CaBS

Hey Guys/Girls,

I've been a long time reader of this site but never bothered to sign up or post. I've followed some build thread on here and have been quiet impressed by them. I thought I might actually pull my finger out and contribute my own build thread which some of you might find interesting =)

I've been the proud owner of my 95 blacktop 180SX for over 6 years. During this time the car itself, my technical knowledge and my driving skill have come a long way from where they first started. From total noob to having a reasonable idea of whats going on in most areas of the car.

A lot of this knowledge I have due to good advice, experience and friendships formed initially though NSCC and some through NS. This is something that has added heavily to the enjoyment I've had from owning my car.

Inspired and by some extreme aussie time attack builds I'm aiming to step the 180 up to the next level over the next period its off the road. Turning it into my vision of what an RPS13 should be. This is something that I've been planning for over 2 years now and cant wait to get finished. I booked in 2 weeks annual leave at the beginning of august 2011 a) to be a world time attack scorch racing groupie B) to help NFI with his WTAC campaign and c) to get the car stripped back to a shell and the build kicked off to a flying start! =)

The end goal is to have a sub 1100kg car making an easy 300rwkw(+) with reasonable response good suspension setup and basic aero package. Still maintaining street registration and have the car fully engineered but also be able to put down some serious times at the track.

I'm planning on doing a brief recap of where the car has come from when I first got it as I've taken well over 4000 photos of all the different mods done from the first weekend I got the car until now. Then updating reasonably regularly.
More updates coming!

Cheers,

Martin.

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CaBS

Here is the original ad posted on SAU. I actually saw the car on carsales and still have the pictures that were posted up there(below) The last picture was taken by me and is of how the engine bay was when I first bought it and picked up the car. Not the duck tape and zip ties where the BOV should be! :P









hi guys and gals.



time to sell my 180sx to free up sum funds for the gtr

1995 rps13 180sx

white in colour

12 months reg

130,000 ks



mods are :



body:



full vertex kit

fiberglass fenders 30mm oversize front

duluck front bar

clear side indacators and front which i will throw in with the car

clear tail lights

very dark tints



interior:



momo steering wheel

2 defi copy gauges (oil temp and oil press)

blitz boost gauge

autometer air fuel ratio gauge

autometer shift light

trust twin a pillar pod

drift button

razo pedals

apexi pen turbo timer

top of the range black widow alarm system



wheels,suspention,brakes:



18-8

18-9

mako wheels 2 inch dish all round

falken azenis rubber front

nankang rear

tanabe sustec pro coilovers

front and rear cusco strut bars

inside floor brace

r33 4 piston calipers front

5 stud wheel conversion

rda slotted rotors front



engine:



sr20 det black top

front mount cooler

stainless air filter

all alloy cooler pipes and intake pipe

boost tap 14 psi

t25 turbo

malpasi fuel reg

bosh 600 hp fuel pump

hks hiper exaust

hi flow cat

tomie dump pipe

custom front pipe

cusco catch can

custom overflow bottle

fresh gear box built by smithfield diff and gear

nismo button clutch new

c's short shifter



all ways serviced with motul 300v crono oil every 5000 ks



im sure there is other things that i forgot to mention to but cant remember at the moment spent alot of time and money to get this looking how it does.

this is a good clean 180 in a1 condition i have owned the car for 3 years



price $ 16000 ono



please no time wasters or test pilots

the car must be seen to see it is one of the best condition 180's going around



if interested email me at **************************

or pm me here

or call me on ***************



cheers ******..

For the most part what he said about the car was correct and although afew of the mods were incorrect and there were some slight issues mostly it was pretty good.

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CaBS

So the first major thing I did to the car was fix the catch can setup it was plumbed up completely wrong and was pressurising the sump. This meant randomly the crankcase pressure would build up and push a ****load of oil through the turbo seal into the exhaust. Subsequently the car behind would become invisible but not for the right reasons. =)

This first happened the day after I'd bought the car and I was totally freaking out the motor was screwed and I'd sucked a big fat... lemon. But was pleasantly surprised when I found out it was the above issue. You can see the initial way it was done with garden hose like stuff in one of my first posts and how it was fixed it up below.







As you can see no more garden hose! =)

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CaBS

The next thing I did afew weeks later was installed a plumb back BOV.
The previous owner had "borrowed a mates" and had to give it back so the car came without one. You can see in the second post I put up the outlet on the hot pipe for it which is duct taped up.

The car got terrible compressor surge. You could feel it let alone hear it. The car was only running 14psi and under hard acceleration you could feel it between gear changes. Boost would drop right down and when you planted your foot in the next gear would take a second or two before it was on full song again.

The GFB plumb back fixed this up and the car performed much better and also sounded a lot better in my opinion. =)






Here you can see the new hot pipe I had made to suit the BOV.
Plumbs back nicely into the intake just infront of the compressor housing and has worked a treat to this day. Unfortunately the bonnet skin rubbed some of my black spray job off it =(

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di-devol

So, is this a build thread? Or a FS thread?

CaBS

Its a build thread champ, sorry if I didnt make it clear enough. That ad was the one I saw before I'd bought the car.

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di-devol

, sorry, I missed that.

CaBS

Heheh

I thought I must have forgotten to put that bit in for a second! =)

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CaBS

The next step was grip which the car had none of. The chromies the car came with had Nankangs on the rear and some ****ty faulkens on the front with no alignment items other than stock adjustments. Ontop of its it was 80mm+ lower than stock so bump steered and skipped like a mofo.

I bought some R33 GTS-T rims to throw on while I waited on the new wheels I'd order to come from japan. Finally some boxes showed up to UAS and I went and got them wrapped in SP Sportmaxx tyres the next day then we put them on!

Looking back I thought these tyres were pretty awesome in terms of grip. Now I have a set in the garage specifically for skidpan days lol

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fliprayzin240sx

Now now, before people jump on his nuts...those are R33 GTS-T wheels too, not just S14 SEs.

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CaBS

Ah yeh I forget you guys dont get many R33's in the states huh. Over here they're very common. Yeh quiet afew different nissans have them stock I think ceffys had them too.

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CaBS

The chromies saw the chop






Making way for some Buddy Club P1s








The car also saw its first event while waiting for the rims to arrive from Japan. Which was an SAU skidpan day and alot of fun with the whole pan being used for courses. I think this is still the best skidpan day I've been to till this day

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spray2020

hey Martin

its Cody

welcome to the u.s forum

CaBS

Hahaha small world! Hows it going? =)

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Corbic

Yawnnnnnnnn.


This is a what constitutes as a fucking "build thread" these day?

spray2020

Dont think it is a build thread eh?

... Just watch

He just posted photos of his 180 before the real build began!

spray2020

Good man! I installed a new fuel pump from pete- much better now

Picked up an aero bar, and i am making oem style fog lights for it in fiberglass.

.. Put my advans to the back burner- i need to finish them asap!

How are the gaurds going @ the shop?

Riq

I may have missed it but are those Buddyclub P1 SF or QF rims?

Corbic

If he is already done, then he needs to post the whole damn thing. Chat is clogged up enough with this crap.

OMFG a SR with a BOV!! OH EM GEE some crappy offset wheels came in today!!

Rulez

CaBS

Its in there man, they're P1's.

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A'PEXi

P1's, look forward to seeing a better looking kit on it

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CaBS

Over the next 12 months I did lots of small jobs on the car, installed some cheapy guages to monitor my temps at the track. Installed new nismo "butt plug" gearknob fitted pinapples and got the wheel alignment under control and made an airbox. Also got out and about enjoying the car! =)













Towards the end of the year my stock T25G decided it had had enough abuse and threw in the towel. The next thing on the cards had been suspension as I hated the tanabe sustec pro coilovers I bought the car with. They were way to stiff and would make the car skip and your ass tense at the sight of a pothole. This had to be pushed back to get the car running with a brand new 2860RS .63 the turbo was thrown in and tuned with the FPR st unigroup as I still only had the stock computer at this stage. Then lots more driving. I took my car to wakefeild for the first time after this clocking a 1:14.7 with no front camber and sportmaxx tyres. I was pretty happy with this for my first time at the track. =)





The new turbo was a fair bit bigger than stock but not stupidly.

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CaBS

The next items to go into the car were some 740cc Tomei injectors and a PFC. This netted me the same 195rwkw as just putting the turbo on but were were able to get a nice fat mid range out of it as well. So overall the car felt far faster.






I also shelled out for the biggest kincrome tool kit I could find in handheld form so it can be lugged to the track if need be to pull things apart as required. =)

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CaBS

So I'd been doing all the reading I could on suspension and what seemed to be working best at the time. I ended up choosing a complete kit that a suspension engineer from sydney was selling. Custom valved bilstein coilovers with selby swaybars front and rear. Also came with noltec adjustable strut tops for the front so I could dial in some camber. These were exactly what I was after and really made a world of difference to the car. No longer did it hop skip and jump over rough surfaces it just soaked everything up. While the bars kept the car feeling stable in the corners.














The car had been off the road for a while with a busted lca so I'd also managed to save up for a Nismo GT Pro TT 1.5 way mechanical diff. This is one of the best mods you can do. It totally transformed the car adding way more grip. We dropped the whole subframe out to make it easier fitting the suspension kit and the diff in/out.

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CaBS

I actually like the kit excluding the front bar it was always fugly.

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CaBS

New tune agent rear toe arms and camber arms went in to help with the rear alignment. Also picked up an ultra racing 4 point rear strut brace I could notice far less creaking from the chassis in and out of driveways after installing this so it must have been doing something.


For the next track day I managed to pickup these stock R34GTT rims with some old kumho v70 r-comps on them. This was my first time driving on R-comps and I was totally hooked. The way they break so progressively and let the car move around. It was definitely a feeling I wanted and want to chase more of!


The car had to head in for an alignment after fitting all the arms.

I picked up this basic sparco seat for a decent price and ordered some bride rails from an NS trader. These arrived in afew days and I took them down to get modded so they'd fit the seat. I couldnt get over the amount of extra feed back you get as a driver with a fixed back. I had been under the impression that the benefit only came from not having to brace yourself on the door and console! =)


A ross tuffbond oversized water pump pulley was fitted to help reduce pump cavitation at high RPM and therefore also temp. My water temps have always remained stable after this was installed. I think they're only like 7% bigger. Looking for a slightly larger one now actually if anyone knows of any? The only ones I've seen are the NAPREC ones and they look quiet expensive.


Finally got some EBC love happening my trusty profec b has never failed me to this day. Not sure if I'll need to upgrade once the car is running more than 20psi.

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CaBS

So the next wave of parts hit, this included a new greddy fmic as we thought the old one might be choking the power abit. A greddy oil cooler kit, nismo power brace, ultra racing front fender braces, new nissan o2 sensor and some whiteline rose jointed sway bar links.



You can really see why these make a massive difference when you look at what it replaces... When you look at how flimsily the front rad support is attached on an S13 chassis its no wonder it helps either!


New kit together.


The haul


You can see why I upgraded!


Big gap


Better in black?


Closeup of the new cooler fitted. Turned out to be a massive headache as the kit was made to sit infront of the radiator


Whiteline rose jointed swaybar links. These ended up being quite average and very overpriced. The new design is far improved!


I couldnt fit these as the fouled on the guards I had on the car =(


Better economy after this was installed!


This was on of the best purchases I've made. Lets you to all the fundamental data logging nothing fancy though but god is it a help when your looking where to improve! One handy feature is the ability to combine all your best sectors from a session so you know what the car and you are capable of if you can string them together in the same lap.

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CaBS

The 180's first unexpected large mechanical failure which involved some decent $$ to fix. Driving on the road took off at a medium speed and then shifted into 2nd. As I did this there was a huge bang. It sounded like the engine had fallen out the bottom of the car and I was driving over it. I pulled into the nearest driveway and realised either the clutch or gearbox had let go in spectacular fashion!
It turned out to be the box. Due to the recent power increases and a very unforgiving driver who didn't think the box would break at this power level (oops) =)

Looks fine!?


Oh....




I took the gearbox to award diff and gear where they rebuilt it for me. I was suprised to find that it was actually an S14 gearbox in the car. While it was all out I thought it best to put a new clutch in. An extreme cushion button was purchased with a custom pressure plate (more pressure). This was good for 250rwkw all day every day (cause I could never want more than that!) while also being nice to drive in traffic.







[img]http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h27/mutto_101/P4030035.jpg[img]





It all went back together without any major hassles other than doing it all on the garage floor with next to no space! =)

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CaBS

The brakes I had on the car were chewing through pads really quickly so I jumped on the sale of front and rear 33GTR brembos that popped up pretty cheap.

The first step was to strip out the crappy pads they came with and all the hardware involved in holding them in.


After about an hours worth of kero bath scrubbing they came up like this.


Another few hours picking off the flaking clear coat and sanding them back with wet and dry.


Came out like this.


The black turned out better than I had hoped




Stenciled them up with some ebay purchased stick on stencils.




Then bagged the rest of the calipers to avoid over spray.


Trimmed back the front rotor stone guards to let out more heat.


After ripping the stencils off the capilers came up looking sweet. I was really happy with them!










I moved to the drum handbrake rear setup. Removing the stone guards neatly while the assembly was still off. There is actually a hole in the standard knuckle to locate these on. Just needed to give it a quick run over with sandpaper and slot them in.


I was able to get them quite neat also without slicing my hand open which is easily done on the razor sharp edges!

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CaBS

Fitted up some new front end arms and the new brakes all painted up. I got some new strut tops for the front which were lower profile giving me more front travel. I sourced a Z32 master brand new for the bigger brakes which cost me an arm and a leg. Along with Nismo S14 LCAS's for improved track and some tune agent tie rod ends and caster arms. =( I also ordered some new rims!

The new haul.


What came off vs what was going on.


New cusco tops

...


Fitted up, looks pretty cool =)


Put the car up to pull everything off and put the new gear on.




I had to track down some screw cap bolts to suit as the gtr ones have a huge shank on them as the hubs are alloy on the gtr and much thicker.


New hid bulbs made a big difference I I really wish I had of bought the 4300k though as the 5k are still too blue for me.

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