Project 200SX - PFB style - BMC DIA

[Pinkfluffybunnys]

Howzit Guys and Girls

I have lost track of my old project under my old username "Phinx" so I'm constructing a summarized thread for my 200sx that hopefully provide some constructive information.

I bought my SX around 5 years ago for R50-000 from a Nissan dealer in JHB the car has full service history and was in good shape but a few months after its purchase the car blew its head gasket the first taste of 200sx reliability that was replaced and then the modifying began.

Unfortunately I have lost a lot of pictures of my early modifications

Air Box mod
-----------------

The first mod I did to the SX was to remove the snorkel from the airbox, then a week or so later I removed the sound deadening found in the air box

This gave me a small performance increase

Grounding Kit
----------------

Second Mod was a grounding kit to replace the aging ground wires and strengthen the ECU grounds , this smoothed out the car and really helped with starting and idle

Cone Filter
-----------------

I installed a cone filter to the car a month after the airbox mod this produced nice turbo flutter but it sucks hot air like you can’t believe under the bonnet

Throttle body bypass
--------------------------

I bypassed the coolant line running through the TB and the back of the CA18DET manifold to keep the inlet charge cool.

Exhaust System
------------------

After some time I had a 76mm exhaust made as cheaply as possible, This wasn't the best quality item and had crush bends it also used the stock down pipe but it was cheap and it worked very well for years.

Copper Button Clutch
-------------------------

About two days after I installed the exhaust system I did a full throttle launch and turned the stock clutch into pieces and had to be towed home.

I will never recomend a local clutch but this Item did work for some years but it did have bad shudder

Pic's







Throttle body smoothing and polishing
--------------------------------------------

Next I smoothed out and polished the stock throttle body, I smoothed out the bolts and ground down the shaft.

This hellped a littel but nothing like the SR20 throttal body



First Intercooler
-------------------

I bought my first Intercooler from Ian or rezlo, It came with old piping plus partial S14 intercooler piping and was a real mission to install it took me 3 days but I learnt how to remove the bumper and run the piping.

The intercooler was small but it did a much better job the the stock side mount unit.

CAI
------------

I had a few bends left over from the intercooler install so I made a custom CAI , The piping was long but it really increased the off throttle response

EBC
--------------------

I was lucky enough to get a Greddy EBC for cheap and this was installed next to the car , This was one of the best modification I have done to the car the bost was set at 0.5 bar.

Electric Fan
--------------------

Then my stock nissan water pump failed so I replaced it with a cheap unit from value motor spares but one night on the way home at 7000RPM the pump was torn in half by the weight of the clutch fan so I upgraded to an electric fan

Oil catch can
--------------------

Then I bypassed the PVC system and installed a catch can




**The spare engine and new toys**
-------------------------------------------

Then I made friends with a great guy called Hennie he was giving up his CA18DET that had some nice toys for a V8 so I helped take some Items off his hands

The spare engine
---------------------





The stripped spares
----------------------


Toys
--------






New Turbo
-----------------

I picked up a custom turbo from Hennie featuring a GT28RS comp wheel machined into a .48 housing and a .64 Exhaust housing I still have this turbo so lets she what she can do.


Then Finally I attended a Dyno day at snail conventions the car produced 149RWKW



Here are some pictures of the engine bay back in the day when the dyno run was made.







After the dyno I installed the following modification

CA18DE Intake cam
--------------------

After some time I installed a CA18DET intake cam, This gave a noticeable improvement in the cars mid-range power and I would recommend this mod to anyone.

SR20 Throttle Body
-------------------------

I upgraded the stock CA18DET Throttle body from a 54mm unit to a 60mm unit

Tubular manifold,downpipe install and recirculation BOV
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I also bought a slightly used megan racing tubular manifold from Hennie and I already had a divorced downpipe from xS power. Here are some picture of the test set-up and final install

The Downpipe worked much better then the stock item but not as good as the final Pipe

Stock Vs New



Testing making sure it clears the gearbox.




I also installed a Greddy recirculation Bov this helped with the bog caused by the turbo flutter when shifting, Also by recirculating the air the AFM wasnt thrown off

Then the final install



Strut Brace
----------------------

I bought a Sentra strut brace and made it fit on the S13 it didnt look to great but it did do the job






Then disaster struck!!!!!!!!!

[rat]

how much difference did the downpipe make and the grounding kit?

[Pinkfluffybunnys]

how much difference did the downpipe make and the grounding kit?

Hard to say it was done a few years ago.

But I would recomend a grounding kit to anyone

[Drillergy]

This Story is interesting.....Disaster struck........

[jon]

I hooked, what happened next?

[rat]

I hooked, what happened next?

ja continue plz

[ReeceZ]

I hooked, what happened next?

ja continue plz

Join us for the next exciting episode of Project 200SX - PFB style...

[Pinkfluffybunnys]

When coming home for JHB , I heard the one sound that no SX driver want to hear, A rattle between 2500 RPM and 3500 RPM. This turned out later to be a broken ring landing on cylinder Number 1.

The ring Landing normally fail when you dial in to much timing on the CA and RB series motors, I cant blame the CA for failing because in all my wisdom at the time, in the weeks leading up to the failure I was fiddling with the CAS to extract more power.

Picture of the failed Ring landing.



Well after being mad at the world for a while I got the money together and started the rebuild, First was to pull the motor I would like to Thank Brenwin (Sokar) my DAD and Claus for all there help.

Pictures of the pull, I don't think the motor looked to bad for 150000KM









The Strip
-----------------------

So now it was time to start stripping the motor to get the stuff ready for the engineers , The parts where going to Richie Juta Racing and I was amazed at there work. I had a few special requests for them that I will revile later

Here are a few pictures of the strip down.





The Big Clean
----------------------

After stripping down the motor and sending the parts away to the enginners it was time to start cleaning the 13 years of dirt of the SX. I suggest that very member check under there fender liners for leaves and dirt like in the below picture becuase this is what starts rust



Dirty
..........





Clean
...........





Poly Bushes (Steering Rack)
---------------------------------

Well After cleaning the chassis , I got out my Energy suspension kit that I bought almost a year ago and started replacing the old worn steering rack bushes .



Old vs New
-----------------





Oil Cooler
--------------------

While waiting for parts I Installed my Oil cooler and I would also recommend this modification to any SX driver. My oil lasts longer before burning plus it adds a few extra pints to the system along with cooling your oil.







Port Matching
------------------

You will be amazed at how mis-matched the intake manifold ports are, I asked Richie Juta to match the intake ports on the head to the gasket so I need to match the intake manifold.

Now this is no easy task, Its very very time consuming and you will need a dremil tool and a lot of sanding bits.

Un-Matched
......................






Matched and polished smooth with water paper
....................






Cometic Head Gasket
----------------------------

While after some time the parts started streaming in, The first part to arrive was the cometic Head gasket the workmanship and quality is amazing even when compared to a payne gasket.

The gasket was the stock mm size to keep the compression the same.




Cometic vs Cheap Stock
...............



ARP head bolts
--------------------

This is a must for any high out-put CA18DET, I honestly believe the CA18DET has a problem with the stock head bolts not hold equal torque. I have seen this on my car and a few others but with he ARP items all Items can be torqued equally



Arias Pistons (B18)
--------------------

The stock piston can take more punishment I was throwing at them at the time but I wanted room to grow so I got a set of Arias pistons, These are B18C pistons but match up perfectly with the stock ca18DET pistons all that needed to be done was added a notch for the oil squirter's

Stock Vs New
...............








Engineering
--------------------

Well finally the engineered items started to arrive and now I can reveal one or two of my requested tricks to extend the life span and the reliability of my CA18DET.



The ported head
----------------------

I had the head ported, polished and the combustion chamber polished to increase power , The porting will increase the VE of the motor and the combustion chamber polishing will help stop carbon build-up and lower the detonation threshold also I had a 5 angle valve jo done








Comparing ported manifold to the head




Cams:
---------

I had a custom regrind done to the cams, I will keep the duration a secret but they have increased lift and duration when compared to stock, I also had a little work done to the lifters



Lightened Flywheel
---------------------

By lowering the rotational mass you can increase a cars acceleration at the expense of stored energy. Also by lowering the rotational mass you can increase the life of a motor that see high RPM as long as it stays balanced.



Knife Edged Crank
----------------------

Yes the CA18DET crank is not fully balanced but it was still knife edged but balance and dynamically balanced to cut down rotational mass and crank flexing at higher Rpm's

Also the cranks Oil feeds have been tear dropped and canferred to increase lubrication and lower cold start wear on the bearings





Wrapped Tubular manifold and ported turbo
----------------------------------------------------

Wrapping the exhaust manifold helps to keep the heat in and away from engine and it also increase spool by keeping the heat in and feeding the turbo.

Please don't believe the story's of it keeping water and cranking the manifold they are just stories , I have had a wrapped manifold on my EX tazz for 6 years and on the SX for 3 without a single problem.



Assembly and new color scheme
--------------------------------------

I enjoyed assembling my motor and took my time checking every part

Assembly Pictures
..........................












Once the Assembly was done it was time to drop her in, The motor was primed and started first time. She got a hard break in seeing 7300Rpm and full boost 15 minutes after start-up ask Sokar

[Pinkfluffybunnys]

The Intake manifold
------------------------

Ofter about a year, I received an intake manifold that Hennie made and what an amazing piece of engineering, The short runners really change the power delivery of the CA18DET it pushed the peak torque surge up the rev range from 3500 RPM to around 5500Rpm.

The manifold
...................











The install
................

[Riekert]

awesome man! truly awesome!

[DriftZ]

Love that intake!

[ReeceZ]

Very kewl and informative

[Pinkfluffybunnys]

There is still more to come, that’s was about 2 years ago still have the management to do, I will post pictures of my new toys planned to go in this weekend


Thanks for the compliment Draco but the run we had was pretty fair , It was before the rebuild you had 1.2 bar boost, water/meth,Intercooler, Exhuast,coper button clutch...ect and I had a 0.5 bar boost and everything listed above before the rebuild.

It was a perfect example of VE tuning vs boost Increase

[RB25SX]

How did the XS power split down pipe work ? Noticable differance ? I have 2 for my RB26, still have to fit it, big job.

[Charlvdw]

Ill take a shot at you with my standard sx , dont give a shit if i loose by miles. I yust like to race. Should i start going to AA meetings now?