Hello everyone !
My name is Octav (nickname XS - don't ask it's 12 years old so it stuck I guess) and while I've been reading the DW forum for a while I haven't really participated ... yet.
I'm warning you from the start that I shoud've been born a writer (a bad one at that), so some pacience when reading my posts is recommended. Or you can jump straight to the pics. I also want to apologize in advance for any mistakes I make, english is not my native tongue
Some of you might know the car since I bought it from MC Mate who already had a topic here. My goal is to participate in the 2011 Romanian Drift Championship and if I'm not a total tool at drifting hopefully the complete King of Europe Drift Series in 2012.
In regards to the car I have roughly 3 months to get it up to a decent competitive level so that the only weak link is the driver and I can only fault myself and my (lack of) skills if things don't go as planned. Because I live in a country where motor racing is not exactly well developed and we have no tracks and no practice areas I will also need to set the car up so that it can be driven around, it won't be a full-on 100% stripped down track car but a blend geared more towards competition though. At the level we're competing here in Romania and my skillset a full-on track car is not necessary this year in my opinion.
Okay, so let's start slow, historically and methodically since this is the first of my cars I'm actually writing about.
Me and my associate Emanuel got two BMWs for practice until we would be good enough to go japanese. We went the german way because jap cars are very rare and expensive here, parts are impossible to come by and as I mentioned earlier we have nowhere decent to practice legally so we would have to use crappy unused back-roads. That way when (inevitably) we'd crash them it wouldn't be a fortune a weeks to get them back on their feet. At least that was the plan. We still own the two cars of which we'll keep the E28 535i and sell the E36 325i (replaced by the Nissan). Emanuel will keep the E28, maybe do a V8 swap or twin turbo it (since we have most of the kit) but this is another story and another thread.
After doing a few training laps in the last championship round this november, it was clear that modding the E36 to be competitive would require tons of fabrication, a V8 swap and a lot of time which I don't have. I then decided to buy a RHD car from the UK, preferably one that already has a few mods so that I can have more money in the budget for the rest.
I narrowed it down to a S14 or a R33 GTS-t and after quite a bit of looking around I found a very decent S14 with good mods on it at a very decent price. I had my plane ticket already reserved when I found MC Mates S13 sale ad by sheer luck. It had the SR20DET swap which made me consider it (no CA for me thank you very much) and it brought back all the love I had for the 200sx S13 fastback shape when I was a kid. The price was right, it was registered and it had the wheel on the right side (for us) which makes it a whole lot safer on the road.
After about 36h of sleep depravation (it seems it's the only way I buy cars lately) I was on my way to Bucharest to see the car along with my buddy Emanuel. Long story short, it fit the bill just fine, the list of mods on it alone made it worth it and the fact that Razvan (MC Mate) was running in similar circles as myself and a very trustworthy character sealed the deal.
To the disappointment of the towing cables we had prepared the car made the 400km journey just fine, be it at ~60mph outer and 35mph inner city speeds. No ... we have no bloody highways.
A short description of what the state of the car was when I got it :
- straight and untouched chasis with no accident damage
- very little rust on the body (weird for a S13 of this age that was not very looked after in recent years), and with decently straight lines
- SR20DET Red Top engine in top condition, no smoke, no knocks or other weird noises
- gearbox in working order but it does whine a bit in a couple of gears.
- all the bushes were shot, especially the rear subframe bushes, the car couldn't put any power down unless handled with the utmost care. I didn't mind though since poly bushes would have to be used anyway (already ordered)
- the suspension is a custom job and while it might be ok for drifting on a smooth surface it's far from being a good setup. It's pretty much almose welded to be honest. The shocks have been hardened & shortened and the springs have been shortened and strengthened by re-heating (not sure how to explain this)
- the rest, technically in good nick, loses a little bit of oil from gearbox, steering rack and diff but nothing to worry about, the right headlight is a bit lazy so I can't use the sleepy eyes yet, from left blinker smashed, many interior trim pieces missing and other small stuff like this.
What's been done to it so far :
- properly screwed about half of the screws on the car which for some reason or another were loose (okay, I'm exagerating, about 1/4)
- put in a ton of missing screws (Razvan was really into saving weight I guess hehe j/k)
- aligned the front fenders and hood as much as it was possible (they were not original Nissan parts probably)
- filled it up with antifreeze instead of aqua vera so that my new little SR will not have a problem with the coming winter
- changed the clutch liquid (which was black as fuck) with DOT4 liqued and properly bled the system. (sometimes the clutch stuck to the floor, it seems fine now)
- fitted the rear subframe aluminum collars, it's now solid and able to put down power.
- temporarily painted black by us in the garage. Looks like crap but it wasn't ment to look nice because it's going to be redone anyway. I just needed the car to have the same color everywhere so that I can register it in my name.
- refitted most of the interior trims Razvan removed and completed the car as per stock with many borrowed parts from a mate so that it can pass inspection. I will keep the front of the interior because there's just not enough weight advantage in removing it related to the loss of comfort.
I'll continue in the next post. I have about 4 so please be pacient and don't reply untill I'm done so there's some continuity to this thread.
Cheers,
Octav
My name is Octav (nickname XS - don't ask it's 12 years old so it stuck I guess) and while I've been reading the DW forum for a while I haven't really participated ... yet.
I'm warning you from the start that I shoud've been born a writer (a bad one at that), so some pacience when reading my posts is recommended. Or you can jump straight to the pics. I also want to apologize in advance for any mistakes I make, english is not my native tongue
Some of you might know the car since I bought it from MC Mate who already had a topic here. My goal is to participate in the 2011 Romanian Drift Championship and if I'm not a total tool at drifting hopefully the complete King of Europe Drift Series in 2012.
In regards to the car I have roughly 3 months to get it up to a decent competitive level so that the only weak link is the driver and I can only fault myself and my (lack of) skills if things don't go as planned. Because I live in a country where motor racing is not exactly well developed and we have no tracks and no practice areas I will also need to set the car up so that it can be driven around, it won't be a full-on 100% stripped down track car but a blend geared more towards competition though. At the level we're competing here in Romania and my skillset a full-on track car is not necessary this year in my opinion.
Okay, so let's start slow, historically and methodically since this is the first of my cars I'm actually writing about.
Me and my associate Emanuel got two BMWs for practice until we would be good enough to go japanese. We went the german way because jap cars are very rare and expensive here, parts are impossible to come by and as I mentioned earlier we have nowhere decent to practice legally so we would have to use crappy unused back-roads. That way when (inevitably) we'd crash them it wouldn't be a fortune a weeks to get them back on their feet. At least that was the plan. We still own the two cars of which we'll keep the E28 535i and sell the E36 325i (replaced by the Nissan). Emanuel will keep the E28, maybe do a V8 swap or twin turbo it (since we have most of the kit) but this is another story and another thread.
After doing a few training laps in the last championship round this november, it was clear that modding the E36 to be competitive would require tons of fabrication, a V8 swap and a lot of time which I don't have. I then decided to buy a RHD car from the UK, preferably one that already has a few mods so that I can have more money in the budget for the rest.
I narrowed it down to a S14 or a R33 GTS-t and after quite a bit of looking around I found a very decent S14 with good mods on it at a very decent price. I had my plane ticket already reserved when I found MC Mates S13 sale ad by sheer luck. It had the SR20DET swap which made me consider it (no CA for me thank you very much) and it brought back all the love I had for the 200sx S13 fastback shape when I was a kid. The price was right, it was registered and it had the wheel on the right side (for us) which makes it a whole lot safer on the road.
After about 36h of sleep depravation (it seems it's the only way I buy cars lately) I was on my way to Bucharest to see the car along with my buddy Emanuel. Long story short, it fit the bill just fine, the list of mods on it alone made it worth it and the fact that Razvan (MC Mate) was running in similar circles as myself and a very trustworthy character sealed the deal.
To the disappointment of the towing cables we had prepared the car made the 400km journey just fine, be it at ~60mph outer and 35mph inner city speeds. No ... we have no bloody highways.
A short description of what the state of the car was when I got it :
- straight and untouched chasis with no accident damage
- very little rust on the body (weird for a S13 of this age that was not very looked after in recent years), and with decently straight lines
- SR20DET Red Top engine in top condition, no smoke, no knocks or other weird noises
- gearbox in working order but it does whine a bit in a couple of gears.
- all the bushes were shot, especially the rear subframe bushes, the car couldn't put any power down unless handled with the utmost care. I didn't mind though since poly bushes would have to be used anyway (already ordered)
- the suspension is a custom job and while it might be ok for drifting on a smooth surface it's far from being a good setup. It's pretty much almose welded to be honest. The shocks have been hardened & shortened and the springs have been shortened and strengthened by re-heating (not sure how to explain this)
- the rest, technically in good nick, loses a little bit of oil from gearbox, steering rack and diff but nothing to worry about, the right headlight is a bit lazy so I can't use the sleepy eyes yet, from left blinker smashed, many interior trim pieces missing and other small stuff like this.
What's been done to it so far :
- properly screwed about half of the screws on the car which for some reason or another were loose (okay, I'm exagerating, about 1/4)
- put in a ton of missing screws (Razvan was really into saving weight I guess hehe j/k)
- aligned the front fenders and hood as much as it was possible (they were not original Nissan parts probably)
- filled it up with antifreeze instead of aqua vera so that my new little SR will not have a problem with the coming winter
- changed the clutch liquid (which was black as fuck) with DOT4 liqued and properly bled the system. (sometimes the clutch stuck to the floor, it seems fine now)
- fitted the rear subframe aluminum collars, it's now solid and able to put down power.
- temporarily painted black by us in the garage. Looks like crap but it wasn't ment to look nice because it's going to be redone anyway. I just needed the car to have the same color everywhere so that I can register it in my name.
- refitted most of the interior trims Razvan removed and completed the car as per stock with many borrowed parts from a mate so that it can pass inspection. I will keep the front of the interior because there's just not enough weight advantage in removing it related to the loss of comfort.
I'll continue in the next post. I have about 4 so please be pacient and don't reply untill I'm done so there's some continuity to this thread.
Cheers,
Octav
you certainly got all the right bits and peices
