Okay so after owning and working on the car for several months now and reading through dozens of threads on here for inspiration I finally figured I'd start up my own. I've been following drifting for a good 5 years now (I'm 19 years old), and ever since I went to my first event and started watching various videos on the internet such as various grassroots events, D1GP, D1SL, BDC, Formula Drift and more recently IDC and D1NZ I knew it was something I had to do, and for many years I have dreamt of having a car to do it in, in particularly an S13. With S-Body prices becoming more and more ridiculous the past year or so, I never thought an S13 would be a car I could afford any time soon, but it turns out I've been driving past one for several years without even knowing it was there! A little about the car, its a 1993 UK spec 200sx S13, running the CA18DET with 130k on the clock. My dad was told via a work colleague of his of the car, and it was literally located 2 minutes down the road from my Grandparents house in Woodbridge, Suffolk ( I live and work just down the road in Ipswich)m so here it is! {} {} {} {} {} So a little about the car. The previous owner bought it to drift it a long time ago, however his circumstances with his other half changed, and the car was pretty much abandoned outside. Before I bought the car it had been sat for 6 years! It has been through several owners in its life, but has never been messed with. It was fully standard, with all interior etc. The bloke had lost all love for it and wanted the small sum of £500 for the car, so I jumped at the chance! With no access to a trailer, and the car having no MOT, I had to arrange it to be towed to my work, who kindly let me keep it there for a couple of weeks (which ended up turning into months) whilst work began on the car. After a few months of waiting, the car was finally with us at the start of this year (Jan 2016) after originally going to look at the car in October 2015. We immediately pushed the car in and got it on the ramp, due to its mileage and no history or knowledge of the timing belt being done we thought it would be best to change that first! {} {} {} {} {} With it being at my work there was only so much time to work on it each lunchtime and after work, but the timing belt was done and then eventually got round to doing all the oil changes also. Whilst the car was on the ramp, it was time too look underneath! It wasn't the cleanest to say the least, but with it sat for the past 6 years I wasn't expecting much to be honest... Basically, the lump sum of it was all the usual stuff for an S Body, Sills, underside, strut top mounts and various other small places were rusty. Anyway, when we came to start the car, it was Idling like a bag of dicks to put it likely. Misfired badly on idle, wasn't as bad on throttle. So further investigation was needed! We did a compression test to find out that 2 cylinders were very low on compression (sadly didn't record the readings but they were low!). So from this point on things escalated rather quickly and in a direction I initially wasn't planning on going... {} Cylinder head off! Valves and Valve seats were very dirty. Soon followed the Block, Prop and Gearbox. {} We then proceeded to tear down the block fully, found the rings were okay, no sign of major damage on the pistons or bores either. To be honest we never really 100% found out what was causing the low compression, either way we decided on a full rebuild there and then! So with the engine out, the car was pushed back outside and I then began the stripping out the interior one lunchtime at a time... {} {} Dreadful job of sound deadening removal! {}
So what was originally going to be a couple of weeks work to get the car through an MOT turned into a 3 month strip down job haha! (Sorry John!) So eventually the car was trailered away from work and onto its new home, which was my good mate from work Adam's Dad's down in Diss, Norfolk (ISLA Motorsport) for the welding to be done, as unfortunately neither myself or Adam can weld! As it's a 45 minute drive each way and working during the week, I'm only able to get out there at the weekends, which obviously limits the work being done but Rome was't built in a day so the saying goes! Once there, the plan was for me to strip down and prepare the car for the rust to be prepared, so Adam's Dad could weld quickly and easily and to keep the cost down! So eventually it got to a stage where the welding could begin! The inside was the first section to be done. Whilst the welding was going on I was getting more and more exciting and shiny mail for when the car is ready to go back together! Then one Monday I received some very exciting and particularly shiny mail! 83.5mm Wossner pistons and PEC Rods! I's sticking with the CA and figured if I'm doing it, I may aswell go full retard with it sooner rather than later! Would rather be a bit different from the usual SR swap too, and should hopefully have a very capable and well powered CA by the end of the build with more parts yet too come! Back to the car's progress, I had also acquired my Aero. I have always known what Aero I would want to run if I ever owned an S13, and it just so happens I found it for a great price! Full Bybs Performance Kouki Kit minus the wing, which i managed to pick up elsewhere for cheap! Heard nothing but good things regarding the fitment of Marek's fibreglass parts so I'm super keen to fit these to the car! Picked up a wing off of SXOC forum, be rude not to test fit! I also picked up some fibreglass +25mm front wings for the car. Back to the car! more welding was going on during the weeks whenever Adam's Dad got a chance to do so. With the bay pretty much fully empty, I gave it a good acid clean down to help prep it for paint once the welding is finished. Didn't come up too bad! Due to all the small holes in the engine bay, specifically around the arch area and battery tray I figured I may aswell cut it all out and put tubs in. So i proceeded to make cardboard templates and then measure out and cut the sheet metal ready for Adam's Dad, and then cut away the arches! Whilst that was going on I got round to doing other odd jobs, such as ripping the fuel tank off. Drained the tank of fuel, and attempted to have some fun with it which almost went badly wrong...Don't play with fuel and fire kids!
So if we fast forward a little bit to what the car is like currently. All of the welding is pretty much done, minor pieces left now! Which is awesome. Which means its almost time for underseal and Paint! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves regarding the welding. {} '] {} [/URL] {} '] {} [/URL] {} '] {} [/URL] {} '] {} [/URL] {} '] {} [/URL] The car has also had various other little holes in the engine bay patched up, aswell as a whole new drivers side outer sill section made up and welded on. We also have 2 arches again! I have also since decided to go the Overfender route, as my standard rear quarter's aren't in the best condition. Managed to pick up a damaged but repaired set of Bybs Performance (Marek again), and I'm really happy with them. I then proceeded to cut a small amount of the rear arch away for a mini tub. I have also cut and prepared a small metal lip to sit over the edge of the arch. This will seal the overfender to the body and help prevent crap ingress, and also provide a surface for the overfender to sit on. One side has been done, I'm just waiting on the other side and then the welding will be pretty much over! Test fitted the overfenders, love the look of them! So that's pretty much it with the car for now! The past couple of trips to Diss have consisted of freeing off the front and rear subframe bolts, which was done successfully with a hell of a lot of heat and a breaker bar! So they're ready to come off for underseal soon. Mail wise I've only had these two things recently: Two more 5 stud wheels ready for when i put the conversion parts on the car upon its return to me! Cosmis N5R's supplied by Driftworks for a great price. 17x9 ET15, should go well with the Kyusha's I've got! And a CPC Spec custom Inlet Manifold for CA. Managed to pick this up of someone from the SXOC forum for a super cheap price so I'm stoked as it will help the performance aswell as make the bay look a lot cleaner! Needs some porting work but not bad for £100! So that's it for now! I'm going to update this as often as I can. Paint and underseal is next for the car, which should be done by the end of October/Early November! Super excited! Any feedback would be appreciated, I'm new to all this so any tips or pointers will be much appreciated! I upload pictures of the progress to my Instagram also, so follow me @adrianjamesking if you want! DMAX Fibreglass bonnet is on its way via KnightRacer, so I'll hopefully have that soon! Until next time!
Subscribed as you've got a good story and pictures going on! It started off similar to mine going to work and sitting round for months there before being looked at but then yours has gone mad and mine only went in as I couldn't get the timing right! I had to sell mine before it saw the road again but ill get another one day, you know Sparco harnesses are just Sabelt don't you?!
Haha thank you! It's gone mad fairly quickly but I'm very happy and excited in the position the cars going, just the time bit that annoys me haha! Will be worth it in the end. And yeah I am aware! But I'm a tart and wanted the seat and harness to match, so Sparco harness it was haha.
Haha thank you! It's gone mad fairly quickly but I'm very happy and excited in the position the cars going, just the time bit that annoys me haha! Will be worth it in the end. And yeah I am aware! But I'm a tart and wanted the seat and harness to match, so Sparco harness it was haha.
Subscribed! Good read [emoji1303] good pictures! Currently trying to learn as much as possible as o want to start a project of my own soon! [emoji1305] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks man! Yeah the wheels are super pretty haha! Can't wait to put them on the car, can't say I've seen them on a kouki kitted 13 either, so should be interesting! Hope yours is going good mate!
Thank you mate! Appreciate that! Learning is always good. I'm learning a stupid amount as I go with mine, any questions feel free to ask mate!
Haha thanks mate! Cage, then paint then hopefully some of them will actually go on the car rather than sitting pretty at my unit! - - - Updated - - - Thanks man! Sick progress on yours too!
Okay so its been a while since last update, a fair amount has happened since! First off I went to over to Ireland for the final round of the IDC at the end of September, although it was freezing and wet, it was still a great time and provided a lot of inspiration for the car! I also met the one and only Nakamura, so It would of been criminal to not get a signature, so I got a piece of the car signed, stoked! A cage is something that I had always visioned for the car, but figured due to some obstacles I never thought I would get a chance to do it until the car was drive able and finished, e.g no trailer. But as the car was completely stripped once I took the pedals and steering wheel and column out, it seemed crazy to put it all back together and get it painted to then have to take it apart again for a cage and therefore ruin the nice new paint! Adam's dad was taking a trip to have a harness bar added into his 205 GTI Rally car after meeting someone at a Snetterton trackday who does Cage work, so I asked nicely and he went and enquired and got a price for me while he was down there! The price came back and it was a great price for a BDC spec cage plus extra's, not only that but the car could be done that following week due to people messing him around! With use of a trailer and a tow courtesy of Adams family/mum I decided to go for it and get it done! So they kindly organised the screen and window removal and we took it down to Neil from 'CAGEWORX' down in Essex. My manager John kindly let me take a few hours (extended lunch hour) to pop down with the car and have a chat with Neil to make sure he was aware of what I wanted. Got there and he was already super clued up on what I wanted and extra's as he had been in touch with the BDC previously regarding the roll cage regs. And this is the result... It's one hell of a cage, with an amazing turn around and service (little over a week), I cant thank Neil enough for his work - adding extra's in and solving little issues with the cage, such as adding the hole for rear shock adjustment in. I would highly recommend him, go check out his Facebook page 'Cageworx' to see his work and enquire, if you're local to Essex or even further a field, I still think he would be worth a trip! Super happy. The best bit about it was, he had finished it just in time for my 2 weeks booked off work, so I was able to crack on with the last few remaining bits with the car and not waste the time off!
So having just got the car back from Neil, I had 2 weeks off work. With a couple of days allocated to go away, I had just over a week to crack on with as much as possible to the next goal, which was paint the engine bay and interior. So moving on to Tuesday, my job for that day was to clean up all the welds around the cage, due to some swarf and splash from Neil's welder, he didn;t have time to finish cleaning up around the welds due to the quick turnaround, which is fair enough! [/URL] I then spent my wednesday flatting down the cage, ready for etch primer! The last thing we wanted was the cage to start going rusty, so I flatted down the whole cage with some P80/320 paper. Once finished that I then removed the final bits of sound deadening from the boot and rear wheel arch areas with the hot air gun and scraper, my fave job!!! After cleaning the last bits of tar up with thinners, I then scotched the whole floor and interior of the car, and by the end of the day, the cage had some etch primer sprayed on! [/URL] [/URL] So Thursday we were getting closer to the paint going on! I flatted down the cage after its primer the previous night, and then proceeded to clean the interior, take out all grommets and plastic clips inside the car, hoover all the dust and bits of crap out etc etc... I also took the rear lights out, boot lock, boot cable and the doors off again to enable easy access. Its surprising how long that can take lol! But the car was eventually ready, so we masked it up and gave it a last few hoovers ready for proper primer all inside. And by late thursday evening, the interior was in its primer! [/URL] Primer! Friday, we flatted down the whole inside and cage ready for its base coat. It was also the day we all turned slightly pink! We gave the car a good going over with the P320, making it look as good as possible for proper paint. So by the time we had flatted down and hoovered several times, it was getting on a bit! We eventually masked the rest of the car up and it had its first bit of proper base coat on by the end of friday! Exciting! [/URL] [/URL] It doesn't look that different, but the base colour is on! The cage is staying pink for the time being as that is being hand painted a different colour than the interior, so that will be done at home with a brush (cant wait for that! not...) So that was Friday... Saturday, this was a good day! After laying down a couple of base coats on Friday, the car was ready for its final coats and clear coating today! and this is when i just stood by and watched and left Adam's dad Ivan do his thing! About the only thing I did was tack the inside before it was ready for lacquer! The car took quite alot of coats, due to such an impeding cage, it was hard for Ivan to get everywhere and give it enough of a coating. But we managed it and I have to say I am in love with the final outcome! Last few base coats... [/URL] After clear coats and lacquer... [/URL] [/URL] [/URL] [/URL] [/URL] [/URL] Pictures really don't do it justice! It looks immense, the colour is called Firenza red, with copper, blue and gold flake (because i'm a tart) I absolutely love it! And when the cage is black I really think they will set against each other lovely. So that's it for now, next up is to do the engine bay in the same paint, then underseal and then its back home to start putting it back together!! Stoked.
Awesome thread really like where this is going Any plans on colour for the interior/exterior? Edit: So I posted this as you updated the thread with the interior painted so that answered part of my question haha
Also in other news... Today I received some mail, another thing ticked off the list! Full alignment arm kit from 7Twenty. [/URL] [/URL] I have a poly-carbonate window set on the way from Anthony Galvin over in Ireland, so I should get that soon, also I have a DMAX FRP bonnet coming from Knight Racer, but they have been experiencing delays so hopefully that wont be much longer. So its mid way through my second week off work now, I'm off for a couple of days away tomorrow then back to reality. But I'm so stoked with the interior and cage and I cant wait to have the engine bay the looking the same now, not too long hopefully!
Haha! Thanks mate! Means alot, same for yours! Looks awesome! And yeah! Engine bay same colour as interior, Black Cage and eventually Black exterior once its all together! I've been stung with going over word limits before on here so I thought I would split it up just be sure rather than have to do it all again haha
