JoelC

Where should I start?
Well, I've been a longtime lurker on zilvia and haven't posted very much at all. As a matter of fact I don't think I've posted Oh well.

Nevertheless, story time!

I had always wanted a 240sx but really never wanted to take the plunge on one because I was in high school and couldn't afford it.

So throwback to about September 2014 with college starting at the end of the month I decided it was time. I picked up this beast of a chassis for $1000.
My friend was very excited as you can tell in the picture.




The car actually ran and I drove it 40 miles home from where I bought it. Ka24de with a auto trans that was on the verge of total failure. It's an SE, so vlsd, sunroof, 5 lug, abs, every option but leather Neither window rolled down and the drivers was stuck open like 2 inches so being in the northwest I got wet a few times. Pissed power steering fluid. Was told it was broken into so the radio bezel and climate control bezel were both broken. A nice check engine light. Blown struts all around. Some jdm tight quarter panel damage on the drivers side, appeared to be in a fender bender as well. Small dings all around. Fantastic paint included.

The first order of business was to fix the check engine light, o2 sensor! Wow how easy can it get?



Not easy, plug was loose and melted on the header

I just bought a new o2 sensor and did some sweet wiring a.k.a twist and tape. That seemed to work. Hey, if it works is it stupid?

Next up was to fix the front end, initially I intended to stay zenki but after I realized I would be buying an entire new front end I just decided to do a kouki front end. I began to collect kouki front parts by combing craigslist like a hawk and watched my wallet dissolve while simultaneously making my house look like a jdm chop shop.

Mint hood with Silvia emblem.


Some crappy fenders I got for cheap, only ended up using the top one. Went and bought an additional fender from Foreign Engines



Some headlights, never seen smoked chrome and they were cheap so why not.



Too poor to afford a bumper I put on what parts I had and created this.



And it sat like this for some time as I was in winter quarter and needed to focus on school and work.

This is when the build gets a bit less haggard.

As the auto trans began to get stickier I decided I needed to swap in a manual transmission so I started to stockpile swap parts.

Exedy Clutch, master and slave cylinders. Driveshaft Shop one piece ABS driveline, RHD pedals (I'll get to this later), Braided lines, slightly lightened flywheel, throwout bearing, clutch fork, new bellhousing bolts new starter (old one was on it's way out.), s14 speed sensor, little things, etc.



S13 Trans in an s14 yes, (I'll get to this in a bit as well.)



SO, the RHD pedals....
The clutch pedal WILL fit fine, the RHD brake pedal WILL NOT fit on LHD. This can be remedied by cutting the auto pedal to size and slipping on the cover from the manual pedal.

AND, S13 Trans in a S14....
The only differences between the s13 and s14 trans that I have run into is that the s14 trans has a CAS and a different speed sensor. The auto s14 speed sensor WILL NOT work on a manual trans, you have to buy a s14 manual transmission speed sensor. it will bolt right in. The lack of a Crank Angle Sensor on a s14 will only throw a CEL NOTHING ELSE but seeing as the process of swapping out the auto transmission for the manual will cause a CEL on the Auto ECU either way so it really didn't matter to me as I didn't have to take it through emissions, if it really bothers you block the CEL light or something.

ALSO, yes you can use the auto ecu with a manual trans.

Anyway, the swap finally got done.



I decided that I would spruce it up a bit with some new bezels and whatnot



Spotted an s15 in the wild



Then I got some coilovers, Godspeed. (Save your hate and let me speak).



OKAY, so I got these coilovers for 450 shipped to my door. I needed to get something fast so I didn't have to deal with the awful blown suspension. I wasn't expecting much but was pleasantly surprised. This is coming from riding on nothing but my suspension, friends with BC coils and friends who use racelands. These coilovers are great for what I paid for them. They are no BC, PBM, Fortune Auto, Stance etc. but they are not that bad, they aren't amazing but they're pretty good. They handle really well and can recommend them if you just need something better than stock for cheap. Plus, you don't have to buy some sketchy used coilovers from some guy named Jim in a walgreens parking lot.

I then got some new door panels for liek $40 to replace my old torn up ones but unfortunately I couldn't find pictures.

I decided to make another financial mistake and bought some wheels.
XXR 521 18x10 +25 offset all around (Inch bolt on spacer in the front 8mm slide on spacer in the rear) and 215/45/18 federal tires because jdm stretch scene points.









Then I finally bought a bumper



And that's how she sits today, missing a few things that I did but that's about it for now!

I'll update more soon! Little things before it heads to paint!

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JoelC

Oh wow, it's been a while. Five years to be exact. I'm going to update this soon and get it up to speed.

The car is very different now so this should be fun explaining myself.

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brndck

honestly it looked like it had potential, hopefully you've done cool things with it!

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http://outslidersandsmokeproduce.blogspot.com/

JoelC

Okay, where to start.

So as I’ve mentioned it’s been well over 5 years since my original post so I’m going to do my best filling in the blanks of my s14 and all the other cars I’ve had. I jumped into a pool with my old phone so I’m going to put up what I have.

Let just jump right where I left off.

I actually came across an extremely clean red 1989 Hatchback that had been sitting with a blown transmission in the bushes of some old lady’s house. It had been sitting for well over 5 years. I managed to scoop it up for $240 dollars if you can believe that.

I don’t have many pictures of this thing when I owned it. I sold it to a buddy and the picture is of how it sits. College will really run you dry, wish I didn’t have to sell this gem.





At this point I wanted nothing more than to paint this car, unfortunately my budget didn’t allow. Big time ooof for me looking back. Since the quarter panel had some damage and I wanted to fulfill my HotBoi fantasies of yesteryear, I decided on overfenders. I’m cringing a bit writing this as I now realize I could’ve done some bodywork and would very easily have fixed the stock metal. Harbor Freight makes it very easy for a teenager to get their hands on an angle grinder.

No sense crying over spilled milk I suppose.



Nevertheless, the car was one color. There was just one problem, I primed the car for paint but never decided to actually paint it because of cost. I still managed to afford Kouki tails however which really makes me question where my priorities sat.



Wonderful, atleast it was one color unlike a lot of 240s in the seattle area. I purchased some XXRs like the ricer I was and actually managed to get the car looking half decent. It was a far cry from where I started for sure.





I went ahead and balled out on a Nardi Steering wheel and quick release. Very much the most expensive component of my car at the time which I find absolutely hilarious. What a dork I was.



It was at this point I decided to go drifting. Now this really was fun as I figured out that the factory vlsd is not fantastic for drifting, especially once the diff heats up. Undeterred I went to weld the differential.



An interesting tidbit if you care; If you’ve got an abs diff with a vlsd (which I assume is all of them). Then you can utilize the 3rd member out of an open differential if you wish to have a welded instead. This being said, you need to swap the unit and the side shim stuff from diff to diff. This resulted in me having an ABS diff with a welded 3rd member. Kinda interesting I guess.

Anywho, I started to make more money and was working as a “Lube Technician” so I was able to get a lot more experience turning wrenches than I did before. I also had access to an alignment rack which helped me tremendously.



Not much changed for a bit, there’s something to be said about drifting a stock KA that you can flog forever without repercussion. I very much miss these days. If you’re learning to drift, I highly recommend you learn in a low power, stock angle car. Your technique will be much better than somebody who jumped into it driving big power big angle.

However I did get the Villains angle kit which made me decide I had to ditch the oem metal fenders and move onto the fiberglass wide ones. What a mistake that was in retrospect.



It was roughly 2017 at this point.

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JoelC

Everything was swell, I purchased a 6 speed G35 Sedan as well as a 1995 S14 shell which I ended up trading for a running Miata.





So I decided that the stock KA was too reliable and went on to fix that.



I have little to no pictures of this as this was when I jumped into a pool with my phone, shame really. The synopsis of this time was that the engine had been sold to me with a spun bearing and that engine didn’t get very far. I’m now very skeptical of buying engines.



On the bright side, I did get into real wheels for once. I settled for a set of VS-KFs that needed rebuilding with faces that were in good shape.





These things ended up super baller, 18x9.5 -12ish and 18x10.5 -12ish. They were my dream wheel at the time and I finally was able to make that a reality.





So now I needed an engine. I still had that lousy KA sitting around so my brain hatched an idea. Put the T28 on the KA. Simple enough.



I needed some additional clearance for my sweet ebay FMIC so I purchased a street faction bashbar. The thing was looking like it might come together.





It certainly came together, the engine went in very easy and the car drove
great. I utilized a RSEnthalpy ROM tune. Butt dyno said about 280whp.







But as quickly as it came together it all fell apart, my big dummy self at the time (acting like I’m not anymore lol) really sucked at wiring. As a result the engine bay caught on fire. This managed to smoke all of the electronics. I have no pictures of this as of course they were on my damaged phone.

I was at a loss.

I was looking forward to putting aero and paint on this thing and having a cool car for once. No such luck. My dumbass ruined the heart of the thing.





To add insult to injury, I found out that the OEM headgasket had failed and there was a ton of oil in the coolant.

I was so frustrated at this point I almost gave up cars altogether. I had failed to make the car of my dreams, not once but twice. I didn’t know if I could justify all this work with no fruition at the end.

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PoorMans180SX

That's the way it goes man. I've owned like ten s-chassis now, each time thinking that I'd turn it into the perfect one. I've learned you just gotta keep at it, cars will always break. Every time I take a "break" from cars, I always get the itch to dive right back in again because it's so damn fun when they work right. Keep it up.

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Build: http://zilvia.net/f/showthread.php?t=643065

Friends don't let friends buy knock-offs.

JoelC

It's good to take a step back from cars to get your s*** together.

Thankfully this isn't where the story ends at all. I was unable to submit the rest of my reply last night for some reason. There's alot more to get this post up to date!

I'll get to the bottom of that tonight.

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JoelC

One day I was getting something out of the garage and saw the ol girl staring me in the face. She’d been my day 1, my first ever car. What kind of person would I be to let this thing sit and rot?

Mulligan?



So I purchased this



I was tired of all these jank setups, I wanted a newer engine with new connectors and good parts. I’ve always eyeballed 1JZs but the transmission options were always so cost prohibitive, atleast to me, a college student. It was at this point I started considering the RB engine.

I did a ton of homework on the ins and outs of the RB engine. After enough time I decided that I wanted a RB25 NEO. If you’re unfamiliar, this is the most up to date RB Nissan ever made. As a result, it was the most robust factory RB ever made (26 aside). The top end features a solid lifter versus a hydraulic lifter which is both more reliable and will withstand lower oil pressures.

Additionally, Nissan fitted oil restrictors in the galleys of these engines which helped prevent oil rushing to the head which was a major problem in earlier years. Allegedly some of these engines come with the long nose crank collar which prevents oil pump failure at raised RPM levels and high power. I have yet to confirm this.



I painted the valve covers gold and redid all of the timing components. I mated the engine to an rb20 transmission that I cleaned up and painted.

So this information might be useful as I’ve barely managed to find a single post on this. An KA24DE Short shifter will fit on a RB20DET transmission if you switch the shifter strikers. Unfortunately for the KA trans, you’ll need to find a blown one or find the striker part because you will need to cut out the striker. Otherwise you simply need to tap out the pin on the selector and be carefull not to lose it in the transmission. I used a shop towel placed underneath it to catch it. On the RB side it’s just pop out the pin and swap the strikers. Super easy. This enabled me to use my KA short shifter on my RB20 transmission.



The KA trans I cut up was actually blown, so don’t worry about that. I also was able to reuse the bellhousing for a friend’s car.



At this point I mated the trans to the RB20 trans to the RB25 NEO with a KA flywheel and clutch. Yes, you read that right. I utilized the RB25 starter that came with and everything was fine and dandy.



Utilizing ISR mounts, I slipped this badboy in. I used a KA crossmember for the transmission and used my KA driveline as well. The RB20 transmission is shorter than the KA but with the ISR mounts atleast, the shifter was dead center! I cut my core support in two places and unbolted the bottom fasteners so that I could easily slip the engine in without having to come in at an extreme angle.



It wasn’t shortly after this that I purchased some stance coilovers, I have to say, these things are WONDERFUL. I didn’t mention it in earlier posts, but I do have adjustable mounts all around. I sourced a local vented hood to assist in cooling the engine. The real pitfall of this is that it rains in Washington and this thing sat outside. I’ve had to clean water out of the sparkplug valley more than once due to leaks in my tarp.





After buttoning up the swap, I took it out for some drifting at Evergreen. Man, what a dream to drift. The low end torque is wonderful and exhaust screams the sound of the gods, INLINE 6!







It was at this point I knew I should take it easy and not burn myself out. This way I could save some money and gear up for what I tried to do last time. I took off all the beat ass panels and took inventory of what I needed.



I purchased some Origin front fenders from 425 Motorsports as well as KBD side skirts and rear bumper.

She’s finally coming together.



I just recently purchased a set of Weds Ratzinger 18x10 +14 and 18x11 +14. They remind me of my KFs a little!



I wrapped them in Falken Azenis up front and burners in the back.



I’m now waiting for the money to get a couple parts to finish it up. Hopefully I can remember to take more pictures and post more frequently.

Glad to be on Zilvia again.

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JoelC

I guess I should address what I’m going for with this car at this point. The scope I had for this car previously was to put in a full cage and prep it for pro-am. More recently I realized that professional driving is a massive financial drain and i’ve seen more than my fair share of drivers quit altogether because of the cost.

As a result, i wanted to keep this car as a streetcar/track car. I really am investing in making this a nice car to drive, i’m looking at redoing the interior with sound deadening and fixing all of my faulty electronics. My power goals are pretty conservative, 300-350 whp. I don’t want to sacrifice reliability to make a big power number and the RB should have no problem making that. I’m very interested in learning to paint. I feel like this skill would benefit me in the long run, with me being able to fund the car by doing side work.

Anyway, enough of about what I want to do and more of what I’m doing.

I picked up some kouki headlights yesterday. They’re used JDM OEM ones. They came with the corners which made me happy! I had a hard time finding these as I really wanted a used set. I would feel like a real dingus if i broke a brand new $400 discontinued headlight.

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PoorMans180SX

I had the same revelation a couple years ago hah. Do yourself a favor and get some chassis reinforcement (strut bars, fender braces, etc). The S14 is better than the S13, but these chassis' still flex a lot, and eventually will fatigue and start pulling themselves apart.

Looks like a ton of fun, and proper styling.

__________________
Build: http://zilvia.net/f/showthread.php?t=643065

Friends don't let friends buy knock-offs.

JoelC

I've had a front strut bar but didn't really like the way it felt when drifting. They aren't expensive so maybe I'll give it another shot. I've been interested in the fender braces for a while now, however.

Do you know of any decent brands for these?

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brndck

I have the uras ones, but TBH just make your own.
I don't really see anyone currently making them.
Nagisa still does iirc but they're $$$
https://www.ebay.com/i/233240299865?...xoC4D4QAvD_BwE
IMO this shit is NOT worth $400

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JoelC

Little update:

Just purchased a major piece to the puzzle of this car. My current hood is in poor condition so I'm going to be replacing it with a new hood. I'll post more about this when it actually arrives.

As for latching, I'm not sure what I'm going to do this time around. I don't really want to do O'Reilly's hood pins and I'm not a big fan of aerolatches either.

I like the idea of the Quik latches and I'm considering using these for my body kit as well. However, these run roughly $120 per latch. I'm looking to spend a bit more on quality stuff this time around but this seems a bit much.

My question is if anyone has had experience with their Amazon Chinese equivalents?

Link:

https://www.amazon.com/STETION-Unive...07L428V3W?th=1

I'm hesitant to use it on my hood without a proper OEM latch. I don't feel so bad using it on my kit.

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brndck

I use the smaller ones, QL-25, on my carbon hood, and they work great. My hood does use the oem latch as well, but these are plenty beefy and only around $60 per pair

https://www.quik-latch.com/QL-25-ser...i-latches.html

the actual hood ones from quik latch are HUGE.
way too large imo.

I have used the amazon ones for mounting body panels (side skirts) and they work great tho, and for only like $25 per pair.

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JoelC

Thank you for pointing this out. I'm not actually running an OEM hood latch as the center part of my core support is removable. On their site it mentions that the QL-25 should be used in tandem with the factory latching. However, I did notice that the QL-38 can be used without OEM latches and is half the cost of the QL-50 set.

$130 makes the choice a little easier. I'll definitely utilize the cheap Amazon/eBay ones for the bodywork, side skirts, rear/front bumper etc.

I would like to get all of this major bodywork handled before summer so that I can paint it.

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