Bought the car way back in December 2008 as a completely standard, South African import lol. Lasted until the day opened from christmas holiday to order myslef a set of HSD coilys and also got a dowpipe and decat to go with a cat back system I had already bought and it ended up like this And two weeks after getting it I was at Santa Pod This day of fun killed the turbo and after a succession of bad luck I took the car off the road and got this little monster Oh and I got this too The plan was to do a simple rebuild to get a fresh reliable engine that would take a bit of abuse from drift days whilst being decent everyday, so i planned to stick some new bearings and rings in and a new HG and that be it. Unfortunately I stumbled across a set of Woosner pistons while searching for a set of rings so they were bought Along with a heftier clutch New gasket set with Metal HG an new water pump and ACL race bearings The engine was stripped and sent of to be rebored as the pistons were slightly oversized And I had the crank polished and balanced to the new clutch and flywheel Old engine was removed and sold straight away so I had no easy option of turning back And the bay all painted in satin black Also had to buy these Head was skimmed and rebuilt with new stem seals and all valves lapped back in (24 takes a while) New pistons and rods assembled ready to go back in end of part 1.........
part 2 And all six back at home New water pump and refurbed oil pump fitted Head back on with CAS etc Newly painted rocker cover and inlet fitted up And clutch Also removed all the subframes and arms and cleaned and painted all these whilst building the engine R33 GTST subframe fitted with S13 rack and arms all back under the car And the car was ready for the engine Which was a pretty tight fit But in it went I then got a bit lazy with taking pictures and the next one I've got is of the swap nearly finished 52mm ali rad fitted with twin 12inch fans And the car back on the floor with bumpers back on and new wheels fitted Had to make some cuts to the bracing on the bonnet but closes fine with a couple of washers under the hinges And as the car was for about 16 months with no reliability issues what so ever Also added import rear bumper end of part 2......
part 3 Roll cage arrived so took it up to the car on my new daily Roll cage test fitted as I'd heard bad things about the fitment of them, wasn't too bad but not perfect Seat was also remounted straight to the floor by cutting away the standard mount points Everything was then removed again including the dash to paint the whole interior in the same satin black i did the engine bay in Also got a plumbed in fire extinguisher from work And fitted pull cables in the scuttle ECU and heater refitted behind the dash Refitted the dash after painting in the same satin black (actually worked really well) Cut off switch and extinguisher pull cord fitted to dash and the rocker button is for the heaters, they only ever worked on number 4 anyway so thought i'd just replace the control panel with a single switch Rollcage refitted and stock passenger seat refitted with new harness Battery was relocated to the boot And drivers seat refitted Very low down now Door card painted black and refitted minus the door pockets as they hit the cage And thats about where it stands at the moment
Aw, lol, no one else replied so Gina did lol Love the build fella. Is it still as reliable? Any trouble with heat under the bonnet?
haha cheers mate Been reliable for 18 months until the turbo went (still the original turbo) Do have a bit of an issue in really hot weather on track that I need to sort out, but it's not awful. Got a different bumper to try (hopefully get some more air through the rad) and I may try some venting in the bonnet too, I ran it with the bonnet off last time it was hot.
i would love thisss! how much have you spent like overall? and are you gonna like go all the way with everything and make it into a track car?
looks good, good work glad you changed the pistons, seen so many rb25 ringlands broken. btw what ratio diff have you got? i found the rb25 to seem fairly slow in a s13, it was due to the wrong ratio diff (r33 have a 4:36) so might be worth checking
It's on a welded S13 open diff, I know now that this probably was the wrong way to go but hey ho, it skids ok. I've never added everything up but I think I've probably spent about £8k on it including buying the car. Also got adjustable camber and tow arms for the rear and front caster arms to fit this weekend along with a new turbo.
Well didn't really go to plan, got a list as long as my arm from the MOT so not going to make the two drift days I had booked up now, hopefully I can get it sorted for BDC
Woop woop all sorted and now on the road, so nice to be driving it agian and off to Santa Pod tomorrow for DWYB
Well competed all year with this car as it is here with the RB25 in it. The engine was perfect all season apart from struggling with keeping the engine cool. I did plan to re work the front end of the car with a different rad set up and lots of ducting as well as rewiring the engine. However, I went for one more practice day at Norfolk Arena (2nd home) and unfortunately the engine gave up on me. TBH this couldn't have happened at a better time, it lasted all season and has given me enough time to get the car up and running again for BDC 2012. Due to the cooling issues that I've always struggled with I have decided to go for a different route with the engine for 2012. I've already removed and stripped the RB This was the damage So my new plan consisted of more cylinders and NO turbo, I've opted for a BMW M62, a 4.4 V8. The plan is already under way and yesterday I went and bought a donor car, I feel a bit guilty about braking it tbh because it's an awesome road car, but in a shell a fraction of the weight i think it's going to be a good engine Here's the car And the important bit Can't wait to start taking it out and introduce it to it's new Japanese home, stay tuned for progress
Only had 300 before, and with a different exhaust, filter and possible stand alone ECU it should be ok Always add a supercharger if not
seen this car at king lynn loads of time really nice cars and always seemed to have no probs getting sideways . bmw v8 seem to be the engine of 2012