Back to turbo trouble and chocolate engines

FreddieS's 200SX S13 - RB25 Poo-wered

Well reliability was boring anyway.

So I bought another S13 after building another E36 to replace the one I killed at lydden. Just didnt feel the same and wanted another turbo jap crap rusty datsun anyway while driving the saloon 36.

Paid too much for this, dont care will stick with it and make it work.

Bought it looking like this -





A quick photoshoot by Matt Honeywill






Fitted a front plate -



2 days after buying the welded diff went bang as previous owner bought one off someone who evidently cant weld for shit and should be kicked in the dickhead of a face he posseses and never weld a diff again. replaced it with a diff I welded properlym

Removed the kouki's - now running pink lower panel and centre... meh.



Bought loads of shit off Ryan



Fitted the 5stud conv on one corner as wanted to see what the wheels would look like. Peer pressured into doing it before lydden by Sir Daz






Blitz SBC-ID fitted



The day before Lydden hill - running on fuck all sleep as had to work all week and had tons to do on the car every night the list felt like it was the same as the night before...



At lydden ready to kill some tyres -




Anyway, had a sick time at lydden Saturday, running on an hour and a half sleep (sub 10 hours sleep for the whole week leading upto lydden)

Car was fine for the first 2 sessions, loads of grip though and a bit of understeer turned out the fronts had 42psi in them and the rears only had 28, swapped that around and it skidded nicely but started getting warm, removed the thermostat and no longer had that issue.

Had a few issues with boost, turned out my fmic pipe between the plastic one over the rad and into the throttle body was slipping off (jubilee wasnt going tight enough) and wasnt popping off but letting lots of boost out, no biggie as put a big ass mikalor on it and carried on.

Ran out of tyres, wish I hadve taken more but had a sick day anyway.

Some photos of the car going sideways, need stiffer arbs and more lows.

Angle coming into devils, quite pleased as zero lock mods.



Cut thru



Paddock fuck all smoke my god my cars high and needs to be low -





Booking for next lydden next week, cars survived one so will give it another and see if it dies.

Need to 5stud the rear and get some solid subframe bushes, then start slowly polybushing everything

Oh yeah, and weld the fuck out of it to as of course its rusty.

 

Well where to start.

Fixed the FMIC leak inbetween doing marks lock mods (knuckles, lca's, modded subframe etc)



Fitted solid subframe bushes -



Had it aligned, what a difference! -



Bought some more skid rims having gone 5stud -



Went to lydden, car was overheating on the way up, headgasket was gone and didnt realise until I stopped at the services, everytime I came on boost it would throw the coolant into the expansion bottle then get hot, thought great, write off the entire weekend, then manned up and just skidded, car overheating every session and throwing about a quarter of a litre of oil into my make shift catch can (and down the side of my car :\)

Sunday got fedup with the catch can so put it back into the inlet, weirdly didnt smoke but has filled my fmic with oil, still overheating like mad but got aggressive and killed 12 tyres on the sunday alone.



















Car managed to survive the entire weekend with only a bit of front end damage from fucking up entries going into devils and hitting the wall on the left before cut through.

Now for a major winter rebuild, need to sort my workshop out and get a few cars out the way so I can rip this down properly, want to tub the front archs and sort the rear pockets as they blew out from a major delam smashing a load of hidden rust

After licensing day ive got marks (red S14 in photo's) engine as hes building a forged lump and ive already put a deposit on his engine, cannot fucking wait.

Gutted I dont have a car to do licensing day in as really wanted to try for a license, alas, maybe next year

 

Yeah got them as was considering selling the rota's and running starrion wheels daily, but prefer the look of mine with the rota's, might get some more as the starrion wheels look so much better than the z32 wheels when skidding

 

Yeah, if the deal falls thru on the turbo SR I might just N/A SR it as its still more power than I had last lydden!

Hopefully have the engine after licensing day and then can get cracking getting it in and sorting the shell out

 

Long time no update... The car's plans have changed direction considerably, I got the SR20 out of the red S14, then swapped it for an RB25 about 2 weeks after, sold the CA18DET out of this to a mate, then the car sat there looking shit on the driveway...

Opened the bonnet to check the colour code and got moaned at by a neighbour so realised it was time to empty the stables at my nans and get the car in there, 2 weekends of aggro and constantly moving stuff around its done and im stoked to finally have somewhere I can work on the car without aggro!

An empty space awaiting a car!



And the S13 finally in the workshop after the sketchiest tow ever -



So didnt bother updating last sunday as there wasnt that much done, Saturday was a day of moving stuff, got nearly everything over and then sunday started to get the car semi stripped at the front, focused on stripping panels and taking the engine loom, and body loom out the front end, also removed the brake lines but couldnt make too much noise as I had my freshly operated on dog with me, she wasnt too eager to settle and everytime I made any form of noise she would come and pester me

Still, made a bit of progress -

An eager S13 looks onto its new heart -



Getting the thing stripped -



The helpful poorly dog -



As far as I got sunday -



Today I decided not to bother with festivities as realised how short the christmas break actually is so got cracking, first things first stripped all the front suspension, cross-member and things off -



Then I got carried away and cut a gaping big hole in the car -



Welded in a base -



Welded in the curve and inner piece -



And then filled the corner, still got to finish welding the corner piece upto the top of the inner wing but thats a few minutes work in the morning



And this is how it sits now -



Wouldve loved to have completely finished the drivers side tub, but ive got a stinking headache thanks to having no ear defenders, tomorrow is the day.

R33 cross member shall be fitted tomorrow and the rb engine and gearbox test fitted to make sure it fits nicely, will then pull it back out and do the passenger side tub and start prepping the rest of the engine bay...

 

Haha cheers dex, like following your MX on instagram so atleast now im posting something half worthy haha.

ChrisL200SX, i do it for a living, except using a hobby welder like ive got for home work is bullshit, theres no in-between settings and its either blowing thru or just being a massive homo blobby pigeon shit bastard of a welder, Im going to buy a new MIG in the near future as im fedup now!

Anyway, day 2 saw some more progress, my mate marklaa came and gave me a hand as he can weld aswell, so we took turns welding/cutting/grinding/sanding/smoothing and shit got done.



Pass side tub done -



Engine test fit -



everything backout and engine bay primered, crossmember back in -



and engine back in -



Today, hopefully get a few more bits done, ran my proper bottle of gas out today so got some disposable ones to hopefully finish the bay off :\

 

Oh yeah half the primer I put on has come back off to finish the bay, it was just impatience getting the better of mark, and his peer pressure getting the better of me.

Simply needed to see how it would look in one colour, me likey. Gave me the motivation to carry on!

Engines back out, strut top reinforcements/joiners spot weld drilled out and a replacement piece made and welded in on both sides today, also tidied up the inner archs on both sides where the tubs are, seam sealered and undersealed the drivers side and started to prep the passengers side

Repair panel made after removing the crusty stock items -



Welded in passenger side -



And drivers side -



Also stripped back the chassis rails and treated that.



Going to finish the enginebay tomorrow hopefully then take a holesaw to the bulkhead for my new wiring holes, put the engine back in and then start on the wiring...

 

Well, not much progress, mashed my thumb up at work on thursday so had friday off, couldnt do much one handed but managed to sort a few bits out, royally messed up the second coat of high build primer on the bay by adding too much thinners (funny that when you cant pour thinners you pour too much!)

Either way, left their friday night about 11 pissed off and annoyed, mainly because it was the last bit of high build I had (only had a 750ml tin which was nearly empty) so desperately tried to find somewhere open on a saturday, APS in Aldershot are now apparently shut on Saturdays but people I know came up with Expresspaints in Portsmouth, damn glad I went down there as they were amazing, seriously good prices and a bit of haggle room aswell, would recommend to anyone.

Left there with alot of stuff, drove back up, struggled for motivation and then finally went over to the workshop to get some shit done, was a bastard sanding the abomination where I attempted to spray the previous thinner/high-build but got it prepped, then sprayed high build using my fancy new mixing cups and actually paying attention to how much thinners I add.

Sprayed it, also sprayed matts mx5 bumper and sideskirts in high build so he can get on with his car.



Decent high build coat -



Flatted it back and also flatted the headlight covers and decided to spray some colour as no idea what it would be like, pictures dont really show the colour but its cadburys purple pearl -



Then decided to test fit the front bumper again and actually try and attach it, needs some work but hopefully get it semi bolted on during the week so I can make the front end to hold the top middle of it. Either way its going to need some work as the gaps by the headlight are shocking and the fits pretty dissapointing