True Life: I'm Addicted to Stupid Old Nissans

[Hoffman5982]

Killer, you'll be happy to know I've purchased the correct type of hose. Great call, the old hose was already starting to swell.

I guess it's time for an update

Last time I posted the car was ready for the dyno. It took 2 sessions. The first session was nothing more than a baseline with one run where we found that the wastegate wasn't cracking open til over 14psi. I wanted 10psi max so this was no bueno. I went through 3 different adjustable wastegate actuators and none of them opened at the advertised 7psi. So I picked up a new SR gate, straightened the rod and cut the end off, then threaded it to put the end from the adjustable one on it(SR gate was too short). After a month or so it was finally opening and holding at 8psi. Scheduled another tuning session and off I went.




The car did great. I asked for a conservative tune as I wasn't worried about numbers. The temps never went over 175F. We ended the tune at what I thought was 10psi, making right at 290whp and 270wtq.



The car ripped. It was super responsive and being on 15's, it would spin through 2nd and into 3rd with no issue.

Then I started having issues. If you remember I was running a Ford Taurus efan and had been for a while. If you know anything about this fan you know how it uses a fucking ridiculous amount of power. It started melting relays. A lot. I was popping in a new relay every few days. I tried rewiring it a few times with heavier gauge wiring even though I was using the right size to begin with. I finally purchased some 60A relays and the issue went away. Unfortunately I wouldn't realize I had burned up a relay until the car started overheating. This had happened a few times. I think you know where this is going..

It was time for my first event of the year and with the new setup. I was pumped. The day before the event I took the car and got it aligned. I had not been driving the car for the past week due to changing the rack out for a new rebuilt one. I noticed on my way to the shop the car was getting hotter than usual. It normally cruised at around 170F, it was sitting at 210F all the way there. I bled the system more when I got home and that seemed to help. So I loaded up and headed out the next day.

The day was a nightmare. The car, power wise, felt great. The problem was I would do maybe 2 laps and the temps would be skyrocketing. It was spitting an ungodly amount of coolant into the overflow. There was no smoke and no water in the oil so I didn't want to assume the worst. I kept bleeding the system and finally I got it to act right. It would still rise after a few runs but would immediately settle back to ~180F.




Then, on the final run, it went. I got done with the run and looked at the gauge and it read 380F. NOW it was smoking. I also noticed there was constant smoke coming from the catch can. Lame.

So I got home, ordered some ARP head studs and a new Fel Pro head gasket. The next event was a little over a month away so naturally I put the work off til 2 weeks before. I had the head decked and hot tanked. It was warped, but not as bad as I was expecting. Here's where disaster struck.

I got the head back and put it back together that night. I took my time and made sure everything was perfect.




Since the car had been sitting and the head was dry, I unplugged the ecu and turned it over to prime the oil pump. Good call. At first it turned over great, then I heard this crunching sound followed by the indistinguishable sound of metal on metal, further followed by the sound of a motor with no compression turning over. Popped the valve cover and found this.



Cool. Ripped it back apart that night and found that every single valve was bent.



I knew I had the timing spot on because I checked it about 10 times, so I started looking for what caused this baby back bull shit and noticed there was no longer plastic on the timing guide



Until this point I had never dropped an oil pan while the motor was in the car. 8/10, not as bad as expected. The motor, however, was worse than expected, I guess the chain came off the rail near the bottom and it left its mark.





It ate the inside of the front cover pretty good. Luckily I hoarde parts. Being that it was 5 days before the event, I couldn't replace the valves. Luckily I had a spare motor. I pulled the head and cleaned it as it was pretty nasty




The head was previously decked, thankfully. I also pulled the front cover and chain guides from the spare motor. The front cover was a newer oe replacement, which I didn't like but I also didn't have much of a choice. Everything went smooth until I got to the upper timing idler pulley. I went to torque it, which I've done in the past and never had an issue as I go in small increments. I got it to around 25 ft/lbs and felt it give a little. So I left it and just assumed this would be the final event before doing a full rebuild. Pretty wreckless, I know, but I was over it and I had a forged rotating assembly waiting. So I slapped it all back together.




The car felt perfect. It leaked a little oil from the oil pan, so I resealed it again that night to no avail. I guess rtv doesn't set when it is cold outside? Whatever. I had tires and was ready for the 3 day event. I figured it wouldn't make it through, but I thought it would do better than it did.



Day 1 of the Nola event was on the kart track. This was my first time driving it with power and it felt great. Remember that smoke I mentioned coming from the pcv valve? It was constant. I did a few laps and someone told me I left a huge puddle of oil when sitting in grid. Popped the hood and there was oil everywhere. Literally standing oil under the intake. The dip stick was out and I knew the rings were done, and probably had been done since the last event. So I did what any rational person would do and filled it back up. It took half a gallon to get it to the right level. Then I zip tied the dip stick down and kept driving.

The result:



If you listen, you can hear a pop and the car immediately died. It made it 4 hours into a 3 day event. I did get some really solid tandems in with friends, although not a single picture was taken during that time apparently. I spent the rest of the event quite inebriated and still had a great time. I pulled the motor later that week and tore it apart to decide what I was going to do. I'll add that tonight as I need to upload the picks off my phone.

[Hoffman5982]

Out the motor came. Through 2017 I basically drove half an event. That sucked.

Started tearing it down and surprisingly, everything was in good shape, until I got to the pistons. Piston 1 had cracked ringlands. Piston 2 had cracked ringlands and a 1/4 of the second ring was missing.



Forunately, the crank was in excellent shape and the cylinders were also ok. When I went to remove the timing idler pulley, it was wiggling. I loosened the bolt by hand and all of the threads came with it. Gotta love when people don't understand the importance of a torque wrench.

I was deciding between an oem rebuild(just honing the cylinders and slapping some new NPR rings and some bearings in), or going ahead and using my forged bottom end. Once I found that I'd need new pistons, it was a no brainer. So I started ordering parts.



The basic rundown is Ross 89.5mm 8.5:1 compression pistons, Eagle H-Beam Rods, all ARP hardware, Clevite 77 main/rod bearings, new gaskets/seals/etc. I also decided to rebuild the china oil pump with genuine parts for peace of mind. I dropped the block off to be bored .02 over, decked, and hot tanked. They also inspected the pistons since they were used. Everything came out perfect. I masked everything off and gave it some fresh paint.







The first order of business was dealing with the head. I had one head that was freshly machined but had bent valves. Had another with good valves but stripped threads. So I dropped all the good valves and put them into the good head. I spent a few hours relapping them and was super happy with how it turned out. I also put some fresh Supertech valve stem seals in.





Next it was time to assemble the bottom end. Once my ring filer came in I got to work on gapping the new rings. Going by Ross's instructions, I ended with .018" gap on the top ring and .021" on the second rings. Took my time and all 4 cylinders were spot on.



As I was assembling the rotating assembly I used plastigauge to make sure the bearing tolerances were ok, and both the main and the rods were in the middle of the oem specified limits.







Next was the oil system. I replaced the oil filter housing gasket and rebuilt the oil pump, then threw it on with a new oil pickup.










It was pretty much smooth sailing from here. I took it slow and made sure everything was right and torqued to spec.




Ended the night with an almost complete motor.



If you remember, I had my valve cover hydro dipped and I was super happy with it. However, it lasted maybe 3 times of driving and started cracking. The guy who did it was happy to redo it, but I never got around to shipping it back to him so I just counted my losses. I painted my spare cover in wrinkle black and was happy with the result anyways(kinda hard to mess up wrinkle paint). Painted a few other bits and ended with this




Which is where I am now. I need to clean a few pieces(mainly the intake manifold) and reattach the transmission. I plan to have the motor in the car by this weekend and I can start breaking it in. The next event is in March so I need to get yet another tune schedule before then. In all honesty, I'll probably keep it around the same power. 300whp is dumb on 15's. Second gear is almost as useless as first while drifting now. I'm trying out some grippier tires to help, and I may switch back from the 4.36 to a 3.9.

Hopefully this phase of the motor will last longer.

[5280VertDET]

Thanks for updating us and ending on a high note. Goodluck!!

[Future240]

Subb'ed


This is a great build.

[DomChan]

Great build so far man. I'm glad I saw this, it's keeping me motivated for mine! Just curious what hotpipe are you using? It's such a small detail but I like the shape of the hotpipe lol

[Hoffman5982]

Originally Posted by DomChan

Great build so far man. I'm glad I saw this, it's keeping me motivated for mine! Just curious what hotpipe are you using? It's such a small detail but I like the shape of the hotpipe lol

It’s s14 sr piping with an s13 sr cold pipe. I too liked the s14 hotpipe way better lol.

Thank you for for the kind words guys. Just dropped the motor in, I’ll update when it’s back on the road!

[Hoffman5982]

So things have happened.

I got the motor and trans together and muscled the motor in the car by myself. My friends were either out of town or sick with this plague that has been going around.



Ended the night with it looking like this




After a few last minute bits came in I had it complete a few days later



I decided to redo my pcv setup. Before, I was unaware that the pcv valve on these motors notoriously leaked. I had replaced it with a new one thinking I was doing the right thing, then ran the pcv and the valve cover to a vented catch can. I decided to change to a more appropriate setup. I ended up installing an SR pcv, then ran the two lines to the catch can like I had previously. I capped the vented end(pointing towards the outside of the car) and put a barb fitting on the other end which was previously capped. I ran that around the back of the head to the pre turbo intake with a small air/oil separator in line. Hopefully this setup works better. I don't think I blew my rings out due to an improper setup, but I'm sure it didn't help.




The time came for the first start. That's when things got interesting.

I had the ecu unplugged and started turning it over to prime the oil pump. After about 6 revolutions I noticed smoke. Thinking it was the starter, I walked around to take a look and found a damn fire coming up from beneath the intake manifold. I put it out and checked over everything. I couldn't find anything out of place, so I turned it over some more. No more smoke. Thinking it was a fluke, i plugged the ecu in and went to turn the key. This time there was a huge spark that shot up from the same area. I started feeling around and found that the oil feed line was extremely hot and was sitting against the starter housing.

It turns out that the line was somehow shorting out against the starter. Seriously the most random thing I have encountered. I reclocked the sandwich plate to get the line away from it and the issue was resolved. Turned the key and the car fired right up! Unfortunately, the fire had burned a hole in the line, so it immediately started spitting out oil. On the bright side, I knew I had good oil pressure. So I remade the line and all was well.
I let the car run for 30 minutes while I bled the coolant system. I drained the oil and the next day I took it for it's first drive.

The car felt great. It's got an exhaust leak but that's it. I did a bunch of light throttle pulls to help seat the rings and then drove it around town all day. The temps were solid at around 160F and the AFR's were spot on. Unfortunately I noticed during the first few light pulls that the clutch was slipping. I'm completely lost because it had plenty of life left and never showed a single sign of slipping before it blew. I'm currently in the process of dropping the trans to see if something is out of place, but I'm most likely going to be ordering a new clutch disc later this week. The flywheel looks good and the pressure plate surface looks almost new, so no need for a full new setup.

Still felt good to stretch its legs again though




Does anyone know why my pictures look straight potato quality once I upload them to imgur? This has never been an issue before and the original files look significantly better on my computer.

[Super_OK_S13]

The clutch issue might just need re-adjusted for pedal throw and return. since the slave cylinder is external and exposed to the road elements, the pin that pushes on the clutch fork wears out over time, but i would start there first.

I'm digging this car too!

[afishysilvia]

Knowing the struggles of a rebuild I can appreciate your dedication and persistence. Nice build

[tuzzio]

if you need a new clutch, just buy a white bunny and be done with it.

[Hoffman5982]

Originally Posted by Super_OK_S13

The clutch issue might just need re-adjusted for pedal throw and return. since the slave cylinder is external and exposed to the road elements, the pin that pushes on the clutch fork wears out over time, but i would start there first.

I'm digging this car too!

Thanks. I'll try readjusting the clutch pedal once it's back together if I can't find anything wrong. I do want to inspect the clutch though so I'm still going to pull it. The slave cylinder is less than a month old. I may warranty it out.

Originally Posted by tuzzio

if you need a new clutch, just buy a white bunny and be done with it.

I've thought about it,and still might. I like having the lightweight flywheel though. Plus, if the pressure plate looks as good as it did when I just had it out, I can get away with just putting a new disc on which would cost significantly less than a full new clutch set.

[greenwood]

Glad it's back together.

It's fun to do stuff the short cut way only to have to go back and do it the right way. I too have done this! haha Glad it's right now!

[Super_OK_S13]

I think in the FSM it calls for about 3/4"-1"" from the pedal released position till you feel/build pressure. If there is no free spring play then you could be pushing or pulling air into the lines when the pedal is pressed/de-pressed at the master cylinder or, it ensures there's just the right amount of fluid travel to push the clutch fork to engage the clutch and not over push the slave piston out of the slave cylinder.

Good luck

Interested in power numbers then.

[Hoffman5982]

Don't have a picture update, but I got it back together tonight and it's still slipping. I installed a Suspicious Garage clutch line and new slave for good measure, but no bueno. The pedal travel also seems fine.

While it was off I do think I found the culprit. On the ARP flywheel bolts you are supposed to put assembly lube under the heads of the bolts. I dumbly didn't thoroughly spray this area with brake clean. You could see where the lube spread out from the bolts on the flywheel as it was spinning, so I think it made its way onto the clutch surface. It really sucks because that clutch felt great and had plenty of meat left.

With the next event coming up and can't waste any more time. I've purchased an XTD 13lb RB25 flywheel(I know, but my current XTD flywheel has almost 5 years of use with no issue) and an RB25 Competition Stage 3 clutch. This clutch will most likely be much more aggressive than my current setup but pedal feel is supposed to be similar to stuck. I daily'd a 6 puck with no issue in the past. This setup is also rated for 500wtq on a skyline so I should be good.

[Dolph_KYAS13]

Originally Posted by Hoffman5982

So things have happened.

Im really digging the look of this thing. the graphics are awesome

[JesusFreakDrifter]

Loving this build

[apex128]

I just spent far too long reading through the entire build from the beginning. I really like how this car is turning out and how you are dedicated to details (even interior stuff). Subscribed for sure

[Hoffman5982]

First event was today. Either the transmission ate itself 10x over or the flywheel came unbolted ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[DJTTon]

You better post the carnage!!!!!

[Hoffman5982]

Well here's where we're at. Car was running well but the clutch was slipping. I ended up buying a new RB25 13lb flywheel and RB25 Competition stage 3 clutch set. Got it broken in and enjoyed driving the car around. I think I put around 1300 miles on it since the rebuild.

Drift day came and it was a full day on the kart track at Nola Motorsports park. I was pumped, I had 10 new tires leftover from the last 3 day event when the car blew up. I went out, did some laps and the car felt awesome. The ATR Sport 2's provided the grip I wanted but started chunking quickly. This is exactly why I don't run Achilles anymore, they're garbage.

Did about 15 or so laps and suddenly I lost power steering, which was followed up by a super loud pop. I drove off track and found that the outter section of the crank pulley had sheered off. This is also the section used for the water pump and ps pump. Why they made that section removable is beyond me. I looked at my phone and the car hit 320F. When I stopped it was boiling out of the reservoir. Awesome.

I snagged another pulley and picked up a new belt. Put it all on and started it up. It instantly had a knocking sound. So I did what any rational person would do and poured coolant and beer into the radiator, bled it, and took it back out on the track. Temps stayed good so I think I managed to not blow the head gasket. I did about 3 more laps and the car honestly felt great power wise, go figure. Then there was a pop and grinding noise. The car still revved but I had no gears. I shut it off and the next time I started it, it sounded like a mixture of crunching and grinding, we also noticed the engine was not turning over when the starter was turning.

At this point I'm going to backtrack to the night I was putting the new clutch in. I used ARP bolts, I put the blue loctite on the threads and the ARP lube under the heads as per the instructions. Torque specs was 95 ftlbs, I chose to do it in 2 steps since all ARP bolts I've done require it to be done in increments. So I did the first torque to 45 ftlbs, but I then forgot to do the second torque. I had friends over and we were having a jolly good time. Stupid mistake, but it happened. A few days later it hit me that I don't remember doing the second torque, but my friend assured me he remembered me doing it. Guess who was right and who was wrong...

So this is my crank



And this is my flywheel



4 of the 6 ARP bolts sheered off and the flywheel raped the crank pretty hard. I'm extremely lucky that the clutch/fw stayed on the input shaft and didn't make an exit through the bellhousing.

As of right now the plan is to pull the motor out tomorrow. I'll be picking up a good crank from a friend, a new starter since the current one took some impact, and I will be ordering another set of bearings and a new flywheel. The clutch is ok, thankfully. It sucks, and it will cost a little bit, but in all honesty I'm relieved it was this and not rod knock as that would have cost quite a bit more and my car would have been down for quite a while. I may throw a fresh head on as I suspect I have a bad valve guide in this frankenstein head I did. I hope to be at the next event at the end of april.

That's a lot of reading, so here's a few pics I got from the event.

[tuzzio]

DAMN.

Sorry to see that happen. Bummer, but such is life. We've all made mistakes.

[brndck]

jeezus man you've had some heartache since the last update.

I really like the setup on this car though, super stylish for how basic the exterior is.

[Hoffman5982]

Originally Posted by tuzzio

DAMN.

Sorry to see that happen. Bummer, but such is life. We've all made mistakes.

I definitely feel dumb but shit happens. This is going to cost less than all the machine work alone would have if I did have rod knock, so I'll take it. The rtv on the front cover was seeping a little so this is the perfect time to go back and redo that.

Originally Posted by brndck

jeezus man you've had some heartache since the last update.

I really like the setup on this car though, super stylish for how basic the exterior is.

Thanks man. That's the story of my life lol. My first SR gave me grief for over a year and still never ran right. I got 4 years of mostly trouble free driving out of this so I can't complain too much.

In other news, I picked up some 750cc injectors so 375-400whp soon? Maybe. I'll also be switching over to a clutch fan setup soon. Done with these electrics

[Krusty_s13]

Originally Posted by Hoffman5982

I'll also be switching over to a clutch fan setup soon. Done with these electrics

Best thing I did on the NA SR. Went from electric fans to a OEM shroud and a GKTECH fan, and I haven't had a single issue since.