LuckyX2

It's been a while so here's an update!

The jdm cluster came out well! The needles were a little dark so I took the sharpie off of the back tabs and just left sharpie on the needles themselves. It's brighter than it looks in the picture (just a crappy cell phone pic...)



And here it is in the day with my gauges back in. I finally have a working tach!!



I got some other miscellaneous goodies in the mail one day:



Black lugs for my new wheels, Sylvania Silverstars, some leds for my dome light, license plate light and cluster, Ichiba 5 lug front hubs with OEM bearings and some rear 5 lug hubs off of a Z32 (not in the pic). The license plate lights didn't work tho because they were unfortunately too long to fit.

Here are the Sylvania's installed. Again, it's just a crappy cell phone pic but the light from these is very bright and pure white. It's wonderful



And Last but not least, my wheels! They're 03 Cobra reps with a deeper dish and machined face. I'll be painting over the center cap btw, probably black.







The rest of my Wilwood parts for the front brakes are paid for and currently shipping but it's going to be a while before I get it all on due to the tires I want being sold out nationwide. I really want 255/40/17 Hankook R-S3's but the month wait is going to kill me. Unfortunately all the other comparable tires are more expensive and most of them aren't even as good.

If someone can find me a good deal on 255/40/17 or 245/45/17 tires with a wear rating between 100 and 200, I'd love to hear about it.

That's all for now until I get some tires!

LuckyX2

Wound up finding a good deal on some 245/45/17 Kumho Ecsta XS's so I decided to jump on them instead of waiting for the R-S3's and paying more.

Got them mounted today:


Notice I moved the battery to the trunk this week too. It was just kinda floating around up front and not strapped down. That wasn't gonna fly for autocrosses so I strapped it down right.

Here's a little mock-up of the wheels:


I'll be needing some fender work haha.

That's all for now until this weekend when I put on the rear hubs, rotors, brackets and wheels. Fronts come later this week when I get my Wilwood parts.

Comments anyone? This thread has been dead since the week I started it...

Pinggg

Should of ran with a 40 sidewall! but hey if you got a good deal on them, why not lol

LuckyX2

255/40/17 was what I was going to get in R-S3's but I got these for like $200 cheaper than tire rack so I'm not complaining haha. 245/45/17 is only 0.63 inches larger in total diameter anyway; it shouldn't make much of a difference.

aledelic42

big ass tires

benarovi

looks good tires look awsome too nice and fat

LuckyX2

Thanks, I'll lose a bit of turn-in response with the thicker sidewalls but gain in straight line accel. But really tho, that 0.3" radius difference won't change a whole lot besides making my car sit 0.3" higher and have 0.3" less clearance under the fender.

On another note, I'm doing my rear 5-lug today.


Ran into an issue tho; the guy who sent me the z31 brackets so I can switch to altima rotors in the back actually just sent me 240sx brackets...


See a difference? yeah, neither do I... I'll be PM'ing him and hopefully he can straighten things out. Problem is that I already put the 5-lug hubs on so now I have to redrill the stock rotors to get them back on.
EDIT: He messaged me back and it seems he mistakenly sent me the wrong ones and will be correcting that


And a quick question, are the rear altima rotors supposed to be this much "deeper" than stock? I'm concerned about clearance with it sitting so far back (closer to the upright)


This is the rotor I ordered and according to Amazon it fits the rear of a 2003 Altima.

LuckyX2

Fronts come next weekend.

LuckyX2

Hello again!

I've been pretty busy...

I bought a new shell since I keep finding worse and worse rust on mine and this one was a great deal.
http://zilvia.net/f/sale-items/44813...ing-hatch.html

I'm gonna try to swap everything over to it the last week of May.

Secondly, I had my first autocross! My car was far from perfect with my Kumho XS's and upgraded brakes on the rear and all season tires on steelies up front with stock brakes. Not to mention it was like 45F out so my Kumho's were rock solid and sliding all over. My car developed a reputation as being a "handful"... The following video has three runs in it, the third being my best even though I spun a bit at the end. This was with only 5psi (wastegate pressure) It still spun the tires like nothing tho.



So the reason I haven't gotten my front brakes/wheels/tires/hubs on yet is because the Wilwood distributor I ordered through only sent me one rotor... I have all the other pieces tho and boy do they look pretty



So yeah, as soon as I get my other rotor, I'll be putting these on. The next autocrosses for my area are gonna be May 12/26 and I'll most likely be going to at least one of those to try out my car with it more balanced haha.

Any tips for when I finally get my shell? Anything that's going to be easier with it all apart? I plan on sanding/painting a lot with everything out, probably gonna get some POR-15. Definitely painting the bay and cleaning up wires while the engine is out too. May do some bottom end work also if money allows.

okoye

what exactly is wrong with the old shell?

LuckyX2

"keep finding worse and worse rust on mine"

It is just getting to be a mess. From the outside it looks fine but the footwells are rusted out, it creaks, rails are rusty, one of the strut towers has a hole rusted through it etc.

Much easier at this point to just get a new shell and start fresh instead of trying to fix this only to have rust creep back in through some spot I missed.

okoye

well would you pass the shell on?

LuckyX2

My old one? Yeah sure.

It's gonna be like a month or so before I have a week off to go home and swap everything over tho. PM me at the end of May if you're still interested.

okoye

ok will do!

LuckyX2

So I finally got my second rotor and was able to get my front wheels/hubs/brakes on!









I'm loving the beefy, aggressive stance now with 245's up front, not to mention the stopping power. I get lightheaded if I really apply it haha.

TaterBiscuit

Nice ride, I like a lot of the things you have done to it.

LuckyX2

Thanks! It's not exactly pretty but it has the goods where it counts, the engine/suspension/brakes/tires.

I think I'm pretty much done with it performance wise. The only things left for performance would be a possible higher compression rebuild of the bottom end when I have the engine out to move it over to the new shell and renting a dyno to tune it. And maybe I'll upgrade to a GTX series turbo down the road, who knows.

The things I'm focusing on now are all the issues with it like the rusted shell, my busted 6 puck clutch which I think I'll be replacing with an RPS Street Max and my high idle is back so I need to look into that. Later down the road at the very end comes body work and paint. I'm leaning towards a midnight purple type-x'ish build but my mind is always changing on that haha.

DreEzed

Finally a car with good amount of meat on the tires. What are your alignment specs. Thinking about running a 245/45 up front. Also how much fender work?

LuckyX2

I'd suggest going 245/40 actually, 45 gives a bit too much sidewall IMO. The only reason I went with the 245/45 was because I found a great deal on ebay for them and what I wanted was backordered for a month or more. Originally I was gonna do 255/40/17 R-S3's all around.

These didn't take much fender work; basically I just flattened the lip with a baseball bat and I was good. Where it rubs is the seam that runs along the top of the wheel well if you know what I'm talking about. I'm gonna hammer that flat tonight and I should be good.

And I haven't gotten it aligned yet and probably won't until I swap the parts onto my new shell but I think I'm gonna go for 3-4 degrees of camber and 0.5 degrees toe out up front and 2 degrees of camber and 0.5 degrees toe in for the back.

bataangpinoy

what influenced you to run altima rotors?

LuckyX2

The fact that it's basically as good as z32 rears but much cheaper and it keeps the stock ebrake making it less of a hassle and it reduces the unsprung weight.

The altima rotors are like 2" larger, if you didn't know. That's where the extra performance comes from.

bataangpinoy

so i'm assuming that you'll be using the oem caliper in the rear, in conjunction with the z31 brackets?

thats a really neat bit of info man, thanks for sharing.

LuckyX2

Yep, stock calipers but larger rotor from an Altima (2003 is the year I used) and brackets from a z31 300zx. The z32 brakes have a slightly better caliper and a vented rotor but this is close in terms of performance, less complicated, weighs less and is really cheap; it only cost me $65, $40 for rotors and $25 for brackets

bataangpinoy

not bad!


msglngth

DreEzed

Awesome info RS3's are dope. Just went through them. I was thinking of running a 255 aswell but I don't see how it would fit with out some pulling.
I'm stuck on either running RS3's or z1 Starspecs or DZ101(I daily my pos).

Yeah i had hammer the crap out of the little inner seam. Oh what do you need to run the altima rotor.

LuckyX2

Definitely, I feel RS3's are the new tire to have. Star specs are still great too but man have they gone up in price... I don't like how much heat the XS's take currently and their wet performance is known to be lacking but I'm sure they'll be great on the dry summer days. I saved like $200 going with them so whatever haha.

And yeah, definitely don't do 245/45 like I did haha. 255/40 with some camber and a slight pull or 245/40 with a little camber and a roll is what you'll want. Even after hammering down that seam, I'm pretty sure it's still going to rub under heavy load and turning due in part to the extra fraction of an inch of sidewall I have. Going 40 instead of 45 would just make it that much easier to get clearance.

Altima rotors are a super simple upgrade. You just need two rotors, two z31 brackets and 4 washers. Everything bolts right up and the washers are just so that the bracket bolt doesn't come through all the way or else it will rub the back of the rotor and gouge it. One washer per bolt does it. Place the washers right under the head on the bolt btw; that way it doesn't change the spacing of the bracket at all.

LuckyX2

So I went to the drag strip for my first time ever yesterday and here's what I got:



I'm Right and Left was a turbo'ed RSX.
I had a boost leak that was really killing my spool by like 2k rpm and taking about 5psi off of my max boost. Easy 12's once that's fixed. Also my launches sucked which is mostly my fault for being new to it but my crappy clutch didn't help either. I just got a new RPS Max 6 puck so we'll see how I do with that and some practice.

I plan on heading back to the strip once I swap everything over to my new shell at the end of this month. Also, I figured while the engine is out I may as well get some forged pistons/rods and bearings for the bottom end. I'll be going high compression (10:1+) hopefully and pick up a good 10% or so all over the powerband. I would love to go 90mm overbore at that time too but I'm running short on money and time is limited since this is my DD . I'm working on a deal for a z32 trans to go in at that time too since I'm likely at the limits of the SR trans.

Overall, the goal is 11's once I'm done moving everything over to the new shell and have the new parts in. I haven't gotten on the dyno yet to tune it either so there's a good amount of time to be cut off with that.

That's all for now

LuckyX2

Had another autocross yesterday and this time, the car was much better!
Since my last autocross, I put on the front wheels/tires, put on the Wilwood front brakes and removed the rear sway bar. It's much, much more balanced now and was really a joy to drive.
Times have not been posted yet but I have been told that my time of 62.8 was very competitive on street tires.

I should not have settled for 45 sidewall though, it rubs pretty bad on hard turns and caused the hopping that you'll see in the video. Looks like I'll be cutting/hammering the fender well some more in the near future...

okoye

on the new chassis right?

LuckyX2

Nope, old one. New one hasn't arrived yet and I won't be home in PA to swap parts until May 25th anyway.