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

Ported SR Head

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

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...

Aluminum Rod

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

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.

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)

It's All Fixed

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.

The Infamous SR20 Rocker Arm

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.