A Race Car is Born

As you all know, I have been planning on building my own race car for some time now.

After looking around for some time trying to find the car that I would like to race and for something that will fit my budget I found one. I could have gone with a Golf, but there is nothing I dislike more than a MK1 or MK2 golf.

I decided on the Nissan Sentra. I was fortunate enough to get hold of a New Spec Sentra chassis. Cheap as chips as the car's engine bay burnt out. The owner then went and stripped the car to sell as parts. I then took the rolling chassis from him.

This suits me as I do not need anything from the inside of the car, no motor, no gearbox, no interior.....and I dont need to strip it! 😂

Front fenders, bonnet and bumpers I do not need as I will be making them from fibreglass. There I have somebody that is lending me his car so I can make some moulds and panels from his New Spec.

The car looks in a right sorry state! 😮 However on closer inspection its mostly surface rust with a little hole in the front of the roof and some cancer at the rear window seam. The rest of the chassis is in very good condition. The front will need some work and I will be cutting out some supports and replace them.

The car will be going in for sand blasting (probably bead blasting) soon. Then will get primered adn work will start to get the chassis in tip top shape. In that time I will also start with making of all of the body panels. All stock with now flares, will look like stock Sentra shell for now. I might add 30mm fender flares, however Im still thinking about it.

Specs on the car?

The idea will be to have it close to the Sentra Touring cars that was raced years ago.

Motor:
SR20DE Block
Stock crank
GTiR conrods
ARP rod bolts
GTiR Head (port & polished)
Modified GTiR throttles (intake manifold is modified and throttles now has trumpets)

Those are the basics of the motor, I will go more into detail as we do the strip down and refresh.
The motor is currently sitting at 189kw on the flywheel, not sure on torque.

Full suspension will be done with coilovers and fabricated control arms ect.

15" x 8J wheels will be run, still looking for the right set. Most are too heavy or is a 7J.

Projected weight will be 850kg without the driver.

I will try and document this build as much as possible! And take as many pictures as I can!

Some inspiration

Primera I know but still looking epic!

wow good luck Mario 🙂

good luck, sounds like it will be a fun project
that engine seems strong 😮 should be a beast with the intended weight

Nice , i love the facelift sentras !

so you will be running turbo ?
Drag car ?
Track Car ?

Full track car
No turbo
200-220kw Normally Aspirated Motor (same spec as Sentra/Primera Touring cars)

Nice to see something diff for a change. Good luck with her!!!!

Nice one bud, you know who to come to for the lightweights!

Thanks guys.... Very excited about this little project.

Is it DONE yet?

will be a awesome build when done

Hahahaha! I wish!

Stripping of all of the suspension parts and rest of the left over parts will happen this weekend.

From there the car will go in for blasting to get rid of all of the grid and grime. When its back it will get a good coat of primer.

The body will stand like that untill I have pulled all of the moulds for the fenders, bonnet, boot lid and bumpers.

In the meantime Ive been sourcing some rear hubs as these are for drums and it will be converted to discs. Just a bolt on job, so thats nice and easy. I might have found some nice 4 pot calipers (280mm dics) for the front and some 2 pots for the rear.

Wheels are still a headache!

And I offcially decided.....this will be the look I will go for.

Just looks like a proper race car

First painted part of the car! 😂 Couldnt resist not spraying it...

Photos doesnt show the colour too well.....looks awesome in real life.

epic dude!!

gonna be a monster

We hope so! Build will be in full swing from begining of next month

So at last the chassis has been sent in for blasting and primer! Havnt been able to do much as work has been keeping me very busy and ofcourse me being in JHB since July and now in Durban untill end of the year.

I have found some stock S14 discs and calipers (front and rear) that will be put on the car, should be getting them with in the next few days. Will be using upgraded S14 discs (same size, just better materials) and some proper race pads and fluid.

Will add some pics when the car is back from sandblasting.

Got the car back today, will be getting primered as I post this tonight. All and all I dont think it came out too bad. There are a few cancer sopts, however nothing serious at all!

Why didnt you do this with your 240z!!!! :facepalm:

260Z had too many structual repairs done in the past and I felt it was unsafe to use as a race car. Would have had too cut the car into pieces and import replacement parts.

Ahh ok