Road Race RB26 S13 Build (56k No Way)

[the_garynator]

Figured it’s time to post a build thread. I’m building an S13 coupe with an rb26 mainly for street/road race, some drifting most likely as well. I want it to be well rounded, not just a ton of power that I can’t use.
Short summary of plans:
Full suspension
17” 275s or larger up front and 315s in rear
Carbon fiber Zg fender flares
Silvia front end/Carbon fiber hood
Rb26 (first stage of build going for around 400whp with stock twins, later I will upgrade turbo and valvetrain and go for 600whp)
Kaaz 1.5 way (hopefully selling and going with an s15 helical with q45 axles instead)

Detailed list (not a complete list of things I have or plan on getting, but has most of the stuff that will be happening this summer):
Chassis/interior:
HUD dash w/ working hud
Racing seats (not purchased yet)
Harness bar (not completed yet)
5 point harnesses (not purchased yet)
Seam welded
Fender braces (not completed yet)
Misc chassis bracing (not completed yet)
Silvia front end conversion with triple projector headlights
HIDs (not purchased yet)
Carbon fiber hood (not purchased yet) – will leave unpainted
Carbon fiber fender flares (not purchased yet) – will leave unpainted
Origin Tail Lights – planning on blacking them out a bit
Mostly full interior minus rear seats
Modified power brace
Aluminum Triangulated strut tower bar (not built yet)
Some sort of light weight replacement for bumper brace, most likely an aluminum bar (not built yet)
Misc. weight reduction

Suspension:
Tein HE front coils
Tein HA rear coils(z32)
Z32 up rights aluminum with poly bushings
JUST Modded Dream fab front drift spindles s13
S14 control arms boxed with new moog ball joints
tein inner tie rods with SPL Parts outers
circuit sports T/C rods
Project Silvia RUCAS
adjustable toe rods
adjustable traction rods
5 lug ichiba fronts with long studs, z32 rear
rear s13 subframe with aluminum solid bushings installed

Brakes:
z32 30mm alum. front calipers
ebc 12.25" vr4 front rotors
project MU B-force Pads
Z32 rear calipers with power slot rotors

Engine:
Wiseco Forged Pistons
Eagle Rods with ARP bolts
ACL Race Main bearings
ACL Race Rod bearings
ARP Head Studs
Cometic MLS head gasket
N1 Oil Pump
N1 Water pump
Nismo Thermostat
Raw6 Intake manifold (copy of greddy) (have not purchased yet)
1150cc fuel injectors (have not purchased yet) (sizing for 600whp on e85)
Nismo Fuel Pressure Regulator (have not purchased yet)
Spitfire coil packs (have not purchased yet)
adjustable cam gears (have not purchased yet)
Greddy oil filter relocation block with built in oil cooler thermostat
Twin Z32 300zx N62 Mass airflow sensors
ISIS 3" Straight pipe
ECU: Apexi Power FC with hand commander and boost control kit (currently for sale, thinking of going haltech instead)
Innovative motorsports wideband

Engine will have stock valvetrain and stock twin turbos for this stage of the build.

Output goal is around 400whp

Engine Stage 2 (most likely this winter):
Big single turbo (probably a Garrett GT35R)
twin scroll exhaust manifold of some sort
Divorced but recirculated waste gate pipe (recirculated to end of downpipe)

Power goal - 550-600whp

Engine Stage 3 of the build:

ETA TBD (this coming winter or next summer)

Tomei pon cams type B
Aftermarket timing belt
valve springs and retainers

power goals will be the same 550-600whp except looking for 9,000+rpm rev limit

Drivetrain:
RB25 transmission with short-throw shifter
ACT clutch and lightweight flywheel
McKiney engine and trans mounts
Aluminum driveshaft
Kaaz 2way LSD (for sale, looking for S15 helical w/ q45 axels instead…if I end up staying with the KAAZ I’ll convert it to 1.5way)


Pictures:
For full build pictures, check out my facebook album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... afcb216d14

The donor car. Cylinder 6 ringlands went to hell 15 minutes from the guy’s house due to what I figure was a bad tune and/or bad gas.


Disassembly begins





New N1 water pump (n1 oil pump not pictured)

Apexi Power FC

More disassembly

There’s your problem:

The chassis. Fairly clean 1993 pearl white coupe. Pulled stock KA24 and swapped it into the grey hatchback the rb26 came out of:


Reverse rake!

New exhaust Isis 3” straight pipe:

Picked these up cheap so that I can drive the car before having to spend $2500+/- on tires/wheels/fender flares:

First wave of parts from rawbrokerage.com!:
ARP head studs and ACL main and rod bearings

Nismo thermostat

Wiseco Forged Pistons

Eagle rods with ARP rod bolts

Greddy oil cooler adapter with thermostat

New rear hardlines for the brakes (nothing really wrong with the old ones, but ended up with these anyway)

Motor being assembled after coming back from the machine shop




Wrinkle red powder coating

Oil filter block adaptor from Raw Brokerage:

More progress, just need cam gears now:

Started tearing into the chassis:




First wave of suspension parts arrived:
Z32 Rear brakes (stock front rotor on top of them lol); front rotors from a 3000gt vr4; front and rear z32 calipers

Tien HE/HA coilovers, tension rods, DREAM fab modded front spindles with aluminum 5 lug hubs and extended studs, Tanabe front sway bar

Interior gutted (will be going back in)

Removed the striping from the driver’s side

HICAS (quicker ratio) steering rack from the donor car. It leaked so I’m rebuilding it

Wire wheeled and mostly disassembled

Engine bay stripped and cleaned up

Removed the rear suspension

Getting the wheel wells cleaned up/stripped down

Passenger side

Rust cut out from drivers side


Battery tray removed most rust cleaned up

Cleaning up seams for seam welding

Welding in new metal where the rust was removed

Built a temp subframe adaptor for the rear of the car so I can move it (went way overboard)

Power brace

Drilling out the rear of the strut tower (was beat up…looked like a spring broke or something)


Full brakes with comparison to stock ones

Started seam welding (long story but first round of stich-welding didn’t go well, so I have a very good welder who will be redoing it for me)



Removed the sound deadening


Removed undercoating from passenger side

Disassembled and reassembled the front coilovers and cleaned them up

Replaced the section in the strut tower

Stripping undercoating






Cut out crushed section of frame rail

Cut out transmission tunnel, going to box it in so that it clears the rb25 trans instead of hammering it out

Removed the rest of the interior and cleaned up the rest of the sound deadening residue on the front floorboards



New fuel sending unit (new from Nissan, only used by the previous owner for a bit)

My friend starting to weld…running continuous beads…crazy s***.

More new parts!!!
New rear subframe with aluminum bushings; toe and traction rods; rear aluminum z32 hubs/spindles/ebrake/etc


Whiteline adjustable rear sway bar

Boxed s14 front lower control arms with grease fittings for poly bushings and moog ball joints

tein inner tie rods with SPL outers

Project Silvia RUCAS

Manual brake pedal

[DA 240]

Wow that's a lot of pictures. Nice build

[Carl H]

why modified 'drift spec' front knuckles if this is going to be a road race car?

[the_garynator]

why modified 'drift spec' front knuckles if this is going to be a road race car?

was waiting for someone to say that...it will get drifted occasionally. Car is mainly being built for road race, but will be kind of a jack of all trades. I enjoy pretty much all forms of motorsports, so she'll see a little bit of everything. plus the knuckles have an added bonus of increasing steering ratio which is always a plus

[Coolwhip]

Build looks good

[the_garynator]

Build looks good

Thanks man! It has made things a lot easier having Raw Brokerage around...I remember the days before you guys were around. Hunting for RB parts was a pita lol.

[Beanstalk]

Nice but How the heck did you find almost every part 2nd hand? I bet you saved hella cash. PROPS

[the_garynator]

Thanks man, yeah, I managed to get a lot of it second hand. Took a lot of patience and being ready with cash in hand for when things come up. Also helps that I know most of the local 240 owners in my area as well as being the one who set up a local 240 virtual swap meet group on facebook.

Don't really have any updates as of late except that I purchased a set of new Tomei cam gears since the ones I had were junk. Long block should be finished soon, but I recently leased my own shop so the project is on hold until winter...picked up a side job restoring a 91 CRX (replacing all suspension with moog and doing an overhaul on the zc that was half swapped in) for some cash to help fund big purchases such as a lift, welder, etc. Can't wait to get back to tearing into this thing though, it's killing me not being able to drive it lol.

[DETurbine]

Looking good. Can't wait to see the final product.

[the_garynator]

Update....here's what rougly $7k got me lol...engine pr0n:

[Darius]

Nice attention to detail! It looks like you have put a lot of thought into everything you have done.

[the_garynator]

Nice attention to detail! It looks like you have put a lot of thought into everything you have done.

Thanks man! It's been frustrating at times, (especially when the decision involves spending more money ) but I think it will be worth it in the end.

[jetdriver]

Only thing I would have done different.

[Carl H]

lol, ultra grey is great but the nissan orange is amazing...seals thru anything!

[sil80hks]

Great setup man! I know it takes time, patience, and money for these things. It's been nearly a year and almost 20k for me and I'm just about to get mine back from McKinney. Good luck with the rest of the build!