The Zombie

I thought I'd share some content, since I still browse the forums every now and then... and yes miss the chaps on here quite a bit.

So some of you might know that I owned an S15-Autech, was an awesome car but times got tough and I had to sell, something that I've been trying to kick my self for ever since. Then luck struck, my S13 in SA sold, the 5 years I owned it left me -R80K of school fees, fun while it lasted. At least I made half back.

All the school fees, and the feeling of owning a trouble free S15 made me realise that the whole thing is overrated and I won't try build a big HP car again.

Then an opportunity came along and the bug bit, with a little bit of spare cash on hand, I bought someone's project car. The guy wanted to turn it into a drift car, he ended up buying everything, but with tied hands never did anything.

The specs as advertised
Exterior:
GP sports custom fixed headlights. Only pair like it in the world.
Vertex copy front and sides (not the purple one in the pics)
Factory rear (comes with 180SX rear)
Duckbill Rear spoiler
200SX front guards
No bonnet
Clear taillights

Interior:
Cusco 4PT halfcage
Recaro SR3 drivers seat
S15 passenger
Nardi Steering wheel
Nismo duracon gear knob

Suspension/brakes/wheels:
Full 5 stud conversion, 4 pot front (S14)
Kei office front coilovers, D2 rear (these things are shit)
17X9 +17 SSR XZR-4's
15mm rear spacers so effective +2 rear and +7 front with S14 lower arms
215 45 17 all round
Megan racing 'drop joints'

Engine:
RB25DE VVT from R33 Complete
RB25DE manual gearbox
Exedy 5 puk clutch (brand new)
9 bolt flywheel
RD28 engine cross member
CA18DET radiator
2.5" custom exhaust (will need to be modified)

So I quickly calculated who much it will cost if I built it from scratch, and yeah a good NZ$8000 worth of parts, and I'm getting at NZ$6000. The idea was to build and sell it. And maybe have some fun while doing it.

How it came advertised

Next round I'll post up some pics of my journey on completing this...

That is great Barend, you have something new now to pour your heart and soul into, hopefully next time you wouldent need to sepirate!!!

Good luck with the new project, this time around I am sure you wouldn't pay as much school fees as before.

Looking forward!!!

This is going to be a Delight! Cant wait!!

Goodluck, does look like some hard work, ...but you got enough lekker bits to make it a seriously nice project.

haha solid!! looks awesome dude!!

Glad to see this up here. All the best with the project mate!!!

You can make some extra cash by organizing bargain S13 parts, and selling it to me for a tiny markup 😛 hehe

sounds like an interesting project, good luck!

I dig the name of this project.

And x2 on the export/import of bits too SA.. help some brothers out!

DriftZ wrote:

I dig the name of this project.

And x2 on the export/import of bits too SA.. help some brothers out!

x10000000000000000000000000000000000000

Vlade nice to see you back on the forum.

Seriously parts to SA would be awesome. Z32 rear calipers hint hint.

Welcome back, Vlade! Will be watching this project with a lot of interest 🙂

Toby wrote:

Welcome back, Vlade!

Hehe I never left 😉

Sorry for the delay, blame woman and other hobbies...

Everyone wrote:

Parts?

As Gary would know, parts is rather hard for me to source, problem is time & money, shipping is a bitch too. As soon as I'm financially sorted I'll try again to help guys out.

Car is way further in progress than pics, but will go with the flow

Willie fixing the steering up, so she can roll, straight.

cleaned all bits, and the car, grouped and sorted all the parts, got the front swaybar in and all the suspension tighthend up and semi aligned, but then we hit a snag the left ball joint's thread is buggered, so I had to source another one.

Then the Motor was an Auto so we had to remove the damn auto spigot bush, thing was a bit tougher to remove than the CA one, but we turned to my good friend... Google for some advice, and found a cheap DIY method.

You take a roll-bolt or an anchor-bold that just about fits in the spigot hole, get something to leverage off so you can tighten the bolt and extract the bush... sorta like this...

walla!

test fitted the gearbox and clutch assembly... just needs to be torqued up

My ultimate goal with this car is something similar to this, simple and efficient

sweet stuff!!! looks awesome!!

Any updates?!

haha plenty of updates, been giving you guys drips and drabs...

Before the motor went in I changed the cambelt, removed all the unnecessary shit from the old aircon unit, and blocked off all the heater lines. Guy I bought the car from said the motor did about 70 000 km odd...

Motor ready to go in...

After some blood and sweat, and help from my flat mates, and fellow Silvia owners we got the motor in...

With the motor in, the front sits rather low, it just about clears the bump on my garage entry... 😈

We got a thing here in NZ, if you're car is higher than 300mm from the center of the wheel to the guard... its a 4x4, roads are very similar to SA if not worse because of the variation in terrain, so you learn to deal with it.

Next on the cards was the wiring... Since this motor was an Auto late model R33 I struggled my ass off trying to find a wiring diagram that could help me get on the way... the local guys called my ECU the gray plug of doom (NEO RB), since few people had success with it wiring it up...

A bit of the wiring nightmare...

My Flatmate Willie, did an awesome job wiring up all the lights, start and charging system...

The lights look freaking awesome, I'm gonna change the perspex cover on them though, will buy some UV resistant perspex and create some new covers for them...

After more than 2 weeks of struggling and pulling my hair out I finally got it going... I ended up using a wiring diagram from an R34 Stagea

It's Alive!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skBtxH-afu8

I was really worried about the ECU and the RB NEO nightmare stories...

I'm over the moon, after the wiring diagrams and pinouts on the ECU made sense it all came together quite quickly...

added new special ECU 🙄

still looks rough, will tidy things up now, and get rid of those stock intake pipes

Now that I know everything is wired up, I deloomed the front harness...

The bits not needed

Passenger side completed, still need to finish the other side...

Willie started chopping up the exhaust we are gonna mend it temporarally 😛 so we can drive it to a muffler shop to get it welded up... but we ran out of grinding disks, exhaust is freaking tough

Awesome build man 🙂

Really makes one want to go to NZ!

Another update... should probably just post the lot

Any way... Took it for a spin when we got it running... literately 😳

First I beached it....

Took it on the road, spun it around, to get back in the complex

looking dirty...

Rear is still high, front is just unpractical low, can't get in or out of our complex without scraping the chassis on the ground, there is no way I'm gonna get around with a bumper on... Will need to make a plan... maybe cement up the driveway one night with some quick set cement 😈 😈 😈

I had to raise the car as it was just too low... 10mm didn't cut it 😢 tires were still touching body, had to raise it a total of 14mm, tires will still hit the wheel well under a hard corner, but I'll live with it.

So this is how it looks now... Not very happy about the look, maybe some spacers will make it look moar flush 😕

Took a hammer to the body, so it won't touch under some load

How Willie temporarily mended the exhaust... africa style... going to get an joint inserted there

Installed some fans... I really wanted to use the ECU's functionality to turn them on, but the harness has no pin for the auxiliary fan switch 😈 and a couple of failed attempts to pull out a pin from some unused wires failed, and I wasn't even sure if the ECU was programmed to switch an auxiliary fan, so I made the most of the old AT override switches.

Did a whole lot of misc shit, like getting the speedo running, engine temp, wipers... takes allot of freaking time.

Safty loops are in... hope it satisfy's the certifiers, if it doesn't meh... will redo it with slightly thicker flatbar (its a rule here in NZ, when you do engine upgrade you need safety loops)

Its got a bonnet now (well it had for the last few weeks, but only fitted last weekend). HID's working again, dunno what was wrong, but upgraded fuses to 35A per channel.

Took apart the cluster to see whats going on in there. As I need to get my rev counter to work on the 6. There is an adjustable POT (Potentiometer), so my guess is that with the right tools (an automotive analyser) I'll be able to recalibrate it. I think.. :|

My Inspiration

It's nearly done bitches...

Some more misc photos

My mates car parked in my garage we fixed it up for him while he was on holiday

Long story short, after 6 weeks of getting grilled by NZ Transport Authority I got my car road legal and can now drive it around... Car has been on the road for 2 months now, its an absolute dream to drive, so much direct feedback.

Being more a race car than an actual road car, it lacks the basics like heaters/cooling/aircon/rear seats/sound damping so its loud, its hard but I always wanted something like this... even if it looks scrappy, I'll eventually paint it, if I don't sell it before then.

Judging by that smile the forst drive was a bommer!!!

Great stuff Barend!!!

You cant sell that!!!

Its looking awesome! coming along so nicely. And I dont know why but I love those wheels!
The car in general just looks so hard! I think you have to put up a video.

I want mine to be loud and hard, it must spit flames and noise every gear change and rumble like an angry thundercloud when coasting down through the gears.....

Good work dude