bender (you can see the dent), broke my homemade covers and turn signal so i bought clear turn signals (jdm [too small]) and legit covers.

Then I started buying A LOT of interior parts. I broke most of them in high school for some stupid reason :





Black Headliner (looks grey with flash):





^^^ viper security system from broadfield (thank you, sir!)



^^^^ modified my hood hinges and bought a new OEM air intake and airbox and misc. OEM engine parts that i removed/lost



^^^removed my rusty battery tray and relocated my battery to the trunk



^^^ brand new Z32 brake kit from Silvermine Motors (thanks!)



^^^ oem mirrors and mirror switch... everything had to be rewired. PITA



^^^ those legit Navan side skirts broke in half so I sold em and bought forceworks replicas. Good fit.



^^^ NRG short hub and quick release (FOR SECURITY!) and to carry around my steering wheel to brag at school hahah



^^^ Oem brand new silvia k's bumper



^^^ you can see my new exhaust here too. Got too many tickets so went back to OEM-ish



^^^ circuit sports poly exhaust hangers. very tight!



^^^ new wheels! Konig SSM 18x9 fronts, 18x10 rears. Plastidip'd because I wante to protect them. The gunmetal plastidip wasn't as flattering as I hoped for

and shiny lugs and wheel locks:





^^^ also started buying 5-speedparts like slave/master cylinder, lines, pedal and this shift boot etc.





^^^AND FINALLY... Silvia rear valences and a paint matched trunk non-spoiler. This is how it looks today^^^
also rear overfenders that were never installed (i have plans i think)
Yes i realize the new parts need paint but I never got around to it because of what happened next...

And heres how i'll end this post sad teaser:

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Looks like some serious cracking!

[jbracy7]

Nice to see your progression,from boy to man, from rice to nice. Keep up the good work

[pepesilvia]

Looks like some serious cracking!

Nice to see your progression,from boy to man, from rice to nice. Keep up the good work

Thank you, sir!

So basically, the top of the fender has been cracked since I bought my rotas a few years ago. When I bought my rotas the wheels where sticking out and ALWAYS rubbing. I found a guy with an eastwood fender roller through a friend and paid him 40 bucks to roll and pull the rear fenders... He wasnt exactly gentle... It was dead-middle of winter and I pulled my car into his freezing garage and watched him basically beat the s**t out of my fenders with the roller. The side I had my accident years ago was patched with bondo, when he rolled and pulled it, it all cracked apart and chipped away. Like an Idiot, i left the bare metal exposed for months before I attempted to paint and re-bondo it. It eventually cracked as you see before and I knew it was rusted.... but I still never did anything. I waited and waited... finally all around my rear quarter panel began to bubble and crack....

... now I had a serious problem. Just before winter started this year I decided to do something drastic :



^^^ I wire wheel'd all the paint back and found that basically my whole quarter panel was covered in rust. This brought some serious emotions Not gonna lie, I actually started crying in front of my parents. This was a car that basically me and my dad bought and I had neglected it. I felt like i ruined it, and it was hopeless. Here's what was to blame (in case you didnt know) :



^^^ we have a serious salt problem here in jersey...

So the next few months I tried finding junkyard S14's to cut the quarter panel off, and a shop that would weld the new one on... But it was going to cost me anywhere from 4-10K which is ridiculous. I coulda bought another S14 for that much... So I didnt do anything... I patched up the holes and bare metal with fiberglass and primered the fender (no pics) and let my car sit. The day that I wire wheeled my fender, I got the bondo dust all over my parents garage (all over their expensive golf clubs, kitchen supplies etc.) and they got pretty mad. So mad in-fact that they banned me from ever working on my car again in their garage. I basically gave up on my car at this time, my parents canceled the insurance on my car and told me I had to sell it... In NJ the law says a car cant sit without plates unless its in someones personal driveway. My car sat down the street from my parents house in an overflow lot without the plates before a cop threatened to tow it. So now I had to get rid of my car.... or find a place to put it. So my girlfriends mom let me park it in their driveway for a couple months while I thought about what to do with my car..

I loved my car and I wasnt ready to get rid of it. So I canceled my gym membership, my netflix, and everything else that I pay for a month and found a place to store it for 70 bucks a month. (I still had to pay for insurance to borrow one of my parents cars) It was stored behind a locked gate in a private lot where it couldnt get towed or hopefully no-one could break into it. I bought a car cover, and drove it there with no plates on it in the middle of the night.



I had lost all faith in my car. I didnt want it anymore. I HATE RUST! While my car sat, I FINALLY surrendered and decided to sell it. I started planning how to sell it, and for how much. So i began lurking on nicoclub of course... Then I came across a thread about rust. The person was wondering if they should buy some S13 that was basically a pile of rust. I even reply'd to the thread saying it wasnt worth the work, just like every other person on the thread said. But Someone's post on this particular thread caught my eye..

here's what papasmurf2k3 had to say about the rust :

What a bunch of pansies in this thread. Go buy a welder and make it a personal mission to fix that s***. I would have loved to have a 240 that damn clean!!

WOW...

Dude was right. I too was being a giant pansy. I bought this car not just for myself, but for my dad. And I know he wouldnt give up on it just because it caught a little rust. Its a car. Its meant to be driven. Not to sit in a storage lot to gain dust....

So I basically did a 180 at this point. And this is where my real build begins. Hopefully sometime this month I will be getting insurance back on my car and bringing it back home. I also plan to somehow get rid of any rust that has accumulated and start building my car into a real driveable car... Who knows? Maybe I'll have this car until I have kids, and I can pass it down to them. The same way my dad basically passed this car down to me.

So my plans:

Fix all minor problems

clean the car (rust and paint)

FULL suspension ugrade

5-speed swap

and i'm still deciding:

SR20, KA-t, or maybe even KA-R. I'm looking for reliable power... Nothing too crazy... But who knows what will happen, I cant see the future, and I have been known to be an impulse buyer, So maybe i'll do something out of the ordinary... I still have a lot of learning to do...

I guess we'll see. The next couple months will be slow, but the summer should bring many updates. Stay tuned (or dont)

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Nice.
You don't need to buy a new rear 1/4 panel from another S14, just cut out what you don't want on your current car, and get some regular ~18 ga. sheet metal (or maybe even 16 ga.), and patch it up.

[Jake The Snake]

That really sucks about your fender.

Go SR!