Blast Racing

Tanaka Racing S13

2008-08-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

The S13 we introduced a couple days ago is complete. From last post, we've fabricated mounts for the radiator fans, oil catch can, coolant reservoir, and a whole lot of other little stuff to clean up the engine bay.

Here's a close up of the coolant reservoir

We also made the mounting brackets for the radiator itself.

The car was dyno'd this past week where it made 420hp at 1.2 bar. There's definately more power to be had with a boost controller that's operational, but the goal was a reliable 400hp, so our job is done.

Guess What This Is Going To Be?

2008-08-24T23:04:00.000-07:00

The final touches are being done on this part. We'll see how it turns out.

Tanaka Racing S13

2008-08-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

A while back I wrote about the SR20 that had the oil pick-up that broke off. Well, that engine was from an S13 belonging to Tanaka Racing. It was originally built as a drift car competing in D1 and Formula D. Now, the owner wants to build it as a track car, but after a couple of track events, the oil pick-up broke off, and that's where the fun ended for Jake Tanaka. . .

Mr. Wakita was the one who tuned the car originally, so Jake and his team decided to bring the car to us. The build order was simple and to the point: build a motor that was bulletproof.

Something that won't end up like this.

The valve train was unscathed, so we were able to reuse the cams, valve springs, cam gears, etc, but the rest of the motor was toast. We started with a motor that was known to be good and bored it 0.5mm over. We installed a set of CP pistons and the aluminum rods that we had custom built. (See previous post on aluminum rods)

These are what they look like compared to the stock rods

And here’s a pic of the shortblock all installed.

As for the head, it originally had an unported head with a complete Tomei valve train. We've ported the head, but keeping the valvetrain the way it was.

Nice and pretty

The only difference between the new and old head is going to be the ports and the valve timing. Here’s the SR20 getting the timing adjusted.

Below is the completed motor

The motor's all put together, and now all that's left is to put the motor in. But not until we clean up all the hoses and wiring.

Here's the water bypass that we made for this SR. On a stock SR20, there are a LOT more hoses that are underneath the intake manifold. This way, there's only lines that bypass the thermostat and go to the IAC valve for more stable idle. All the hoses for heater, throttlebody, etc, etc, have been removed.

And here's the motor installed into the car. I really wish that we had a before and after pic of this car.

Before we installed the motor, we drilled out all of the stock brackets that were not being used, and we repainted the front half of the engine bay. All the brackets that were still needed were remade using aluminum.

As I mentioned, the wiring was redone. In fact, most of the engine harness was completely uncovered; all of the connectors not being used were deleted, and redone.

The car is now completed. With the aluminum rods, forged CP pistons, and the Exedy Twin plate, the car literally revs like a motorcycle. The car is insane. Every car guy should be able to experience this in a lifetime. Very very responsive.

I can't wait to take this car to the dyno.

BTW, the turbo is a HKS GT-RS connected with a custom 3mm thick turbo manifold. This is the type of car that won't get much love by the internet warriors, but it’s the best type of race motor--Responsive, powerful, and bulletproof

Oil Temp and Pressure Sensors

2008-08-17T21:22:00.001-07:00

Have you ever bought an aftermarket gauge and struggled trying to figure out where to put the sensor? The problem with these sensors is that all the wires can clutter the engine bay. So here’s what we did…

This is on the silver R32 drag car that we’re working on.

MCR Bumper

2008-08-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

You might remember this R34 from a previous post of this pic.

As you can see, the car looked really nice. Nice and stock, but the owner of the car wasn't happy with that. He wanted to take it a step further. This is what the car now looks like now.
It got a MCR front bumper, Z-tune fenders, side skirts, a GIANT SARD GT wing, and some Volks.

Looks so nice.

More on the Honda Radiator

2008-08-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven’t been posting lately, we’ve been really busy. The good news is that I have a whole lot of pics to post up here in the next couple of days.

First in order is the rest of that Honda radiator. With the K20 in the Integra, the radiator designed for the B18 doesn’t quite fit. So we cut the inlet of the radiator and plugged the old inlet.
Here’s the old inlet
And here’s the new one
This is why it wouldn’t have fit.

3 Times a Charm

2008-08-04T23:40:00.001-07:00

So I’ve posted a couple pics of the project Miata (or the engine) a while ago. That was the 1st manifold, I believe. Long story short, we’re on the third one.

Here are the three manifolds lined up all pretty like.

One thing I've noticed about people in this industry (myself included) is that many of us don't take our own advice. It might be with the frequency of oil changes, the amount of boost we run, or going cheap on a manifold... whatever. Maybe this is because the labor is free. (not really free, but there's no out of pocket expense) I don't know. But for whatever reason, most mechanics will try a part out on our own car that we'd tell a customer to NEVER under ANY circumstance even think about buying. Well this is what happens when people don’t take their own advice… Twice…

Here's the first manifold. It's a see through...

You can clearly see daylight through the manifold... but wait, there's more!

And another crack. This manifold lasted a little over two months before it gave out.

Here's the "upgraded" version of the last one. There were a couple of extra ribs and gussets that made this manifold a little more promising, but looks can be deceiving. This one lasted a whopping TWO WEEKS!

As you can see in this picture, the revisions designed to stiffen up this manifold didn't quite hold up. I just couldn't keep the day light out and the exhaust in.

After all this, the owner of the car, Take of Tamacy Tuned, deciced to finally take his own advice and go with a cast manifold. He found one on ebay with a T3 flange.

We searched the shop for a turbo that would work, but we came out empty handed. Since 200hp was the goal of the car and we had a SR20 red top turbo laying around the shop, we decided to weld a T25 flange on the manifold and call it a day.

I'll have more pics of the making of the downpipe and what-not as soon as we get to it.

Welding Stuff

2008-08-04T22:39:00.002-07:00

This is an Integra radiator. This guy's set-up worked pretty good for him, 'till he put a K20 in it. The K20 fits pretty good, but the radiator and the intake manifold didn't get along. About 1 inch from the intake manifold is the inlet of the radiator. So we chopped off the inlet and added one on the other side.

Here's the picture of the surgery.

R34 Brakes

2008-08-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

Ever since Nissan quit making brakes for the GTR, the brakes have been more than adequate from the R33 and up. More than adequate on the street, but you can get them to fade after several hard laps. There are ways to make the brakes hold up better with higher performance pads and what-not, but this guy decided to take it several steps further.

Here’s the comparison of the front brakes.

And here are the rear.

They work pretty good, I guess...

Ported SR Head

2008-07-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

We got done porting a SR20 head the other day. Here are a couple pics.

Oil Coolers

2008-07-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

A while back, I had a conversation with a customer about oil coolers for his GTR. Just about every manufacturer that offers oil coolers makes at least one kit for the GTR. "which one is best?" he asked.

There are many ways to judge a quality of a product. For an oil cooler, the obvious measuring stick is the cal/H. It's an universal mesurment, and just about every manufacturer lists it in their catalogs. Other considerations are pressure drop, filter relocation, and a thermostat.

But what good is a big efficient cooler if the air just goes around it?

Which brings me to my point, and a universal law, that you get what you pay for. Perhapse the best oil cooler kit for the GTR is the Nismo. Obviously, it's VERY well thought out, comes with all kinds of goodies, and it makes full use of the core with some very nice ducting. Here's the bad news--it's nearly $2000. We don't have any cars with a Nismo Oil Cooler, so this is from the Nismo catalog.

A more affordable option is the HKS kit. This kit, pictured below, is $800 which is actually reasonably cheap. They kept the cost down by going with a sandwich adaptor, not including a filter relocation, but it does come with -12 lines and a thermostat.

And a side view.

I'm not trying to sound like a Nismo or a HKS rep, but both of these are very quality pieces that I'd recomend. There are, undoubtedly, other brands that make quality pieces, and even if it doesn't come with bolt-on ducting, it's not that difficult to fabricate something like that.

There's a feature that I wished all oil coolers had--a drain. It seems like such an obvious concept, but I've yet to find an oil cooler with one, so this is what we did.

Taking the Slop Out of a R34 GT-t Steering.

2008-07-27T18:57:00.001-07:00

For most people, there's nothing wrong with the steering feel of the R34 GT-t. That is until you get a chance to drive the R34 GTR. That's what happened to one of our customers. Actually, he's owned several GTRs before he got his hands on this GT-t, and he was not satisfied with the differences between the GTR and GT-t.

Many people think that, aside from the Engine and Drivetrain, the differences of these two cars are only skin deep. If that were true, the price difference between the two cars would be much less. I'm not going to get into the vast differences here, but here's a big difference.

Above is the steering rack taken out of the R34 GT-t

And here's a brand new steering rack from a BNR34.

As you can see, the mounting is very different between the two models. That's part of the reason why the steering feel is so different. This, of course, means it's not a bolt-on type of modification. So here's what we did...

And from a different angle...

It's not just the mounting that's different. Since the whole subframe design is entirely different between the two models, so are the lines. Instead of fabricating lines from scratch, we opted to use/modify the GTR and GT-t lines. A little time on the lathe and a little brazing later, it was all done.

Here's the midified rack and lines installed.

Unfortuantely, we won't find out how well this combo will work untill we get the car running. Still more work to be done...

Another SR20 that had a BAD day

2008-07-21T23:37:00.000-07:00

We got a S13 in the shop a while ago that suffered from a rod knock. Naturally, most people would assume a miss-shift or something of the sort. We were slightly puzzled by what we found upon dissassembly...

As you can see in the picture, the oil pick-up (strainer) had broken off at the head! I, myself, had never encountered this problem before, so I talked to a couple of my buddies who deal only with the SR20. Apparantly, it's a pretty common problem with the red top SR20's. Probably brought on by a disgruntaled employee on the assembly line at Nissan. Whatever reason for this, the quick and easy way to fix this issue is to replace it with a newer/revised S14 oil pick-up.

Back to the engine damage. The broken pick-up led to a loss of oil pressure in the engine on the race track. This caused the spun rod bearing pictured below:

The bits of what used to be the bearings got tossed around the block and scrached up both the cylinders and pistons. To make matters worse, the extrerme heat built up in the spun #1 rod bearing actually deformed the rod itself allowing the piston to travel a little further in both directions than Nissan intended...

The silverish area is where the piston was actually making contact with the head.

And made contact with the oil squirter once.

So not a whole lot is salvageable in the bottom end, but what about the head? Well, the piston did kiss the head, so we wouldn't recommend it, but there's actually more bad news...

Although unrelated to the oil starvation issue, another reason not to use this head. This motor has had it...

Evo Catch Can

2008-07-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure the few readers of this blog are tired of hearing more about oil catch cans, but this is kind of a progress report for the customer, so here it goes...

Here it is being assembled...

Here's what it looks like installed

And here's the picture of the engine bay

Aluminum Rod

2008-07-13T00:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of an Aluminum (AL) Rod next for everyone's viewing pleasure. The two rods are both for a SR20. We have a couple of sets for the SR20 and a couple for the RB26 left.

Many people I talk to about these rods are hesitant about using AL for a connecting rod, but these are not some cast AL pieces. They are 600t forged and VERY beefy (obviously). Due to the properties of AL, they actually cushion the jolt of the combustion which leads to a longer and happier life for the rod bearings.

The same manufacturer makes these for the domestic guys that make quite a bit of power (over 3000hp = quite a bit of power). Three Thousand plus horse power and the rods last for a season before they're replaced. To level the playing field (V8 -> I4) we'll divide those numbers in half and say a "conservative" 1500hp. I think if the rods can take that kind of power, it'll hold up to a 400hp+ track only car as long as the rest of the motor holds together.

Supplimental Pictures of the S14 Engine

2008-07-12T23:48:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of the pistons/rods that went into the S14. As far as the timeline goes, these pics should've been posted a couple days ago, but I'm in a transitional stage of cameras. (switching from camera to phone and left the camera @ the shop)

So with the S14, we kept the stock rods and installed some ARP rod bolts for good measure.

Then we paired those rods with a set of CP pistons. Stock 86mm bore since the cylinders looked just about new. Which is a miracle in and of itself considering what the piston that came out of the motor looked like. Below is the said piston that looks a little too tired. I've posted this same piston earlier, but it's a different pic.

He shouldn't have any more problems like that anymore with the pistons in there now.

Look What Showed Up At The Shop

2008-07-12T00:25:00.000-07:00

Our first R35 at the shop. Well, I'm not sure if this one counts. We didn't really work on it... yet.

Here's Mr. Wakita and the owner of the car talking. The owner of this R35 has had his share of GTRs--like the white R34 in the background on the right. (well, it's not really a GTR if you want to get technical...)

According to him, though, he gets more attention in this car than driving any of his other Skylines.

I'm interested in seeing how long this allure will last once they become a common car on the road (common compared to previous Skylines in the US)

A S15 Red Top

2008-07-12T00:06:00.000-07:00

Here's another little something we worked on today. A S13 Red Top into a S15. Much more difficult than one might expect. You might think that it can't be any more difficult than putting a S15 Black Top into a S13. That's what we thought, too.

Here's a abbreviated version of what we've run into so far...

-Holes on the K-member for the engine mounts are different b/w the two (not that difficult)

-AC Compressors are NOT interchangeable (not that difficult)

-S15 engine harness has a LOT more integration of non-engine stuff going on (not pleasant at all)

It's All Fixed

2008-07-11T23:40:00.000-07:00

The SR20 from a couple days ago was rebuilt yesterday with refreshed internals. It's got Solid lifters (pivots) now, so hopefully there won't be any more broken rocker arms.

The build list isn't that extensive, but I think it covers the basics:

-Cams
-Springs
-Cam Sprocket
-Head Gasket
-Pistons
-Rod Bolts

It's a simple and effective built for a 350hp daily driver. And here's the picture of the car this afternoon.

And the obligatory shot of the engine bay.

More S15

2008-07-08T10:00:00.001-07:00

While we on the topic of S15s, here are some S15s at the shop right now...

But wait, there's more...

Trunk Bar

2008-07-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

The S15 SpecR and the R34 GTR have a trunk bar. . . Why didn't Nissan put this on all their cars? I don't know. But we're not going to let what Nissan did or didn't do stop us from making their cars better.

Above is the trunk bar we made for the S15. We'll be making them for the S14, S15, R33, and R34 (GTR & GTS), but if anyone's interested in one for their car, we can make them for just about any car

Here's the trunk bar installed on a S15. I'll be posting more pics as we exand our line-up.

Lots of GTSs

2008-07-04T23:48:00.000-07:00

Due to the cost of importing JDM cars, there are more GTRs in the US than GTSs.

Or so I thought. . . Here's the most GTSs I've seen in one place. Two R34s and One R33 GTS. Dont mind the R32 GTR on the right.

Fender Brace for S15

2008-07-02T23:17:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of fender braces available for the Silvia chassis. I've found prices range from $60-300 for your average ebay special to your name brand brace. Some people aren't satisfied with your average name brand piece. Most of these production pieces have ease (cost) of production and ease of bolting on as their main concern that the function has taken backseat. Here's our version:

Instead of a strip of metal with nuts welded on the back, we welded a nut onto a piece of metal that we welded directly onto the body.

We'll be making several of these for S15 fender braces, so we made a jig.

Here's a completed one on the jig.

James' Oil Catch Can

2008-07-02T23:02:00.000-07:00

Here's another Catch Can that we made. It's for a Civic. Yes, we work on Hondas, too. We pretty much work on anything with, or sometimes without, wheels.

Anyway, here's the mock-up with some fiber reinforced adhesive strips (aka: ducktape/duct tape, whatever)

Here's a close-up view of the divider.

This is what it looked like right before we welded it shut.

And the final product installed in James' race car... I was going to wait until the valve cover was installed and AN lines were done, but I didn't feel like waiting til next Christmas to post these pictures.

The Infamous SR20 Rocker Arm

2008-07-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

Pictured below is/was a rocker arm from a SR20.

Here's what can happen to (but not limited to) your unsuspecting SR. With this SR, when the rocker arm went off track, it was pushed down on the retainer by the cam, knocked out the cotter, and bent the valve. (the bent valve was dicovered after disassembly.)

Here's another potential failure. Well, it's actually a failure, but it could've gone unnoticed for a while. One of the shims fell off. Luckily, it fell off down into the oil pan without causing catastrophic failure.

While we’re at it, here’s some more of the damage it can cause…

That’s about it for the rocker arm related damage for this motor… Here’s the good news for this particular SR20. The damage could’ve been much much worse. Not just in the head, but upon disassembly, we found that this SR had much deep-seated issues. Here’s the picture of the piston. As you can see, the piston’s ring land’s trying to come off. Well, it did come off, but the way it broke loose allowed the piston rings to keep the loose piece in place without a single scratch on the cylinder wall.

Considering that the loose piece could've come off and caused irreparable damage to the block, this guy was really lucky that the rocker arm fell off when it did.

240SX Engine Mount

2008-06-27T23:43:00.000-07:00

I guess a picture is worth a thousand words. They are solid aluminum engine mounts for a 240SX.

Not so JDM

2008-06-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

Most people seem to think that we only deal in Japanese cars. This is not necessarily the case. We’ll work on pretty much anything. Here are a couple of examples:

We can't take credit for that much on this Jeep. The "doors" were damaged in shipping, so we fixed that. The main issue, though, was the tow hitch

We can't take credit for that much on this Jeep. The "doors" were damaged in shipping, so we fixed that. The main issue, though, was the tow hitch. It can be difficult piecing together aftermarket parts from different manufacturers. The tow hitch and rear bumper were trying to occupy the same space.

The Green & Purple S13

2008-06-18T00:13:00.000-07:00

I’m sorry I haven’t been updating regularly. My laptop & I were not on speaking terms for a while. It decided go on strike. But it works now, so business as usual.

Today, we have a green and purple S13 (for those of you who missed the title). It came in for a base map and dyno tuning, so we can’t take credit for the fabrication work, but there are a lot little things on it that we thought were cool. Like the placement of the intercooler. To this day, I can’t figure out why people put their intercooler and oil cooler in harms way. Hit one cone and you’re out. The initial expense is definitely more, and you can’t beat the efficiency and the look of a front mount intercooler, but even cheap intercoolers get can get expensive when you keep having to replace it every time you hit a cone or a curb.

Here’s the set-up from a different view. Notice the extremely short charge piping. That can’t be bad for spool-up.

Another clever custom piece. For those not up to date on the roll cage rules for formula D, the cage can’t go through the firewall to connect to the front shock towers. I believe there are other events that don’t allow that type of cage, so here’s the way around it:

I don’t know how effective it is compared to a ‘cage that fully ties everything together, but it’s definitely got to be better than nothing. It doesn’t seem like it’d be too hard to install, either. Painting after being welded in is the only hindrance I can think of. (it doesn’t look like it’d be fun to replace the windshield wiper motor either)

If it looks like a GTR...

2008-06-10T00:08:00.000-07:00

If it looks like a GTR and says it's a GTR… then it must be a GTR. The owner of this car has gone way beyond what most people do to make a GTR look-a-like. I've seen many GTSs with GTR front ends, wings, and other miscellaneous parts to make their pseudo GTR, but this guy went ALL out with the body.

Obviously, the front end is from a GTR. That’s easy bolt-on stuff. With this car, even the rear quarters are from the GTR. The only thing that’s untouched on the body is the pillars, doors, and the roof. We even installed the V-spec CF diffuser to complete the look.

Engine wise, you’d think there was a RB26 in there, but there isn’t. The owner of this car has owned several GTRs, and he wanted to try out the RB25 for a change to see what it could do.

I’ve seen GTR badges on various Hondas, Scions, Fords, and even a Town & Country a while back. As much as I hate people sticking GTR badges on everything in sight, I really like this car.

Way too much time on our hands

2008-06-06T22:52:00.000-07:00

The other day, we really needed to use the pressure washer. We have/had 3 of them; two electric ones that only work intermittently and a gas powered one that we hardly use (it’s not everyday you need a 6HP pressure washer). Long story short, both of the electric ones decided to quit on us at the same time, and we really needed to use one of them, so we broke out the gas powered one.

But it’s never that easy, is it? We soon found out that the years were not too kind to the weathered pressure washer—mainly the gas tank. It was bursting at the seams, and gas was leaking everywhere.

I can’t explain why we wasted a good part of the afternoon making a gas tank for a pressure washer. “We were slow that day” just doesn’t quite seem to cut it. I’m not sure you can see the details in this picture, but the corners were rolled to give it that it’s-not-just-an-aluminum-box look, and the filler cap up top is from a KA24E that graciously donated its valve cover to science and/or madness, whichever you want to look at it. Yes, this gas filler hole used to be an oil fill hole on a valve cover that we chopped up and welded onto our new creation.

We're branching out from an automotive performance shop to a general performance shop. I guess we could start doing motor swaps on riding lawnmowers…

Oil Catch Can 2

2008-06-06T22:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've updated the blog. My laptop at home got a virus and went on strike. I think it's all fixed, so here goes some updates.

Here's another Oil Catch Can we made for a R34 a little while ago.

The car is one of our customer's ER34, but more on this car later...

Oil Catch Can

2008-05-25T23:55:00.000-07:00

I don’t want anyone thinking that this is a Z blog, so I’ll include something else. Here’s an Oil Catch Tank we made a little while back. There’s baffling and a lot of mesh to separate the oil and gasses. Making the breather hole on top was pretty fun.

Project Z Goes Belly Up

2008-05-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

According to Mr. Wakita, "we're not doing a full restoration project, so don't really need to buy/build a rotisserie." Which is true. In our day-to-day operation, we don’t really need something like that. But it’s almost necessary to flip the car to install the rear subframe. So we flipped the car, and put it on the lift.

In hind sight, it would’ve been great to hold off mounting the front subframe until now. But then again, we weren’t planning on flipping it until Friday.

Got Camber?

2008-05-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

We're almost done with the front. Well, actually, we're done with everything but the front shocks. As can be seen in the picture, the lower shock mount needs to be extended "a little" to add ride height and fix the camber issue.

Here's the completed view of the passenger side suspension. For now, we've installed stock shocks w/ no springs until we decide on a set of coilovers to use. Tomorrow we'll be starting on the rear subframe. That ought to be easy...

Even with a KA...

2008-05-22T23:49:00.000-07:00

Nissan really should've brought these over... even if it had a KA, QR, whatever. They're great cars. The Spec.R Aero package makes it even more desirable.

and no, we are NOT putting a KA24 in this car.

Front Suspension Finally Completed...

2008-05-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

Almost... I guess. As seen in the pic, we've completed all of the control arms, and their mounting points. Turned out pretty good. We still have to mount the coilovers to complete the front suspension, but I can't think of a single company that make coilovers for a 280Z with a 240SX subframe. I guess that means we have to make more stuff. Here's what we did...

Here's the shock mount we made to fit the Z. To get this finished product in this picture, we had to make several alignment tools and a punch.

Here's the pic of the upper shock mount and the punch we made. It's an interesting exercise in manufacturing.

More on the VK56

2008-05-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

This is the VK56 we'll be putting in the Rolls. Internally, it's been modified in three ways: Forged Pistons, Rods, and it's been Ported and Polished. Externally, though, there's a whole lot of work that went into it. All of the accesories are from the Rolls/BMW V12; AC compressor for the climate control to work properly, PS pump 'cause it also controls the ride control, and the Alternator just for fun.

The VK56, like the VQ35, has a cam angle sensor and a crank angle sensor. We didn't really like that look, so we plugged it up.

And we put a custom Cam Angle Sensor sourced from various Nissan parts. Without giving too much away, here's what we did.

1.6L Turbo

2008-05-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's a Miata motor. But what's that hanging off the side of the motor? That would be a Mitsubishi Evo turbo (that's a TD05H). Internally, the motor is stock, but it's a low mileage AT motor (9:1 compresion).

We'll see how much abuse it can take with nothing but a good tune.

Blue R34

2008-05-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

Here's another R34 we're working on. This one isn't quite stock at all... See below.

Yea, definately not stock

Black R34

2008-05-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

I think this is the first time I've seen a R34 in the States that was stock ride height. It's been lowered since the picture.

Do Luck Cage for the S13 Hatch

2008-05-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

We're doing a Do Luck cage install on a 240SX (as you can tell by the title). I've seen this cage installed on several cars before. I guess I've never paid attention to the fact that they were all RHD cars.

To most, incluiding myself, this does not seem like a big deal. The RHD and LHD cars are essentially the same car (minus the engine and the fact that the steering wheel's on the opposite side). There's one VERY critical difference that I had overlooked--seatbelts.

In the late 80's the US government mandated cars to be equipped with SRS (Supplemental Restraint Systems). Airbags were a luxurious item to have on a car back in the day, so some manufacturers decided it would be cool to have automatically retracting seatbelts. The 240SX was a victim of that era. That's enough of a history lesson for today.

The question is, what does this mean to anyone trying to install this cage? See below picture:

That gaping hole is where the lap belt sits in. Not that difficult, but annoying.

In addition, I had one more concern. Notice the footprint of the cage in the trunk. There are no preexisting mounting holes (RHD or LHD). Upon careful translation of the manual (it looks like a 3rd grader drawing), I’ve found Do Luck has designed this cage to be bolted in with 8mm tapping screws! Weak… I’ll be addressing that issue I’d like to call a design flaw.

Best of Both Worlds

2008-05-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

There are so many different manufacturers of control arms available today. Aside from the questionable made in China parts, I think these parts offer a great advantage in both adjustability and handling on a RACECAR.

The problem doesn’t surface until several months after the installation—some don't even notice it at all. It all depends on how often you drive the car, but in my experience, 6-8 months is the lifespan expected out of the rod end—this is true regardless of origin or material. I’ve tried just about everything from metal on metal to metal on teflon, Chinese to Aurora, and everything in between. The more you pay, the better they last, but only by a month or two.

What happens, no matter what the bearing/liner is made out of, it's a simple fact of wear and tear. It's metal on metal contact. It has to wear out sometime. But what about the Teflon lined rod ends? They are probably great in theory, but fact is, the lining is not as strong as steel, and they wear out eventually.

I'll try to post some pics of various rod ends I've cut open.

Here’s my solution to get the best of both worlds. A firm, but not jarring, ride with the adjustability of the aftermarket pieces. I guess the downside would be cost. They are a pain to make.

I used the bushing sleeve from a S14 (I think... the wall was thicker than the S13, anyway.) Then I cut the rod end and ground it down to fit flush with the sleeve, and welded it together.

These will get assembled to make a slightly custom tension rod for an S13.

From L to R: A slightly customized Shutoko Engineering Tension rod, Cusco Tension rod, and a stock S13 tension rod.

Drag R32 AWD to 4WD

2008-05-15T23:27:00.000-07:00

How to turn a perfectly good all-wheel drive system into a primitive, but effective, 4-wheel drive system. We don’t really recommend this mod for your average street car, but for a purpose-built drag car, it’s pretty effective.

Flat Tire

2008-05-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

So, as I was leaving work, I got a flat. Big deal. A bunch of people get flat tires everyday. I’m just in disbelief that a bolt this big could puncture a tire. Made a whole lot of racket, too. Almost sounded like a broken axle as it banged against the inside of my wheel.

I figured it was going to be a big bolt, but wow...

Another Odd Couple

2008-05-15T00:55:00.001-07:00

A twin turbo R33 and a twin turbo Bently. I know, the wheels on the R33 are really bad. They are temporary.

The old-school way to fill holes

2008-05-15T00:19:00.000-07:00

We've drilled out several brackets to clean up the engine bay (MAF, Battery, etc.) Unfortunately, the removal involved drilling the welds. Here, you see Mr. Wakita is hard at work to fill those unsightly holes.

The almost completed picture. We've drilled a couple dozen holes in the engine bay, so we'll be doing this for a while. Once we get done filling them and finish the spot welding, we'll smooth out the surface.

The Donor Car is Here!

2008-05-15T00:11:00.001-07:00

The long awaited Donor 240SX is finally here. We'll be completely stripping out in the coming days.

VK56 Port

2008-05-12T00:28:00.000-07:00

A picture of a "slightly" ported VK56 Head. The whole head looks just about identical to the VQ35--just a couple extra cylinders at the end

Odd Couple

2008-05-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

It's not everyday you see a Phantom and a G35 side by side on a lift.

Another thing you don't see eveyday: The underside of a RollsRoyce Phantom.

G35 Intercooler

2008-05-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple more pics of the G.

Out with the old, in with Reinforcements

2008-05-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

Since we're going with the 240SX front suspension and pointing the tension rods forward, we're not going to need these. . .

Besides, there's always a possibility that the old brackets might get in the way when we put the motor in. So we seized the opportunity to make it just a little better: Gussets.

The thought about tying the subframe in with these reinforcements crossed my mind, but unlike Z, the steering rack sits behind the subframe, we don’t have the rack yet, and this car is a street car.

Front Subframe

2008-05-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

So. . . we were planning on waiting to install the front subframe into the Z until we had the donor S13, but as you can see, impatience got the best of us. Besides, we have a 240SX w/ no motor out back to take engine bay measurements, and my 240SX we put on the lift to take measurements from underneath.

I was a little unsure about this method of attachment, when you compare it to more modern cars. I guess this is way more that enough once you factor in how the original one bolts up. You can kinda see one of the original mounting hole to the left of the left gusset. (It's a slightly darket shade of gray.) In this set-up, we're using much thicker metal, much more gussets, and much bigger bolts. I think we're ok.

We got done mounting the front subframe today, and tomorrow we're planning on mounting the tension rod brackets. We might cut out the old tension rod brackets that are behind the subframe. We'll see.

G35TT Exhaust

2008-05-08T00:51:00.000-07:00

The Exhaust System:

This thing is a street car (AC, Navi, and a lot of power), so we needed to keep the exhast reasonablly quiet. Thus the 2 into 1 back to 2 with the silencer at the collector. This quietened it down a decibel or two, but it's a big exhaust, and there's nothing quiet about this car.

G35TT

2008-05-08T00:21:00.000-07:00

Now this is one crazy G35. It's got two HKS 3037S turbos. TWO!!! To put that into perspective, here's the clearance looks like with something like that.

The only way to make this set-up work is to run solid engine mounts. I can't remember where we got the mounts for this car, but it's essentially an aluminum cylinder with a stud sticking out of each side.

And yes, the turbo manifold and downpipe are custom. In fact just about EVERYTHING on this car is custom.

R32-42R

2008-05-07T23:42:00.000-07:00

The Weldon Pump in the previous post is for this silver R32 that resides at our shop. It's a pretty serious car: HKS 2.8L, Garrett GT42R, Tomcraft Intake Manifold, Motec Exhaust system... I mean a M800. I'll be here all night if I listed everything that's done to this car.

I began working on this car back in the day when I used to work at RB Motoring (http://rbmotoring.com/). It followed me here for further mods and maintenance.

We dyno'd it a while back... it made 967hp, but it lifted the head a little. Right now we're running it at the wastegate spring pressure, so it's only making a hair over 700hp. (spring pressure happens to be 1.7 bar.) We'll be going with some L19 head studs later. The work never ends.

Weldon Pump is Back!!!

2008-05-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

The Weldon fuel pump is back from it's rebuild. Finally!

A couple weeks ago, we were at the Thursday Night Drags @ Irwindale. It was pretty fun 'til the last run, when we had some fuel pump issues.

I'll be on that today, and hopefully, it'll be ready for Irwindale tomorrow.

Project Z

2008-05-07T14:55:00.000-07:00

In order to address the issue with the front suspension geometry on the Z, we decided to ditch the whole thing and transplant something a little new that was relatively easily do-able. The idea of a double wishbone setup came to mind, but once we considered the added weight of the engine, we opted for a light and simple strut design from a 240SX (S13.)

Actually, We'll be getting a sacrificial S13 for the build that we'll "borrow" parts from. The actual fabrication process will begin once we get the donor. For now, just a whole lot of measuring, measuring, and some more measuring...

One Very Custom Rolls

2008-05-06T14:48:00.000-07:00

Here's another car that we're working on. It's a Rolls Royce with a Phantom head lights etc. Oh, and of course, a nissan motor. We took a motor out of a Nissan Titan (VK56) and built it up for what is to come... 800hp+ of turbocharged abuse.

New shop project

2008-05-06T00:07:00.000-07:00

Here'a our new shop project. It's a '75 280z... Doesn't look like much right now, but should be pretty nice when it's done--whenever that may be. Supprisingly, not a whole lot of rust for being what it is. Cosmetically, it looked really bad (doors rusting off with some banged up fenders), but once we started taking everything apart, it's just about immaculate with some minor surface rust and of course, the obligatory hole in the floorboard (not big, though).

The pic is after we stripped 99% of stuff off the car. I wish I had a picture from before the tear-down, but I wasn't thinking.