I know.

I have done my first decent length trip now and averaged 29MPH with some fast Motorway and crawling through london combined trafic, about 10MPH more than i was seeing with my RA, so the change is helping in that respect.

I installed a charge temp gauge to the car this week, i used to run one on my Impreza to keep an eye on heat soak in standing traffic. Oh boy does this have a poor IC setup as standard, running just 12.5psi boost (10psi standard) its topping 50 degrees C charge temp with a single blast up through the gears, it's particularly bad at low speed because the IC is not getting much air at all, it has no ducting as such to ram feed the IC core. The temps people are seeing running 15psi, which is common on these cars, must be horendous, there is no way i can take this on track safely using the stock IC setup, it would be risking engine failure for sure. So i'll just have to bite the bullet and buy a FMIC for it. At least they are less expensive for this car, you can buy a complete FMIC with all pipe work and fittings for under £500.

Still not sorted some suspension for it yet and am still waiting for my rear subframe bushes to tighten that up. the brakes should be here anytime now too. I have a decat system going on after the weekend, the car has 2 cats after the turbo!

Things i am pondering are maybe installing a fuel controller and walbro fuel pump just to make sure everything is safe for blasting round the nurburgring at easter then that should leave me with a well sorted relatively cheap fun car. One benefit of the Apexi fuel controler is it has a knock alarm built in so serves the purpose of a knocklink too, or at least thats how i am reading the info so far.

 

Cheap has become relatively cheap.
Relatively cheap will become cheapish.
Cheapish will become doesn't cost much.
Doesn't cost much will become less expensive than some.
Less expensive than some will become not exactly cheap.
Not exactly cheap will become fairly expensive.
Fairly expensive will become "Hi chaps, I'm thinking about changing my car for something cheap"

You KNOW it's gonna happen John

 

lol

 

Just laughing at your posts John,

I remember suggesting some different wheels, and got a stern reply "I am not going to mod it"



MB

 

R33 GTR wheels is what you need. 17" with 245 profile rubber, lighter too...can be had for about £300 on ebay

 

sometimes i wish i was able to live with a car that had a mediocre setup, but it does my head in. I have yet to find a car that is OK in stock trim, they seem to be made for people with disconected senses these days. do people really want cars that wallow and are dead or have the manufacturers got this wrong?

I know when i have the engine in a state its safe and not wanting to blow itself up just because you run it hard for a few laps, and i stop it wallowing about like a blamonge and stopping predictably i'll stop spending then, as i cant afford to throw money at it like its an Impreza.

It's hard work going from a well setup Impreza to a cheaper car, i am just glad i didnt buy a FWD diesel as i would be going nuts now.

 

you sure Ian? that sounds cheap for wheels and tyres.

 

I know what you mean John, and its a good engineering challenge to take a car and find its flaws, then improve on them. Also rewarding....

Im thinking of a 200SX as the STi may be going soon. There's a nice black S plate manual touring a few miles from me, for not a lot of wedge... Either that or a 172 looks fun, but not as tuneable. The last 14a I drove, I quite enjoyed. Feels like a sports car, and 2nd gear to 70 ish from memory

Would you reccomend it?

BTW, the GTR wheels are cheap on the Skyline club, quite a nice wheel too.

MB

 

it's getting better. It should be pretty nicely setup by next week, got a FMIC and suspension to put on now, decat went on today and it made a huge diference to spool up, far more than with the impreza, probably because it had 2 cats after the turbo which must have really been strangling it.

I have to get a pipe made up to do it properly as my downpipe and 2nd cat replacement are 3" bore but the back section is 2.5" so its got a step in the wrong direction which is going to be messing up the flow, so i'll get a pipe the same length as the 2nd cat made with 2.5" one end, 3" the other with a nice taper, no one makes this right now so there is bound to be loads of these out there with a poor flowing system.

I bought the rear system second hand and aranged to collect it sunday night on the way back from london, good job really as going down the resonator section fell apart so it was blowing like a good un.

They are very diferent to imprezas and their bigest weekness is the suspension, especially the way it's all mounted on soft rubber bushes, some liquid filled, i hope to get the bushes friday to lockdown the rear axle and have some front compresion strut bushes to install which should help a lot there.

I think once all this is on the car its going to be a lot of fun, but its very diferent to driving an impreza, it was aimed at a diferent market really and that certainly shows. Should be fun getting back into driving a RWD car, off to the ring at easter in it.

 

All very interesting as I am about to by an S14. If I took a stock S14 to a specialist and got them to sort out the suspension, install a FMIC, better brakes, zorst and other goodies to get the power up to around 250, how much do you reckon it would set me back???

 

Getting the power up is actually quite cheap, a zorst and Brend device seems to liberate that sort of power. FMIC's are norally at least £800, brakes depend on whether you replace them for an AP setup, (£1500) or just upgrade discs and pads. Suspension's not my strong point, but bushes etc wont cost a fortune, and will then depend on whether you do the rest or not.

MB

 

Great reading, John.

Get that web diary built! If I can bloomin' well do it, you definitely can...

I spent a couple of hours on our S13 on Sunday. The fanbelt had gone on the way to have a decat pipe fitted. (Although ours hasn't got a cat, the pipe is quite restrictive ).

Anyway, I ripped out the radiator shroud which gave me room to get in. I then had to remove both pipes to/from the WMIC for more access. I got the power steering belt off and replaced the fan/alternator belt. Then replaced everything except the radiator shroud. Now got a nice space in which to fit an Apex FMIC...

Car wouldn't start though. Battery was too low, even with a jump start. Charged the thing and tried it on Monday night. Just about got it going, after which it's been fine. I think the plugs were fouled with oil... Of which there was a film on the inside of the boost pipe! A catch tank is required methinks, rather than re-cycling oily stuff back into the system as it does now!

Must get around to documenting the whole job retrospectively on www.zed-power.co.uk

Here's a question for ya - What do you think of the Godspeed disc & caliper setup? Only I was going to go for a Hi-spec system but my mate has one on his MY01 Impreza and the bloody discs keep warping. Ian Godney sorted them out for him properly. Ian does a kit for the Nissan 200. 325mm discs and four pot calipers for about £700.

Cheers,
Squizz.

 

I'll get round to a webpage for the car when everything is sorted for my nurburgring video and the car is ready, all this is taking a lot of time right now and i am not that good on website stuff.

No idea what Ian's kits are like, I have a full set of disks and pads coming from EBC hopefully today, i am going to do some testing for them again on the new materials, so they have made me up a couple of sets at the test labs to try and if things go well i would expect they will release these for general use like they did with the Impreza.

I installed the FMIC over the weekend, wow, what a diference that has made to this car, talk about waking it up! It feels just like my 350BHP RWD cossie in the lower gears now, 4th and 5th it's not got the torque of that but it's certainly a huge amount quicker acceleration wise. Charge temps have dropped dramatically, it now cruises at 2 degrees below ambient and full chat at 140MPH its only reaching 23 degrees C! This is with boost set at around 13.5-14psi. The stock IC was absolutely tiny when i removed it and the pipes to it are quite small ID in places too, from the feel of the engine it must be really strangling it. Definately worth installing and a much better idea than winding the boost up with a WMIC as charge temps with that were crazy high.

I installed some KYB AGX shocks aswell, but retained the stock springs as i didnt want to mess about with camber correction and want to see how the ride height works at the ring, it's far bumpier than any other track and needs a lot of travel to be safe/quick. They seem fairly good, not in Leda class but decent value for money. Still waiting for my rear subframe bushes, hope they come today as i need those on the car to make it more stable.

Walbro fuel pump and uprated regulator came this morning, so they can go on the car, just putting these on to be extra safe for the long full power runs you have at the ring, i'll set it at 3BAR presure, stock is 2.95BAR, so it should add a little bit of fuel top end which will help to keep the in cylinder temps down too, plus there wont be any question marks over fuel flow capaicity either.

The car still looks stock, turning into a bit of a wolf in sheeps clothing. I am going to leave the standard wheels and tyres on for a couple of reasons, one is insurance as they hike the premium a lot with bigger wheels, the other is it's a great laugh to drive now, tons of powerslides at low speed, i dont mind if it's slower than with big grippy tyres, this car is never going to match my RA on traction, so i'll just go with the fun side of things rather than best overall pace.

All the mods have upped my insurace by £110 a year, which isnt too bad really, it's certainly worth paying for because its a diferent car now, much more fun to drive and i would say a lot safer too.

 

Pics?

MB

 

<The car still looks stock, turning into a bit of a wolf in sheeps clothing. >
Thats exactly the reason I sold my 3-door cossie and bought mine mate
Glad to hear its going well,
astraboy.

 

Just installed the braided goodridge hoses.

I'll take a few later mark.

 

Good intercooler eh john ?

 

superb value for money and it certainly works. I had to fettle one of the pipes internally though. The cold feed pipe to the plenum has a dump valve takeoff for the stock BOV to connect into, when they welded all that up they left a big section of the pipe in the airflow, which would have screwed up the flow into the throttle body/plenum a lot, so i spent a couple of hours filing and grinding that flat. Worth bearing in mind if you use one of these.

You also get more waste gate chatter with this as the dump valve no longer is directly in the flow of air, the air has to go through 160 degrees to get to it, so less is bleeding off via that. This is a good thing as the stock setup would probably blow the stock BOV open at low boost, now its going to need a lot more presure so saves you the agro of buying an uprated BOV.