Project - S13 Avarice

Okay it has been about 3 months since I got my S13, and I finally have been pressured into making a project thread by one of my friends at the vwclub. Stay tuned this is going to be a long one 😛

I will hopefully have some pics online by tonight.

Let's start at the beggining. I saw the car for sale on the forum and I was in the area at the time to go have a look at it. It was not in 100% condition but was very close. Mechanically I was not to worried since I had been planning to do some stuff to the engine in any case. I decided then and there I wanted it.

When I got the car home I fixed a few of the electrical problems , basically just the rear lights and driver side power windows. The rear lights were extremely dim even at night, so took off cover to see what was going on. It seems like whoever replaced the bulbs swapped the orientation so they were nowhere close to the reflectors. Easy fix 😛 Just swapped them back to where they were supposed to be.

Next I took out the driver side window amp. Took it apart and found some of the solder joints were no longer connected to the PCB. Quick resolder and that was sorted as well. Will have some pics of how I did this.

After driving around with the little CA I found it was also very floaty at speed and was scraping everything on the road. It felt like the suspension was bottoming out on even the tiniest little bump. So after I spoke with the bank manager I got myself I nice set of BC Coilovers from RB25SX (Thanks again!) 😀 . I got them on the Thursday and was so amped me and a friend worked till 01:00 on Friday to finish the installation.

The suspension is bloody fantastic. I would reccomend them to anyone.

This all happend on the second month of me owning the car.
On the third month tragedy struck. I was on my way back from visiting my parents and I lost power to the engine and some smoke from the front. I feared the worst.... After a "quick" tow to my house we started with the diagnosis. There was no compression on 3 of the 4 cylinders, the 4th cylinder bearly read 50psi the others were not even on the scale. We suspected either headgasket or maybe bent valves. Luckily the valves and head seem to be in 100% condition.

So now I am busy with an engine rebuild and some upgrades while everything is out of the engine bay 😀 This is my first car and first time really working on a car so it has been a real learning experience. I have bought a full gasket set and new bearings, piston rings, head bolts.

While I am at it. I am going to replace the SMIC with a FMIC, and replace the Atmospheric BOV with a Recirc BOV. I am still running the stock MAF. No idea why it was running with an atmospheric BOV 😕

Now I need some help from you guys.
I am looking for an engineering place in the Pretoria Central & East area, that does nice work. I am looking to balance the bottom end and skim the flywheel. As well as rebuilding the head and skim. While also replacing valve guides and oil seals. I don't have a spring compressor that works with the CA head. :facepalm:

Can you guys think of anything else I need to do?

Thanks again for reading and any assitance !
:200sx_200sx:

Welcome!

Glad to see you are still enjoying the car despite the setbacks encountered.

Keep us posted on the forum on your build progress.

Thanks Hotstuff! Will keep everybody updated as I go along.

Here are some pics as promised. Sorry for the crappy cell phone quality.

Here is a comparison shot of the BC Coilovers to what was in the car at the time.

After the install we found a slight miscalculation on the height........ 200sx 4x4 edition 😀

We got it back up on the jacks and fixed it asap.
Here are the coilies installed in the light of day.

And the car after everything was done. I apologize for the different profile tyres, still need to fix that.

Next set of pictures will show the initial disassembly of the engine.

Welcome! And looks good!

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Okay here we started with the dissasembly when I got home. We first started by removing the head with intake and exhaust mani still attached.

The engine bay with the hood removed. We also removed the airbox and clutch fan as well as the shroud to give us some room.

A quick look into the bowls of a very dirty engine. The stock exhaust manifold was modified with a T3 flange for the bigger turbo. Cant see a brand name or anything else on it. 😕

A closer view of the modification to the exhaust mani.

A slightly closer view of the turbo still attached.

Extremely dirty intake and throttle body.

Jumping forward a bit now. We have already removed the head and we then got to removing the engine and gearbox from the bay

Very lonely engine bay 😢

Note to self.... Engines make great cup holders.

And Here is a VERY dirty bathtub full of engine spares and prepsol 😀

I will hopefully have some more pics online asap.
Bump on my first post question. Anyone know of a good automotive engineer in Pretoria Central & East area?
Cheers !!

:200sx_200sx:

Your wife/girlfriend is gonna kill you! Hahaha.

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HAHAHA, Yeah luckily this bathtub is not in use atm. So no harm done 😀

Shweet and I bring my parts for a prepsol bath?

Do you offer Jacuzzi service as well.

Nice wheel!!!!

Welcome, But just one thing from me, Please throw away that CA while you have the chance now.....

If you go SR, you will enjoy alot more worry free km....

Okay guys I have been lurking far too long, here are some updates for my little wallet sucking monster.

@P3g4sus. Hahaha, yeah I have been told many a time the CA is more usefull as a boat anchor 😂

Okay unfortunately I dont have nice pics of when the block came back from engineering, too excited to take pics. I just jumped in and started bolting stuff together 😀 So here are the pics I currently have and the state of my engine as of now. For the sake of not spamming the board with pics I am just going to add the URLs.

Here is the head when it came back from engineering with the valve cover hiding in the background, back from powder coating.
Head & Valve cover.

Then I set about cleaning the lifters, here is 'n nice comparison shot of one I cleaned vs uncleaned
Lifters

Then I also set about cleaning the cams. Poor thing was looking ragged 😕
Cams

Here is the top of the block with new pistons and stuff.
Engine Top

Front of the engine with the head on top.
Engine Front

Here is a shot from the side with the head on top.
Engine Three-quarter view

And then of course there are the new toys I got to play with 😀
Brand new FPR, the old one that was on the car was not stock, and was also slightly miff. Probably not the best quality FPR but it just has to do its job.
FPR

Oil catch can for ......... catching oil 🙄 Too bad they don't have one in yellow :/
Oil catch can

I also have a brand new Perfect Power XMS4 unit to replace the stock ECU. Pics in time.

And an Intercooler to replace the Dinky toy that comes with the car 😀
Intercooler

Now I am hopefully 80% done and will get time to drop the engine into the car, and then start with the plumbing. Sorry for the wait, but work can be a bastard and its how I pay for my baby, so it has to be done.
:200sx_200sx:

hey dude hurry up and finish this!!!!

In the works 😀 I got a few guys coming over to help me this weekend. Beer and KWV are good motivators.

Well done Pierce!!!

It looks the business!!

PS. Jy neem kak foto's :facepalm: 😀

Thanks Draco! it has been a long time coming but finally the end is in sight.

P.S Ja ek weet. Ek + Kamra = Epic Fail 😳 Practice makes perfect 😀

I was cleaning up around here and found the old dyno run for my car. The car was basically stock when this was done, only changes were a T3/T4 Turbo with a BOV.
Dyno Run

And here is a little vanity pic of the engine with valve covers and ornamental cover.
Engine with covers.

Looksing good how do you get the alloy parts to look like new?

Any bigger pictures bud ??

BigKriss wrote:

Any bigger pictures bud ??

lol i see only half a pic :facepalm:

@ NIZAN-R. Lots of prepsol, elbow grease and a steel brush 😛 I had to clean and strip basically everything. The oil that was in the car was like sludge, almost looked like the creature of the black lagoon took a dump in there 🙁 Since it did not have a catch can the nasty oil was basically everywhere.

@BigKriss & SonOfAnarchy ZA : The image resize for BBCode does not work here. I put them in links so the board does not cut them in half. Sorry about that. The fact that it still does that for you Jason, is weird O_o. I will whip out ye old photoshoppe and do some trimming. Apologies 😳

lol try using the forum to upload the pics direct it will resize it for you