Student Drifter

When I was 17, that was the cheapest. It was about average for everyone I knew was paying. It was horrible having to spend that much but needed a car to get around. However, this car now costs me £560 a year fully comp w/ mods. Insurances does take the piss when your 17, I know it's because of all the shitty corsa's and saxo's being bellends but those who are genuine just get ripped off.

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Jonny, all 4 are for sale just not officially lol. Need to buy 2x wheels for perfect fitment while skiddings

 

Yeah that was Jonny (Tippers on here), he's back down here now. And yeah, Ricks Kouki? Haven't been driving it recently, new 2way isn't playing ball so need to need to wait for a replacement driveshaft and see if it wants to go forward under its own steam or not.

May have ordered more parcels from across the world, Limitless Imports sorted me out the Japanese parcels and GKTech have sorted out the Australian parcels I'll update everything when it's all back together for Lydden or Snetterton in Feb.

 

RIGHT… Decided to pull my finger out and do an update even though

a) I should be revising for a exam on Tuesday, Thursday and the following Monday
b) Still got goodies en route/stuck in customs etc

 

So first part of the update since Pod, which oddly seems ages ago and I have since become much lazier haha.

After pod, i was constantly on the lock stops which allowed me to get some good angle and speed on the top corner in 3rd but wanted a tad more just do some silly stuff swell as having it there as an emergency/safety net should I need to.

Found more pics from Pod







So, the car sat pretty still for a while whilst I entered my second year at uni, getting to grips with what I have to do etc. Once I was settled again, it was time for the Nissan to see some changes yet again and began by doing this; (Allbeit took me much longer than I wanted it too, seeing as one of the captive nut broke free )



Luckily, I have some awesome friends around me who did me a massive favour; relocate my rack around 20-25mm forward and extend my S14 lower arms and additional 20mm. The pics speak for themselves to be honest, welding and fabricating is top notch!

Start doing this;



Measured it up;



AND ANNOYINGLY I FORGOT TO TAKE A PHOTO OF IT ALL WELDED TOGETHER

Left my lower arms with them as we were feeling lazy and came back like this;



Fully braced underneath too, with slots to allow access to the drop links and tension arm bolts

Treated them to some new drop links courtesy of Apex Performance and gave them a quick lick of paint to spruce them up a tad.


Reason for relocating the rack instead of using the DW offset spacers? Ive always been aware of the problems that the offset spacers experience, and I've always wanted to do everything properly, but this happened in a friends car;



Which, when we stopped and look at what the sudden wheel wobble was, we were greater with that ^ and one wheel steering itself bearing in mind, this friend is a senior mechanic by trade and did everything that you should i.e. use loctite. Scary stuff when your a passenger!


So, the above offset spacers also act as a spacer for the tie rod, countering the extension in the lower arms. My friend slotted and extended his tie rods, but I fancied a more bolt on solution should I somehow bend a tie rod. So, managed to track these down which are sold by Wez @ WKD Imports over in Ireland.





Which are beautifully made. I love things like this, and can feel the quality when you hold them and know they aren't chinese rip off's and as expected they fitted first time perfectly. Also, they come with the equivalent of 2 Tien spacers built in, giving the most amount of thread into the rack = Winner!

 

So, as said previously got the Non-Offset rack spacers all fitted up;



Whilst the steering rack was off the subframe an obvious job to do would be to replace the bushes that were 20+ years old :/

Old vs New





Forgot to picture as well, I've binned off the Japspeed steering arms which a mate bought off me, and splashed out on a set of new Tien Rods and Ends seeing as I'm trying to do everything the best I can.

Started reassembling everything, was a bit of a pain making the rack sit in the bushes but got there eventually and got to this stage;



Which if you look closely you can see something different to the hubs, Mr Superclarkey has modified them for me

Closer look at the hubs;



Next job I've alway sheen putting off is the front pads for some unknown reason so treated it to a pair of OE Brembo pads for the time being



And a boring picture of them fitted lol



So amongst all of this it was my 20th Birthday, so all the money I got, I put towards buying a snazzy new laptop



So, with a dodgy alignment by eye this is the lock I've got until final alignment by a friend occurs;





More than enough for some decent entries and some decent angle, the best difference I've noticed is the response in the steering hubs, by far better than standard hubs thats for sure.

Back on the ground and a very quick wash; (Note: You can see the extra track width and camber gained from the lower arms, I haven't touched the camber adjustment on the coil overs at all)







Obligatory "Its drivable shot"



Will continue the update when I get a chance around my exams MUCH more to come

 

Cheers guys, I'll try and get it all up to date later some lovelyyyy goodies are going on to this car.

Daze, can't wait my man. Please put that shiny 14 into my door

 

Need a break from revision, so going to try and get this up to date ish.

So, with the 13 being home again and only slightly pulling to left with my dodgy alignment, It was time to make some more changes. Anyone who owns or has been in an S13 at night will know the standard headlights are truly shit, and HID just look a bit iffy in my opinion. I could've cleaned my lenses and hope they come up decent but instead bought myself some Raybrig's. I just love the look of clear lenses on s bodies, just makes them look a tad fresher I reckon.


So out with the old and in with the new;



Was quite a nice and easy job, the 4 bolts that hold the lens to the casing were all rusted so just nipped them off with a grinder and new bolts in



Chucked in a set of Osram Nightbreaker bulbs, saw they're highly rated so anything to avoid HID's and get decent lightinging was needed;



Treated the 13 to some new gauges, always wanted to run a proper boost gauge and an oil temp gauge alongside water temp. So, these came up cheap on here and snapped them up



They've got light surface scratches but nothing some toothpaste can get rid off although, you can't really see them unless you look at them in a certain angle.

When installing them, the old defi wire broke and also the oil temp sensor was knackered so, ordered new wiring for the water temp gauge and stole my water temp sensor from my old wage temp gauge, which just so happen to connect straight into the defi connector. Everything works fine, although my oil temp gauge hasn't read about 50* yet, but being cold weather and I've barely driven the car, I'm bot surprised it hasn't gotten up to temp, considering it was only a 10minute drive under low load.

Pushed the boat out again and bought this of Wangan-JZX on here Always wanted to own one for some odd reason, JDM bum boy points, styling I'm not sure but I love them Genuine MPH-341 (Think thats the model number lol), with the optional 6 point crotch straps and everything haha.



Ive also decided to give this handbrake lever ago;



My thinking is that UK S13 handbrakes are quite simply awesome so no need to go down the hydro route, this level just bolts on and changes the angle on the handbrake, allowing a much easier pull in my opinion, plus I've reverse mounted it, i.e. the lever is anger upwards and on the gear lever side. Doesn't get in the way of 5th unless you absolutely mash it into gear, but feels nice imo, easy to grab and locks up much quicker due to the change of the throw(?), nice and close to downshift etc. I suppose the first proper test will be at Lydden or Snetterton in Feb


So, once again I find myself thinking what I would change before 2014 really kicks off and my diff has always annoyed me purely due to the little whine on part throttle, which as you could imagine makes motorways extremely annoying

Spotted on an R32 forum I just happened to be browsing, I saw Sukhy was selling a 2 way diff on behalf of his mate, running a 4:3 ratio and initially came from one of Initial_j's '32. So, after a bit of haggling this happened;



Research what oil Nismo's tend to like as I've read they can get a tad funny, and after a bit of reading thought id give the Redline fully synthetic oil a go, even more convincing when Opie Oils ran a sweet deal on the stuff



Cracked it open, gave everything a once over;



Nice and clean and definitely a 2 way as can be shown by the ramp angles. Always a good sign

Double checked the ratio's of the crown gear just to be sure, 48/11 = 4.36. Happy days.



Ever since I fitted my welded diff agesss ago, I've known the passenger side driveshaft end came came loose, could be a common thing but wasn't too clued up at the time, and now I've got the chance to re do it, and my new diff being 5x1 half shafts, it'd be rude not to put a pair of R33 driveshafts from Scotty @ skylineparts.com. These are much stronger than the S13 shafts, and can feel the difference in thickness, and also happened to be the same length as S14 shafts i.e. 10mm longer over S13's. Always a good thing when driving a lowered car!



They didn't come with the bolts for the driveshaft > half shafts so Darren @ GDUK sorted me out with them

So, made myself a new centre console thingy to hold all of the gauges and moved the boost controller away from the clocks just to make everything a bit cleaner inside;



Relocated my old oil pressure gauge to the passenger vent by the door, as I don't need to constantly watch it, but its visible from the drivers side and has a warning so best of both worlds.

At this point, for some unknown reason my Gizzmo boost controller had decided to pack up, and wouldn't "buzz" on start up which is when the solenoid is self testing. So reluctantly ordered a new solenoid in hoping that'd solve it but seems it hasn't and still running .5 bar

Ive always said that my car was externally "done" but I've recently had an urge for a wing, Big Country Lab wings are like the daddy of BGW's and only look good on cars with extremely lairy kits i.e. BN Sports so that was out of the equation, Kouki spoilers seem to narrow for my liking which left me with the Magic Aero extended version of the Kouki spoiler like so;



It was tempting but unfortunately it just isn't my style? So, as always been searching around Zilvia,and found a style of spoiler I fell in love with and think it'll suit this car down to the ground! Honestly can't wait til it lands from Japan. (HINT HINT )

 

So, this next post I think deserves to be on its own.


So, on the 5th Oct I ordered something from Japan, with a lead time of 5 weeks, arriving just after my birthday = an amazing birthday present to myself. 5 weeks turned into 11 but it arrive just before christmas and I can't describe how happy I was when I opened it.


EXCUSE MY GRIN but you can tell whats about to follow



So, began by opening the rails making sure I got sent the right ones which thankfully I was, although i did find 2 extra parts of a rail inside my box along with a sticker containing the model for a R35 GTR




HERE'S MY NEW BABY.







INSTAGAY PHOTO HAD TO BE DONE.



All I can say is that being a chap of the smaller height and slimish build i.e. Sub 6ft it means that I fit exactly as I should in my Bride Zeta III. It's genuinely as if the seat was made for me

The quality of the seat is outstanding, I can genuinely justify the price tag purely due to how well it is made, and even comes with FIA rating, no Thai brides here thank you.

Ive always wanted a Bride because of the styling and sizing they come in, and now this seat is staying with me for however many cars I have in years to come.

Looks so good in the car, bought some Schroth 3 bar slides online. These allow me to convert the Takata harness from being a clip in harness, to being a wrapped around the cage and having them at the correct angle instead of pointing downwards. Followed an online guide on how to wrap them correctly and safety, quite simple once you do it to be honest. I'll get picture of this setup soon when the weather cheers up a tad.



The funny thing is, within a couple of weeks I've seen a few people on Facebook with fake brides and you don't realise how dodgy they look until you've got a real one in front of you. It theirs choice though, buying an untested thai seat made by some child just to have the words bride in their car and earn JDM points.

 

Last week there was a gap in the weather, dry enough to swap my diff and shafts over.

So the day began with Jonny (Tippers) coming over and keeping me company and giving me a hand, began by swapping the rear backplates over as the R32 one was missing a few studs and was quicker just to whip the backplates over;



(Would seriously love that 6.2 V8 out of the C63 and in mine or just the Merc in general )

This was an interesting time, I had never looked inside my old welded diff as a friend welded it up and gave it me. So upon opening it, theres a fair bit of swarf but more importantly the crown wheel and the ratio's that was stamped inside.

I was under the impression it was 4:1 ratio seeing as thats what my friend said at the time, but its actually turns out to be a 4:3. Some people may be annoyed thinking that they'll be going up the ratio but I'm kind of glad. I love how brutal my SR is at 1 bar, and how fast it picks up etc and the ease of skidding 3rd gear etc, plus motorways will stay at the same revs which I'm happy about haha.

So all went back in really smooth, left it up on axle stands, put it in 1st gear and she was happy nothing unusual etc. Back on all fours and pulled aways, slight bind and clunk nothing you wouldn't expect from a 2way then it started knocking horribly at which point it loses all drive. Im not about a few hundred yards from my house so not too bad but its now dark and cold etc.

Pushing the car back wasn't fun to be honest, wouldn't recommend it but the 2way did ale corners much easier when pushing lol.

Convinced it was the crown wheel and pinion slipping, just sounded like that and considering it was refusing any drive it didn't seem an odd assumption.



VIDEO^^

Few days later, whipped the rear up and started he rip and pinpointed the where the noise was coming from. Turned out the passenger driveshaft was all over the place. Looked like the driveshafts bolts on the diff side weren't up tight, which is what a mate said. upon further inspection the bolts wet entice and tight, the driveshaft has intact shat itself and stupid amounts of play, and upon removing this fell out;





It was completely fucked and was still pissed from the car loosing all drive the previous night…


So, got in contact with Scotty and he's understood whats happened and will hopefully send a replacement driveshaft out this week. Hopefully the diff isn't fucked.


Bought some more goodies;



Which is this; (The dog is curious what it is too!)





My thinking is that while I replace my whole intercooler setup with the PSM High Mount Intercooler, I want to re do where my boost controller gets its feed from which is currently the throttle body. Quick google and it seems QuickTap fitting are highly rated and allow you to take a feed from a silicone joiner, which will be straight after the elbow coming off the turbo, so nice and short.



Ive also read and gotten a few ideas of how to retain the pop up light with this HMIC kit so stay tuned for what I've got lined up!

Still have goodies coming from America, Japan and Australia turning up soonish, hoping to be ready by the end of Jan ready for a drift day in Feb. So thats kind of up to date at the moment, probably missed little bits here and there