My Simple Rb25 Hatch Build

[slidewayz240]

At 7:30pm on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, November 21st, 2015 I traded my northern 1991 Infiniti m30 for a rust free southern 1990 s13 hatchback. The 240 was gutted behind the doors, was lowered on Megan track coil overs, and came on a set of 4 lug xxr wheels. The SOHC had been swapped out in favor of a s14 ka with an intake, header and exhaust. Aside from the kouki tail lights shoved into the 240sx tail light trim and a rattle can paint job, the rest was essentially stock.





When I received the car it was only running on three cylinders. Some quick diagnostic work lead to a faulty fuel injector. Monday morning I woke up early and headed to the junk yard. I got a set of 4 injectors off an Altima and the issue was resolved. At 3pm, having owned the car for less than 24 hours, we set off on a 700 mile trip to NY for thanksgiving.

I only had two issues on the trip. a hose clamp rubbed through the signal wire to the distributor, and I found the castle nut on the right front tie rod was loose when I developed a wobble. Once we arrived in NY, a crazy week began.

I parked the car at about 6:30 am on Tuesday morning. After a quick nap, we were off to the garage. By Tuesday night the KA was out and the engine bay was degreased and pressure washed. Wednesday we stole my rb25 out of my coupe and dropped it into my new chassis, and after some quick wiring it came to life. Thursday was spent having thanksgiving with the family. Friday was spent buttoning up final details and street tuning. Saturday we left at 6 am for the return trip to Wilmington. Surprisingly there were no issues on the return trip.



I have been toying with my RB in some form or another for the last 8 years. In its current configuration I am running a Holset hx35 turbo at 22psi, on a custom made stainless twinscroll top mount turbo manifold. I am using dual Tial 38mm wastegates and a Greddy RS blow off valve. 750cc Deatschwerks injectors supply the fuel, and a Nistune chipped z32 ecu controls all of it.

After the trip I focused on the interior of the car. I found replacement parts for the rear of the car, and a nice crack free dash.



I then put a pignose lip, and some sideskirts I had on the car.



After driving the car for a couple of weeks I was starting to notice some wiring gremlins. I started with completely going through the engine harness again and cleaning everything up.




I then tackled the chassis harness, eliminating all the plugs that weren't needed and using two marine fuse blocks in the driver's side kick panel to replace the factory boxes. The only wires that go through the engine bay are for the lights and electric fans.





While I was taking on the wiring project, my roommate tackled some fender tubs. I knew I wanted the car low so we made sure to clearance everything that we possibly could. We also extended the front control arms .75" and cut and welded my front knuckles for some more angle.




Once all the fabrication work was done I did some body work, laid down some seam sealer, and sprayed the bay.




Shortly after The cable on the passenger's side window regulator broke. I found a good deal on power doors out of a junk yard, and swapped them on and wired everything up.




Then I went drifting. The people that put on events at Myrtle Beach speedway are some of the most fun and relaxed people I have met. I had an absolute blast!



I happened to be poking around Ebay one day and found a set of Chuki side skirts about 4 hours away in Virginia, so I went and picked those up. Did a quick test fit then tucked them away in the garage.



I also picked up a new center tail light section and metal trim piece for my kouiki tail lights from Kriskouki on here. Amazing seller BTW.



In July, my parents came down to visit for my birthday and my Dad gave me some help with some much needed body work.



Then I did some more drifting.



In August I took another seamless road trip up to New York. I grabbed my Nardi wheel, and Tien Super Drift coilovers off of my coupe.



When I got back I tackled my bacon fenders. I wanted more durability than fiberglass could offer, so I decided to make some metal flairs for the front. I used some 1/4" steel rod bent in the shape of the front wheel well opening as a base. I then made a template for the shape out of masking tape, and laid that down on a flat piece of sheet metal. Once the piece was cut out I welded it all into place. After the driver's side was done I did the same steps on the passenger's side.







After 9 months of only having a driver's side door speaker, I decided it was finally time to upgrade the audio some. I bought 6" round Rockford Fosgate speakers, and started on a custom fiberglass sub box for my Rockford 12" sub.





The next project was to get some more rear grip. With around -4* of rear camber I was having a hard time keeping up in tandem. The rear uper control arms were almost out of adjustment, so I had to cut and lengthen them. The tow arms got the same treatment. Once the wheels could be stood up straight i cut the fender metal loose from the inner fender and worked the metal out wide enough to cover the wheels and tires. I then used some spare sheet metal to fill in the gap and sealed it all back up.



The Thursday before thanksgiving this year I gave the car its first real bath, then installed all of the parts I had collected for it.




After work the next day, I left for New York.



I arrived mid day Saturday, and began disassembly. The next week was spent with my dad in the garage doing body work, paint prep, and spraying the car. I cant begin to thank him enough for all the help he has given me over the years. By Wednesday, the body work was finished and the car was in primer.





Thursday was spent wet sanding in the morning, having thanksgiving dinner, then spraying the roof that night.



Friday we sprayed color and clear (I forgot to take pictures). and Saturday we assembled everything. One of my good friends came by and took pictures of the final assembly/wet sanding bits, as well as a few shots of it completed.







Sunday morning, we left to return to North Carolina. My roommate used my suburban to bring is Northstar swapped Fiero back with us.



13 hours into out 9.5 hour trip we had to stop for a break. I took the opportunity to snap a picture of it in parking lot light. It ended up taking 15.5 hours to make the trip due to the holiday traffic.



When I got back in town I washed all the road grime off.



Last weekend I took a cruise down to Myrtle Beach to hit one of their Friday night meets before it started really getting cold out.



And that brings us up to current day. Next step is to replace all of the worn rubber bushings and the remainder of the stock suspension arms with some adjustable bars with hymn joints on them. Then I'm really just looking to finish up the rough bits of the interior and enjoy driving it. If i can come across a good deal on type-x rear valances I'll probably pick them up to finish off the rear of the car.

[corkscrew]

Pics aren't working

[slidewayz240]

Should be working now.

[supersayianjim]

neat paint choice. what is ur current hp?

[slidewayz240]

Originally Posted by supersayianjim

neat paint choice. what is ur current hp?

Thanks man. Last time I had the engine on a dyno was about 3 years ago. I self tuned it while learning Nistune. After 65 dyno pulls and complete heat soak I got it to 396hp and 387ftlbs. It would overheat after every pull, so have to imagine I lost a solid amount of hp with all the heat. Next time I'm back in NY I'd like to get it back on the dyno and freshen up the tune now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing.

[LaMaR-]

is that a KA-T? Pretty damn sweet if you ask me.

[Standard]

Originally Posted by LaMaR-

is that a KA-T? Pretty damn sweet if you ask me.

Can you read or see?

Haha nice work man!!! Love the fact you drove the car to ny, swapped it, and drove it back on a holiday weekend, props for that!!!

Also, interesting paint choice. Not what I'd do, but unique for sure!

In for more updates

[LaMaR-]

Originally Posted by Standard

Can you read or see?

Haha nice work man!!! Love the fact you drove the car to ny, swapped it, and drove it back on a holiday weekend, props for that!!!

Also, interesting paint choice. Not what I'd do, but unique for sure!

In for more updates

On going joke.... Slidewayz and myself have been good friends for years lol

[z31andrew]

Clean a** Build man, loving every bit of it honestly. The Type X rear would just complete it perfectly.

[OBEEWON]

Love the paint.

[supersayianjim]

Originally Posted by slidewayz240

Thanks man. Last time I had the engine on a dyno was about 3 years ago. I self tuned it while learning Nistune. After 65 dyno pulls and complete heat soak I got it to 396hp and 387ftlbs. It would overheat after every pull, so have to imagine I lost a solid amount of hp with all the heat. Next time I'm back in NY I'd like to get it back on the dyno and freshen up the tune now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing.

ha, I also self tuned and dyno off nistune and I made 348whp.

[Dolph_KYAS13]

loving the spoiler. Replacing all the old bushings with poly or buying arms with spherical bushings will make the car drive 100% better. On my recent build / I did everything all balljoints, bearings and bushings and it drives like a new car.

[slidewayz240]

Thanks for the compliments guys!

Last night I went and picked up a used HX35 to have rebuilt. After 4 years of abuse my ebay brand turbo is starting to show signs of play. I am having the new one rebuilt with billet wheels to drop spool time some.



Gas station ass shot.


This weekend I'll be placing an order for spherical rod ends, as well as taps and dies for the threads I will need. I desperately need to get some new suspension arms built.

[slidewayz240]

Last night I finally ordered all the pieces to rebuild this worn out suspension.

[slidewayz240]

This weekend's project was replacing the super worn stabilizer bars. Until I get a chance to make a full tubular control arm/stabilizer bar setup I decided to build off my extended factory LCA's.



I knew my bushings were super shot, but I'm impressed at how much this improved steering feel. I'm anxious to get to building the rest of the suspension.

[slidewayz240]

The holidays were super busy, my family came down from NY to visit for the week.

Last Friday was absolutely beautiful so I spent some time cleaning up the car. Did a good wash and cleaned out the interior.



Saturday was Christmas Eve, and my Dad and I spent the day wet sanding and buffing the car.



For Christmas my Lady friend got me a framed picture of our cars together.



I had to improvise a way to hang it.



The day after Christmas was spent at the beach with our pups.



LaMaR- found me an awesome deal on some type x rear valances so hopefully those will be heading this way soon. Once I get the rain guards on the exterior of the car will be pretty much how I want it. Then it'll be time to buy more wheels.

[slidewayz240]

After Christmas I picked up some stuff to wax and detail my car. After a year of rattle can and primer its great to have some nice shiny paint.







I spent most of the last month just driving the car and not working on it much. Last weekend I took care of a few issues that had developed. First I replaced the worn and leaky steering rack with a reman unit, then I replaced the passenger's side door weather strip to eliminate a wind whistle, and replaced the rear hatch struts. I also spent some time putting blue leds in the gauge cluster and HVAC since a lot of the bulbs had stopped working.



Last night we melted down some aluminum and made a mold for some subframe bushings.

These were some dsm wheels cut down and melted into ingots for future use. About 75lbs worth of aluminum in this bucket.


A furnace my roomate made to melt the aluminum down.


Melty


Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of us pouring the aluminum. We let everything sit over night to cool down. More pictures in the next update.

[LaMaR-]

By far one of the cleanest builds currently going on here in zilvia. Can't wait to see what's next

[jaalow1]

AWESOME BUILD, loved the work on the fenders i am super interested and wanna do the same to my hatch

[slidewayz240]

Alright, so I left off at casting the rear subframe bushings. The casts came out awesome. they looked like old russian hand grenades.



All machined down and ready to insall


While my roommate was doing the machine wok, I started on a fiberglass bumper vent for a power steering cooler. I used an old bumper I had to build off of.





It has been cold for the last week so the bodywork process got put on hold. This should be done by the end of this week.

I got a good deal on a set of DorkiDori carbon wrapped type-x rear valances. Apparently these are a 1of1 piece that one of his friends made. Kind of a shame to paint them, but the carbon just doesnt look right on my car. They will be installed once they are painted.





I picked up a sr swapped hatch with no title to part out. Gave one of my friends the sr and kept a few things I wanted for myself. The rest will be listed in the classifieds shortly.



Some good friends and a few beers got it stripped in impressive time.



I spent this last weekend removing all of my mismatched painted black interior with an all oem black interior, and fitting the d2 coilovers onto my car. I cant believe the ride quality difference over my tired teins.



I fit the rear with some 255/40/18s, and the front is now running 225/35/18s. I love the feel of the wider tire on the rear, and the new front size lets me turn full lock and not hit the fender even at the now lower ride height. The 255's did need some shaving to fit. Excuse how nasty the wheels are, they had been sitting in my garage for a few months.



New ride height.



After a productive weekend, I went and grabbed some food with a few of my friends.



The orange 240 is a just over 400hp sr, and the 260z has a rb25 swap in it that we just wrapped up.

A quick shot before I went into work this morning.



I am so in love with this car. I cant wait to finish up a few of the things I am midway through so I can have it be "finished" for a bit and just enjoy driving it.

[CodyG]

Damn bro that's a clean ass Datsun ��

[LaMaR-]

Fun fact is that you just drove this car home Florida. Balllllerrrrr lol

[supersayianjim]

wait wait WAIT!!! did you just make ur own alum sub frame inserts?? what the fuck???

how hot did u get that furnace??

[MistyBlueS13]

Love this build and that color! Interested choice, but I think it looks great. Keep up the good work!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[hanzbrady]

Originally Posted by supersayianjim

wait wait WAIT!!! did you just make ur own alum sub frame inserts?? what the fuck???

how hot did u get that furnace??

Well I believe that aluminum usually melts around 1200* F, home forges are pretty common if you go down enough rabbit holes on Youtube haha.

[slidewayz240]

supersayianjim, we made subframe bushings. My roommate made the furnace, and has a lathe in his bedroom. I really don't know the specifics. This is one of those times I just let someone that knows better than I do, do their thing.

MistyBlueS13, thanks for the compliments. I wasn't 100% sold on the color until it was on the car. It was a last minute gamble and I'm glad I went with it.

It has been a while since I have updated this. I finally finished up the power steering cooler and vent.


As Lamar mentioned, in March I went to Florida to hit up an OSW drift event. I had an absolute blast, but it was an experience of a trip. We left Wilmington at 5pm on Friday after work. The entire trip down went amazing. I towed my car, and my friend Ian drove his sr swapped hatch down. We got to Lamar's house in Jacksonville at about 1 am and passed out. The next morning we got up and spend some time checking out his new 1j swapped fc.



Around 3 we left for OSW, and this is where things went down hill. About 20 miles from the track the right rear wheel bearing on the trailer locked up. We were 7 miles from a tractor supply so I unloaded my car and we drove to tractor supply for parts. We got to OSW at about 7pm. Ian and I prepped to do some sliding, and my roommate tackled trying to repair the trailer. After ripping all the threads out of a slam hammer trying to get the hub/bushing assembly off, we decided fixing the trailer was a lost cause. I would just have to drive my car back to NC from Orlando.

The event they put on was awesome, but I found some issues in the current setup. The junction in the high pressure power steering line blew out and caused a bunch of issues. I also found that the strut to knuckle mount on the right front shifted and let the wheel hit the coil spring (didn't notice this until the next morning). This threw the front end alignment off and made it impossible to drive. Apparently hand tools had enough clamping force to handle street driving, but not being tossed into a corner at the track. Being 8 hours from home I decided to just park the car before anything bad happened. I had an 8 hour drive back home the next day and a broken trailer. Ian let me take his car out on the oval a few times. It was his first drift event and he was more than happy to see his car link the track.



Sunday morning we left Jacksonville. Stopped for some breakfast on the way out and snapped a pic of mine and Ian's cars together.



Before we left I thought to myself that I should probably be smart and raise my car some, but I decided it looked too good as it sat and left it slammed. The entire trip went well until we got into South Carolina. About 15 mins over the boarder they had done some road work. There were three trenches across the road, all about 3 feet wide. The first was an inch deep, the second about two and the third a solid five. My head bounced off the roof, and a cloud of smoke billowed from the car. The oil pan had finally had enough.



While I waited for some of my friends to get some jb stick and oil I lifter the front of the car. The jb stick held for the remaining 4 hours home.



When I got home I dropped the oil pan. I saw two flakes of brass in the bottom of the pan, but attributed it to the old RB the pan was on, and dismissed it. The car made it 4 hours home, so it had to be fine right?
I got right to work on modifying the oil pan to be a bit more durable.





I also took some time to redo the lower control arms. Once I got it all back together, the car made it 6 miles and the bottom end locked up. I pulled the RB out the next day. Cylinder two had spun the connecting rod bearing, and cylinder five had locked up on the crank.





After 8 years of messing with rbs, I was done. It was time for something new. I took the opportunity to visit my family in NY, and pick up a vh45 I have had sitting in my garage for about two years.



Someday these two will make it south.



I had a local machine shop take 1/2" off my spare z32 bellhousing, and I started making an adapter plate to mate the trans and engine together.





Around here I sold the complete RB swap. It was sad to see it go, but the money halped me progress with the vh swap.



I kept the ACT clutch and pressure plate from my RB for the vh45 swap. I have had this clutch in a car for over 8 years and it still looks new.



With the trans mated up, I set the engine in the car and made motor/trans mounts. I brought my silvia hood down from NY so I could have a hood on the car while I worked on it. Before everything is done I'll be ordering in a fiberglass flip up hood to modify to clear the intake manifold on the vh.





I modified the cross member so I could set the engine down low.



With everything sitting happy in the car, I started working on the exhaust. I have a lot of pie cuts, and a lot of welding ahead of me. I am going to do my best to make equal length headers in the limited space I have available.



The vh45 starter doesn't fully engage on the z32 flywheel, so I had my roommate take a bit of meat off the mounting face of the starter. This should help the issue some.



I am really hoping to get a good chunk of the manifolds finished this weekend. I just started a new job that doesn't leave me a lot of time to work on things during the week. Anyways, that brings everything up to date. I'm really anxious to get this back on the road. I have never driven anything with v8 torque, so I'm really looking forward to it.

[tougefactory]

Holy cow, awesome job man...

[koukizhang]

Your roommate just has a lathe in his bedroom... no big deal...

[slidewayz240]

So, I did a thing.



Twin Garrett gtx2860r turbos with Tial exhaust housings and supporting hardware.

[slidewayz240]

6 month update!

I went back to NY for my birthday in early July, and used it as an excuse to bring my coupe down to NC.



I became hyper motivated to get it running to take to drift events. I found a complete ka engine set, ordered in a 4.9 rear gear set, and got to work getting the car running and track ready.



Once it was running I realized it will always be a rough northern chassis, and I traded it for a '91 miata. The car came with raceland coilovers, a brand new soft top, some 15x9+15 wheels, running on megasquirt, and came with a complete turbo kit.



I ordered in a lip kit, lowered it a touch, and picked up an oem hard top.



Drove it 7 hours to Ocean City, MD for h2oi and cruised the strip a bunch.



When I got back to town I painted the hard top, ordered in some new wheels, replaced the clutch, cut and welded the knuckles, and welded the diff.



A few weeks later I took it to myrtle beach drift's last event of the year. I qualified 7th my first time ever in the car, but spun in my competition runs. this car is an absolute riot on the track.







After the drift event, I finally found motivation to dive back into the vh45dett build. I started by cutting apart my engine bay and building turbo manifolds.



New front frame rails, and a cross over pipe.



Core support and headlight mounts all done. Starting to look like a car again.



Made some radiator mounts.



And this is how she currently sits.



I need to order in some 3" intercooler pipe and couplers to finish up the charge piping. Once I have that mocked up I can start doing sheet metal work in the engine bay. After the holidays I'll be ordering in a carbon hood to modify to clear the intake manifold.

Till then, Happy Holidays!