Sooooo good! Mega happy with the cage work man, its ace Just need to pull my finger out and actually start taking bits off the old shell and put onto the nice new shell!
Been a couple of weeks... Got both shells back!(New and old) {} Just a case of swapping everything over from the old one to the new one, and by everything - I mean pretty much EVERYTHING! Swapped over the steering column as that had my ignition barrel and all the indicators etc on it so saved me faffing about trying to get them off. Also - wiring - what a nightmare, Its like somebody has fitted a gash alarm and then ripped it out just by pulling it and not even cutting wires, it was crazy - Examples... {} {} Ended up buying a soldering iron - never using one before I cracked on and managed to do some decent wiring I think which I was rather happy with - sorted out some horrendous bodge jobs so hopefully the wiring is all sorted now. {} {} Also wired up my remote central locking kit that I ordered a while ago, as I'm fed up of putting the key in the door all the time, lucky me, the drivers door already had an actuator in it all bolted up, although I had already ordered a new one before I checked...just need to plug it all in now and then I'll get it tested and fingers crossed it'll work a treat! {} {} All the wiring looms are in and attached up, We managed to get the dash back in after a bit of persuasion and a hack saw and grinder. {} {} {} {} Next is to run new fuel lines as I have no idea on the state of the current ones, and then fit the fuel tank and prop and then see if she starts. I also need to get an intercooler piping kit and radiator top hose and then I can plumb them in aswell... Hopefully not much more, once it's driving well, im gonna book on a drift day and just drive it as it is, I dont care how it looks, just want to make sure it drives well before I spend money on the exterior. HUGE Thanks to Amy for helping with numerous things that would have been a huge pain on my own, and also Norfy for being the wiring god that he is, and able to tell me exactly what each wire was at the drop of a hat... More to come - hopefully next time it'll be driving!
Nothing major just a small update... Finally got all the dash etc back in, just need to make up new seat rails and then the seats and harnesses can go back in... {} Bought a healthy amount of new/fresh fuel hose so that I can replace anything underneath the car that doesn't look right... {} Got the car in the air ready to fit the fuel tank, stupidly jacked it up then realised I had left to the fuel tank in the boot... No bother - just lift it out - simple right? {} NOPE!!! Bloody breather pipe snaps as I lifted it via that instead of the filler neck... D'oh! {} Quickly on the blower to a mate(Mr.Hanson) who came up with a genius idea of sleeving it and making another tube that will slot over the top of it with a washer around the bottom to seal it on... {} Cleaned up around it with a wire brush and then got some tigerseal and stuck it on, just waiting for it to set then hopefully i'll be able to get the fuel tank in and then that's another thing ticked off the list On a positive note....fitted a pair of 25mm spacers I bought a while back! Adding a bit of girth ready for some +30mm overfenders! {} As I said - not much updates unfortunately but slow and steady wins the race right?
Few more updates... had a spare few hours over the past few days so done small bits and bobs... Finally got the new slip on nozzle all fitted onto the tank - now awaiting a dry day to get underneath and fit it!(Working outside is no fun!) {} Then I got onto modifying my door cards so that they fit around the rollcage...Started out with 2 full door cards... {} Out came the grinder! The door cards then became 4 half door cards... {} After some fettling they eventually fit like a glove! including keeping the original handle(after cutting that aswell!) and window buttons - winner winner! I will make up a panel to cover the bottom of the door later down the line once the car is running etc and I know its fine - bottom of the priority list right now lol {} Picked up a viscous fan and got that fitted up along with the stock cowling and an uprated Japspeed radiator(Best cooling setup going! Stuff your electric fan malarky!). Also fitted the power steering lines. {} Again waiting on a dry day so that I can get under the car and fit a few things up... Need to swap the oil pressure sensor to an S13 unit as my start/charge loom is still the stock s13 stuff - But with the intake brace fitted up its impossible to change it from above Hopefully more updates soon! May even be running very soon hopefully!
Out with old... The old shell has now gone to my mates yard to sit for a while and be filled up before it sent to the scrapyard!! {} I also made the trip over to Leeds to Dunning & Fairbank to pickup my prop after its had fresh UJ's put on either end to rectify the whining that I had all last year finally! {} Also remembered from STL Last year that whilst I was getting my tyres changed I noticed a huge amount of gunk on the drivers side wheel on the inside barrel - then when I got back to the car, I quickly noticed that the inner CV had split(typical S-body!). Never bothered to replace it and just left it, then as I was fitting the prop I remembered, so thought I might aswell change them out as I had spares sitting in the shed... Guess which is which! {} All fitted up ready for the fuel tank to go in... {} On my own so had use the jack to get the fuel tank into position, whilst it was up I noticed something dodgy, dropped it to find this... {} Our quick fix hadn't worked and from my understanding its gone too high up and the bodywork has made it break out - so gonna have to remove totally and get a new pipe welded on I think, shouldn't be a hard job and then I know its done for good I guess. Called it a day after the fuel tank :@
Enjoyed reading this on nights. Chris is just up the road from me and i hear nothing but good things about his work!
cheers mate - I know its not very technical as I don't have a workshop and im not mechanically minded but I try my best where I can!! Chris is ace, known him years and been drifting together for ages - hopefully soon again!
Few more small updates - its coming together now... Finally got the fuel tank sorted and fitted - decided to just bung up the breather pipe - welding isn't perfect but its under the car so it won't be seen nor heard by anybody! {} {} {} Fuel pump in aswell with fresh bolts and pipe/jubilee's {} Something that had been bugging me is that with the new engine, there was no throttle cable holder on the intake: {} Just the bracket but no clamp... so got some M10 penny washers and took the grinder to them resulting in the below: {} {} Needed to change the oil filter, as per any other normal SR - I thought it'd be a simple case of just getting my hand in there and giving it a good old hard twist - obviously not!! This took me and Amy 2 hours to get this off and eventually we managed with the help from Scarlett's dad as he was passing by - absolute nightmare, hammer, screwdrivers, pry bars the lot - felt like this had been on their since factory!! Hope not!! Anyway nice fresh now oil filter now fitted {} Also whilst the oil filter was off I needed to change the stock oil pressure sensor to an S13 one to match my engine loom so I did just that. {} Also scuttle panel and wiper motor and arms fitted again finally so no more big gaping holes {} Waiting on Intercooler piping to turn up and also some new seat rails so hopefully have seats in soon aswell and once Intercooler is on it'll be running! Not long to go!
good idea with the washers dude... small little details like that are the best kind... wont be long till its rocking the streets again
Few more small updates... Found a full japspeed exhaust on Faceyb - was only in Manchester and Joe was on a job over there so picked up the exhaust same day - got this back and gave it a clean with a good old scotch brite pad on the drill - came up trumps - this is just the mid pipe but I did the full exhaust. {} {} Unfortunately as things go, it wasn't a straight forward buy and fit - the turbo elbow did not fit and fouled on the gearbox bellhousing so this had to be changed to another turbo elbow that came with the engine - this still required cutting and welding so that the flange matched up to the exhaust downpipe flange - luckily I have a friend called Joe. {} {} After some jiggery pockery the exhaust was on - huge thanks to Joe for his time and efforts with this. Not the best pictures but it sits really low unfortunately so this will have to be addressed sooner rather than later... {} {} My new seat rails arrived from China, they are solid base mount rails so nothing fancy, but for the price I paid I think it was fair for a bolt on part seen as I dont have a welder so can't make up rails myself and I hate having to ask people... {} Luckily for me, the passenger seat is base mount, so lining up the rails, the backs lined up fine, but the fronts were nowhere near, so I had to drill 2 holes to match up that only took 5 minutes {} {} Before putting the seat in I got the passenger harnesses mounted up so they were in and only minor adjustment were needed. Waiting on 2 eyelet brackets welding in for the lap belt for either side. {} {} I then made a start on the drivers seat, but with this being side mount, I had to mount the side mount L Brackets before the seat, and because I have such a wide butt, the seat is rather wide. I had to cut the seat belt buckle holder off as this stopped the brackets going as wide as possible. Unfortunately, one of the holes in the seat must have had some water in...so when I was tightening all the bolts up, one of them suddenly snapped, my theory is some sort of hydro lock and its just snapped the bolt head clean off. So this has stopped me in my tracks and has put things behind now as I have to wait for Joe to be able to drill it out and re-tap it for me... {} {} The engine was topped up with all the relevant fluids and I thought i'd see if it would turn over and start - initially it wouldn't start at all, no fuel or spark, eventually after some digging around I found that the fuel lines were the wrong way(me thinking the FPR would be on the feed line rather than return) - swapped these over and it was now getting fuel but no spark. {} Bought a multi-meter at the recommendation of Norfy and proceeded to carry out many tests advised by Norfy(this guy has been such a god send recently with his knowledge) - basically now, the coil plugs are all getting power and are earthed, but they arent sparking, even when testing them on the inlet or anything, theres no spark - so its like the ECU is not sending a signal to them. I am yet to test this, I have ordered an LED 501 Bulb to plug into each one and see if there is any spark, and if so would suggest that these maybe S14 coils rather than S15(again Norfy's knowledge) {} My washer bottle decided to break into many pieces when taking it off my old shell - so spoke to Laidler as I remember he fitted a bag to his old S14, he sent me a link to this, which is basically a bag with a little pump fitted to it - only cost about £10 and works a treat, i've wired it in so that it works off the normal pulling the stalk and the wipers going - the old wires were manky but stripped them back and used some connectors and sorted it, I didn't want to solder it as you never know when you need to remove it(although looking back I could just unplug it - doh!) {} {} {} {} Intercooler piping should be arriving today, and then get that fitted up, and then hopefully get it plugged in soon and see if its throwing any codes up as to why it won't start! Want this thing running asap... Would just like to say a massive thank you to everybody that has helped so far, especially Amy(shes a good wench and tends to help a lot) and also Joe and Norfy! Would struggle without you guys
Few more things ticked off the list... Intercooler piping arrived: {} Doesn't really fit so had to sell my old intercooler and now on the lookout for a new intercooler that is a bit smaller in size - as you can see one side sits higher than the other weirdly so will remedy that aswell {} Was changing all the oils, engine, gearbox, diff etc, went to undo the diff drain plug and it just rounded out because I didn't have the correct tool as im a tight arse... {} Amy swiftly sent me off to Halfords to buy the correct tool to prevent this happening in future...this also then meant I had to remove the diff to change the backplate for a spare I had...more waste of time - all my fault :@ {} Also as it was Bank Holiday weekened, STL had a 10% off sale so thought i'd treat me and Amy to some new work gloves and also received a new STL Sticker along with a lovely postcard! {} The S13 needs a brake line running from front to rear, so bought a reel of copper brake pipe, and borrowed a bender and flarer from my mate to get this done {} Unfortunately haven't had enough time to spend a good hour or so lying under the car doing it yet, but I did have a little practice with the flarer since i've never used one before and think it turned ok? {} The 501 LED Bulbs arrived to test the coilpack issue and when I plugged them in they were getting signal which means the plugs were getting all the correct signals etc... {} Baffled I thought i'd best change the spark plugs to see if they have all fouled randomly... {} Surprise surprise, no change, so I thought maybe it needs earthing more...made up 3 earth wires from old loom wire and still did not make a bloody difference!! {} At a complete loss I decided to rip the loom out and post it back down to Norfy along with the ECU and a coilpack for him to test... {} Having sent them down, Norfy then sent me videos tonight of the loom working perfectly and the coilpacks sparking as they should so that has fucked me off... He's given me a few more things to check which i'll hopefully be able to check today at some point and get back to him asap... Finally got my driver's seat mounting hole sorted out but a few of the seat mounting holes inside the car were a bit stiff due to the interior being painted and paint getting in the threads, so I bought a cheap 40pc Tap and die set off the Bay and so far its worked a treat and done everything i've needed it to. {} {} {} Driver's seat and harness finally in(notice how the harness' are colour coded)!! Super happy with the new rails and the position of them, maybe a bit high but nothing I can do about that currently...also got driver's harness mounted up for the time being and the hand held fire extinguisher {} {} {} Both seats will have to come out sometime in the near future as I need to weld in eye bolt spreader plates for either side on the tranmission tunnel Notice how I said 'I need to weld in' - That's because it was mine and Amy's 3 year anniversary on Saturday, and for this, she had arranged for me to go and spend a few hours with a friend(Paul) teaching me how to mig weld as it's something i've never done and always wanted to be able to do... after 2 hours of messing around this is what I came up with, still lots more practice to go but pretty happy with what I did in the time frame to say I'm completely new to it... {} {} {} {} Then as we were packing up Paul said he'd give the guy a ring who's welder we were using to see if he would sell it - he rang him and then put the phone on to me, low and behold it was Amy!! She told me the welder was mine and that was her anniversary present to me, I was mega chuffed! So put it in the back of the car and took it home... its not the prettiest but it is certainly capable of more than I will ask of it. Now to find a gas bottle locally and get practicing!! {} {}
Great progress as usual, looms are an absolute pain in the arse. That's my only stumbling block when it comes to builds. Your a lucky sod with a missus like that. If you're after a fmic core I have a brabd new generic ebay one for sale. Pm me if your interested.
Since the last update, as you can guess, i've pretty much just been messing about with the welder trying to get it sorted and im pretty happy with the setup at the moment so just need to buy a bit more equipment so I can do stuff, I think my first job will be tackle the exhaust, as it sits extremely low(about 2" below the chassis rails). This is just a practice piece that I attempted that wasn't just doing straight lines on a piece of metal, trying different angles etc, turned the volts up when I got the top and the weld seemed to penetrate alot more which I was happy with - feel free to give me some pointers! {} {} {} Also check out my matching helmet and gloves {} Got a new front mount intercooler from Ianlea73 on here - cheers dude! {} Not had chance to get it fitted quite yet as I need to get my cold side intercooler pipe sorted - need this big dangly thing chopping off and plating over, as lets face it, BOV's were so 2000. {} Finally got around to doing my brake lines from front to rear and then T'ing off to both sides! bit of a nightmare when you have around 12" between you and the underside of the car! But im pretty happy with the outcome. I haven't bled them up yet as the car won't bloody run so there's no brake booster and the pedal will just go hard really quickly! {} {} {} {} {} {} This little bugger decided to round off, so I had to take the flexi off and change it for a spare I had, didn't get a picture of the finished pipe on this side. {} On the subject of the car not starting, got the loom,ECU and coilpack back from Norfy. Came back from a weekend away with Amy and Scarlett, fitted the loom and went to crank the car to see if it had magically fixed itself. Put the key in and went to crank it and I quickly realised there was no fuel pump noise. Turned it off and back on again and still nothing!! After about an hour of messing about checking various things, We found that the relay socket was pretty badly damaged somehow and that the plastic holder has melted into the female spade connection??? Amy was googling madly and came up with the idea of bridging the relay ports for the fuel pump - we did this and it worked so atleast we have a working fuel pump again even temporarily! Bit weird how its stopped working though after plugging all the engine loom back in. {} Still at a loss with the engine so Norfy's next idea to by-pass all the ignition relays and see if they are causing issues - so I'll try that at some point soon and see if we have any luck, not hopeful though... If anybody wishes to give some help - I have a thread in the technical section your welcome to throw some comments on, or here, I'm not fussed! https://www.driftworks.com/forum/threads/s15-sr20det-into-s13-no-spark.269077/ Oh! I also got overfenders for the rear since this shell has already had the rear arches cut unfortunately. Thanks to Dave Harper who is unfortunately breaking his car, but his parts live on! {}
It runs!!! Did some more investigations today and after trying a million other things, we found that Pin #46 and #109 to the ECU were only getting 2v max when they should be getting 12v - checked the pins at the F8 connector and they were getting 12v so seemed like a dirty connection, got a screwdriver with a flathead and scraped the pins and boom - fired straight up and fixed the relay issue aswell!! Mega happy that it now runs as it should, just need to finish it off - a lot closer to driving it now though
Another small update after spending most of yesterday on the car... Routed the vacuum pipe that runs from intake side to stock boost controller - used the S15 breather pipe as a protection pipe so it keeps it fairly clean looking {} {} {} Intercooler and piping is on properly now - Just need to make some brackets for the Intercooler to sit on/hold it up {} {} {} Although I do need to remove the cold side pipe and get it tig welded up to cover the hole I created due to cutting off the BOV pipe that was not required... After fitting the Intercooler etc, we started the car and let it run/get upto temp - runs rather good and im extremely happy with how smooth it sounds Had a nice surprise visit from Lee and Laidler... {} I had to go out before they arrived to buy a new battery that was smaller so that it would fit in the front next to the intercooler piping. Due to previous owner being a numpty, it seems they have just cut a massive hole for the intercooler piping and left it open so I have had to fabricate a new bracket to hold the battery...started off with some spare metal I found and made a base plate with 2 extra pieces welded on {} {} Then I bent the metal and also found a bar to go across the top {} Gave it a lick of paint and plan to get some form of rubber hose to put across the top bar so that if the battery moves then the battery won't arc on the bar. This is the finished product: {} {} Whilst I was making this bracket for the battery, Lee, Amy and Laidler cracked on, they managed to bleed all the brakes for me, as well as fit the harness plates and also fixing the wipers so that they operated as normal, rather than backwards lol {} Super appreciate their help and meant I got numerous things ticked off the list, theres only really minute things left now so hopefully make some real progress soon! Oh - this is the plug/pins(Grey F8 connector by stock MAF) that caused all the issues with the car...bloody nightmare! {}
