Matt Russell And Campbell's Ménage Drift Sil80 Build Project

[r33_racer]

Nice effort for a weekend! You guys slammed that out pretty damn well and quick!

[Russman]

It took about 78 man hours I think. 3 guys, 2 x 12hr days this weekend and about another 4 hours the first time to get the main hoop, front legs and windscreen bar in.

[No Crust Racing]

Updates....

[femno]

In about 2 weeks.

Until then we actually havent done anything since the last update!

[phunky_monkey]

Nice job boys!

[femno]

Its been a while but now we have a little bit of progress!

On the weekend we got the grinder out with the wire wheel attached and picked up all the little bits of tar and sealer left on the inside, and cleaned the entire inside of the car. We scuffed all shiny parts of the inside to make sure the paint sticks well.

I also finished rubbing the engine bay ready for paint. Just a quick one with Scotchbrite again to get rid of the shiny bits.

We dropped the front subby out to avoid masking and plus well do some small mods to it before it goes back in

Russell also got the A and B pillar braces ready for the completion of the cage, ive yet to have the cool looking holes stamped out of them yet though.

I sourced a Dashboard bar from a dude from NS for $5, and had that fitting into the car fairly easily, as I was worried the dash bar of the cage would be in the way (we forgot about that!) but it was sweet as.

Excitingly, we made a cool purchase last night:

a set of brand new Ichiba 5 Stud conversion hubs for the front end! A bargain from NS at $250. Very cheap way out of getting a 5 Stud on the front of the car. This will also go well with our R33 rear hub assemblies.

I will be heading to MP Smash this week to pick up the awesome bright orange paint, along with some etch primer for the cage and bare metal spots - paint dun stick to bare metal unfortunately!

We will begin prep this Saturday, finish up the welding, and hopefully have everything primed by the end of the day. Hopefully.

All going well we'll be blowing some colour into the interior and engine bay Sunday!

Pics to follow if all goes well!

[r33_racer]

Nice works fellas! What sort of bright orange you talking about? Is it from a current car or is it some new weird colour?

[femno]

Nothing fancy just MIPPA orange straight out the can...

We wanted something bright as f**k and when Mikko @ MP Smash gave me the sample i was impressed with how bright it was. So yeah we'll see how it goes this weekend!

Didnt want some fancy orange ie metallic as its a bit more $$ and harder to paint (more required). Plus base, then clear, more effort. Solid orange just goes straight on.

Plus when we scratch it, the freshly painted panels will match the old ones haha!

[Russman]

Time for an update!

Mat got some new A pillar braces with the holes already laser cut and punched so I matched them up with what we had previously done and Mat welded them in. They look awesome! The cage really looks like part of the car now!

Plenty of cleaning with finners and the paint went on today.

We got a lot done this weekend. Well done boys! Now I need to have a shower and get this paint out of my nose!

Pics!!!

[Russman]

Update...

We have 5 stud on the front!

Yet to do the back but that will be the next thing we do.

[SABBAi]

Great stuff Russ! Looks like you and the guys are making some good progress.

[femno]

Some other pics!

She is slowly coming together again!

Next is brakes, wiring looms and modification, then start thinking about dropping the engine in!

So many excitement!

[White GTS-T]

Did you mod the knuckles?

[femno]

Did you mod the knuckles?

Not yet. Weve talked about it and its something we will have a play with later down the track once the car is up and drifting

[mattlikewhoa]

It's looking good so far, I'm diggin' the colour

[White GTS-T]

Not yet. Weve talked about it and its something we will have a play with later down the track once the car is up and drifting

Fair enough. I just ask because if your looking at running NP knuckles, as i am, then you could eliminate the need to run the offset spacer by modding the cross member and moving the rack forward. Obviously now would be the time to do it. A few people have had trouble with the spacers coming loose over time, myself not included. Just a thought.

Edited August 10, 2010 by White GTS-T

[femno]

Update:

The project title has been changed from 'Matt Tim and Russell's Menage Drift Sil80 Build Project'

to

'Matt Russell and Campbell's Menage Drift Sil80 Build Project'!

The car will not be moving forward any further until the 13th of December (When I finish uni).

Until then, we will still collect parts etc.

So to start off, we have this lovely item, the best EMS money can buy (thanks to B-rad from RE):

[Gazelle D]

Hey guys nice project, i don't like the diff idea but hey i don't have to drive it.

good luck and what you can join leon with the "TEAM ORANGE" theme next year

ive always wondered what a multiple owned drift car would be like.

who pays for brakeages?

ive been in shares with cars for other forms of motor sport but they were a lot cheaper cars and a lot less likely to brake.

BTW i love couger! i mean sil80's

i once owned a shared S12 Gazelle hatch with 2 mates, we shared expence's such as fuel, tyres and new parts, but when one of us cooked it, and water came out of the clutch fork boot, and yeh the clutch was gone too, the car was parked at my house and abandoned.

i didn't break it, i'm still mates with them. we sold the car and got our own weekenders. but of course everybody's situation is different.

btw couldn't help myself with the edit.

[Russman]

good luck and what you can join leon with the "TEAM ORANGE" theme next year

Nah he will be joining us!

[femno]

Ok guys so as of late December we have spooled up the project again and we have made some pretty damn good progress!

Lots of new parts, a few changes and lots of pics!

The main news is that we have purchased a TD05 from a EVO7 GTA in lieu of the cheap Hypergear TR29. The main reason for this is that fact that it is fitted with a T3 External gate housing; perfect for our application.

Firstly we installed the complete body loom back into the car and fark it looked real messy. We planned to get the car running and then cut out the parts of the loom that werent needed rather than chop stuff out and then wonder why it wont run....

After that we began getting the engine ready to go in. It was really dirty and shitty so we stripped all the parts off the sides and gave it a good degrease. It came up brand new! We used a product called Black Magic....automotive floor cleaner as you can see its MINT!

We purchased a high volume sump from MidnightMods on NS just to be sure the internals continue to rotate mid-slide. We removed the oil pickup as it had plenty of orange sealer inside of it! The previous nugget put too wayyyy too much on to seal the sump.

A billet oil block replaced the factory oil sender unit so we can fit our oil cooler with ease. This was from MidnightMods as well.

We replaced all of the water hoses underneath the plenum so we never cop any leaks, and while we were at it we ditched stuff we didnt need and bypassed the heater core that we dont have any more.

We then installed brand new genuine exhaust studs and manifold gasket just to be sure we dont get any leaks in the future. Pirtek sold us all the fittings and line we needed to plumb up the turbo too.

The front and rear main oil seals were replaced for good measure as well.

We ripped the rocker cover off and firstly removed the hydraulic lifters and gave them a bleed since the engine has been sitting for quite some time, just incase there was one or 2 which want to be noisy once its running; they sometimes struggle to bleed themselves out. Its a good thing we did this as a couple of them did have air in them.

While inside we installed some GK Tech rocker arm stoppers to make sure those rockers stay on while we hold it at 9,000rpm. Just kidding. Afterwards we fitted up a spare SR20DE rocker cover so we can easily paint our redtop rocker when we paint the outside of the car and then simply swap it over.

So on went the Alchemy Highmount manifold (very good quality and very heavy) and so did the turbo. The comp cover was removed as it was fouling on the lines in its previous orientation. We dont know where we want it to sit yet so we havent put it back on yet, its too much bother with the massive circlip that holds it on.

Our ebay Greddy style inlet manifold bolted up perfectly; but dont think it looked as good as it does when we got it; its had a few hours of bead blasting done so it looks half decent. The SR20DE throttle body matches as well.

Needless to say we were very happy with how the engine turned out. Very neat and tidy and CLEAN.

We purchased a second hand OS Giken Twin Plate clutch from Holfords and on that went. We also installed the required shorter throwout bearing sleeve and thinner bearing, genuine nissan parts of course.

The gearbox was bolted on and the MidnightMods short shifter installed. It sure is a short bloody shifter thats for sure! The gear knob was also included; not bad for $99 I say!

The engine and box we lifted into the car all in one hit and the rest is history.

Today we commenced work on the ECU loom an the rest of the wiring of the car. We decided that the factory loom has just far too much shit in it so we are going to ditch the entire loom except for the ECU loom and wire the entire car ourselves! We will be left with a much neater setup and about 20kg less weight!

We figure it wont be that hard since all we need is to power the ECU loom, brake lights, headlights, windows and a few other things. So far we have ripped everything out of the ECU loom that isnt used to run the car and have re-routed all the wiring so as you can barely see it in the engine bay. We also nutted out which wires have to be powered to get the thing to run and arranged the ECU loom and computer mounting the way we want it. We made up a cardboard firewall template and arranged the wiring on it on the floor as it wouldve been a pain to do inside the car. It fitted beautifully when it was done. Sorry no pic yet.

Next is to finish of running the battery cabling and run a few wires and switches to power up the car. Also we will be working on the V Mount setup and installing other stuff like the fuel system and oil cooler.