SXDevelopments 180SX (SXD180)

[scottie]

CaBS,

To the best of your knowledge, is the painted "trim" on your lexan windows on the outside or inside? It is hard to tell from the pictures. Thanks!

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by scottie

CaBS,

To the best of your knowledge, is the painted "trim" on your lexan windows on the outside or inside? It is hard to tell from the pictures. Thanks!

Its on the inside like the factory ones man

[scottie]

Thanks! I was leaning towards the inside. Looking forward to another update.

[CaBS]

Was pleased to see my taarks billet power steering bracket turned up earlier this week. For $140 plus delivery they're pretty hard to pass up on especially considering it comes with a new belt and everything required. Looks like you retain the factory bolt that goes through the pump and bracket unless I just missed out on one of those.

Everything that came with.


Assembled ready to go.


Back side has the bolts countersunk where the bracket sits against the block the front two are where the bracket pokes past the edge of the block so normal screw cap bolts are used.


Front end on view.


Only concern with the whole thing is if these tiny rose joints for the tensioner are up to the job of supporting the whole pump in a high vibration/g environment. I'm guessing they've been tested though?


Overall quite happy with it. Sits the power steering pump a few inches lower than the other bracket we'd made up for it already. Should be level with the center of the crank pulley now from the photo's I've seen. I didnt get a chance to bolt it up but will do in the next few days hopefully.


More soon.

[scottie]

^^^
That is killer! Cant wait to see the motor with all the goodies mounted. The detail of this build is simply awesome.

[CaBS]

Went over to check out afew things on the car yesterday.Got a chance to fit up the taarks ps bracket today very happy with the fit went on with no hassles and feels very solid.


The new pivot point sits around 175mm lower than the stock pivot point.


Also very pumped that my Hypertune HypEx-347 collector has been made. Hopefully the boys get time in the next few days to weld up the whole manifold.


Loving the very short tails for the gates so that as little as possible area inside the collector that has to be filled.


One piece cast 347 so no welds inside the collector at all helping reduce the likelihood of cracking.


Support in the middle also.


Top down.


347 is commonly used in aircraft exhaust systems and is similar in properties to inconel. When you compare it to 304, 316 basically it should handle the heat much better. You can see from the pictures its thin wall but the more suited material should help cope with this.


Afew more features as well which I'll go more into once its done. Needless to say I'm very pumped to see it finished and fitted up to the car though. Even more pumped still to see what a difference it makes once its running.

More soon.

[CaBS]

I didn't get a decent pic of the turbo flange so pinched two of Hypertunes official ones. Its T4 twinscroll.



So yeh runs twin gates but thats sort of a given.


More soon.

[CaBS]

Started playing around with the front bar tonight. I have no real need for these massive vents on either side of the main cooling vent now. Apart from a smaller area on the passenger side of the car for cold air and tow hook to come out of. So I'm going to have a go at glassing them up myself. I'll also be retaining the smaller vents on the outside to use for my brake ducting. Thanks to Cody (NSCC) for giving me some helpful hints.

First step was to cut down some poster board to make a template then tape them up tightly against the bar. The idea is to glass it all in from the rear and then pull the tape/board off the front and remove the new glass part. I can then finish it up with some more sanding/bog until I'm happy with it and make a mold from this. Then use that to make the final piece which should need minimal bog to fit in seamlessly. Anyways here's hoping I dont fuck the whole thing up and wreck the bar. :P



Drivers side fully covered.


Make a poster board fence here for the tow hook/air intake .


Can see the packing tape so the resin and pva doesnt soak into the cardboard. I gave in here a good solid coating of PVA so I can release them with (fingers crossed) no problems. I might put another few coats just to be safe.


Going to get messy tomorrow.



More soon.

[Izento]

I just finished reading through this thread and holy shit, mad props to the OP. It looks like you are very into the chassis work. Any idea if you will run fender braces? Or for the engine, an Accusump?

This thread gives ppl motivation, just know that you're driving your community to do better on their own projects!

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by Izento

I just finished reading through this thread and holy shit, mad props to the OP. It looks like you are very into the chassis work. Any idea if you will run fender braces? Or for the engine, an Accusump?

This thread gives ppl motivation, just know that you're driving your community to do better on their own projects!

Thanks for the kind words man I've been motivated by many other build threads so its nice to hear if others are getting the same from mine.

Have a closer look at the photos of the CE28s being test fitted and you'll spot some custom weld on fender braces which triangulate the whole area. Its a shit part of the S13 chassis in the S15 its triangulated much better from the factory. That combined with the bracing to the towers should make it pretty solid hopefully.

I dont have the extra dosh to do a proper drysump setup so an accusump is a possible option or maybe just stick with the winged sump. There are several cars he pulling much faster times/g's than I will be any time soon with just winged sumps and no starvation issues thus far. So I'll be keeping a close eye on them for sure.

[CaBS]

Pulled the cardboard off today pretty happy with how its turned out for a first go. I made it really thick so I can sand it down into a smoother shape without risking going through it. It remains to be seen if I'll mould off this or use it as the actual piece that goes in the bar.





More soon.

[CaBS]

Did some more work on the front bar over the weekend. Decided to ditch the air intake vent on the passenger side once its done we'll still cut a slit through this for the tow hook though. Moulded over the whole side, I went much less crazy with the fibreglass second time around. the top of it turned out better than the other side but the bottom turned out worse but its salvageable without having to do it again.



We left it stuck into the bar while we shaped it up with the frapper disk and buzzer to get the shape spot on.


Trimmed down the inside to make the opening as wide as I can. The gap can be glassed up again quickly before its stuck onto the bar.


Decided not to use these as the plugs but as the final product which will be stuck onto the bar permanently.


They actually took quite awhile of screwing around to get them out with a flat head screw driver and a hammer.


This can be trimmed down heaps and have some holes drilled into it also.


Even once the front was sanded down to the correct shape there its still stupidly thick and heavy for what I want. I'll be attacking the back side of it with the linager and a disk sander to cut the thickness down to something sensible and drop the weight of it. Rather than doing it again from scratch.


Drops back into place. Will prep the surface and then epoxy it into place then a thin skim of bog should see it ready for paint prep.


Cut these little ducts out and will glass them on again moved forward so a thin skim of bog will seem them gone also.


Rough idea of where it'll sit needs alot more work though.


More soon!

[CaBS]

Dropped by Hypertune again yesterday and was very pleased to find my manifold very close to done.


Officially named HypEx-347 coming from the fact its made from 347 stainless and by Hypertune. Planning to make up some sort of OEM style heat sheild to go over the top of this and keep heat down.


Being low mount a 4" dump pipe should now be a piss easy job. All of the manifold nuts are surprisingly accessible and the whole manifold/turbo lifts in and out as a unit amazingly easily. I didn't really believe the guys until we tried it.


All that remains is for the turbosmart 40comp gates to arrive so the tabs for them can be welded on the the right positions and then its 100% done. They should arrive in the next few days.


Very happy to have Mitchs welding handywork on my car.


Final position of the turbo sits nice and low. Two main reasons being to keep weight low and keep heat low and the ability for a nicer dump pipe. Hot pipe and intake pipes should be relativity easy to setup still with it in this position.




More soon.

[Apex Eight]

Looks great! Have you considered coating the manifold instead of building a heat shield for it?

[tricky_ab]

^^ I was thinking the same thing... Oh and that manifold looks great!

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by Apex Eight

Looks great! Have you considered coating the manifold instead of building a heat shield for it?

The plan is to do both of those options but we'll see what happens.

[CaBS]

Well I decided after a conversation with nfi that I was being too impatient and should redo my second side vent cause the first one came out shitty. So I did and I'm glad I did cause it came out much better and I blocked off the second smaller vent at the same time. Very minimal bog will be needed now on the front face.



Much thinner than the original ones I made and they're now keyed into the vent with epoxy and 80grit sanding job I did before I layed it up. So its never coming out again with any luck :P


Poster board with packing tape to form the shape required. Actually worked better doing the two vents at the same time because the poster board had a more open curve to follow than the original one I did.


Poster board removed much happier with the result that the other one. Still needs a bit of work but will turn out well I think.


Binning the other one I spent so much time on and starting again from scratch also. Here is the vent hair hack sawed out and then linaged down.


Should have it all done by the end of this weekend hopefully.


Took the brake booster over and fitted it to the car. Need to try and find the wiper motor also this weekend and taking over to fit up.





More soon!

[wattupbaii]

looks like a lot of time spent on writing all this up. when do you expect to finish it?

[ayrtonlucyk]

this is a really inspiring build, i hope to build something half this good one day! awesome build man!

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by wattupbaii

looks like a lot of time spent on writing all this up. when do you expect to finish it?

Hopefully all done in the first half of next year it was supposed to be the end of this year but some stuff has taken much longer than expected.

Originally Posted by ayrtonlucyk

this is a really inspiring build, i hope to build something half this good one day! awesome build man!

Thanks alot man. Heaps more to come!

[spray2020]

Looks Great Martin! I am glad my method with the poster board has worked well for you

Hope to keep in touch, I am on my way to Cali right now in my dc5.

-Cody

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by spray2020

Looks Great Martin! I am glad my method with the poster board has worked well for you

Hope to keep in touch, I am on my way to Cali right now in my dc5.

-Cody

Yeh thanks for the Tip man!

For sure, good luck with your course.

[CaBS]

So my order finally arrived from Jesse Streeter. I've been hassling him for the past 8 months after seeing the Ben Sopra "380SX" @ Tokyo Autosalon for a date that the Enkei RS05RR's would be released to the public. Directly after the aussie dollars good run died in the arse, they decided to release them. :P


The colour is actually much lighter than I was expecting them to be from other photos I'd seen.


Fitment is pretty good.




Should look rather fat with rubber and reasonable ride height.


I didn't know this but each wheel comes with a super deep socket to help you not cain the paint when rattling on/off wheel nuts I guess. It has a 3/8" drive though which is kinda lame but I might just weld a 1/2"-3/8" drive adapter socket onto it.


Black anodized valve stems.


These red chrome metallic stickers which look pretty ugly imo.


Last but not least these brushed alloy center caps with the logo CNC'd into the face of them these actually look really sweet. I dont usually like center caps but I might actually end up using these.


Concave is deep as they come in. You can see in the inside of the lip they have a non slip coating I guess to help the tyre fitters getting low profile rubber to grab when they're trying to spin the tyres on.


Overall very happy with them. They weigh in at 9.72kg each so they're abit heavier than the CE's but still pretty light.



More soon!

[Beejis60]

I love those enkeis, but aren't they damned expensive?
I still can't find much info on these, but are they at least forged for that price?

[CaBS]

They were a fair bit cheaper than the Volks so pretty cheap I thought when you take into account the size/weight.

[Beejis60]

Originally Posted by CaBS

They were a fair bit cheaper than the Volks so pretty cheap I thought when you take into account the size/weight.

Sure, but are they even forged? The only people I know talking about them still don't know if they're forged...
And the RPF1s I believe are still lighter, but do not go as wide. TEs are barely lighter than RPF1s though, iirc, unless you're looking at the magnesium wheels.

[Ratpack_Chad]

This build is simply amazing, your dedication is inspiring.

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by Beejis60

Sure, but are they even forged? The only people I know talking about them still don't know if they're forged...
And the RPF1s I believe are still lighter, but do not go as wide. TEs are barely lighter than RPF1s though, iirc, unless you're looking at the magnesium wheels.

No they're not forged they're MAT process which is sort of half way between cast and forged. The RPF1 in 18x10.5 = 8.64kg each the CE28 is 8.4kg for the same size and stronger. When you get to that level of wheel thats a decent saving its defiantly not a cost effective one though.

Originally Posted by Rawrvasour

This build is simply amazing, your dedication is inspiring.

Thanks man! Please keep checking back lots more to come, should start looking more like a car again soon.

[CaBS]

Here is what the enkei site has to say about the MAT process they use.

MAT Technology
Enkei developed a new manufacturing process to produce the next aluminum wheel generation. The Most Advanced Technology (M.A.T) combines one-piece cast wheel technology with a rim forming technology called spinning process. Using this new technology of casting and rim forming by M.A.T process, is critical to improve drastically the material property and strength of the wheels. Rim-Rolled technology shapes the rim to improve material elongation withoutsacrificing the wheels hardness.

[Beejis60]

Originally Posted by CaBS

No they're not forged they're MAT process which is sort of half way between cast and forged. The RPF1 in 18x10.5 = 8.64kg each the CE28 is 8.4kg for the same size and stronger. When you get to that level of wheel thats a decent saving its defiantly not a cost effective one though.

Oh okay, I didn't know they were the MAT wheels...