Jordan's S13 Silvia ♠️♠️

That's exactly my opinion. And definitely, it's been a long time coming, I really can't wait to start enjoying the car! Hopefully all those late nights and hours on the floor will pay off

Haha thank you!

For once, my list is pretty small now. That was alway inevitable given the amount of hours i've put into this car. As of right now, the only things left to do on my list before driving is alignment and re-bleeding the hydro, pretty small huh!?

As i mentioned previously, the rear bash bar requires a bit of foam to support the bumper as we made the top bars a bit lower to create a tolerance between rear bumpers/moulds. Initially my idea was to use roll cage padding, but the top bar has an O/D of 25mm which is a fair bit smaller than the general 38/40mm used for roll cages. Steve had the idea of popping to a local home store and looking for some pipe insulation. Low and behold they had some that has an I/D of 22mm with a 25mm thickness, perfect!



I did buy some extra in case I wanted to support the secondary top bar, but I decided to ignore this as it'd look far too messy with lots of foam everywhere. After trialling the rear bumper on, the support is night and day over the previous support the Silvia came with. As a quick test, I can stand on the rear bumper!





This should also mark the last time I put the rear bumper on. With the added support from the rear bumper and being fixed similar to the OEM bumper, i'm hoping this wont come flying off at first instance. Well, if it does then who cars - it'll make fir a great picture! When most people run a fibreglass rear bumper, they solely rely on cable ties. Don't get me wrong, we all love a good cable tie, but a properly secured bumper will (*should*) always last longer Time will tell though!

 

Next up on my list was to get the car aligned. There are a few wheel alignment places near me, but all of them either had poor access or people who don't fully understand geometry. Luckily enough, a friend of mine recommended a place that was about an hour away, with very positive comments.

After a few messages regarding the setup, Josh @ Harvey's Auto-Tech managed to squeeze me in under short notice. So out came the trailer, and time for a short journey!







The cool thing I leaned was that the Silvia drives straight onto the trailer without the front bumper. Everything else just about clears!



Josh initially advised that he'd need the car for a full day due to a busy work schedule, but by 3pm the following day it was all done and ready for collection It was pretty cool pulling around the corner to see the Silvia just sitting there, it has such a presence which I adore!





Whilst the car was with him, I asked him to have a look at the Hydro as it wasn't that great, in fact, it barely slowed the car down. He re-bled the system properly, but also advised the pads will need to be bedded in before we can see where we fully stand with it. But the initial impression after a quick pull before getting on the trailer seemed much more positive!



I've got to say a huge thanks to Josh and Dan, as they really did pull it out of the bag and helped me with getting a baseline setup on the car. I super excited to drive the damn thing, which leads me on the next thing - I've booked onto Rockingham's Outer Paddock day on the 30th to shake the car down and see where I stand with it. The list is getting even smaller - a change of Power Steering belt as the squeal is driving me crazy, tidy up the power cables inside the car and a final nut and bolt check all round.

I'm slightly excited, nervous and yet reluctant to drive it. I guess it's been so long in the making it feels odd, but I really can't wait for the next chapter to begin.



Hopefully i'll see a few of you guys there, and if any photographers want to grab a few pictures at Rockingham prior to the day beginning, feel free to drop me a message!

 

It feels like ages since I last updated this build thread, well to be fair, it has been ages. I think it’s time I bring this up to speed!

So after getting the car aligned, it was only a matter of small tasks to sort out before Rockingham. The first one was shortening the power cables which were just dangled all over the passenger footwell. The problem here is that one of them began to melt during the mapping session, and I don’t fancy have the exposed wire touching the car.

Here’s how the wires used to sit:



Electrics have always been a bit daunting for me, but after buying some new connectors and some heat shrink, how hard can it be!




The result was a neat solution to having power cables spread across the footwell. Now, they run neatly along the sill and the black junction box sits under the passenger seat.

Next up was a handheld fire extinguisher. Whilst the car already has a plumbed in system aiming at the manifold and my feet, I feel a handheld will be a great addition should something else catch fire, otherwise I’m a bit stuck! Plus some regulations state a handheld is required, so it’s good practice all round.



In terms of mounting the extinguisher, it fits perfectly in front of/below the drivers seat so it’s hidden, but easily accessible.

So after doing a nut and bolt check, it was time to give the old car a quick wash.



However, upon starting the car I noticed it had a misfire and being the day before Rockingham I wasn’t happy. Luckily enough a friend told me to let it warm up to see if it clears, and much to my surprise it did! Just something to bear in mind I guess.

Time to load up – I strangely enjoy this. I don’t know why because I always end up filthy but hey ho!

 

Now, from Bristol to Rockingham, it’s about 4 – 4.5hrs on a good run which isn’t too bad. But when you have to drive this in the morning, drive all day and then drive back, that day soon becomes a rather long one. So me and a friend grabbed a local hotel and made the journey up beforehand to ease the practice day.



Well, a practice day isn’t a practice day without an obligatory fuel stop, right?!



So Rockingham was the first chance I got to drive the car, so to say I was nervous was an understatement. Considering I haven’t drifted in over 3 years, and the car being in the public eye, there was a fair bit of pressure on my shoulders. However, there is always time to take more photo’s!






It felt good to sit here, it’s been so long in the making!

 

From here, I’m going to dump a load of photo’s from the day and explain it in words after. Just before I do, I want to say a huge thanks to all of the photographers who took pictures on the day!

 

So, where do I begin! The day started off a little rushed. The car has always squealed on start up which I have always put down to a slightly slack power steering belt as there isn’t any more room of the tensioner. Prior to Rockingham I did buy a smaller belt, so thought I’d swap this over before starting the day to avoid any drama’s.



Once the track opened, I opted to take the car down the road and back to get a quick feel of the chassis, do some steady figure of 8’s to bed the diff in some more and get everything up to temperature. The car felt ok, and it was time to que up.

In the que I started to learn the cars traits, noises and vibrations as everything was so different to my old chassis. I told myself that the first lap would be a sighting lap, get used to the boost levels and feel the chassis. So as I was told to go, the right foot when down and the boost came on. Turned into the corner as expected, and I just dropped the clutch. I don’t know whether it was the excitement to feel the car or the itch to be sideways again. Either way, it was so fun! It wasn’t the cleanest lap I didn’t really know the layout apart from the visuals given in the briefing. But it felt good!, and I felt comfortable straight away.

Throughout the day I began to experiment with my lines, being more aggressive on entry (zero use of the handbrake) and practicing tandem runs with friends. The latter of which I really didn’t think I would be doing on the first outing but I welcomed it. The car ran faultlessly all day bar one bolt rattling loose. The chassis felt incredible. It’s really positive and responsive, you can feel a lot which I love. The motor which night and day over my old SR20 setup which you’d expect and he noises it makes are to die for. Now, my only criticism is the motor didn’t scare like I thought it would have done. Maybe I was expecting too much, or maybe it really is underperforming. Anyway, the day was great and it was time to pack up unfortunately.







So once I got back, it was the usual drill. Off load the car and put the tools away but I couldn’t help think about the motor and whether it was underperforming. If so, why? This seems to be the biggest question that nobody can definitely answer.



Whilst I was racking my brains every day, I thought it’d be a good idea to send the turbo off to get some minor upgrades. So, we started off with a standard TD06SL2-20G:



I was amazed how fast the whole setup comes off. I think it was sub 10 minutes and the turbo was off?!







After speaking to Liam @ Midland Turbo, we decided to change both the compressor and turbine wheel to help give the TD06 a bit of extra punch all round, as well as a full rebuild with better internals.




Below show the differences between the turbine wheel. The original TD06SL2-20G uses an 11-blade wheel to help with the spool on a 2.0L engine. We opted to change to a 9-blade turbine wheel. Reason being, less blades equals more flow. Liam said he had done this swap on another customer’s TD06 and found it gave the 20G a much larger punch, this sounds fun!

Old Turbine Wheel vs New Turbine Wheel





Next up was the compressor wheel, where we opted to use a Billet item. Now the performance gain should come from the fact the lower tips are extended past the compressor housing, and the overall depth is quite a bit bigger. This in theory should equal to more flow, which means more power!





And just some picture’s Liam sent me once the unit had been rebuilt:









After a little bit of fiddling around, the TD06 was back on and ready to fire up again. All I can say is top mounted turbo’s make life so much easier when it comes to the mechanical side of things!

 

Next up was the fan cowling, it always looked a bit scruffy and was something I’ve wanted to change for a little while. Luckily enough brand new OEM fan shroud’s are still reasonable money from the US, however I opted to switch to an S13 Silvia unit as opposed the current S14 shroud I have. This is purely just so I can use the actual fittings on the radiator, rather than to chop up the shroud and make it fit.



During the same time I switched intercooler cores from a 4” unit, down to a more traditional 3” unit. Whilst I was racking my brains about high intake temps, I began to think whether the core was just too big and was being inefficient? Then again, the 4” cores are built for something stupid, like 800+hp, so nothing my setup will fully utilise. In the process of swapping the 3” unit, I wanted to bring the radiator forward again as this was moved back during the construction phase of the tubular front end.

The only issue here was that the radiator now sat higher and hit’s the bonnet. I thought about was I could try and avoid the bonnet, but in the end I just cut some neat holes in the bonnet. Afterall, fibreglass is the easiest of them all to fix.







Next up on my list was to create some ducting between the bumper and the intercooler. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for ages, but never sat down to do it. In my head, I wanted to do this in Aluminium or Perspex to keep things classy and discreet. In the end I opted to use Aluminium. After a bit of measuring and drawing, I decided to just give it a go and see how things turn out.

Step 1 – create the bottom panel using exiting threads in the bottom slam panel/crossmember.







Step 2 – create the sides to box the air in. The two problems here are my oil cooler lines and the headlights, both of which mean a simple straight up design isn’t really feasible. So after a bit of head scratching, here’s what I came up with:













It looks pretty functional, and pretty neat (but it could be neater with another go and more time). I was kind of aiming for Engineered to Slide style ducting, but unfortunately I don’t quite have his metal working skills!

 

Now the upgraded turbo happened because I made the decision to get the car remapped to see if we can unlock the engine’s potential. So I took Dave from DY up to MB Automotive to try and see what we can do on the dyno, and explore the option of swinging the cams.

After the 5 hour drive up, it was a nice day so it’d be rude not to take a picture.



After meeting up with Martin, it was a 30 minute journey to the dyno. It was the usual drill, unload the car and get everything ready (and pray nothing blows up!)









And after quickly correcting the map, here’s the initial power readings:



The turbo wanted to suddenly boost up to 2.0 bar which was stupidly exciting but it shows the new wheels have given it a bit of a kick. Unfortunately 2.0bar isn’t exactly reliable on this turbo, so we quickly turned it back down to the target boost of 1.6bar.

So, 340hp was the benchmark. And things were looking good. After trying to get the most out of the turbo, progress stopped pretty fast. It just wasn’t responding to boost like the first mapping session. The manifold suffers terribly from boost creep which isn’t helping matters as it isn’t unleashing the full potential of the TD06.

We did a quick compression check to find all 4 cylinders were down. So we began to swing the inlet cam and suddenly found 50psi which helped make the engine come to life a bit more, but this is less than ideal. Even with the cam timing change, the car wasn’t responding great to the boost levels that is being thrown down it’s neck.



As you can imagine, after all of the money spent of trying to get the package to work from Day 1, upgrading the turbo and another mapping session, I wasn;t feeling great about the car. Each of those three things above aren’t cheap, and the truth is now I can’t justify any more money of the motor package. As nothing is a sure fix, I’ve asked so many people for some advice and nobody has that magic bullet I need!

I think the end power result from mapping session no. 2 was around the 350-360hp mark. Better than the first, but not exactly great. The car felt good at Rockingham, so with a bit more life it’ll feel a lot better but that’s besides the point. The car was built with a purpose in mind, a raw driving experience that gives me a buzz, and the motor setup isn’t living up to it’s job.

A couple of friends have suggested it’s the manifold holding the engine back, so that’s the next port of call when I can be bothered to investigate it further. Given the fact my head is ported, could this be flowing more air than the manifold can handle? Who knows!!

The only way I can sum up my feelings towards the car now is deflated. I’ve barely looked at it in weeks. The fortunate things is a friend has invited me to drive at the JDM Combe event this Saturday at Castle Combe which is my local circuit. Infact, it was the circuit that introduced drifting to me many years ago, so to finally drive this circuit in my car is quite a milestone for me.

If anyone who’s reading this and is going to the event, feel free to come have a look at the car and a chat!