Tanaka Racing S13

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.

Tanaka Racing S13

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

Another SR20 that had a BAD day

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...

A S15 Red Top

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)

Trunk Bar

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.

The Green & Purple S13

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)

Do Luck Cage for the S13 Hatch

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

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.

Flat Tire

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...