PNW 'Stock +' (for now) s13 Vert Build Thread

[conniethevert]

Hello to the few people who still use this forum. This is my first build thread, just wanted to document and share my progress with my s13 vert I picked up in 2020. Originally I had an EF sedan with a B20V that I was going to boost and have that as my project, but this thing popped up and I had to snag it instead. Bone stock '92 auto with 156k miles. And thus began ownership of my third s13. Her name is Connie (get it?).

Here she is the day I got her.



First (mandatory) thing up was a 5 spd swap. Got that done with the help of a couple buddies over a couple evenings. Also added a sound system using Morel Maximo 6.5s front and rear and a 12'' sub. Sounds stellar for $100/pair coax speakers. Then the first actual mod I did was the tail lights for some reason lol. Bought some 50/50s and sent them in to StatusLEDs for a full LED conversion. They look TITS. I was very excited about them.



Really didn't do much for about 2 years, as I moved to a place with no garage and an uncovered gravel driveway. So she sat there for the time being. Then bought my first house with my gal in Spring 2023. Big selling point was an oversized two car garage. Once we moved there is when I was reinvigorated and much more motivated to work on it.



Project feat. daily - '10 Honda Accord Coupe 6-6



Ripped the carpet out and dyed it black with rit dye using the good ole spray bottle w/water and scrubbing into the carpet method. It was gray and gross and turned out pretty dang good. Had to do it twice as I found out that leaving it to dry in the sun made it turn green



Picked up an r33 GTR driver and s15 passenger seat from a buddy. Before and after cleaning the s15 seat.



Scored an OEM kouki bumper for cheap in great shape.



Mock up. Nothing like OEM fitment. Only one small dent on the front to the right of the emblem and the scratches on the lower passenger lip area you can see. Otherwise in solid shape.




Test fitting the Sa3Rs. 17x8+35 w/1'' spacer in pic. I ended up getting all of these refinished. Took the shop a couple months to do them as they had a hell of a time finding a way to get a tool down behind the spokes to polish the lip. They cut me a deal in the end since it took so long. They came out pristine though.



Here they are in all their glory. New stickers and errthang. I ended up selling these because I picked up a set of 4 lug Work Meisters




Tucking the fender harnesses to prepare for coilovers.



Picked up a set of EnglishTune fender braces to replace the thin crappy OEM ones.



One of the headlight bezels was cracked so picked up a new OE one.



Amayama haul of OEM sockets, bulbs, emblem for the bumper, and Circuit Sports running lights (OEM ones are spendy) from DorkiDori's website. I never knew how giddy I could get just from some boring OEM Japanese parts. Shout out to CamryOnBronze for providing part numbers for everything he buys. His blog is fantastic. Makes shopping so much easier!



New flasher module to fix the hyper blink due to the LED tail lights. Super easy and cheap. Got it from Diode Dynamics. I actually made a short youtube vid on how to install this for the curious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reVGR-jmXLw



Wired up the convertible top/reverse sensor. This is specific for convertibles w/5spd swap. The top will not work otherwise. It's these 3 wires. Two of them tie together (I think green and blue but can't recall for certain) and the other one stays separate. I used some extra wire I had laying around and ran these to the reverse sensor on the trans and boy was I happy to get that working again.

[conniethevert]

Time to paint the bumper! Went to a local auto paint shop called Wesco, gave them my car's paint code (AG2 Aztec Red) and they got me right. Since this was my first time really painting anything, I decided with an entry level option, so I got aerosol cans that contained the base and clear mixed together. I didn't want to splurge on expensive stuff when I had no idea how I would do. It was my first time learning how much time prepping and sanding takes, good LORD. I think it came out decent for my first go. A far, far cry from perfect, but she doesn't look too bad. As you can see the color isn't exactly the same, but it's close enough for me. It ain't a show car, folks.







Got the interior back together.



Finally took her out to her first car meet! Went with a couple buddies to this place nearby that had delicious BBQ and beers




A set of 4 lug Meisters popped up LOCALLY on marketplace, and I had to get em. They are 18x9+30 R, 18x8+22 F. Not crazy specs but decent enough for stock body.



Got some coilovers for my bday. I will have more to say about these soon... don't judge me... for now though, out with the old and in with the new.



Ran into an unforeseen convertible-specific problem when mounting the rear coils: due to the extra bracing and structure the convertible has in the rear, the coilover was unable to seat properly, as the damper knob hit the bracing. So I wasn't able to get the top hat studs all the way in. I took my dremel and very sh!tilly cut out a section for the knob to fit, allowing the coilovers to get all the way in. The angles are tricky to get in there and cut nicely, okay.




Bought the GKTech rear arm package (caster, toe, camber) and threw those in as well.



I had the camber arm installed backwards so it was hitting the frame. Switched it around and gained enough clearance.



Taking in the view and resting my back after getting everything done...



BAM!!!!! Holy cow, was I geeked up over this. There's just nothing that hits like new wheels and coilovers





Rear fitment with a 265/35.



Gettin' fuel with the lady. Had a 225/35 on the front here. Hated it. Looks stupid. Changed that out real quick.

[conniethevert]

Picked up a z32 VLSD and bought some J30 axles from rockauto. Did some donuts in a nearby church parking lot for testing. She locks up real good




Got my new top installed! Bought it from convertibletopguys. I bought this thing shortly after I bought the car then it sat around for a few years until it was time. I brought it to a local top upholstery shop for the install. I considered doing it myself, but after looking into it I quickly decided NOPE I'm having a professional do this. I was certain that it would kill me. After bringing the top in to the shop, turns out convertible top guys accidentally sent me a top for a Celica. It ended up being a great experience actually; I was worried I would be s*** outta luck since it had been so long since I bought it. I sent them some pics the top installer had sent me showing that it was the incorrect top, and they were gracious enough to send me out a new top free of charge! I sent them back the old one and they even provided me a shipping label. HUGE relief. That back window looks sooo much better. My old one was spiderwebbed to s*** and had duct tape over some cracks.




Sneak peak of some future upgrades... rebuilt Garrett GT2871R and ISR V3 bottom mount manifold.



Z32 front brake upgrade. Snagged these from O'Reillys for a good price. They only had 1 left in stock iirc. Sanded, prepped, painted, cleared. Decided to go classy and went with white. I used Duplicolor high temp spray paint and SprayMax 2k clear coat. I had to do one over because I used Duplicolor 1k clear coat, and it yellowed the white. Looked kinda like peepee. If you ever paint white, you gotta use high quality 2k clear coat. Remember that. Got OEM style stickers from ebay. They came with four sizes and I picked the closest to OEM sizing.



Aaaand bought myself a Christmas present for Black Friday. Feal 441 coilovers w/swift springs. These ride so much better. Now about the maxpprods- to be quite honest, they sucked. I'm sure most people know this. I did a lot of research and looking at videos and reviews before asking for them. At the time, I really just wanted to get my car lowered. And they did the job. The first drive I took with them was very disappointing. Even with the dampers set to almost full soft, they rode bouncy and crappy. To the people on the internet who say they are good for the price- they aren't. If you're trying to get low for as cheap as possible, then yeah, they do the job. I think the folks who said they were decent have never experienced a halfway decent coilover. Yes, the Feals are still "off-the-shelf" coilovers, but they are truly in a different league. Especially with the swift springs, they ride awesome. I'm happy with them. I went with 8k/6k spring rates. Here's some pics of those installed with the new front brake setup.





With winter coming, it was time to get down to bidness. I had big plans (for me) this winter ('24-'25), but before beginning a much more in depth project, I had to build myself a proper work bench. Our old crappy green one was wobbly as a mfer and I just couldn't be working with that. So I built myself a nice 14' work bench. I ended up sanding everything, staining it a nice warm tint, and clear coated it (these pics are before stain).

[conniethevert]

And now begins the winter time projies. First order of business was a clean garage.



I had a few bigger things I wanted to take care of.

1) Valve stem seals. The car would blow out blue smoke from the exhaust when starting from a stop. Telltale sign that the valve stem seals were bad.
2) Timing chain kit. As far as I knew, the motor was unopened and had never had that done. Figured I'd do that while I'm in there. The motor was coming out anyway.
3) Clutch kit. Again, stock clutch. Wanted to replace that with something that would hold more power for future KA-T application.

Those were the main 3 things I wanted to do. I also wanted to do a few other things to prep for boost. The plan is to go KA-T in the future, so I wanted to do as much prep as I could while the motor was out. I ended up doing this as well as replacing nearly every gasket, cleaning up the intake manifold, cleaning and painting pretty much everything except the bay itself, and more.

Getting underway!



Had some trouble getting the oil pan to clear the radiator support, so had to get crafty. I used a tie down and ran it around the EGR tube around the back of the motor and through the windows to get some tension to pull backwards while I lifted the motor up and out. Worked like a charm.





Pulled the cams and cam caps out. Carefully laid everything out in order. Noticed the forward most cap had a chunk missing from the corner for some reason. Also found out that one of the bolts for that cap was much harder to remove than all the others. Come to find out someone WAS in there before, and they used a different bolt. It looked almost identical but was hard to thread in. The thread pitch was the same, but I think the shoulder width of the bolt was slightly larger. I wonder if it was from an SR or something. I was able to source an OEM one from conceptzperformance, though they had it listed as a Z32 bolt. The part number was the same however. Glad to find out it was correct. Began replacing the old seals with new Supertech ones.




Bought the JWT valve stem remover tool to make the job easier. I used the ole rope method to keep the cylinders held open. Didn't have an air compressor and this method felt more safe anyway.



Spring, retainer, and keepers. Magnet makes life 1000x easier. Make sure to have one for this job.



Caked uppp. This was when I truly realized how disgusting and leaky this motor was.



Tackling the timing chain. Managed to find an OSK kit (recommended by numerous folks online) on ebay for a great price. N124X is the correct part number for this. There is at least one other similar one but meant for the Frontier or Altima KA instead iirc. Got myself a Chilton's manual which laid out the steps perfectly. Also utilized the FSM for this and other jobs.



Had a buddy weld the tensioner caps in place. Saw folks recommending this as sometimes they can pop off during performance driving and wreak havoc. Better safe than sorry. Also noticed the driver side chain guide had broken off. I think I left it off when reinstalling, as that was also a recommendation from some folks, though can't remember for sure now.



Decided to paint things. I used Duplicolor high temp engine enamel 'aluminum' color for everything. Ended up doing pretty much every bracket and such that I could.





Before and after of the fuel rail. Also sent out my injectors to RC Engineering to get serviced. Glad I did cuz one was completely blocked (hence the misfire I had been experiencing!) and another was partially blocked. Went with black for the rail to have a bit of contrast with the silver, but did the injector caps silver. New hoses and clamps too. Those hoses are a b**** to remove.



EGR removal. Had a hell of a time getting the bolt out of the exhaust. Ended up rounding off the bolt and had to get an extractor bolt that has reverse cut interior. Used my impact gun for this and realized I should have tried that from the get go. Didn't think of it for some reason so I was trying forever with a breaker bar with no success



New bolt (from Nissan!) to plug the hole.

[conniethevert]

New IACV hose. Saw someone post in a facebook group about this. I think it's for an RB? But the hose fits perfectly.



Injectors. Old parts splayed out. RC Engineering put all new o rings on and everything. Very impressed.



New coolant bypass hose, new oil pump gear, cover, and pump spring n stuff from Amayama.





Decided to paint the block. I spent 80 years scrubbing it with Easy Off oven cleaner, wire brushes, and wire wheeling.



High temp primer.



And paint.



Also did the oil pan. Had a good friend weld a -10 AN bung on for future turbo oil return. Will cap it for the time being. Also did new oil pan gasket, front and rear main seals, oil pickup tube o-ring. Some pics after paint.




New OEM waterpump, thermostat, gaskets. Painted crank and fan clutch pulley black. Cleaned up the alternator.



New exhaust gaskets and studs (one broke off, had to extract).




TWO of the valve cover bolt holes were stripped. Ordered a helicoil kit to re-thread. Bought one on Amazon first that SUCKED, returned it, and bought name brand that worked perfectly.



Not putting the ugly exhaust heat shield back on so decided to heat wrap the stock headers.

[conniethevert]

Painted the valve cover white. Learned from the brake calipers to use the 2k clear coat. After base coat, I carefully took the DA orbital and sanded down the lettering to bare metal, then cleared over. Turned out pretty frickin' awesome.



Starting to come together. More accessory brackets on. Throughout this project I catalogued every nut and bolt and entered thread pitch, length in mm, type of bolt/nut, etc. into a spreadsheet. I made a few orders to Belmetric to get all new yellow zinc coated hardware. Beginning to get excited seeing it come together and look so dang good.



Intake manifold on. New gaskets everywhere. I deleted a bunch of crap from the manifold, basically everything except IACV. I bought a completely shaved, plugged, and welded one online, then realized the IACV was also shaved. So I combined my stock lower plenum and this new upper plenum so I could retain IACV.



Charcoal cannister delete. Removed the hardline running underneath to the rear of the car. Check valve removed near gas tank, S14 gas cap + in line filter for ventilation.



New trans gasket and front seal.



Removing unused trans plugs and plugging with 1/4'' hex plugs.




Pressure washing trans and bay.



Threw in a new GKTech clutch fork pivot ball. Comparison over stock. More MEAT.





Always cleaning.



On to the clutch. Decided on the tried and true 'White Bunny' setup from Competition Clutch. Retains OEM pedal feel while providing more grab. Holds 300 ft/lbs torque and flywheel is three lbs lighter at 18 lbs.



Vs. OEM





Had to do it twice because I dropped a f*cking razor blade between the flywheel and dust shield and could not get it out. This is where it landed



Threw on new OEM slave cylinder.



New clutch fork retaining clip. Old vs new comparison.



All buttoned up. New OEM throwout bearing to boot.

[conniethevert]

Decided to delete the stock PCV system and go with a VTA catch can. Got a block off plate with -10 AN fitting welded on from a dude selling 'em on fb. Great quality. Going this route again thinking about future boost setup. I did a lotta reading and though the catch can debate is a hot one, it seems to me that many people run a VTA catch can with boost and that solution works well. Also is the simplest. I wanted something that looked good so I splurged a bit and went with a Limitless Auto Fab unit. And it tucks perfectly under the wiper motor. One of the main reasons I picked this one is that it doesn't use one of the top hat bolts as a mounting point. I think that looks cheesy.




Bought a swirl pot! Excited about this. Will never have to worry about bleeding the cooling system ever again. Got this from GKTech as well, well built and looks sharp.



New oil filter adapter o-ring. Not fun to get out.



Finally...the time is here! Back in she goes!



Omg it fits. Had my wonderful gf help me drop it in. Took us a while to get the motor mounts lined up but we got 'er



I went back and forth, but in the end decided to tuck the harness under the intake manifold instead of on top. I think it looks better and gives it a slightly more tucked look. And that turned into me tesa taping pretty much the entire harness. Why not right? I think it looks better, and just gives it that much more durability. Before and after.




Got a new heater core hose from NAPA. This one is not sold anymore from Nissan. I went there with the stock one and they rummaged in the back and found one that looked close. It's not exact but close enough and fits great. The sticker shows the part number. 4th pic here shows the other coolant hose that runs to the thermostat. I deleted the brackets and crap under the intake mani and just ran a straight hose through instead. Cleaner and easier.




New OEM trans shifter bushing and coolant temp sender & sensor.





Only the best



Upgraded the rad hoses to G-Plus silicone hoses. Cheap and reliable. Just had to cut a few inches off the end to get proper length. And painted the rubber shifter boot trim ring.



Had to get lines and fittings for the catch can. Went with AutoPlumb/Aeroflow. Seem to be best prices for good quality.

[conniethevert]

Did lots of mocking to see how I most liked how to run the hose. After lots of photo comparisons online, I decided to run a 90* from the breather port on the valve cover right along side it above the fuel rail, and used a 60* off the PCV port. After installing I think a 45* might have fit a tad better, but the 60 still works fine. It just clears the alternator and runs below the intake manifold runners and up to the catch can. Both catch can fittings are 30* instead of 45s to give a little more clearance between the catch can and the fittings.






Painted the radiator brackets, put the drive belts and air intake back on. Also got new rubber stoppers for the rad brackets.




Forgot to mention- before plumbing cooling system in, I threw the intake on and attempted to start it. I was really nervous as this was also my first time doing a timing chain kit and timing a motor by myself. I'd always had help from my buddies in the past. By the grace of the gods, she started RIGHT UP BABY. Oh, and of course I had to do the best mod ever: grinding down the hood hinges for maximum hood opening. Oh yeah. Took her for a test drive around the block and took some pics in the sunny sun





Got myself a 40th anniversary NISMO oil cap. Chef's kiss.




Drove her around a bit, had another misfire. I downloaded Nissan DataScan and did some messing around. Found out that cylinder 4 was missing. Culprit was another dead injector. Got a new one from Advance Auto Parts which was all the way across town, but they had the best price by far. Worth it. Then, as I was pulling into my driveway one night, I hopped out to open the garage and noticed steam billowing out from under the hood. Whaaa? The top rad hose had blown off. Upon closer inspection I found that the upper neck of the radiator had cracked, so I couldn't get the hose to stay clamped. Coolant everywhere. Ugh, crap. Welp, I was gonna upgrade it eventually, but I guess that time came sooner. Ordered me a KOYO rad. Bummed I had to spend the money sooner than expected but actually I was low key excited. I wanted one of these units. I went with the N-Flo dual pass, their top of the line unit for KAs.




Painted the rad shroud with SEM trim black ultra gloss while I was there. Inspo came from the KA24DE-T facebook page. Lots of good stuff there.



And that's where she sits for now. Runs and drives like a dream. Really excited about how she's come along and that everything works. I've got more plans in the works for later this year, including new top cylinders, subframe bushings, SPL tie rods, and of course turbo in the future. I will update when the time comes. Thanks for reading along.

[VStar650CL]

She's f#cking gorgeous, what a nice job. 'Nuff said.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Dude titles the thread "stock", proceeds to post several threads showing mods lol.
I love it.

[VStar650CL]

Dude titles the thread "stock", proceeds to post several threads showing mods lol.
I love it.

Well, it was stock.
So was I, at some point (at least that's what Mom said, although I can't recall it).

[conniethevert]

Dude titles the thread "stock", proceeds to post several threads showing mods lol.
I love it.

Stock +, not just stock. I'm meaning to convey the idea of the typical, lower level upgrades, thus creating the 'stock +' vibe, as opposed to significant/higher level mods that you might see on drift cars.

She's f#cking gorgeous, what a nice job. 'Nuff said.

Thank you man, appreciate it!

[flartius]

Nice work my man, really glad to see you doing a quality build. LOL, you really threw the kitchen sink at her!