Backyard Build NZ S13

I thought it was about time I posted up my little Silvia project on here.
I bought the car back in June 2011 and have been really slowly working on it.

The specs when I got it were:
-the engine had been swapped out to an S15 sr20de
-aftermarket exhaust
-BC red adjustable suspension.
and various other small things.









So that's how the car looked when I got it.
Pretty much straight away the first thing I did with the car was take it to the track Hampton Downs, and did a few skid pan events and also some solo track driving.







Driving a car on a track for the first time felt pretty great, I didn't get any pictures of the car on the actual track though. After this was when I first started making some changes.

On the track my 17" wheels were scraping on the inside of my guards, and obviously instead of raising the car a little bit I decided to do what made sense and buy a new set of smaller wheels. Que 15" ssr formula mesh replicas:



then I spent a few days polishing all the (concrete?) off them, honestly I have no idea why there were spots of concrete stuck to these wheels... i kept going until they had the Domo seal of approval.



Then basically I left it as a pretty good daily driver for a while, nothing needed changing so i just didn't do anything.





More updates and final specs to come.

 

A little while after I had the car looking the way I wanted it I actually got my licence, and as a little treat i got myself a nardi classic just to make the interior a little nicer, also 'cause the standard steering wheel was falling apart.





and I did just a few little things like replacing rusty bolts and making DIY pieces here and there.





But unfortunately due to my annoying OCD and Perfectionist tendencies I had to make everything as good as possible, things like the steering wheel, it was looking pretty worn after being stored in an attic so i had to restore it myself.





And the tail lights, they had a tint, which I took off after about a week beause i hated it, but that messed up my tails, so i sanded them all back and polished them up.





Also the car had no speakers in it at all when we got it, so that had to be fixed, I ended up buying entirely new door cards just to get the speaker cover, and then re-trimmed them while they were out, also the glove-box was re-trimmed, i also had to prototype and make my own speaker housings because mine were missing. This was about a two week long process just because I wasn't happy with the speaker covers... damn my OCD.



product placement!

product placement!


After all the trial fittings and housings i had made, i ended up with a pretty retarded piece of modern "art"


and then just for fun and to finish off the interior so i could worry about other things, i made this wood gear knob on a lathe with my grandfather, turned out pretty damn well i think.


AND THAT'S THE INTERIOR DONE! ...for now...

 

So with all the pointless interior mods done i decided to move onto the pointless exterior mods. First up was a gtr style grill, then a good smack with a hammer because i realised my bonnet wasn't straight, and then i thought about fitting a roof spoiler. After about a month of prepping, painting, sanding and polishing the spoiler i decided i didn't even like it any more and it didn't match the car, so i sold it. After that i decided to fix my broken front camber, and something i had been meaning to do for a while which was repair the giant dent in my boot.

Photos:


















After all this i was pretty happy with the look of the car, and so i drove around like that for a while, then after saving up some money i decided to buy a fibreglass copy of the genuine S13 aero front bumper as i always loved the look of the stock aero on the s13. It was not easy to get it to fit though. Me being a perfectionist meant that i couldn't just fit it with imperfections, so i did my first ever attempt at fibreglass work by rebuilding half of one side of the bumper.















While i had the front off the car doing work on the bumper, i decided to take car of some rust, some giant holes had to be taken care of by a shop, but all the rest of the work i try to do myself. while i was at it i also tucked my wire harness just to be safe.





And that's about the end of all the exterior work ... for now...

 

Now for a tiny bit of engine bay work. I actually didn't have any good photos of the engine before i started to tidy things up, but i've got some pics of the later things i did.



got a Cusco ca18 strut brace.


To start with the car came with an HKS mushroom filter that had completely deteriorated and so i bought a new filter pad for it. Because the car had a DIY short pipe intake, the battery was relocated to the other side and just held down with a piece of metal.. it wobbled like mad, so i decided to put it back where it was, this meant i had to replace the intake pipe, and i spent a bit of time fiddling with multiple pipes until i ended up with a hybrid piece and the filter back over on the other side.





The exhaust that came fitted on the car didn't last very long, the muffler ended up with a giant hole in it from scraping on the floor so i had to get a new exhaust system rebuilt, i decided to go for a full 3" de-cat system with the smallest muffler i was allowed, coming out with a small twin tip exhaust. -ignore the offset on the wheel, it was a test-



The car had been rewired, but as a result of the newer engine in the older car, a lot of the wires that came through didn't connect to anything, so i decided to trace back all the lose wires and cut them out, i also added in some length to other wires so i could tuck them out of the way. i finished tidying everything up and nothing had broken. which was awesome.

I keep planning to do more work to the engine, but there's not really any point in my opinion, it works, and chances are if i keep messing with it its just gonna stop working so ill just leave things as they are power wise.

Suspension wise, i've been fiddling with it gradually to try and find the perfect ride height/camber set up and i'm pretty happy at the moment, but my current plan is to buy a set of rear upper control arms and rear toe rods.

I'm just about to buy some arms and get an alignment done. i was hoping to get some opinions. The brands i'm thinking of are Truhart, Hardrace and GKTech. Gktech are the most expensive, but that way i feel sure that they wont break ever, Truhart are the cheapest but i'm kind of unsure about the quality, if anybody has any reviews of any of these brands and could suggest any to me that would be awesome.

 

Finally the specs.
Some of these make me realise just how little work i've actually done on this car the whole time...

Model: Nissan Silvia S13 1988

Colour: Silver Green two tone
code: 5G7 Silver Green: fGo
Dark grey metalic: 463

Engine: 1999 s15 sr20de vvt
-power: 165 bhp @ 6400 rpm
-torque: 196 Nm @ 4800 rpm
-HKS mushroom fliter
-modified s13/s15 intake pipe
-internally pollished standard intake manifold
-handbuilt air diversion plates/headlight covers
-wire tuck
Exhaust:
-full custom built 3" de-cat exhaust w/ twin tip

Suspension and Bracing:
-BC red adjustable suspension
-Cusco front strut brace

Interior:
-S14 front seats
-hub sports boss kit
-D1 Spec quick release
-Nardi classic (self restored)
-drift handbrake button
-6"JVC speakers rear, Fusion front
-handbuilt speaker housings (they took a while to make so I'm putting them in here)
-retrimed doorcards and glovebox
-Japanese flag
-HUD conversion

Exterior:
-factory re-spray
-gtr style grill
-15x7 et 0 welded 3 piece SSR formula mesh replicas
-DATSUN BADGE! WOOP! /^O^/
-Custom dents and scratches
-Nismo style front bumper
-trimmed Nissan mud flaps
-R32 4-door rear spoiler

 

I'm in Central Auckland. It's kinda a shame as there's not many places to drive, Hampton downs is the closest racetrack I go to, and its like an hour and a half drive. But there are some pretty alright workshops and car people here so that makes up for it.

Also these are the latest pics of it,




yeah and about the interior being finished, i lied. this HUD kit came up for sale a while back and so i jumped on it. but it took about a year of searching yahoo japan before i got all the parts i needed to make it work.




this friggen subharness, damn it was hard to get a hold of. but the end result..


WORTH IT!

 

Thanks, even though i already have an S13 and its taken all my money, I still want another one. There are always more plans and i just cant bring my self to ruin this one.

The whole time i've had it i've been slowly trying to restore it to factory fresh condition, i'm getting there. Cutting into my mint dashboard to fit the HUD was pretty much the most terrifying thing.

Haha, you know it mate. It was later swapped for folded up cardboard, some hightech Backyard engineering going on here.

Cheers. I always loved the oldschool Jap style, i still have some further retro plans for it which should be kinda funny/interesting.

 

Thanks man. Your white r32 is looking pretty awesome too.

Haha. Yeah thanks for giving me that spoiler man, it looks heaps cleaner than that mouldy 3rd brake light i had in it.


And cheers for all the nice comments lads, im glad im building it to an acceptable standard considering i started this build with my dad when i was 14 and im still only 17 and i know i still have a bunch to learn.

Alright, so as i mentioned earlier, I've decided to spend some money getting the suspension the way it needs to be, so i've been looking into some RUCA's and toe arms, the toe arms should be fine cause all brands on Trade-me (NZ Ebay) are basically the same, but for the camber arms i still don't know which brand to get, i've narrowed it to hardrace:



or GKTech, which are more expensive but seem to be quite different, they have Teflon bushings/joints and i'm not sure how that will feel on a road car, where as the Hardrace arms are cheaper and have hardened rubber bushings so they may be more comfortable on the road, but i just don't know about quality.



So again, if anybody building their s13s has any reviews/opinions or if anybody in NZ knows of these brands and could tell me a little more about them then that'd be awesome.

 

Alright so, small update:

-I got hold of some RUCAs and Rear Toe arms and they showed up a little while ago. I installed them as well as a pair of rear braided brake lines to complete the set that i already had on the front.

-I think i'm going to try and design a new boot-lip spoiler like a cross between TRA Kyoto and Bwave. I'm just gonna mock it up with some spray expanding foam and then see how i like it.

so for now the arms and brake lines are in and now i just need to get around to bleeding the rear brakes and then take it for an alignment. When that's all done there will be a few pics.

 

Thanks a bunch for that info, it really helped me out looking for parts. In the end, even though GKTech do over engineer and they were a little pricey, i thought that since they ticked all the boxes and i had the money to spend i might as well just go for it.

Cheers bro, for me being a perfectionist is almost a curse with this car, i see every little missaligned panel and slight dent and think i have to fix it. Haha but, at least ive got a lot of time for this build.

Thanks man, I have to admit, i feel that my taste in what to do with this car has changed a lot over the few years ive owned it, i look back at plans id made when i was younger and im just confused as to why i ever thought that was cool, hah. But yeah, i do what i can here and there and i think the time that it takes me keeps me from doing anything too stupid.
as for the rust holes, i guess my definition of "giant" may be slightly different, but the door hinges were the main place.




allright so time for a few pictures,

I had a bunch of thin metal lying around and so i decided to finish up work on the intake.
I had wanted to keep the standard cold air box from the car, but i may have lost it perhaps...
oh well, time for some cardboard design work.


ended up with a pretty good shape, then traced it onto the metal.

the metal is all pretty thin so i just score the lines with a craft knife and then just fold it until it snaps, this gives a pretty clean cut.

so I got the top part of it finished,

i think i got a pretty tight fit around the intake pipe.

mocked up the back piece

riveted it all together, added some flames and slogans for those extra kilowatts. because the internet said.
and in my typical fashion i finished hammering it into place at roughly 8:00 at night. i even managed to get it perfectly level.

just a pic to show the fit around the back.
and finished:


So yeah, it took an entire day to do something that probably wont do anything at all but i'm fine with it. In theory; the cold air will go over the headlight and into the gap i made in the front, but if that doesn't work at least of made a box that sort of separates the filter from the warm air in the engine.
The main thing is now a have another flat surface to put my tools.

Will have the install of the camber and toe arms on the next update.