My quest for the Ultimate Street Car - VVTi 1JZ S14

[ILoveMyRHS13]

Hey guys and gals. I've been a member of Zilvia for quite a while now and mostly just lurk anymore. I've decided to make a build thread to try and document my newest build but bear with me, it's my first build thread I've made before so I'm not entirely sure how to go about it.

I've owned 3 S chassis now over the past 11 years. Two S13 hatches, one of which I owned since I was 16 years old; it was my first car.
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Long story short, that car was great to me and I really enjoyed it, but it wasn't fun to drive on the street anymore. The lack of interior, the blown up aero only getting worse, and just uncomfortable to drive. I wasn't sure what to do with the car, it would be so much work to get it to the point that I would be happy with. Final Bout Special Stage East was the deciding factor. I ended up blowing an oil cooler line off (while on limiter) and starved the turbo of oil and figured I trashed the motor. I saw this as my opportunity to start over - but I wanted an S14 next time.

At the end of 2016 the yellow car was about gone and I was ready to start looking for the right S14 to buy. I was very picky about what I wanted, a complete virgin to avoid anyone's previous bullshit and have a clean slate. In January I ended up finding the perfect car. 57k original miles, 5 speed, SE, sunroof and completely stock. Only issue was that it was 1000 miles away in Florida.
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A week before I was supposed to fly down I broke my leg and was super upset because I wasn't sure how I was going to get down there to drive the car back. Luckily some good friends offer to fly down and drive it back (on my dime of course).
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I left the car stock for a few months while I recovered from my injury but focused on the interior first. I transferred my Bride Zeta II and Buddy Club rails over from my S13, as well as my Nardi. Ended up buying a new Vertex shift knob, P2M floor mats and an ebay double din. I also added some interior accent LEDs.
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After driving it like that for a little longer I finally got around to the good stuff. I ordered these BC Racing extreme drop coilovers, PBM solid subframe bushings and diff bushings. I still had my Z32 front brakes, S13/Z31/Altima rear brakes, Heat Maker knuckles and LCAs, and PBM rear arms (which I don't have any pictures of the install)
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I had some stock 370Z wheels laying around that I threw on to tie me over until I could get something nicer. Also threw on some clear headlight housings.
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I got bored of the awful light output of the stock headlights so I decided to try a retro fit so I found some cheap 2016 Corolla LED projectors. I'm not 100% sold on the look so I'll probably sell these and re-do them with some normal projectors.
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After all of that I went into prep mode for Final Bout III. I needed to relocate the battery, do a custom short ram intake, and replace the timing chains and tensioners because they were rattling a little bit. Oh, and new wheels and Navan skirts. :naughty:
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I got the timing chains done with no real issue but when I fired it back up for the first time it was leaking oil badly from what looked like the oil pan. So I figured it was the oil pan leaking and took it back off to re-seal it. After firing it up again it was still leaking just as badly. (Keep in mind this was about two weeks before I had to drive 1100 miles to Wisconsin, drift for two days and drive it 1100 miles home because I don't have a truck or trailer.) After doing a little more research into the leak it looked like it was coming from the upper timing cover. After pulling that back off I realized that the RTV I had used to reseal everything was junk; it hadn't cured at all. Without enough time to pull the motor and reseal it again, I decided to say fuck it and dump some stop-leak into the motor as a last ditch effort to make it.
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Day one of the long ass drive we decided to split the drive up and stop at a buddy's house in Cincinnati. The car was holding up absolutely great, beside leaking about a quart of oil between every fuel stop. :ugh:
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Again - fuck it, we're already this far. So we made it to Final Bout with zero issue other than the leak, so let's drifting.
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Amazingly enough the car made it home with ZERO issue, which absolutely blew me away. I decided it was time to retire the KA and go with what I ultimately wanted to swap into the car - a JZX110 VVTi 1JZ. This past weekend the motor was pulled and that brings us to it's current state.
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Over the next few weeks while I search for the right motor I'll be cleaning this bay up, painting it, deleting the ABS, and a few other odds and ends. If you've made it this far, shout out to you; I don't know why I've written this much.

The goal for the car is to make the ultimate street car that I can drive wherever I need/want to. Even load it up and drive it to various drift events across the east coast. I plan on having full working AC, full interior and hopefully even cruise control.

Stay tuned for more updates. I will warn you, this will be a fairly slow thread because I'm not super rich like most of you are.

[PoorMans180SX]

Stay tuned for more updates. I will warn you, this will be a fairly slow thread because I'm not super rich like most of you are.

Story of my life man, haha. Looks good so far, I'm looking forward to updates.

[da_crew10]

Great you are rebuilding another uncomfortable car. Making me proud.

[danshaz]

car looked v cool at final bout.

[codyzsilvia]

This is awesome. Excited to see updates.

[Will.]

subbed, great read so far

[towlie]

will this have zebra print overfenders to?

[ILoveMyRHS13]

Great you are rebuilding another uncomfortable car. Making me proud.
Hahaha yeah very true. Thankfully these BC coils ride WAY nicer than the PBMs on my S13. I also daily a very comfy car so I can get away with a slightly uncomfortable car to play around with.
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car looked v cool at final bout.
Thanks man! I can't wait to come back to that track; it's so fun!

will this have zebra print overfenders to?
Thankfully it will not. This will retain stock body and OEM Navan aero.

And to everyone else, thanks for the kind words! I should have some updates this weekend. I need to clean the fuck out of the underside of the car from the 2500 miles of a constant oil leak.
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[afishysilvia]

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Haha what a rad cat in the photo!!!:rawk: Love the build, hope to see more.

[jumpman2334]

that cat has good taste in wheels. I wish mine did, all she does is fall out of trees..

[OutlawLui]

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spray on some diluted ZEP driveway cleaner and pressure wash it all off

[StatticMyke]

Im not gonna lie I didnt even notice the cat till someone said something about it lol

[ehhhregartless]

Deadass cat is Deadass about those model 5s

[ILoveMyRHS13]

Update coming this weekend.
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[tjcbar]

awesome build

[I<3Zenkis]

Wow your car is mint. To be honest I didn’t notice the cat either lol.

[ILoveMyRHS13]

So I went down to MD JDM Motors to search for the right motor; a few local guys have gotten good motors from them before, so I figured I'd try my luck. I was very particular about the motor I wanted; a JZX110 motor with a non-immobilized ECU. My roommate wires the JZX110 motors up but can't get around the immobilized ECUs. They had 3 110 motors in stock but only one with all of the accessories. Unfortunately that one had the immobilized ECU, but the dudes were super cool and had a non-immobilized one laying around and exchanged it out for me for no charge.
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This motor is super clean, no bent pullies, and it wasn't de-greased at all so I knew what to expect.
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First step was to get the auto trans and torque converter off so I could get the motor on the stand. The trans fluid was kind of dirty and gross but that doesn't matter because I'm obviously not using it; I plan on doing 300ZX trans with a Collins adapter and flywheel.
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The rear main seal appears to be leaking, but that's no biggie, I'm going to regasket the whole motor (excluding the head gasket) The coolant in the motor was also perfectly clear and pink, so they went with OEM parts. I also get the feeling that the timing belt was already done on this motor because of this sticker on the cam gear cover; if anyone can translate it I'd appreciate it. The valve cover gaskets are also leaking, but I'll replace them too.
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I pulled the valve covers off to make sure everything looked good; and to my relief it does. It looks like they used conventional oil in it, but running Rotella T6 should clean it up nicely.
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Lastly I took the factory J-pipe off and immediately threw it in the trash because it's garbage and no-one should run them. I also checked out the turbo while I was there and it's in absolutely beautiful shape.
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So that's where I'm at currently. This week I'm going to be pulling everything out of the engine bay to start prepping it. I plan on firing the motor up on the stand this weekend to make sure it's 100% good while I still have the 30 day warranty. Here's a picture of my car in the garage with my roommate's JZX110 1J'd 260Z with a custom compound turbo.
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[mechanicalmoron]

Have you noticed your car's kinda rattly and bumpy and creaks and groans and scrapes and has broken bits on the aero and your shift boot is (or is fixing to be) a nasty-ass crown bag...

Finish wiping your butt and flush it and "build" another already.

[tricky_ab]

That sticker on the cam cover is for the 100K service that was performed on the engine... There should be a date listed on it as well. I'm not near my car to snap a picture of mine for you unfortunately.

[bmaddock]

Awesome build so far! Loved the yellow car and didn't know you sold it. Make sure to skim through the 2J swap thread, a lot of good tips and tricks for the swap. If I were to do it over again I would've read more on cooling stuff beforehand.

I'm interested in seeing how the Z32 trans does for you.

[ILoveMyRHS13]

Have you noticed your car's kinda rattly and bumpy and creaks and groans and scrapes and has broken bits on the aero and your shift boot is (or is fixing to be) a nasty-ass crown bag...

Finish wiping your butt and flush it and "build" another already.
Not sure what this is supposed to mean, but thanks for your opinion. :keke:

That sticker on the cam cover is for the 100K service that was performed on the engine... There should be a date listed on it as well. I'm not near my car to snap a picture of mine for you unfortunately.
Ahhh okay, I was assuming that's what it was. I take it that means timing belt and such?

Awesome build so far! Loved the yellow car and didn't know you sold it. Make sure to skim through the 2J swap thread, a lot of good tips and tricks for the swap. If I were to do it over again I would've read more on cooling stuff beforehand.

I'm interested in seeing how the Z32 trans does for you.
Thanks man! I'll check the thread out.

[tricky_ab]

Ahhh okay, I was assuming that's what it was. I take it that means timing belt and such?


Yeah, generally it should be the main seals, timing belt, tensioner, o rings, and spark plugs.

[ILoveMyRHS13]

Yeah, generally it should be the main seals, timing belt, tensioner, o rings, and spark plugs.
Okay cool, the confusing part about my sticker is the date reads "22 4 23" which doesn't make much sense. :confused:

[ILoveMyRHS13]

Finally getting around to updating this build thread; I got really lazy about it. :facepalm:

I had a change of heart with this project and what I wanted to do with it. I realized that I wanted to keep the car very simple because honestly I'm getting tired of working on cars all the time and dealing with their bullshit, but I blame being a mechanic by day for all of that.

I decided to buy the original KA back. Luckily I sold it to a good friend of mine so he was willing to sell it back to me.

First thing was to put the motor on a stand and tear it apart to clean everything up and reseal that timing cover leak from when I did the timing chains.
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I'm glad I had to take everything apart because things got a little messy when using RTV last time. Luckily this wasn't super clogged, it just looks bad.
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I had no interest in repainting the engine bay on this car, so I just cleaned it up really well. I used WD40 and a few rags and it came out pretty damn nice.
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Found this super clean Navan front bumper from YAJ. I ended up selling the fog lights.
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While I had everything apart I figured I'd repaint everything. I used some specialty paint from Eastwood that was supposed to replicate cast aluminum; the stuff was awesome. I took a ton of time masking everything off to make sure the edges were clean and also the surfaces were completely clean so the RTV wouldn't have an excuse to fail. I also used their two-part clear coat to protect the finish.
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I took the time to clean out all of the threads on the block for the timing cover and oil pain to insure it would basically never leak again. I also scuffed every surface with red scotchbrite to give the RTV a good surface to bond to. Then I added one stud in each corner of the block to make it easier to line up the oil pan when putting it back on for the last time.
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Next was time to clean up the intake manifold and paint it to match the timing covers. I ended up deleting most of the coolant lines underneath just to keep things simple. We'll get to more of the coolant lines later on.
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While I had the motor out I did the Energy Suspension urethane steering rack bushings. I even used some heat reflective tape on the little heat shield just because it looks cool. My stock ones were pretty worn out!
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Also upgraded to a Shaft Masters aluminum one piece driveshaft to help the KA out.
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With the car being from Florida, the weather seals are in pretty rough shape. One night drunkenly browsing Courtesy Nissan I bought new door seals and a new sunroof seal. After comparing new to old, it's easy to see they were worth every penny. The old door seals were brittle and indented from the window after all of those years in sunny Florida. The new ones were nice and
supple.
Old
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New
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With all of that stuff out of the way, I ordered a cheap-o longtube header from eBay. It was for an S13 so I had to clearance it to clear the steering shaft and extend it a bit to make it fit. I threw in a flex section as well. I'm definitely not great at welding, but it's cool to know that I did it myself. My apologies, I don't really have any pictures of the finished product.
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After removing and installing the motor several times to ensure that the header cleared the steering shaft, the motor was finally put back in with the hopes that it wouldn't have to come back out.
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Next came the mock up of all of the new coolant lines. It gets pretty cold in the winter months here in PA, and I'll drive the car until theres salt on the roads, so keeping heat is a must. I ordered a RB26 silicone coolant hose kit from ebay because it gave me the most hoses with a bunch of bends so I had creative liberty with everything. It ended up working out really well.
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Once I got all of the coolant hoses sorted out, I could finally put the intake manifold back on and start doing the fuel lines. Also I forgot to include pictures of my tucked brake lines/ABS delete, but you can kinda see that here :facepalm:
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PBM swirl pot and coolant system was next. Most of this was pretty easy. It's all just KA stuff in it's native chassis, so an eBay rad hose kit worked perfectly. Oh and I added a simple power steering cooler.
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Now was the time to actually grow up. I had run pink accents on the car originally just to be flashy or whatever. Wrinkle black was the only option. :naughty:
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Really the last major thing I had to do before final assembly was to route the intake. I went with a little bit different routing than before, but still kept the short ram style.
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Everything was just about done at this point except one important piece - a heat shield for the brake master cylinder. I had pictured this style heat shield for a while now and finally got around to making one out of some scrap aluminum I had laying around.
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And with that, the bay was done.
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At this point I had been trying to get the car ready for a roadtrip to Nashville, TN. About one week away from leaving I finally got to start this thing up to see if all of this hard work paid off. I was so nervous that it was still going to leak oil. Luckily the car fired first try and ran like an absolute top and didn't leak a SINGLE drop of any fluid - I was ecstatic. Now it was time to put the exterior back together and make sure it was solid enough to make a 2000 road trip.
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By the way, heat shields are worth it.
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I finally got to drive the car for the first time in almost 10 months. In all of the hustle I must have forgotten to tighten the throttle cable bracket nuts and it walked off on the first test drive, but other than that and an odd front wheel wobble it felt pretty solid. I drove the car to my mom's house the next day for dinner and uh... I found the wobble.
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Luckily that bolt decided to stay in until I made it back to my house! No harm done; I got super lucky. I replaced those bolts and it's been solid ever since.

Got the car aligned monday afternoon. I was leaving for Nashville that saturday. I only had about 50 miles on the car since putting it back together; so I had to drive it everywhere to make sure it was good to go. If it was going to break, I wanted it to break when I was still around home, not 1000 miles away.
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Oh, and I had a 10" sub and amp laying around, so I figured I'd throw that in for the road trip. Wiring it was super simple and clean because I already had the battery in the trunk.
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[ILoveMyRHS13]

Long story short about Nashville is the car made it without a single hiccup. The Trust resonator decided to break apart on the trip down causing the car to be super loud and obnoxious, but it still performed great. I met up with some locals and cruised around with them.
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On the trip home I made a detour and hit the Tail of the Dragon. It's definitely one of the most fun roads I've ever driven and the car handled it super well.
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That trip was back in the beginning of September, and it's almost November. I haven't driven the car too much since getting back from the trip because it's not inspected and it has some strange vibrations that I need to diagnose.

Thanks for reading so far, I'll try and update this more often, but no promises. :keke: