Rb20det Swapped s13 build with PICTURES!

[lovehateRBrelations]

hey yall Im Brent from DFW texas. Im relativly new here, so, here is a little background. Like most here I love cars and fast things. Right now i have a 95 NSX thats bone stock.


I also have a 98 lexus es300 as my dd and shes got 197k mi on her, and still running strong. no need for pic its just a white sedan lol.
My most recent purchase was a 1990 240sx coup that came with a r32 rb20det and a silvia front end on it. My original plan was to buy a new Subaru STI and go from there, but things fell through after I was laid off. No new car for me. But I buddy of mine who got me interested in 240s introduced me to his mechanic who just happend to have this car I bought for sale. Long story short I got the car for next to nothing, but that catch was that she was in pretty sore shape. The previous owner essentially abandoned this project not even half way through and did a pretty half a** job on everything else. Had I not taken this 240sx coup off his hands, it was doomed to be parted out and scrapped. This is what I drove home that day



good thing is there is no rust, no body distortions, and it has the fabled intact mint dash thats super clean and free of cracks. The engines integrity was also excellent, just covered in ebay bolt ons dubiously installed. Right away I went to work, and being a long time hobby mechanic with lots of welding and fab experience I was able to save a lot of money.





this is how she sits now: Some rims (xxr, yes i know, spare me im unemployed atm and cant justify the cost of some works...) Z32 brake swap, fmic, blitz bov, hks shroom filter, greddy emanage ultimate w/map (its meh, got it cheap and kinda does an ok job, unemployment doesnt cover AEM standalone purchases). LS1 coil swap and little increase in boost. I will post more pics later. Car has an appt tomarrow to have the battery relocated, a side mount intake I fabbed up and to install my z33 seats using my self modded seat brackets. What do you think? Ill post pic when I get my car back with some engine shots. Here is one from when I first got it

i know its not actually a red top, I got bored with my new spray gun and all i had was red and yellow :/

this is my z32 brake set up. I use hawk pads and there a good bargin, very please with them.

[OutToWinPAHC]

I almost had a NSX, glad it was almost. Well stay posting I'm interested to see where it goes.

[lovehateRBrelations]

Ok so today today these bad boys showed up

LS1 coils I bought from a friend of my uncle whos vette was totaled in a rear in collision. The corvette only had like 22k on it and the coils have been tested, his loss my gain.
Relocating my battery, and replacing my fan controller today as its non functional atm the moment and anyone that has an rb knows: rb+no fans=fail. I will try and get some more pics up today if I have time....

Here is another random shot I have of my interior, only thing that been changed is now I got a black aluminum nismo shift knob

[OutToWinPAHC]

LS coils.... use the bigger version in my R33, what ECU will you use?

[lovehateRBrelations]

I picked up a greddy e-manage ultimate with greddy map sensor from a buddy of my mine for $250 bucks. I really didnt want to go the piggy back rout, but for the moment I need to not be spending thousands of dollars on a proper stand alone. Eventually I will have an AEM or haltech set up when funds are back on baller status. My plan is to upgrade the turbo and redo my ems situation at the same time. I actually was going to buy the newer ls coils but when my uncle called me about the ls1 coils he could get and the price on them I couldnt say no.

BTW on your skyline how have you mounted the coils? Im still deciding what the best option for that is. I checkd some of the other posts on this, but in most of the pictures you cant really see exactly how they are mounted. I like the idea of having them on/near the spark plug cover.

[OutToWinPAHC]

LQ truck coils

[lovehateRBrelations]

very clean set up. doesnt draw attention to the coils, they look like they belong there. This gives me a pretty good idea. Ive also seen a set up where the coils were mounted vertically parallel to one another mounted discharchge side up. Looked like it was relatively easy to fab up. then once I get mine put in i need to hook up to the emanage ultimate and adjust the dwell I assume. I know that the ls1 coils are longer than the rb coils. Should it be at, say, 4ms or longer than that?

[OutToWinPAHC]

I think about 5-6 ms dwell longer for the LQ

[mechanicalmoron]

Congrats on saving a neat car from a tool.

[lovehateRBrelations]

Congrats on saving a neat car from a tool.

thanks. Its like rescued a puppy dog from the pound that was about to be put down. I have always been in love with all the 240sx models. I think that they are the classic early to mid 90s sports car. They are dead sexy and out of the showroom performance was fantastic considering their reasonable price. It just so hard to believe how crappy the work the previous owner did on it. Call me a perfectionist but the workmanship, from the wiring to just about everything, was out right horrific. Ive basically had to re-do the swap from scratch, then replace all the bolt on engine bit and connections, nothing short of a full engine rebuild basically. Speaking of rebuilding engines Ill most likely end up doing that anyways.


nothing to do with MY car, but was down at my mechanics shop and he had this sitting there. Its a Infinity G35 with a 2jz swap. Fully built motor with T04Z, direct port nitrous, bored and stroked to i believe it was 3.2L. Interior and exterior 100% oem. Only after market visual upgrade was the wheel which are HRE. This is a beastly sleeper. Cool s***.

Did a bunch of s*** to the car today. Will take pics and post tomarrow when its light out

[lovehateRBrelations]

Ok so today was a long a** day, but much was accomplished. I started out this morning planning to simply install my Innovate wide band and relocated the battery. But when I went to start her up this morning plans changed very rapidly. To begin with, it was really struggling to start up. . . .not good. Once I got it started, I discovered that I was misfiring in and running on only 5 cylinders. So basically I went into recon mode and started the usual diagnostics to find why my rb was sick. Long story short, the lovely Chinese walboro knock off that was thrown on had taken a s*** (when i touched the fuel line it was pulsating). Replaced with real walboro 255lph. Next I discovered that cylinder three was misfiring due to a fried coil. Made some phone calls and snagged a extra coil off a buddy. To make things extra complex, the atrocious wiring was also all f*** up. I spent the day fixing all this right. The last thing that really pissed me off is the that the douche that previously owned this car didnt even have the ecu harness plugged into the ecu right this was certainly causing problems and was remedied as well. Ended my day with a much needed stress relief trip to the shooting range to blast off some rounds in the Glock. Now for pictures. ENJOY

innovate wide band on-line


battery relocated


nice clean interior


stress relief. . .TEXAS style

[lovehateRBrelations]

Ok so small update. Ive ordered my intake manifold, TB, and fuel rail. I got a brand new wiring harness thats set up for my LS1 coil swap. parts should be arriving shortly. Couple of quick questions. Ive seen how OutToWinPHAC has mounted his LS coils, does ne one else thats done this have pics or discriptions of their set up? I pretty much know how to wire the damn thing up, but I still havent made a final decision on how exactally I want to mount them. I like the idea of mounting them to the fire wall. Any one got any suggestions?

[Drakelee]

I am eliminating the brake booster with some chase bays stuff to make room on the fire wall for a mounting bracket. where did you order your intake mani?

[s13point5]

where did you get the carbon fiber console bezel?

[lovehateRBrelations]

I have a local tuning shop in dallas that does fabrication and thats where I am getting the intake stuff from. Its basically a JUN style with the velocity stacks and all that jazz. I believe he has a guy that he gets the runners and body from and they are made of cast aluminium. He then welds the whole deal together and hones out imperfections and gets the fitment right. If im not mistaken it will be very similar to the "pnt-performance" or "nozzs hi-performance" thai made ones off e-bay. I assume due to my guys fabrication experience the quality of mine will be better, but I have friends that run the pnt mani and say its real good. Excellent welds and fitment from what i have seen. That being said if you dont mind the extra $$ and wait time the company RIPS makes the best rb20 mani from what I hear.

[lovehateRBrelations]

where did you get the carbon fiber console bezel?

It not actually carbon fiber. Its a relativly inexpensive 3m material call di-noc that can be procured online in multiple colors. I basically popped out the whole center bit and wrapped it myself. Pretty easy upgrade that was cheap and cleaned up the fading plastic.

[CJH]

I love 240's, but why would you modify that if you have an NSX? You have a daily and now two project cars? I would fix the S13 and sell it for cash to mod the NSX.

[lovehateRBrelations]

I love 240's, but why would you modify that if you have an NSX? You have a daily and now two project cars? I would fix the S13 and sell it for cash to mod the NSX.

The NSX isnt so much a project car. I have done some basic bolt ons to the NSX (exhaust, intake, rims, etc) but that car isnt really a project. I have no current plans to go balls out on that car. I guess TBH I like the NSX the way it is. 240sx on the other hand I have loved since I was younger and they were prolific on the streets in the 90s. Always wanted one to build from the ground up. So as fate would have it I was able to snatch the s13 I currently have and intented to do just that.

It really isnt a matter of having the money to do it. It gots that covered, despite being unemployed atm my field of work allows me to independently take up projects so $$ isnt never an issue for me. If i really wanted to I could just take both cars to a shop drop them a fat load of cash and tell them to build me a bad@$$ ride, but that aint what its about for me. Im a hands on guy, self taught, and I feel that I can do it better, and exactally the way I want it if I do it myself.

Only think that I do run into, is that my house is a 3 car garage, and with the s13 now in my stable, the GF has no room for her car in my garage. She hates me for making her park in the driveway. . . . .

[lovehateRBrelations]

Ok so was out of town for a little while doing some job interviews. But good news is my manifold, throttle body, and fuel rail are all done and now just need to be put on.
Pics for your viewing pleasure


very nice welds on it


so yeah, i wont have much time the rest of this month to get all this put on, looking for a job and whatnot lol, but when its getting installing all throw up some pics