Probably the 9000th s-body build thread...

[James D]

Hi guys,

Boring stuff - I'm 22, left my job as a mechanical engineer September last year, still don't have a "proper" job as i do a bit of custom fabrication to keep me going. Live at home (don't know how i get away with it) and i started getting into cars only about 3 years ago but in that time i've learnt a hell of a lot. If someone said to me 3 years ago "you'll be sticking a 500 odd BHP SR20 into an S13" I'd look at them blankly and ask what a wheel nuts was.
Started off with an Mx5 as everyone does, stuck a MegaSquirt ECU on it, made more power, did some skids - got rid of it and got a 328 E36 and went back to another Mk1 mx5 and supercharged it and made loud noises -
Found a nice rusty S13 for sale just up the road from me for not a lot of money so impulsively bought it and made the hard decision to sell up all my mx5 stuff to fund this!

It's a bit crusty and has a knocking engine but what else should i expect for a 24 year old UK spec datsun?

Previous owner had started to scrape off the sound deadening inside the cabin - great, a job i don't have to do myself!

Found a buyer for the engine and box and whipped it out in record time - having never worked on one of these i was amazed at how quickly it was removed. Working by myself i had it rolling into the garage and engine on the floor in just over 45 minutes alone...

Inside the bay it isn't a particularly pretty sight...

Tried removing two of the front wheels and two of the wheel nuts were stripped... one on each side... so i ended up having to drill them off. Tried welding a bolt to the nut and turning it but it didn't help. luckily they're spacers and not on the hubs... pain in the ass either way.

Decided while i'm there I may as well remove the ABS so knocked the two sensors out of the front hubs and removed all the lines - had a nose at a friends S13 and worked out a nice easy way to re-make the lines using two T pieces, some copper line and an OBP Hydro which should be arriving tomorrow.

As usual you find those idiots that want to help when a silly build is happening - may as well say thanks now to Matt for your help so far and undoubtedly into the future haha

Removed the hubs, coilovers, arms and subframe along with the rack... The rack bushes are all fubar'd and need replacing...

Spent 5 minutes cleaning while i was there and it comes up not too badly to be fair!

Then went inside the car and removed the dashboard... That's being sent off to The Flock Shop in Gosport to Ron who shall be working his magic. Highly recommend his work and him as a person so for any of your flocking needs, give him a bell

I'd been advised the clutch pedal box is weak as cheese and can fall apart under some hard abuse so while the dash was out i removed the box and seam welded the edges where they were only spot welded. 5 minutes work and £100 saved buying a JDM new version.

Because i know eventually i'll be running stupid lock the front is being tubbed and tubed up slightly so the fuse boxes need to be relocated into the dash. Started off by labelling up what each plug was and where it goes

Then removed the relay inside the passenger part of the wing and fed the loom all the way round to the drivers side and laid it all out. Cut out the ABS wires while we were there!

That's all i have for you for now... Any suggestions for things to do feel free to let me know - Thanks for reading...

 

[BenRice]

What engine/gearbox you going for? It will determine a lot of what you should ideally cover off at this point.

And reason for tubing front? Tubs I can understand if you're going 18's, or 17's with a largish tyre (but even a good hammering is sufficient in most cases) or if it's damaged already, but tubing for tubing sake is daft. Just make the radiator support a bolt-off job to make engine install/removal easy.

One suggestion while everything is apart is seal up as many of the holes into the engine bay as possible. Bend the lips at the top of the arches and on the chassis rails over as well so they don't slice your tyres.

You may as well move the rack forward while there's no engine there. And cut down and plate the castor arm brackets and add a brace between them.

 

[James D]

What engine/gearbox you going for? It will determine a lot of what you should ideally cover off at this point.

And reason for tubing front? Tubs I can understand if you're going 18's, or 17's with a largish tyre (but even a good hammering is sufficient in most cases) or if it's damaged already, but tubing for tubing sake is daft. Just make the radiator support a bolt-off job to make engine install/removal easy.

One suggestion while everything is apart is seal up as many of the holes into the engine bay as possible. Bend the lips at the top of the arches and on the chassis rails over as well so they don't slice your tyres.

You may as well move the rack forward while there's no engine there. And cut down and plate the castor arm brackets and add a brace between them.

Sorry i should have covered that in the first post...

It's a proven straightcam SR20 - Rebuilt by Walton @ Nispro 25k miles ago.

Forged rods, S15 pistons, Jun cams, cam sprockets, uprated valvetrain, rocker arm stoppers and a few other bits. Came with an ats carbon super single clutch rated to about 500Bhp and an SR20 box as well and was running 485Bhp last time it was mapped.

Turbo is a Holset HY35 top mount.

When i say tubing, i mean cutting off the lower brace and welding in a new one since the existing one is rusty and bent up... using my mate Chris' car for inspiration there...

It's a bit crusty to to be honest it's more of a repair than an upgrade! I'm used to having silly lock so would rather build the chassis to what i eventually want than put it all together and be restricted after. This is the setup i made for the mx5 - Depowered rack, 3mm rack spacers, cut and welded knuckles and the inside of the wheel was rubbing the wishbone slightly.

I will eventually be changing to S14 hubs and arms for 5 stud and bigger brakes but for now i'm just going to get it running on the 4 stud.

When you say moving the rack forward - is there a guide or something that i could use or it it just as simple as cutting the tabs off and moving them 20mm forward? I haven't been able to have a proper look at how it mounts because the rack is still attached to the subframe and is filthy

Cheers

 

[BenRice]

Well that's a relief, clarification helped a lot. Agree with those plans, but you may want to look into a different gearbox down the track. Also, no mention of cooling? With the 180 fronts not flowing a lot of air you will need to look into a good radiator (the ultimate is a triple pass, cross flow alloy unit, ie ex speedway) and some good ducting to get air from the front bumper to the radiator. Also, an oil cooler is a must if you're pumping those numbers.

As far as the rack move goes, no guides that i know of but there are generally two methods of doing it: cutting the mounts off and recessing them (also requires a little sectioning to allow the rack to fit) or cutting the entire rear section (including rack mounts) removing some meat in the middle of the subframe and rewelding on further forward.

I had mine done through Adam @ C's Garage and he prefers the first method as it doesn't weaken the crossmember. It is a bit more fiddly though, so may be worth buying another crossmember to practice on.

 

[James D]

Well that's a relief, clarification helped a lot. Agree with those plans, but you may want to look into a different gearbox down the track. Also, no mention of cooling? With the 180 fronts not flowing a lot of air you will need to look into a good radiator (the ultimate is a triple pass, cross flow alloy unit, ie ex speedway) and some good ducting to get air from the front bumper to the radiator. Also, an oil cooler is a must if you're pumping those numbers.

As far as the rack move goes, no guides that i know of but there are generally two methods of doing it: cutting the mounts off and recessing them (also requires a little sectioning to allow the rack to fit) or cutting the entire rear section (including rack mounts) removing some meat in the middle of the subframe and rewelding on further forward.

I had mine done through Adam @ C's Garage and he prefers the first method as it doesn't weaken the crossmember. It is a bit more fiddly though, so may be worth buying another crossmember to practice on.

Gearbox i'm eventually thinking of running an RB box and skyline rear end but for now it just has to work!

Cooling wise, i have a mishimoto ally rad and will be running the viscous fan with a switched in electric fan for when it runs really hot... Will be using a Mocal oil cooler and i already have an oil filter relocation kit. The front end i'm not sure whether to tub it or to leave it open and tube it with temporary covers in the wheel arches for when it's being driven on the road...

I've had a nose at the subframe and it looks simple enough to cut the stitch welds off and recess the bracket then re-weld so will probably have a go at that!

Been working on the wiring some more. Managed to break up the fuse boxes and passed it all back through the hole in the firewall although now i know you can just unplug it and relay it inside...

Fuseboxes then attached to the dash bar and since i won't have a glovebox it won't matter much if it needs adjusting slightly to make it fit properly

And i finally started work on removing some material for the front tubs but like i said i'm not sure whether to tub it back up or run a tubed front...

 

[BenRice]

Good job on the fuse box reroute. The lower crossmember looks crusty as all hell too, can see why you want to bin it.

Don't think you've mentioned what size wheel you were hoping to run on the front?

If you're going to go to the trouble of removable tubs, may as well just make permanent ones. Measure up and grab a decent width trailer guard that suits, cut in half, dummy up and cut off what factory metal it covers and fill what it doesn't. Just watch out when welding the steel around the tubs as it's real thin and blows through very easily.

 

[James D]

Good job on the fuse box reroute. The lower crossmember looks crusty as all hell too, can see why you want to bin it.

Don't think you've mentioned what size wheel you were hoping to run on the front?

If you're going to go to the trouble of removable tubs, may as well just make permanent ones. Measure up and grab a decent width trailer guard that suits, cut in half, dummy up and cut off what factory metal it covers and fill what it doesn't. Just watch out when welding the steel around the tubs as it's real thin and blows through very easily.

Cheers! Yeah the brace has gone and has been replaced as you'll see in a second...

Currently have the Rotas on there which are 17" 9.5J all round and i need to work out clearance tomorrow...

I'm just going to be a pro and make the tubs all from sheet... i don't have a MIG so most of this build you'll see i'll be doing with TIG (yes, i'm mad.)

Well either way, i dropped the engine in this morning - only took about an hour and was working alone so pretty happy with that! I also cut off the front lower crossmember which was, as we've already covered - crusty as shit!

The brace i just cut up to where the sides met the middle part - this is because the metal here was fairly clean and wasn't completely rotten. I've also used fairly thick box section (about 2.5mm wall) simply because i had some lying around from an old job and it also just so happens to be a perfect fit! The reason i've not cut the whole part back is in case of a front accident where, say, i run over a bar on the road or something - instead of bending the bar and also the chassis rails back, the side bits should act as a crumple zone and not bend the whole front up at the same time, hopefully protecting it a bit.

I completely forgot about the arms that join the underside of the leg to the brace - fortunately i'm pro and it lined up literally within about 0.5mm and when bolted tight, it's in eactly the same position it was standard. I drilled and tapped the box section and used M10 bolts... does the job.

Now i just need to order an intercooler - i've moved the rad back by about an inch at the bottom or so - the Stock fan cowling actually fits which is a massive bonus as well. The reason for moving it back slightly is so that i can essentially run an over-the-top intercooler instead of pissing about with pipes going around the sides - you'll see what i mean when i get there...

 

[James D]

So i've been hacking up a few more parts of the car recently - cut out a load to make the tubs up. I went around most of the chassis with a hefty hammer and hit rather vigorously... anything that fell off is to be cut out and replaced... this is the state of the drivers side arch behind the turret... not good. Cut it all out and replaced with new metal. Most of the stuff i'm doing i'm using 1.2mm sheet so if a bit weightier but should hold its shape better.

I got some rough dimensions from the shape i was going for and then drew them out on the sheet - in duplicate. At least if they're drawn and cut the same it should all fit the same both sides (i hope!) Started with the front and then the main Tub itself - everything cut oversize and then cut down to suit. Bending the tubs i just used a wheel as a rough guide and bent mostly by hand!

Also some shiny things arrived, DW didn't have any shiny silver IC's in stock so i settled with the BLAAACK one - 3" core and 3" ends. Fits the mouth perfectly although i didn't get a picture! Other annoying thing is since i'm going over the top the rad is flipped "upside down" so the "M" logo is the wrong way up! Just need to mount it all with the engine in and weld 3" elbows on to fit around the lights.

 

[James D]

Finished building the tubs up and added a couple swage plates along the top because i thought it looked kinda cool and it helps reinforce the turrets a bit. Applied some filler just to smooth it out, it looks a bit nicer and plugged the holes that i'm not going to be using with weld then welded up the ends of the chassis rails

Primer down:

And white:

Hasn't come out too bad considering it's technically a home job!

Got more shiny parts on the way arriving tomorrow so hopefully engine in soon. I have geomasters which need rear bearings and so going 5 stud and upgrading to 18" wheels...

 

[James D]

Moved the steering rack mounts forwards by approx 20mm, didn't take long and may consider doing this for other people if they provide me with the crossmember and some dolla - doesn't take too long so could do it while you wait (Based just outside of Winchester if interested)

Cut the bonnet hinges so they go to full Rover/MG headgasket failure mode to past dead upright which is useful...

Vibratechnics Race engine and gearbox mounts... seriously stiff, the stock ones you could rock the engine a good 20mm at least with them - not good. Crossmember painted satin black and SuperPro polybush mounted the rack along with DW solid steering rack bush.

Dropped the engine in next, all seems to be going well so far - and the wastegate looks like it'll match up perfectly to a hole coming right out of the passenger side wing I also clocked the turbo around so the oil feed/return are dead vertical when mounted and the inlet is pointing in a good position.

Mounted the intercooler from some stud bar across the front - means it's all well protected and out the way (hopefully) and is a perfect distance away from the rad so it does not interrupt too much air flow and won't conduct too much heat. The rad plonks in nicely on the lower tension arm mount things (technical term that) in some holes i put in and the stock cowl also fits perfectly without hitting the fan or having any need to trim it down.

I don't have any rad mounts as the car did not come with any since the previous owner had wedged an intercooler in there and had cable tied it in place. One trip to Halfrauds later and i have some rubber grommets which i drilled out and fitted both ends on some custom stainless plates i made with an angle grinder and a drill then finished with some scotch brite - looks goooooood

Geomasters and R33 brakes turned up as well, a lick of paint and it'll all be good as new!

Dog approves

 

[SamN]

Cool build bro.

 

[chodjinn]

Good work on the arches. Should be nice with geos all round, I've gotta strip/repaint my front ones before fitting. What rims you planning on running? Might have a set of 18" rotas for sale soon ...

 

[Srs_721]

nice work bud, Going through a similar process to my 14 at the moment. tubbed archs, high mount intercooler... Might as well do the lot haha

 

[ali303]

Cracking effort man, nice work space you've got there too.

 

[OllieN.I]

Tidy bit of fabrication work there!

 

[BenRice]

Nice progress, great job on the engine bay. How long did the sanding/prep take?

 

[James D]

Cool build bro.

Thanks bro

Good work on the arches. Should be nice with geos all round, I've gotta strip/repaint my front ones before fitting. What rims you planning on running? Might have a set of 18" rotas for sale soon ...

Not decided yet... with the amount of power and the setup i'll be running i think 18" by at least 10J on the rear, maybe 11 or 12... Either way now i have the bodykit i can work it out more on how it fits

Cracking effort man, nice work space you've got there too.

Thanks pal, perks of still living at home :3

Nice progress, great job on the engine bay. How long did the sanding/prep take?

Too long. Two coats of filler in most places, a couple of bits three - was sanding and waiting for drying filler for about 2 days inbetween other things!

 

[James D]

Got myself a job recently so haven't had much time to carry on with finishing this but needs must eh!

So made a trip up to Liverpool yesterday in which we almost died on the way back as a van locked up in the outside lane pushing us into the inside lane from the middle narrowly missing a car behind us... that was interesting.

Got my hands on a top spec Fabricage 6 point throughdash rollcage with rear x brace, harness bar and crossed doorbars which need re-fitting:

After having wanted that, i also saw the bodykit which was being sold... i wanted the overfenders initially, then ended up buying bonnet, rocket bunny spoiler, Koguchi power +50mm front wings, +70mm rear overfenders, sideskirts, front and rear bumpers too... *sigh* It needs a bit of love, and i'm still unsure on what colour to paint the car...

 

[chodjinn]

Jesus fella journey back sounds like it was a nightmare, good to meet you last week keep up the good work!

 

[Blake7]

If you want to do it bmw laguna seca blue I still have 2.5/3 litres left over I'll never use - it'll match my old skid cars wings etc you have there. That bumpers a genuine origin item too although I had to repair it once or twice :-0

loving your fab work - cars really Looking awesome btw - following your build

Good luck buddy!