Affordable, daily, competitive drifter

[djtreble]

So I've been promising to do this for a while and the opportunity eventually presented itself when I had the right amount of funds and the right deal came up.

After stripping the Silvia I was given the opportunity to drive and develop a certain green s13 powered by a stock 1JZ motor. This car was perfect and was proof that a very competitive car can be built for under 60k. The car had a 1JZ conversion with a D4D gearbox, coilovers, bucket seats and harnesses. It's suspension and setup was it's big downfall so I put BC coilovers in, adjustable castor arms (not needed but this car needed it due to a slightly skew front end), custom fitting of a S14 sway bar (rotated to the rear as sump clearance was an issue), and alignment to my specifications. To build it form scratch would have cost no more than R60k and I competed against Sean February in it as can be seen here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151431345552740

Some pictures:







The car looked like shit but the honest truth is I was killing it with that car and given the chance I would have taken that to SupaDrift and been extremely competitive with it. But due to some circumstances with the owner of the car I can not drive it at the moment so I decided to build my own.

A shell popped up on Gumtree for 23k and a full drop in RB25DET conversion for 18k, together the basis for the same recipe as the green machine was available for 41k. After much talk I managed to get the RB conversion and the shell it was in already (full road legal and clean shell) for 40k. So I went and picked it up (Please excuse picture quality):






As soon as I got home I drew up the to do list:
- Redo engine mounts
- Fix oil return
- Intercooler
- Boost controller
- Bucket seat and steering wheel
- Make up water system with rad, electric fan and filler bottle
- Battery
- Power steering lines changed (had been changed for left hand side pump on the 7M)
- Fix up wiring and start RB
- Coilovers
- Exhaust
- Sway bar (same setup as he JZ one where I reverse it)
- Miscellaneous items that come with a conversion
- Setup suspension to my specs

I will also keep a running cost here so that you can see that I am keeping it affordable, the car will also be available at 60K when I'm done with it and have tested it.

Car + Full Conversion - R40000
Bucket Seat - R800
Steering wheel - (Free with car)
Exhaust - R3500
Boost Controller - R300
Total so far being R44600

So far I have:
- Fixed power side of wiring so car powers up and swings the motor
- Fixed oil return
- Fitted all intercooler pipework and dumpvalve
- Fitted seat and steering wheel

I have also started on the dictator wiring and fixing the mess of wiring that is in the shell from the 7M that use to be in there. I have also started on the cooling system and just need a few small and cheap bits to finish that off. Then to fit power steering lines, finish off wiring and I can start her up to make sure it all works before I tidy the install up.

This is how it stands after spending the night in the garage getting things done:

[plane^driver]

Awesome stuff!

[SonOfAnarchy ZA]

nice dude!

[eazye]

get her running bro

[DriftZ]

welcome back

I admire your affordable drift car attempt .. & wish you luck. Put Dezzi's Track on your calendar!

New car looks promising... But what is it with you and weird intercooler setups

[k.y.l.e.]

Real awsome man you back in action bud.

[djtreble]

I love me some unique intercoolers
Pretty common type in the UK though, no battery relocation or cutting needed. Straight bolt on and go through existing cooler pipe holes.

So I did the radiator fans and full cooling system, pretty chuffed with the outcome:



And then started on the dictator wiring to get the motor running before I neaten it all up and run it into the car.
This is an example of the condition of the wiring that I was left with:


After getting it all wired up, the system would come on and the pump would prime and stop but wouldn't come back on during cranking so the injectors and coils were getting no power as they all run off the same relay. I then cheated the system and cranked it quickly before the relay switched off and according to the box it was sending the firing signals but still no luck on firing up. Pulled the plugs out and can see the injectors are not firing. I have checked and the coils are definitely sparking.

So this is how its stands for now after a long day of racking my brains on the wiring.
Going to check if injectors are getting signal and try fire it again by cheating the relay.
If that works then i just need to find out why the relay isn't coming back on during cranking.


So cost so far is as follows:
Car + Full Conversion - R40000
Bucket Seat - R800
Steering wheel - (Free with car)
Exhaust - R3500
Boost Controller - R300
Cooling system, oil return and wiring items - R900
Radiator Fans - R400
Front Sway bar - R500
Total so far - R46400

[djtreble]

Quick update.....SHE RUNS!!!!

Turns out the previous owner installed the fuel lines the wrong way round. So after taking them off (and getting covered in fuel from the pressure build up) and putting them on the right way she fired right up.

CLICK ABOVE TO OPEN VIDEO

I've already put the Dictator ECU and run the wiring to the passenger footwell and finished cleaning up the turbo side of the bay.


Now to sort out the other side and get the other items on the list ticked off. I want to go drive it now!!!

[djtreble]

I got another few hours to work on the car and finished off the wiring for the dicktator in the car which ended up being a little bit of a mission as I had power supply issues and the alarm was interfering with everything. So I ran a dedicated power cable for the dicktator and removed the alarm system, I will put it back in at a later date.

Also ran into issues with bleeding the clutch so replaced the slave with another known working one that I had and replaced the solid clutch line with one that came off another 13 I had a while ago and got that all bled. Still had issues so I lengthened the rod on the slave and now I have clutch

Then I fired up the car with the fans running permanently and took it for it's first drive!


Problems that I have found so far:
- Needs sway bar fitting in front and coilovers! Bad body roll!
- Exhaust
- Slight tune, but runs well for the most part

The rest of the bits are small, plus coilovers and welded diff, then the setup and shakedown

Very happy with the buy and progress

[DriftZ]

use it dont tip - i dont use a front sway bar,, havent for almost 2 years now + cheaper/ lighter

[djtreble]

I tried on the green 13 and it was shyte....fitted the sway bar and immediate the fromt end was predictable

[DriftZ]

cool each to their own ... just trying to save you bux

[djtreble]

Thanks bud...certain things I just cant skimp on

[djtreble]

Next update:
Connected and tested the fan and radiator switch and that works (much to my surprise)
Also connected up the tach and speedometer

Then set about tackling the headlight issue. Basically all the pop up functions were working but no lights would turn on. So I ripped out the big mess of wiring and relays that had been previous put in there, drew up a schematic from the Workshop manual, connected 10 wires and we have light. I love it when a plan comes together.


I tried to hook up the temp gauge in the cluster but it seems dead so I decided to take the full gauge setup from the 14 and test fit it.....talk about a spot on fit

Just need to wire up the power, oil pressure, oil temp and water temp

Then I decided to pop out to an exhaust place to get the downpipe's flange rotated to fit it to the RB, not bad for a quick R150 and the rest of the exhaust seems to line up. I will get this up in the air again and start bolting it together and move all the hanging points to make it work on the S13



Getting so close I can smell it, running cost so far:
Car + Full Conversion - R40000
Bucket Seat - R800
Steering wheel - (Free with car)
Exhaust - R3500
Boost Controller - R300
Cooling system, oil return and wiring items - R900
Radiator Fans - R400
Front Sway bar - R500
Exhaust mod - R150
Gauges - R1500
Total so far - R48050

[djtreble]

Update time....

Got the rest of the exhaust fitted which needed bit of work but in the end wasn't too bad and she is now sounding amazing - Thanks to my good mate Calvin for this!


I then took it home to quickly fit a filter for the turbo and the Walbro pump from the Silvia to replace the inline high flow pump they had in place.




The filter literally couldn't go anywhere else so that was the best place. To get it there I ran a 90 silicone bend, straight pipe to filter and moved the water bottle further down. Also had to move the relay box on that side.

I booked the car in for a dyno tune and setup at 0.8 bar boost at Ferrolli which he tackled today.
A few issues, the fuel filter was blocked so we replaced that and got started on tuning the car. He had to stop the tuning at 5500rpm in 3rd gear as he reported a bad vibration from the prop. So I need to go get it checked and balanced and he said he will finish off the tune.




Ferrolli is really a good guy and he knows his stuff. He is also very helpful as he replaced the fuel filter, and tuned the car for over 3 hours on the dyno today without charging any extra. And he is going to finish the tune at no extra charge. So big props for Ferrolli as I also drove the car home and holy shit it's strong! This car is going to cream the green machine, definitely a quicker car!

Here are a couple of pics taken by Jade from Grassroots Drifters Cape Town (It's not an official shoot, that will be when its finished and clean):





Running cost:
Car + Full Conversion - R40000
Bucket Seat - R800
Steering wheel - (Free with car)
Exhaust - R3500
Boost Controller - R300
Cooling system, oil return and wiring items - R900
Radiator Fans - R400
Front Sway bar - R500
Exhaust mod - R150
Gauges - R1500
Exhaust fit and rubbers - R375
Cone filter, plugs, oil filter, fuel line and misc bits - R450
Tune - R1500
Total so far - R50300