Nissan Silvia S15 Part II, with less JZ this time.

I have been away for the past 5 months working in much warmer climates, so have not been able to get much progress with the car, although slightly painful to be leaving clear water and glorious beaches I was excited to get home to the stack of parts I have gathered up whilst away.

I took a head stagger when I first left to stick another 1JZ into it, deciding on a 1JZ VVTI for ease of install I set about buying one, then got my time wasted twice in a row and had people trying to sell me scrap constantly, I almost seen it as a sign. After some more thinking I decided to stick with the SR20 which I already have and keep it simple to hopefully enjoy more seat time instead.

First a list of things I have purchased as not all of them are pictured:

- Nismo 740CC Injectors
- Tomei M7960 Turbo
- HPI mid mount manifold
- Blitz NURSpec exhaust (Turbo back)
- 180sx Engine harness
- HKS 1.5mm head gasket
- ARP Head bolts
- BC Racing uprated valve springs
- ACL Race bearings
- OEM Nissan gasket set
- OEM Nissan Piston rings
- ARP Flywheel bolts
- New OS Giken clutch release bearing
- HKS 60mm Gauges x3
- HPI Air Filter
- Z32 MAF
- Aero Bumper (FRP)
- Genuine Aero Spoiler
- Modified Knuckle setup
- FMIC
- Stock 180sx ECU
- HKS Pipe work









Still to buy I have the following:
- Up-rated Cams
- Link ECU

The plan is to run the engine in on stock ECU and cams leaving me a little bit of time to save up some more money to buy the ECU and Cams, some parts such as the Z32 MAF will be able to be sold on at this point.

I have been working on cars for a long time, done many things and tried many things but this will be my first time building an entire engine, I am very much a give anything a go and get stuck in sort of a person so I quite liked the idea of being able to teach myself the basics to building one anyway.

As seen previously in the thread I already have the engine stripped down, so it came to time to start cleaning stuff and getting everything ready for building, first up was the head.




I degreased this with some Gunk before pressure washing it, using a tooth brush around the hard to get areas, the valve side was all coked up with carbon, again with a scotch pad and alot of time I cleaned out the dirty exhaust side. At this point I applied some paint to it making it look nice and fresh again.



Then I cleaned the valves before re-grinding them to make sure they were not leaking. Also cleaned the rocker arms and cam caps.








Next up was starting to put it back together, first I started by opening my lovely gasket kit and putting in the new valve stem oil seals, quite easy, just tap them over the valve guides with a small mallet and a socket. After this, I placed the valves in as I numbered and ground them earlier.



With the help of my friend Hamish again we then put the new valve springs, retainers and collets in, a bit of a pain in the arse with a cheap valve compressor tool, but we got there.




Then I tested that my valve grinding had worked and the valves were seated correctly, I done this by putting water into the side of the head to the corresponding valves, intake side and exhaust side both with no leaks.



Hydraulic lifters need bled and installed next, submerging the lifter fully in oil and using a small allen key you compress the lifter and remove all the air from it, then keeping it upright you place it back into the head full of oil.




Finally I placed the correct shims into the top of the retainers and placed the rocker arms on making sure everything was fitting correctly.



The cams will be placed on once the bottom end is built and I can time it all up together.

I wanted to continue today building the bottom end but unfortunately I have been delayed until next week due to having to wait for my new crank to get here. Instead I decided to do some work to the car itself, a quick clean after sitting in a shed for months and put the new spoiler on. Still awaiting delivery of my Aero bumper mid week.





Once the rest of my stuff arrives I can hopefully crack on with completing the bottom end and getting the engine whole again, then it will be the push towards putting it into the car and getting it running, more to come next weekend hopefully.

 

So I haven't updated this in a while, mainly because I have been busy with life, but also because i have been slaving away in the workshop making things happen.

I brought the car into the workshop expecting to just finish off the engine and throw the new SR20 in, of course when I started stripping things off you think "I may as well just do that now I am this far in".

So finishing off the engine















Then the S15 was up for the SR20DE removal




After some cleaning and painting some bits

 

Got the car up off the ground to underseal it, ended up doing a full subframe/tank/lines out job and using paint over gravitex in below, before doing the under side gloss white.











Had a little incident with a flying tent and my daily, lost heart in the old girl and decided to go for an upgrade.

 

Stu called by with his JZX100 monster running mental power, Adam finished up his S14a, Ed as usual do some tidy work on his awesome Micra, tested my wheels on Kanes S13 and a random Tupac banner!









Next up was putting the rest of the engine stuff together






Fitted the engine





The car is now awaiting the silly bits and bobs being completed like intercooler piping and some wiring to make it work.

More updates soon.

 

An update!!! I have to go back in time some as I have been a little lax with my build threads.

Me and Adam decided to split the cost of an AC/DC TIG welder so we could progress our projects without having to outsource any work, this came in the shape of a Stahlwerks welder, its a cheapy but for us as newbie welders it certainly does the job.




I done some practise on 5mm aluminium, it was a lot easier to weld on this compared to the thin aluminium intercooler pipe work but I managed to get some presentable welds with no foot pedal.





The engine was placed into the car, and after a few niggles with waiting for parts arriving I was able to drive it for the first time in ages, engine went well and I managed to get a few miles on the car towards the run in process. Pictures here with its custom intercooler pipes. A great feeling considering it was my first time building an engine myself, it pulled hard and everything works well.




I finally managed to get the new bumper on, pretty good fit considering its FRP.




Work called me away for about a month and I was home in Ireland for Christmas which meant not a lot of driving got done, I had been a little more focused on buying some parts for my AE86. Whilst at home, obese from Christmas, all my friends back to work and me sitting trying to cure my boredom, I started on a youtube binge with the idea of making a cool new exhaust for the S15 and then started to get stupid ideas into my head, the result of those ideas has been this............... (No this is not a pre-fitting picture).






I put a Driftworks thread up as soon as I got back from Ireland with the stuff for sale, prior to removing the engine pretty much most of the stuff was "dibs" so yesterday I packaged everything up and the engine was also collected today by Alex Stark who owns my old PS13.



So where am I going with this? The main reason for losing the SR is mainly the challenge but also I think there is something exciting about an engine swapped car. When I decided to lose the SR I hadn't quite decided on what would replace it, I had been looking at LS swaps for ease of power, but with the lack of part availability in the UK and after crunching some numbers it didn't seem that viable. SR20's are making SERIOUS money in the UK now, believe it or not most of the stuff I had gathered is pretty much paying for my new engine/gearbox/clutch/prop.

After a quick message to Dave Lee @ JDMDistro I sourced an engine and am having to eat my own words of "I will never do a 1JZ again", this time I have gone for a VVTI version for the standard single turbo and front sump, the engine is due next month from Japan.

Does this mean I need to change the thread title now? :worried:

The plans are to run the engine mated to a GS6-53DZ BMW 530D gearbox, I am currently researching the mine field which is adapter plates and flywheel/clutch conversions, if anyone knows of a GS6-53DZ HGD model gearbox for sale please let me know.

Now I am on the waiting game for the engine, its time to get this bugger MOT'd for a potential drift day next month.



More to come.

 

A quick update before the weekend begins.

Got a gearbox, a BMW 530D 6 speed GS6-53DZ HGD, supposedly good for LOTS of power, its a 6 speed with ratios not a million miles away from a standard S14 diff.




Took ages to decide on what sort of adapter kit to go for, its a bit of a minefield and I have heard horror stories about every company that produces them, even the expensive ones. After some research I decided to go for this kit from a company called FTWL Motorsport in Poland, they make LOTS of custom BMW stuff and the guy who owns the company Karol seems to be very knowledgeable, he has gone as far as offering me a full refund if I am not happy with the kit at all even after install.

Its a twin plate kevlar clutch kit, with sashs pressure plate, conversion flywheel from 1JZ to BMW and an adapter plate, all fitting bolts and ARP flywheel bolts included.



This weekend should hopefully see some more prep on the car before the engine arrives in the coming weeks.



More after the weekend.

 

The car needed to go back outside to leave the ramp free for other people, so I started putting it back together today. Put my INGS+ wings on too, now its decision time for putting fenders on the rear?








And still haven't decided on a colour

 

Quick update - Not much has changed, my engine has been delayed my a month which kind of holds me back in the things I can do, but it does give me more time to gather some parts.

I annoyed my girlfriend by doing the standard and wishing my three cars a Happy Valentines day.



I have so many parcels arriving I kind of forget when I buy things, I ordered these 3 months ago, one from the UK and one from Japan a nice combo of Red Bride Zeta and Red Bride Brix for the S15, I already had a spare passenger low mount Bride rail which was handy. Both seats need some minor fixing and certainly the Brix needs a serious wet vac.






My CoolerWorx shifter arrived, its for a BMW so will need some modification to work with the Silvia, my friend Ed got me some nice 3mm steel plate from work to mock some stuff up with. For anyone interested, this is a great solution to not having to run the big clunky shifter assembly which comes on a standard BMW box, I now just need a shifter rod cut and welded to size and I will have nice race car feel changes.



A common JZ/RB in Sbody issue is cooling, there is not enough space between the front of the engine and the radiator in standard position to run a viscous clutch fan, most people try to run electric fans instead but often still run into heat issues. An option is cutting the slam panel, moving the radiator further into it which free's up the space needed. I decided I didn't want to cut the panel as it kind of ruins the car and have opted to go for a more hidden style radiator which will sit in below the slam panel, some research found this Volkswagen Sirocco 56mm Radiator for not very much money. Note its got no filler cap and has same sided inlet/outlets. The JZ water neck will need modified to work.



Chase bays offers a fantastic solution for this, but I really didn't fancy paying 400/500 quid for a radiator.



While waiting on my engine I have found something else which can pass some time, pictures to come in the next few weeks.

 

Back again with a MAJOR update which some will have seen on Insta/Facebook - Still waiting for my engine arriving (two weeks to go now) so I got busy with some other cool bits in the mean time.

Always liked an S15 with the middle brake light removed from the spoiler so got the dremel out and started cutting, filled it with expanding foam, fibreglass over the top and then smoothed with P38 Isapon.






Whilst I was waiting for bits and bobs to dry on the above I set about making a adapter plate for my coolerworx shifter.



Unfortunately to make this fit in an S15 you have to do some cutting to the lovely dash surround, losing the rear heated screen button (which will be relocated into the cigarette lighter slot) I made an aluminium panel to replace the old one, which I then painted crinkle black.




Will probably eventually change this for a slightly better setup once I get more time.

Made some adjustments to the radiator and tested it for size in behind the slam panel - Works a treat.



Decided I needed somewhere to paint the car, looked online for some options and decided to go for this 6x4 foot marquee from eBay, a bargain at £170 and with some modification could have been quite a good DIY paint area for a few of us.



I started prepping all my parts for paint, re-rolled the rear arches to dial a little bit of camber out and make them closer to the fronts. Done some repairs on the side which wasn't in great condition and also removed the stupidly cut intercooler holes in the bumper.

 

So on Saturday I set about painting the car, fantastic morning, dry day everything was looking good, with some help from a few friends I rolled the car into the marquee and started to drag everything I needed in, heater, cleaning stuff, air line etc etc then disaster struck..... with me and the car inside. The marquee and the 6 alloy wheels, wood and various bits of strap/bungee holding it down lifted, the wheels got flung about 20/30 feet away, narrowly missing myself and the car and the marquee came to rest against a barbed wire fence, somehow avoiding damage to all cars, even that RX7 its up against.





I pretty much **** my pants and was slightly disheartened with the amount of effort I went into putting it there and our plans to paint a few cars. The car was pretty much prepped, the paint was bought and that weekend I had set aside to do it, so I worked my arse off for a few more hours and salvaged what I could to make this, it isnt pretty, nor is it amazing but at this stage I just wanted paint on the car.





So I waited until everyone left the garage that night, covered as much as I could from overspray and went for it.......... it was almost 5am til I got finished with a big shout out to my pal Andy who stuck with me giving me a hand holding lights/heat guns to try and get the best I could out of a **** situation.






I left and got some much needed sleep letting things cure off a little, cautious that other people use the garage I got down as soon as I can to start throwing stuff together so I could move the car back out and it be water tight. This unfortunately revealed my wings had turned out a slightly different colour, they were grey to begin with and of course I skipped out on priming them thinking "**** it" at 3am, which obviously I now regret as they need re-painted.





And then I pushed it outside and the paint hangover/tired/stress had kind of been worth it - My little picture in my head of a Ferrari Rosso Corsa Red S15 on the polished CRKai's had became a reality.





Ordered some new buffing pads, G3 compound and plenty of 1500 grit wet and dry to flat it all down next week and remove some of the dust/imperfections, will also try and get the wings fixed for then. Thankfully this is 2K Direct Gloss acrylic with no lacquer so it can be made nice no matter what.

Hopefully the next update will be me simply dropping the JZ in.

Check back in a few weeks for more.

Dylan.

 

I have been fairly busy with work lately so really haven't had as much time as I would like progressing the car, usually I would do some form of tinkering every night but lately I have only managed weekends.

My package arrived from JDM Distro.


What could it be?????


Had my Xcessive 1JZ > Sbody engine mounts arrive from FRSport too.


Gathered all my parts into a central location


GS6 53DZ HGD 530D gearbox (These are supposed to be fantastic for taking high power)


Started putting my FTWL Motorsport BMW > 1JZ conversion kit together, mostly worked fairly well, had a few snags with using a 1JZ VVTI Auto starter but nothing a hole cutter couldn't rectify. This is the Twin Kevlar clutch kit which is supposed to be good for up to 1000nm of torque. The large flywheel is to gain the space from the adapter plate and box differences and deceptively only weighs 8.5kgs.








I then had something which looked like this.


Thanks to a late night eBay purchase, I managed to snap up this fairly rare stock location manifold from eBay for what can only be classed as a bargain, being sold as a factory 1JZ manifold.



Then to make sure everything was going to fit and work I fitted everything into the car, unfortunately it has to come back out this weekend so I can bash the gearbox tunnel a little for some extra clearance. It looks right at home.




I have now ordered up some steel box section to start welding up a gearbox mount, hopefully that will be done this weekend if I can manage to get the engine in and out. After that its time to get the prop shaft welded then some exhaust and intercooler pipe work made.

More to come soon

 

A thread update at long last, only a month later but its got lots of juicy stuff.

I pulled the engine back out, I needed slightly more clearance around the tunnel and I wanted to clean everything up and re-do the brake lines before putting it all back together - As per usual it never ended up this way. We had a wild Edward powered S15 for a few minutes.




Started cleaning and painting the inlet manifold.



Now I came to an awkward point in the build where I had to make some important decisions, my original plan was to run the car with the stock 1jz until such times I saved up enough to do a top mount conversion, after laying out my options, the work in getting the engine working/correct with a top mount setup was actually less all be it more expensive. I didn't fancy making exhausts, buying flanges and all the silly things to have it on the stock engine so I bit the bullet and went the expensive way.

Every spare penny over the last few months has been pumped into this now, I even had a garage clear out and sold off tons of spares just to help buy things.

First up some Siemens Deka 875cc injectors - Contrary to the internet, these do not fit in a stock 1JZ VVTI and require turning down on a lathe, thankfully the guys that work near to me done it for a box of beer.





Then I needed a proper manifold and turbo, not any Chinese stuff which would be useless but something beefy, I went for an APW Engineering custom made T3 Twinscroll 50mm wastegated manifold, as you can see Andy made a top job. Managed to get my hands on a new Holset HX35 7 blade 11cm rear housing, topped off with a second hand Turbosmart 50mm Progate. A quick loose test fit to the engine proved I had made the right decision.






Also, all this stuff can't work without some form of engine management, after considering a number of options I decided on an ECUMaster Black Standalone, you get amazing bang for your buck and they are starting to get VERY popular. Went for the whole kit which includes the Bosh 4.9 wide band and a MAC boost solenoid.



I am waiting for some paint to arrive this week so I can finish cleaning up the engine and covers, this should see me ready to put the engine back into the car and continue making the custom gearbox mount and exhaust. Once in I will be attempting to make a full standalone wiring harness with a little help from the HPAcademy videos.

Will try and get some more regular updates in the thread.

 

A small update as I have been doing quite a bit of travelling with work.

I re-fitted the engine into the car, again running into more issues, not only did I damage some of my fancy purple paint work but I found the gearbox tunnel in need of plenty more sledge hammer massaging.



After having it in and out a few times and getting very frustrated I decided to leave it out until I solve some of the clearance issues, pushing the engine to the side of the garage got me thinking how I was maybe losing my way with the colours of the car a little, there was currently a little too much going on and with the damage to the purple I thought it was now or never. So I got to work.





I laid this down at 23:30 last night using the spare paint from doing the car, looking much better and thankfully didn't cost £6k




Built the rest back onto it today as I needed to push the car back outside, when it came out into the light I felt really happy about it, much cleaner looking and I am not worried about colours for painting other bits in now.



The engine will be going back in for the final time soon (fingers crossed), I have just had some packages arrive with all my wiring to start making the custom wiring loom.

Got quite a heavy work schedule so the next update may take a few weeks.

 

Not quite as big an update as I would have hoped for, as I have been in France a bit for work and haven't had much time, I am also waiting on more parts arriving which can be frustrating as it holds me back quite a lot, the post system where I get stuff delivered to is horrific which doesn't help.

Anyway, the biggest killer of Holset turbo's is not having a large enough oil drain, I spent hours researching options and was very much put off with using AN12 fittings with just now restrictive they are, also I wanted something to be heat resistant that met up to the stock sump drain. I got myself some 5mm stainless steel and a length of 22mm stainless tube and set about making one from scratch. I ain't no decent welder, my hand isnt steady enough but I think it came out okay.






Now I have got most of the stuff modified and fitting correctly I whipped off both manifolds, oil filter, mounts and water system to give the engine a slight tidy up, it probably wouldn't be noticed in the car but when I was this deep with the engine on a tyre it would be silly not to.

Got the scrubbing brush out and gave it a clean down.


To try and keep the OEM kind of look I went for the black again, brushed on some engine enamel.




Gave the alternator, starter and water pump a very quick blast of silver before building it back up again.



Got myself a nice braided line for the turbo feed which is a proper good fit, just waiting on the block adapter to arrive now.


Excuse the rocker covers, I am still deciding what I am going to do with them paint wise to compliment the engine bay.

The next few weeks are probably going to be a write off due to working commitments, but hopefully that will give all my bits time to arrive.

 

A quick update for a Sunday evening.

I finally received some bits I had been waiting on, drill bits, a 1/2NPT Tap, 1/2NPT > 10AN fittings and 10AN 90 degree fittings to name a few, all of this was in aid of coilpacks, you can't run coil on plug coilpacks in a 1jz/2jz with the stock cross over pipe, I decided I would bite the bullet and get working on a catch can setup, fairly easy on a 1JZ as the holes are already there, they just need opening up with the drill and tapped.


Of course, the old crossover pipe holes are now no good, I drilled the old fittings out and set about welding them up.



Now to make them look pretty




Fitted my Yaris coilpacks


And added the 1/2NPT fittings with the AN10 90's which look really smart.



The engine looks really great now with this colour scheme, makes it look VERY clean.


After a weird and wonderful once in a life time lay in on a Sunday I got up mid afternoon and set about doing this, it fitted much better this time after massaging the gearbox tunnel more, its still tight but a little more adjusting should see it perfect, of course, now I have it back in there is more issues, look how close that wastegate is to the brake booster!!!!



More issues means probably more waiting for parts unfortunately, in the mean time I will be trying to fabricate a gearbox bracket and also trying to work out some more of my stand-alone wiring, more to come

 

It has been a busy week for me, I set about making some form of gearbox mount to hold the rather large BMW gearbox up, I was a little worried about making it off centre so I done lots of measuring to make sure it was going to work. I ain't no perfect welder but with some 40mm wide 3mm thick box section it is hard to go wrong.

Started out by cutting some 3mm plate to match the gearbox face, with a **** angle grinder and not amazing cutting discs this was quite the challenge, was waiting for a snapped blade to smash me in the face.


Mocked up some box section to get the heights roughly right, if anyone has seen below an Sbody, one side sits 40mm higher than the other.


I forgot to take many pictures in between, but I eventually got to the stage of having it sitting right with some OEM BMW 1 series gearbox bushes, I threw some cheap black paint on it all.





Checked the angle, 89.40 degrees, very happy with that.


Got back to the bathroom to wash myself and being lost in working on the car all day hadn't even noticed I had burnt all my arm with the welder by wearing a t-shirt.


Added some length to the gear linkage and installed it, which meant I could actually feel what the shifter was like.



Done a test fit of the radiator, it looks fantastic but unfortunately it doesn't work with the setup as I want to keep the viscous fan, unsure what to do now, cut the slam panel and buy an SR20 radiator, or try and customise some form of swirl pot and change the angle the radiator points at.



In my last post we talked about an issue with the brake booster being mega close to the wastegate, lots of people told me about moving the wastegate and different ideas, unfortunately with the twin scroll setup it isn't quite that easy so I went for a different solution, the GKTech brake booster delete kit, also got a clutch cylinder adaptor kit too for goods measure. Great service from GKTech, ordered 6 days ago from OZ, delivered yesterday. The pictures show the bottle on the kit, but I will be using the remote reservoir option to mount the reservoir a little further into the corner.





And lastly, a few pictures of the car sitting in the garage looking pretty damn cool from a few feet away.



Off for a few weeks working so more when I come back.