Need for Speed inspired S13 Welcome to 2005!

Well... I picked this car up yesterday. And yes, people looked at us A LOT on the way home... Guess why

Im really happy that it have the complete interior. Only problem i have is that its leather S14 seats. So i have to find somebody that wants to exchange for some OEM S13 seats. And it have very limited rust. A little bit infront of the rear wheels, and a bit on the frame-rail.

The car was imported from UK to Denmark back in 2011. The guy i bought it from picked it up himself, drove it to Denmark and took the engine out to upgrade it with a FMIC, another turbo and to respray the enginebay. Unfortunally he had a lot of other projects, so he never finished the project. And thats where i came into the picture.
I saw the car for sale back in 2019 for 50.000DKR (6700€, 7300USD, 5800£) and thought it was a lot of money for a S13 with a rather... uhm.... special paintjob.

I didnt think more of it untill i saw it again a month ago. This time the price was dropped down to 23000DKR (3100€, 3400USD, 2700£) I picked up a friend and drove for 3 hours to look at it. It looked decent for the price, but i was NOT a fan of the front bumper, sideskirts and rear bumper were bondo'ed/moulded up. And after all those years in the barn, it was cracking multiple places.
Anyway, We agreed on a price lower than 23000DKR (3100€, 3400USD, 2700£) so he could get rid of the car.

The engine is fully build with Wiseco pistons and rods from Japengines, and the paintjob did cost over 50.000DKR (6700€, 7300USD, 5800£) But it dont look as good anymore. I am planing to paint it when i get that far. Simply because i cant match all the colors after cutting through the bondo to get the front and rear bumper off.
My wife thinks the Dragon is the bomb though, and she wants to keep it

Now i just have to wait a month so i can move into my new 50 m2 (540sq ft) workshop

 

I have multiple ideas. Oneo them is just paint it AG2 which is the original color for this car. But I just want to keep the cost of this car down, as I also have another S13 project. I also thought about painting it with rattlecans.

And regarding the bodykit, I don't know what I want. But I do not want the typeX as my other car is awidebody TypeX. And I'm really not a fan of the rocket bunny, so that's not an option. Again, in thinking of just putting a pignose bumper on an call it a day

 

I dont have much of an update as im still waiting to move into my new garage/warehouse. But heres what i have:

The plan with this car is to keep it cheap. It means i have to do as much as possible myself, and keep all expenses down. This means i only go for stuff thats important to make it run. (except painting the enginebay)

The car is still parked in our carport where i cant/am not allowed to work on it.
But nobody can deny me to look further into the car.


A previous owner installed a reverse camera - something i would have done a bit different



But i have bought another center piece for cheap (500DKR, 74$, 67€)

I got 2 extra exhaust manifolds in the car-deal. But i dont know if i should use them or the original. Any ideas?



Theres also 2 turbos included. the original that have around 1cm play, so its just trash. And another China-turbo that i will use until i find something extremely cheap.





Unfortunally i found some bad parts about the car. First of, i poked a finger through the spare wheel well. But i kinda expected it, so no big deal.
Another bag thing is that the whole bodykit is screwed into place, and then moulded. This makes it a LOT harder to remove the sideskirts without damaging it to much. I was hoping to get it of in one piece, so i can sell it to someone who wants the 2005 style.





And bonuspoint. The bodykit is a Veilside C-III
http://www.veilsidejpn.com/en/product/nissan/180sx_c3.php







The interior is complete, and thats a HUGE plus! But im not a fan of the leather seats. But i guess theyll do for now untill i find something more fitting for this car



I saw some wheels in the other end of the country, and i had a friend who went to pick up a car there. so i asked him if he could pink them up, and he said, no problem. A few days later he dropped them off.


And this was the car he picked up. MK3 supra with turbo and manual gear... and no rust. It was a really good deal!



Anyway. as i wrote earlier, i wanted to keep this build on a tight budget, so i was thinking about painting the car with spraypaint in a desert army theme similar to this one:


but after i ordered 3 different colors from a local army store, i didnt like any of them



So ill end up biting the bullet and painting it with a gun. With also would be a better option in the long run.

Btw. does anyone know what this is? My guess is a boost gauge or a boost controller. i dont know for sure as theres no model name on it.



I also have a problem with the wheels.
Theres no lock keys, so i cant get the nuts of.
Ive ordered some 10 point sockets that might work on 3 of them. But the locking nut might become a problem. Any tricks to get it off that dont include an axe or a welder? I would like to reuse the wheels



And i received new headlights as we are required by law to have correct adjusted ones. And thats not possible with RHD headlights. Luckily they were extremely cheap

 

Wow. That's fun so see those pictures! Do you by any chance know the previous owner? Og know the precise specs of the engine?

 

Yeah, as far as i understood from the guy i bought it from, he went to England to pick it up, drove it to denmark to make a drifter out of it, but never really started on it. So he just parked it in a barn for 10 years until i bought it.

 

Finally i got the car into my small workshop. Its been some crazy days trying to get all the tools needed. Im still lacking a lot, but at least i have enough to keep me going for some time now.
My friend, Peter falk from Peter Falk Photofactory came by to shoot the car before i was going to rip the Veilside bodykit of of it.












And a few pictures of the new place and a good friend whos helping me. Even though he have no knowledge of cars, he's willing to help and learn. Gotta love that positivity!




After some work, we got the front bumper off. It was only held in place with 8 selftapping screws and bondo... If you are thinging about installing a bodykit with bondo, PLEASE DONT!!! - Good news though. Those front fenders are rustfree! Super rare in this part of the world!





Also the side skirt are screwed in with selftappers. I accidentally pulled out the first one as i didnt know there was a screw. But after looking close, i can see theres about 10 screws holding each sideskirt. So i have to get a small wirewheel to be able to screw the screws out.



As a last thing, i got the engine out of the bay. I dont have any plans to the engine as it should be pretty upgraded already. I might paint the valvecover, though. But i dont know what color yet.

 

I think its time for a small update.

As i propably mentioned earlier, this car is going to be a budget build as i have another where i spend all my money... that i dont have!

Anyway. i bought a palletshelf to get more storagespace. And bought ton of parts. They could barely fit in my daily driver (chevrolet cruze)

And i found a few bad rustspots. But nothing some new metal cant fix.
























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Yeah, i can see it had a rough live in the past, but im trying to get it roadworthy again so i have it as a summercar.

 

Well... After ive been listening to the Need for speed 2 Underground soundtrack for a month straight, i figured out it was time to go crazy on this.

Ive been working evenings and weekends to get as far as i am now. As mentioned multiple times, its a budget build, and thats why ill be doing as much as possible myself. Including painting it!

So in the last month ive been prepping the enginebay. So everything had to go.
As ive had problems with a locknut on the wheels, i desided to take the whole front subframe off in one go. It went great and a lot easier as we could just roll it out under the car.





Then it was time for some Wash primer / Epoxy primer. This protects the bare metal from rust.



The wheelwells were in really good conditiion, so i just scraped all the loose debris of and gave it a few layers of anti-gravel to protect it a bit better.
Before:


After:



And the enginebay got somehigh build primer. My "paintbooth" is only 3x3 meters (around 9x9 feet) so i cant paint all parts at once which sucks!






After hours of sanding to get it down to an acceptable surface, it was time for the color.
I used a "Super-black" from Autolakhandel.dk. It was really easy to use and gave a really nice finish. Only problem is me and my primitive paintbooth






And its back to fill out the enginebay again...



All the suspension are getting cleaned up and painted.

 

Well. I guess its time for a small update
I finished the front suspension and got the car rolling again.








I also did my first brakeline in over 10 years, pretty proud of the result. I might have to redo it all some other time to get a more clean look. But for now its fine.



And a quick picture of the engine


I need to change the timing belt before the engine is going back into the car, but havent been in the mood. Im propably asking a friend to do is as i have no idea how to do it. But theres is guides to do it, so i might have a go at it at some point


As the car is RHD, i thought the only right bodykit for this car is the TypeX. Luckily i had a complete set laying around from my other build


We rolled the car out so we could clean my workshop. So why note take a few pictures?


I was tired of always using a ratchet for all bolts and nuts. So i spoiled myself and got myself one of these 400NM bastards.


Last thing, the caliper was rusted so much i couldnt save it, so i found some other OEM ones and gave them some paint. Now im just waiting for a rebuild kit so they can go back into the car. And then the suspension in the front of the car official done

 

I think its time for a little bit of good news, and a lot of bad.

So we installed a new timing belt as I didn't know the condition of the old one.





At the same time we took off the cam covers as my friend wanted to see if the cams were stock or not. They were


He also showed me his latest 3D print. A funnel with thread that fits perfectly into the CA18DET. Its a really cool design, and he let me keep the prototype



When the covers were off the engine, i also painted the front


Next stop was to install the clutch and gearbox onto the engine. This was pretty simple and we almost didnt use a hammer


And it was dropped into the engine bay


I thought it was VERY close to everything, so i cant imagine how to get a RB in there


I quickly installed all the boring stuff around the engine



And found a small problem. Its the plug for the O2 sensor. New one have been ordered, so i just have to replace it when im in the mood


At this time, the engine was ready to be started, or so i thought. We disconnected the fuelpump and turned the key. Engine didnt do anything.
But after a bit of google search, we figured out that we need to shortcircuit a plug in the enginebay because it was original a automatic. This was done, and the engine turned just as it should

Video can be seen here:


But... its not that simple.. it didnt create any oil pressure :rl:
Im happy that i didnt actually start the engine, it could have been bad. but again, i dont know the condition of the engine. A new oil pump have been ordered, so i hope that it would solve all problems.



In the meantime i started working on the interior.
Main thing was to pull new wires for speakers as previous owner didnt do a good job. Just look at this:


Anyway. I did put everything back together inside the car with only a few things needed to be done.








As you can see, im going for a rather simple interior. Unfortunally i need to install some gauges on the dashboard as theres a hole i want to cover. But its okay, i have a oil pressure gauge that can fit there

I also wired up the TypeX Kouki lights

One of the left lights dont work because its a EU model, and we dont have any wires going to that one. But ill change it in the near future.

 

I also worked a bit on the rear.
Started with the brakes. I hoped i just needed some new discs and pads, but both calipers were rusted so much i had to rebuild them.
Im still waiting for the rebuild kit, so i did clean and paint them in the meanwhile








We also did remove the rest of the Veilside bodykit and the spoiler. I dont know why, but EVERYTING in this car is held together with selftapping screws. Even the spoiler!
I removed the spoiler after drilling the selftappers out and found a small problem :/ More rust




Yet another moneypit

Rear bumper got removed, and theres only a small bit of rust behind, this i can accept


But behind right rearwheel theres a lot of rust. I didnt take pictures of it as i dont wanna be reminded of it. But hopeful i can find somebody who can fix it as a reasonable price.

Full bodykit is now removed and i put it for sale locally as i dont have any option to ship it out


Lastly, a couple of pictures of how the car sits now






And to finish it off, i got a set of Tein Super Street coilovers with the car. So a few days ago, I noticed there were missing a few things on them. So i contacted Tein in UK to ask for a parts list so i could order the parts. Just to find out that they are not available anymore. So now i also have to spend money on a new set of coilovers. Im already thinking about buying a set of Tein Street Basis Z to keep the car and cost down.

 

Finally i received my rep-kit for my rear calipers, so i spend one evening putting them back together.


We also deleted the clutch dampener loop as it was impossible to bleed it probably.


I know there was a bit of rust in the trunk, so i sanded the paint down to see how bad it actually was, and let me tell you... Previous owner really liked fiberglass and selftapping screws! Everything was mended with these 2 things.






As i was a bit defeated with some of the stuff going on with this car, i wanted to relax a bit and get the front bumper to sit perfect.
A few hours and this is how it looks. Im pretty happy with the fitment at this point.



After i mentioned i needed some coilovers, Maxpeedingrods.co.uk reached out to me, and a week later, i had new coilovers for the car.
Cant explain how great this is. Its not the top of the line, but for the price, and my plans with the car, its perfect. Ill go into details with the set in the near future. Even my dog approves



I did a quick testfit with my Work Euroline DH wheels, and it looks great





As mentioned earlier, the engine wasnt creating oil pressure, so i ordered a new oilpump.

As i have very little experience with mechanics, i went to the workshop manual to figure out how to replace the pump. Guide was easy AF. 7 steps where its something like: "Loosen enginemount nuts", "lift engine" "remove oilpan", "remove oil pump" and job done... Whoever wrote that piece of :w00t: should be fired!

Reality is more like:
unbolt engine mount nuts.
Lift engine so the gearbox hits the firewall and then some.
Drop the whole front subframe.
remove brackets that holds the gearbox to access bolts in the oilpan.
And THEN remove oilpan.

This took WAY to long, and looking back, we should just have removed the engine. Because thats the next step.











When the oilpan got out, i cleaned the inside, and i found these 3 fuckers.


Do you know where they belong? No? let me tell you... Its the oil squirters.
Previous owner got installed Wiseco pistons, and put them in the wrong way, so the skirt of the piston hits the squirters and they brake off.

Now you might ask: "But Jacob, why is there only 3 rods, but the engine has 4 cylinders?" Well... previous owner got one of the pistons in the right way...

So now i NEED to remove the engine, remove the top to turn the pistons 180 degrees around... And install new squirters.

But at least i was lucky enough that i bought an engine a year ago so my friend could make an upgraded oil pan for my other car, so i went to pick it up earlier today.
Ill just take the squirters from this engine and maybe ill rebuild it in the future, But with 2 S13 that i want to finish first, it might take many years

 

As i have mentioned earlier, my Tein coilovers were so outdated that i couldnt get any replacement parts for them. I was fortunate to have MaXpeedingRods reach out to me, and ask me if i wanted to try their coilovers, since the coilovers that i got with the car were old and useless. And of course I was thrilled by the idea of trying a new product. So here comes my honest review and some specs about the item.

The product is the CO-NIS-S13-R-LC which is a 24-way adjustable damper. The box is nicely made, and even has the MaXpeedingRods logo on the side - A nice touch. My coilovers came powdercoated and anodized in red, but the ones in the link at the bottom is yellow.

Unfortunally the box did take a bit of damage in shipping, but the coilovers are intact. So i cannot complain about that.








Some little specs about the dampers:


The coilover is designed with a classic monotube construction.


The front:

Spring rate Front: 8 kg/mm (448 lbs/in)

The front can be adjusted about 8,5cm from highest point ot the lowest.

Preload in the front is 7,6mm.

Piston is 22mm wide

Spring outer diameter is 96mm


The Rear:

Spring rate Rear: 7 kg/mm (392 lbs/in)

The rear can be adjusted about 6,7cm from higest point to the lowest.

Preload in the rear is 6,7mm

Piston is 12,5mm wide

Spring outer diameter is 95,5mm












The spring rate might be on the higher end for a streetcar, but that should definitely be a big plus for a trackcar as it makes your speed demon feel like a gocart.

I will try driving with the original springs to start off with, and if i will not like them, i will see if i can find some softer replacements in the range of 7kg/5kg. I will keep you guys posted.

The dampers come adjusted from the factory. So no need to re-adjust the preload. Which saves a lot of time and unnecessary stress! Highly appreciated minor detail.

I would absolutely recommend to go through everything and tighten it up just to be on the safe side. In my case, the locking rings were loose on my set, and that can never be a safe thing. So please pay attention to this when getting your own set. We dont want any casualties due to a mishap like that.


The topmounts are made of machined aluminum with a pillowball. The topmount also have camber adjustments. The Nissan S13 (180SX, 200SX and 240SX) normally have the camber adjustments on the spindle, so this option can give some extra camber, if you are into that. #cambergang!

When looking for the damper stiffness adjustment you should know that it is done from the top. It has 24 clicks that goes from hard to soft. Trust me I counted myself!







The Installation of the coilovers is fairly easy. They are only connected with nuts at the top and bolts and nuts at the bottom. Easy peasy and straight forward.

The process should go as follows: just unbolt your old suspension - start with removing the brake lines and ABS-line, if you have this. Put a jack or a jackstand under your Lower controlarm. Then remove the bottom bolts and nuts, so the dampers would not fall down. and finish removing the bolts from the top. The safest step by step procedure. Ask my toes, they once had a hobby related injury.

To install the MaXpeedingRods coilover, is as simple as the removal. Just reverse the procedure of removal. But pay attention to the front coilovers as there is a left and a right one, the rear ones are the same. Start with the top, and work your way down. I always find that very easy and thorough. And make sure that the brake lines are secured properly, and please remember to tighten all bolts and nuts to the factory specifications.


Unfortunally i can’t testdrive the car with the MaXpeedingRods coilovers at the moment. First of because its december, but the bigger problem is that my engine is taken apart to repair a "small" problem.


But i will get back in the start of 2021 with an updated review.



If you are interested in buying a set of your own, MaXpeedingRods have made an offer for you where you can save a few bucks: https://www.maxpeedingrods.co.uk/pr...ver-suspension-kit-x4pcs.html?tracking=gojira

 

Anyway…


I went to pick up some tools to take apart the engine to see the damage.






I also needed to take apart the spare engine to take out the oil squirters.



















And a also needed to take out the other CA18DET so I can take it apart…


















This is how the oil squirters have to look, and how the ones in my engine looked…













When took of the head, I found a Cometic 85mm 1.3mm MLS headgasket and nicely machined cylinders together with some 83,5mm Wiseco pistons.






















While I was waiting for parts for the engine, I made the wires for the 3 gauges Ill install on the dash.


Its oil temp, oil pressure (ofc) and a boost gauge. To make it look half decent, I used some cable sleeve from when I modded and watercooled computers.










And the parts for the engine arrived. I guess the pictures speak for themselves…