S13 Sprint/Time Attack Style Build

[No Crust Racing]

So, some progress and a pic of my shameful molestation of the engine mount bolt. 

I really should have just taken the k frame out earlier, it was a 5 minute job in the vice with a hammer and multi grips and would have saved me lots of stuffing around under the car. 

Behold my makeshift rack support system, meant I didn't have to crack any lines for the power steering. 

Holding the frame up and in place one handed to get the nuts on finger tight was interesting  



Using some mild adhesive on the engine mounts to hold them together worked perfectly, they held together "just" enough for me to get them in place and finger tight before breaking free again. 

The new trans mount is noticeably thicker than the old one and I see that the box now sits a bit higher than it did before. I'll have to see if that causes issues anywhere else. 

The nut/bolt setup on the trans mount is annoying, you have to drop the transmission support out completely, attach the mount to the support, then attach the support to the car again. The bolts have to be threaded from underneath, leaving a nut on top that you need to get onto to stop the whole assembly rotating as you tighten it. The standard setup is a nut with a shaped head/washer that sits against the transmission housing and holds itself in place. 



Unfortunately I saw there's still a leak coming from the extension housing This is annoying given I am positive I put a brand new oem seal in it when the box was out for a clutch. Is there a trick to getting these to seal up properly?

From here I need to try and sort that box leak, finish off some mounts for the rear diffuser thing then it's off to the tuner/fabricator The GT-R is also at the tuner so it's gonna be killerwasps everywhere soon. 
 

[No Crust Racing]

Aggravated/Exacerbated an old back injury, work will be on hold for a little while as I get it assessed and determine recovery time

[No Crust Racing]

Back now workable and have recovered from having my balls chopped. 

Managed to get under and finish installing the trans mount. Bit of f**king around. I wouldn't rate these mounts highly for ease of install. 

Moved on to engine mounts to finish tightening, but the previously mentioned f**k around and a sore back made me pack it in, will keep chipping away as there's a track day end of this month/early June I'd like to use as a shake down and the car still needs a tune and alignment. 

[No Crust Racing]

Shit has been busy AF. 

Managed to find an hour last night and finished engine mount install, torqued etc, as annoying as the trans mount. These better not suck because I CBF removing them.
Reinstalled all the front end suspensions/rack etc. Put strut brace back on and put oil filter relocater back in place (removed for clearance to driver side mount). 

Can now move onto the back and just finish that infill section off then get it to the tuner. There's a track day on the 4th of June that I would love to attend for a shake down. . 

Idea with the tune is simply to hopefully match previous peak power but to fix that big phat torque dip through better control of the inlet butterflies. I am willing to sacrifice top end if we can move more power into the mid range and have a better total area under the graph - Also to have some proper knock protection given it has a fresh head gasket on it, I don't want to be doing that again. 

 

 

[mr_rbman]

As I'm following a similar budget path to yourself I'm curious about a couple of things.....

I was looking to just run some cheap second hand jap shocks and springs, not 'coilovers' but the 'cheap' sets I've bought have leaked so I'm contemplating biting the bullet and spending $$$ on some reasonable but on the cheaper side 'coilovers' I believe you run the BC's........thoughts?!

Also, coming from 'R' chassis my whole car life and this being my first 'S' chassis strut braces have been more for looks (wank) from my experience but upon reading a little further it would appear the strut braces are quite a worthwhile and cheap upgrade for an 'S' chassis car......thought?!

[No Crust Racing]

I would buy MCA blue instead of BC if I was doing it again, thye weren't around when I bought the BCs. 

I have no issues with the BC except they are maybe a bit stiff for a full grip setup. So if you get BCs, pay the extra and buy softer springs as they have to be valved for them at purchase time. 

Strut braces are cheap, just do it. If the car was fully seam welded, sure maybe don't bother, but on a 26yr old chassis in my case, a little extra bracing for $50 isn't hurting. 

Which reminds me, I still need a rear brace

[No Crust Racing]

So, excitement. Car has all 4 wheels back on and is basically on the ground.

I might even wash it soon.



Added some additional bracing/fixings to the rear infill and called it a day.

Especially proud of the driver side rear one, used a spare guard liner clip on the plastic tray to make it captive as I couldn't get in there with a nut. Nylock nuts everywhere else.

A little flex in it but will do for a prototype. No fins for now as that would require removal and I want it at the tuners and aligners.

Still thinking about front spacers, they look gumby compared to the rears.

[No Crust Racing]

So, comedy of errors last night... My quick drive down the street and back ended up taking 90mins. 

Got car started, missing exhaust from front pipe back, load as f**k and interior vibrating like a mofo, can definitely feel the difference with those mounts and you may be right that they are too rough, but I'm not swapping them out now, see how it is with the exhaust finished as resonance played a big part in it. Might keep that second muffler in there lol

Clutch feels light as, works, but feels light as. Brakes feel light as, they work, but again feel light and both pedals have a bit too much travel for my liking. 

Car is too loud to tell if diff is happy or not, but it goes around the round about down the end of my street without blowing up, success. 

As the car is one a base map and likely needs some adjustments to idle smoothly it's a bit hard to drive. 

Coming back home it stalls when approaching the gutter (to get down to my shed), gets stuck in the gutter, then while trying to push it into a better spot out of the way, front wheel stuck in the drain lol

Go to get jumper leads and daily as the Silvia won't start due to low battery (more on that in a moment). 

Car will not start from jump, FML. Remove battery from daily, put into silvia, cranks merrily and starts. Rev the shit out of it to get it back into the shed so it doesn't stall. Neighbors will love that at 10:30 lol

On the battery, IT had been on the charger and was "full" but lacked the guts to start the car. I've got it on the bench charging now and will check the final voltage and float voltage.

How much of an impact does terminal contact play on resistance (battery in the boot in this instance).

The original battery had round terminals, but this current one has square/flat terminals. I got around it by running the bolt that clamps the round terminal down, through the centre of the flat terminal on the battery and taking up the space with nuts both sides so it could be tightened up. So the cable terminal itself doesn't actually directly touch the battery terminal, only via contact with those nuts/the bolt through the centre. 

My old small battery of the same size and cranking amps seemed to work fine (but had round terminals). 

[No Crust Racing]

Battery had a bad terminal, is stuffed fully now so in the bin it will go. 

Got my old one out and ran a recondition on it with the cTek so I could move it out of the shed, will have it tested by a battery place today and go from there. 

2yrs worth of dust finally washed off. Even shined the tyres... 

 

[No Crust Racing]

Battery confirmed dead, grabbed a new one. 

Will talk to Fab/tuner and book in. 

[No Crust Racing]

Alignment hopefully done Friday morning.

Thinking I will grab some bolt on spacers preemptively to ensure I can get mad front camber.

Tuner tentatively booked for Monday.

The event on June 4th is now sold out, but no 2 on reserve list. See how we go.

[Dale FZ1]

Great to see it ready (almost).

What sort of alignment settings are you chasing?

Tyres?

[No Crust Racing]

Swear to god I was gentle. You cannot write this shit 0_0

Yes I did swear. Speaking to the place I got it from today to see what can be done, didn't want to stuff around with it anymore last night. 

May buy the GKtech spacer kit also, bolt on with various combo options, as it will give me more clearance up front to run more camber, and then later if I wanna use those other 9" rims up front (which have a worse disc type) I can use the kit to clear the calipers. Being able to run RS-RR in a 255 would be cheaper than running a 235 proper R-Comp and they last longer also. 

Unless better idea? 

As for alignment, it had these settings at one point and felt decent. 

Front/Camber/Toe
Driver: -2.75/1mm toe out
Pass: -2.75/1mm toe out

Rear/Camber/Toe
Driver: - 1.3/1mm toe in
Pass: -1.3/1mm toe in

That was with stock swaybars. The whiteline front bar and GTR rear bar seemed to upset it and made it burn up the outside edge of the tyres (or was I just going faster and didn't have enough camber? dunno). 

 

So now with roll centre adjusters up front and maybe a touch more camber, with a softer rear swaybar and the whole subframe and diff swap. I'm thinking maybe a touch more camber both ends but otherwise change nothing else - though I have castor rods now too so max front castor. 

Guard clearance may also be an issue so we'll see what happens. Tyres will stay the same, old RSR in 235, no budget for fresh ones atm with silvia tune/GTR bill etc. 

[No Crust Racing]

Champs at local battery place fixed it, will fit it tonight. 

Ordered spacer kit as I couldn't be sure of 1 size working. Will fit that tomorrow night. 

Assume I need to cut down standard studs to fit it? 

[NickRB20]

I did the same thing to my battery when I got it. Same battery actually. Guys at the shop said don't do it up tight, I didn't... but it still snapped. From memory the outside size on the terminal is like 19 or 22mm, I had an open end spanner on it and did it just to where it got tight, then put like 2 fingers pressure on and, snappo. I was blown away. But it's only brass, and only about M5 or M6 thread so shouldn't expect too much out of it I guess.

[Dale FZ1]

12 hours ago, ActionDan said:

The whiteline front bar and GTR rear bar seemed to upset it and made it burn up the outside edge of the tyres (or was I just going faster and didn't have enough camber? dunno). 

I'm thinking maybe a touch more camber both ends but otherwise change nothing else - though I have castor rods now too so max front castor. 

Tyres will stay the same, old RSR in 235, no budget for fresh ones atm. 

If bigger sway bars upset the balance, revert to stock and see how it feels.  (knowing there's a wide variety of opinion regarding bars)

Your alignment settings are reasonably benign.  If the front outside edges are getting caned, chase another -1 degree of camber.  Might put it in a happier place. More caster = good.  Consider whether how you turn-in, lines held, and throttle application are contributing to understeer and tyre wear. Some pics of the car cornering, or honest input from an experienced "proper" driver who's got time to watch you could help.

RSR-RR or Nankang AR-1 would be worth a look when you're prepared/able to spend on new rubber.  Proper R spec tyres will always be the fastest option, but it sounds like setting up for doing more track km is the smartest move.

 

[No Crust Racing]

I did the same thing to my battery when I got it. Same battery actually..

Yeah they were great about it and said the spec for torque is halved on the new stickers. Basically finger tight. They had a new one ready to go for me just in case.

Top notch service.

[No Crust Racing]

If bigger sway bars upset the balance, revert to stock and see how it feels.  (knowing there's a wide variety of opinion regarding bars)
Your alignment settings are reasonably benign.  If the front outside edges are getting caned, chase another -1 degree of camber.  Might put it in a happier place. More caster = good.  Consider whether how you turn-in, lines held, and throttle application are contributing to understeer and tyre wear. Some pics of the car cornering, or honest input from an experienced "proper" driver who's got time to watch you could help.
RSR-RR or Nankang AR-1 would be worth a look when you're prepared/able to spend on new rubber.  Proper R spec tyres will always be the fastest option, but it sounds like setting up for doing more track km is the smartest move.
 

Yeah may disconnect an end link to test if needed up front.

Settings are basic because there's not really much to it.

Seat time will trump all mods at the moment.

Got the battery reinstalled, cranks nicely. Ctek on lol

Front wheels off ready for spacers.

[No Crust Racing]

Behold in all its 4 stud glory. 

Handy because the sleeves on the right double as hub centric rings and i was missing 1 (only noticed last night) so I can use these up front and put 2 on the back. 

Come at me camber. 

 

 

 

[No Crust Racing]

So, short version is spacers are on and car is at the aligners.

Long version is, much more drama than anticipated. 

Here's what you need to do/know to fit these spacers. 

• Cut down your existing wheel studs so they do not foul the wheel when mounted (some wheels have provisions for allowing studs to extend in behind them, mine dont).
   
• To do this, I threaded a nut onto the stud to help with measuring length, used painters tape to mark the edge, then cut along the egde and then used the nut to help clean up the thread. The tape also holds the cut off section captive for easy clean up - pics below. 
   
• Put wheel on and get a "rough" idea about where you want it. Difficult for me because the idea is clearance from the shock to get the camber I want and I didn't have time to adjust camber to see. I settled on the base 15mm, but put the kit in the car for the aligner. 15mm seemed to roughly match rear track width. 
   
• Cut down the spacer extended nuts. They are so long that you cannot tighten the wheel nut up, even open ended nuts, because the socket runs out of depth. the issue is, cut them too short and you lose the ability to space further out if needed. Cut them too long and can't tighten them at the desired length. Also my wheels have centre caps and covers that the studs must clear. Lengthy process... 
   
• Bolt the whole thing up a few more times and play with clearances. Cut/bolt up, cut bolt up etc. The bolts that hold the spacer to the hub are quite narrow in terms of surface area for a socket to grab and as they recess into the spacer you get less and less bite on them. I struggle to see how you can safely get 72ft lbs on them without damaging the corners of the nut, maybe 6 point socket needed. Pic below doesn't show studs cut but there was easily 30mm cut off each. Pics also doesn't show hub rings fitted, which work well. 
   

I went at this like a mad man last night, as it was supposed to be a quick fit then get the missus to help me load it on the trailer. It took easily over 2hrs at a cracking pace and the car was already on stands, wheels off. 

Shit better work.