I had loads of fun in mine, it was just impossible to drive in the rain.

 

Good choice.
Bren exhaust £299
K and N induction £100
And your fuel bills should be lower!

 

Thanks, i would have prefered a black, but this car is in too nice condition to let the colour matter, and it's grown on me, wierd colour though, it looks blue from some angles.

I might have a play at the drifting thing, it could be a good laugh, i would need quite a modified car to compete with the really good drifters so it will be for the comedy value only. Picking up a second set of wheels and tyres for £100 in a few hours so i can kill them having a bit of fun anyway.

I'll probably install some Ceramic red EBC brakes to the car and maybe a set of ARB's just to sharpen it up a bit, maybe a K&N filter and some 7 grade plugs just to make it a bit better for when i take it to nurburg too.

Have you altered the boost, i have been reading they seem to be happy at 14psi with everything else stock using a bren device? (this sounds like a daws?) giving around 250BHP, but if this is a bit iffy i'll just leave it stock.

 

14psi is a doddle. Just get the usual guages for keeping an eye on stuff.

Tell me what username you registered under and I'll activate it manually.

 

I can use the BBS OK now thanks Beef. having fun over there now actually. username is JSF.

 

John,

I've not been on Scoobynet much recently but your thread caught my eye. Reason for not frequenting SN is I PX'ed my MY99 Sport for a Black MY00 200SX Touring (S14a) in November last year! I haven't looked back since (no pun intended).

Still getting to grips with the handling of the 200, but its certainly entertaining. I came to the conclusion last year when I was thinking about upgrading to a Turbo that I'd like a car that was fun to drive at more sensible speeds and the 200 was perfect. Pretty much as soon as I started to really look I found a spotless Black S14a.

Miss a couple of things about the scoob. First is the safety net it gives you meaning you don't have to have 110% concentration and the second is not being able to waive at other scoobs.

Other than that the performance is certainly sufficient, its very good at eating the miles, its very comfortable for 2 people, no one knows what it is, and erm, opposite lock! The standard power output is sufficient to have a lot of fun in the wet, so if and when I look to make any improvements, it'll be to the handling and ride. I find high-speed body control isn't the best and there's too much roll. For the moment, I'm quickly reaching the conclusion that tyres are key. The current un matched pairing of Yokos on the moment seem very inconsistent and so I'll be fitting some Toyo T1-S (currently a bargain on mytyres.co.uk) in a week or two.

Good luck with your search,

Ben.

 

Thanks Ben. I have the brakes on their way now so that should sharpen the stopping up a fair bit. I think some Whiteline ARB's would be a good first move on the handling, so i'll get that sorted in the next day or two and see how it feels. I think tyres are going to be key on this car, so i'll do a bit of hunting around to see what i can find, i noticed the tyre load rating is very high, so i need to check on that too. The car comes with some uniroyals which are suposed to be "the rain tyre" but my own experiences in the past with this make have been a case of "dont go out in the rain tyre" so we shall see if thats still the case.

I think these cars are great value for money for the performance/fun factor, hopefully it is reliable. Lots to learn on this yet. It's not going to be anything like the performance of my Impreza, but if its fun i will be happy. Should be interesting around the nurburgring at easter.

 

Another 200 owner

So thats JF, Astraboy & Gossy

 

Gossy has one too? PMSL God help the locals.

 

Ahhh - that explains a lot. Thought it was another troll coming over to cause trouble.

 

LOL, no, just educating a few people.

 

Just remember that that lot know their cars and their capabilities and will happily educate back

 

Alright john,
I am running a GReddy Profec boost controller atm.To be honest I should have gone for the Dawes device as I am constantly hitting boost spikes (Think its the cold weather) so I have limited it to 10psi for the moment. At least it has removed the boost limiter in 1st and 2nd making it possible to drift.
Once the boost device is in place, remove the elbow from the airbox feed to make it breathe better.Its the one that is held onto the airbox with the anti-tamper screws. Make sure you keep the feed pipe from the front of the bonnet, all you have to do is remove the elbow.
Would you be able to let us know how the car behaves with the uprated ARBs in place?
I have a problem with body roll and would like to sort it without rock hard suspension.
http://www.leebrooker.fotopic.net/p2884666.html
see?
cheers,
astraboy.

 

I hope so, i have a lot to learn. I was refering to Impreza's.

 

cheers astraboy. So is a bren device a dawes or something else? and if i fit one of those will i still have a lower boost limit in 1st and 2nd?

Just picked the car up, tomorrow i'll go over it a bit more carefully and probably end up doing a full major service over the week and make a list of whats needed to get it fully sorted ready for a blat on track. I have a full set of service manuals with the car which is very handy. It does feel very softly damped/sprung.

 

lol... It all makes sense now I was wondering who the knowledgable newbie was who started an arguement with an SXOC Moderator on only his 3rd post


edit : and congrats on the purchase

 

he started it. LOL

thanks.

 

Bren device is just a dawes device.... they get refered to as Bren devices on the SXOC because the guy who first started selling them is called Bren.

Not 100% sure about the lower boost limit in 1st and 2nd being removed as i've only ever fettled with S13s. I'd imagine it would remove it though as the actuator shouldn't see any pressure till the valve opens.

 

I've just gotten around to getting some pictures I took of the 200 on the net. They can be found here:

http://www.ben.farmer.fotopic.net/c131668.html

John, I hadn't read the thread carefully enough at work earlier and hadn't realise you had actually made a purchase! Congratulations - you're right - not even near the same league in terms of raw speed as your RA, but the 200 should be cheap(er) fun. Back to the old Sport stuff, but my Sport was easly faster on some of bumpy Oxfordshire backroads I have recently found myself driving on! But thats not the point, the hundy is fun

Ben.

 

Thanks Marty. Why do they call it a hundy?

 

two hundy sx

 

please tell me thats a joke.

 

I'm thinking its not m8

 

LOL

Bits and bobs on their way now, so hopefully by weekend it will be serviced with new Redline MT90 gearbox oil, Heavy shock proof diff oil and castrol RS10/60 engine oil, EBC brake disks and pads all round, f/r ARBs, K&N panel filter, new PFR7B plugs, boost gauge and dawes, fuel filter, oil filter, water wetter and anti freeze. I need to sort out the drivers door hinge pin as that worn a touch.

I might do a little project page on the SXOC website to go through all the checks and changes worth doing to a newly bought car. Might be handy for someone who is doing the same.

 

John if you'd like a nice FWD 185BHP Saab turbo like WWSD has got then I have one on sale for only £1900 - N reg 139k FSaabSH, heated leather, cruise, air con, 6 cd blah blah blah

 

Err WWSD's car is up for £5,300 and has nothing to do with this thread

 

I installed the front and rear Whiteline ARB's a couple of days ago, they come with drop links and mounts, so pretty good value at £99 each. I currently have them set at medium stifness front, soft rear and its improved the handling in a big way, well worth fitting. I am going to try the stiffer rear setting next as i think that will balance it up nicely with a slight tail out bias.

The biggest handling problem with this car is the rear suspension moves around under the body, it's mounted on some very compliant bushes and you can feel the damn thing wandering all over the place, this makes it pretty unpredicatable which is not what you want from a car you should be able to drive quickly.

Whiteline do a subframe lockdown kit that should stop this, so i am going to install that next. It definately needs some better dampers and stiffer springs too, but i dont want to lower the car much as thats going mess up the geometries, they suffer from lots of camber change as you drop them it seems.

Apex have some coilovers and pillow ball topmounts coming in soon for not a lot of money, so i am considering those right now too.

The car now has a boost gauge installed, it was running 8-9psi in all gears, wasnt lower in 1st and 2nd as most people say they should be? I installed a Bren device (dawes) and set this to 12psi for now, i really could do with getting a charge temp gauge on the car before winding it up anymore as the IC looks pretty small to me. Thinking about a decat and larger WMIC.

I dont think the wet handling is all that bad, it has crap traction in 1st and isnt at the levels of grip of a well setup Impreza, but it's not as bad as the horror stories say and it's certainly capable of quick cross country driving. The gearing is mega long compared to my RA though, thats the wierdest thing about the change, i am 2 gears lower sometimes in this thing for the same speed. The LSD is way too soft, i would love to be able to install my spare RA LSD unit into this thing, but dont know if an R180 plated LSD will fit an R200 diff?

The car is pretty well serviced now, just need to change the rear diff oil and then it's had everything changed fluid and general service wise, doing the gearbox oil is easy enough but messy filling it as you dont have a dipstick and filler tube like the Impreza, just the usual fill to the plug level and watch it poor all over you. The rear diff has an oil cooler which is a nice touch, something the RA could do with really, that makes changing the oil a bit more involved though, but the service manuals are online so it's not a problem working out how to do this by forcing the oil pump to run.

So far its a good little package, too tempting to mod though which isnt really the idea behind buying the thing.

 

Nice one john.

I think nismo to a lower subframe brace if you are still getting losts of twisting at the front too....if is similar to the s13 in construction I think they are about £150 - apex should have em.

As for the WMIC - have a look on the sx bb - it seems a lot of people install Saab intercoolers on their 200's - think its a simple swap and they seem to offer bet/stable charge cooling - other than that - you know what you need to do

I've been hunting about for a car ready for for silverstone yesterday - thought I'd found a lovely ae86 corolla GT on sat - but no joy - great cars - but the ones for sale are not worth 3K - average condition at best.

I think this week I basically need to make a list of suitable s13a cars and spend next weekend viewing and hopefully buying something. Its very very time consuming and people really need to be a bit more truthful when they describe their cars over the phone.

Silverstone was great fun - you would have loved it m8.

 

Will you be fitting a Knocklink?

 

And this started from considering a diesel???!!!