I bought my very good friend Dennis (silverton)'s '87 200SX SE-V6 yesterday. Here is a link to his build thread on the car: http://club-s12.org/retro4/index.php?topic=33152.0
I've been involved with this car since he bought it. I flew to Colorado with Dennis to buy the car and drive it home. That was a fun trip that involved a 50mph spin into the median backwards on black ice, MUCH speed across several states, lots of loud music and caffeine, and a scary as hell drive over Dead Man Pass in a blizzard with me at the wheel. Most of the work done to the car to this point was done at my shop, mostly by Dennis, but with an 'assist' from me on things like fab work.
I was riding in Colin's S12 shooting video of the car along the waterfront on the viaduct when some idiot did a lane change directly in front of Dennis and smashed the nose of the S12. It was dumb luck that I got the illegal lane change and resulting accident on tape. I replaced the core support on the S12 with one we went and got in Eastern Washington. Dennis did all the sanding, painting, and most of the taking stuff apart and putting it back together required to fix the car. I did the structural work.
Here's a quick run down of mods to the car to this point, my starting point. (Mostly a copy & paste from the CL ad.)
Drivetrain:
Vented Stock Airbox with "French Fry Guard"
MSD 6AL
Blaster 2 Coil
Maxima 90 amp Alternator
Test-Pipe (cat delete)
Borla XR-1 Stainless Racing Muffler
Lightened steel flywheel ~16.5 pounds
Z31T Clutch (Nissan factory parts)
5 speed swap with FS5W71C trans (broken)
Shortened Shifter with Perrin billet aluminum knob
Braided stainless clutch line eliminating dampener
Suspension / Brakes / Chassis:
Z31T front hubs with Infiniti J30 rotors and calipers w/ Metal Master brake pads
Z31 trailing arms with vented rotors and Metal Master brake pads
Braided Stainless brake lines all around
Cut stock springs
Tokico Illumina 5-way adjustable front struts
KYB Gas-adjusts rear shocks
Rear cross member slotted for camber adjustment
Experimental Engineering T/C Kit
Solid Steering Rack Mount
N/A Z32 wheels with 225/50 Yokohama S.drive tires
1/2" spacers up front with longer studs
RabidChimp Rear Seat Latch Brace
Tinted Windows
Audio:
Pioneer head unit w/auxiliary plug routed under the center console
Pioneer 3/4 way speakers that sound AMAAAZING
450w Rockford Fosgate punch 4-channel amp
12" Audiopipe subwoofer powered by a 350w Pioneer 2-channel amp
It's loud and clear all the way up to ear bleed levels
And here's a couple pics of what it currently looks like:
In my next installment I'll go over my plans for the car, including why the word "Turbo" is in the thread title. :cool2:
Post Merge
Now, my plans for the car. As some of you may know I own a little company called Experimental Engineering. I've always been mostly a 510 guy but I currently build a couple things that fit S12s. I want to expand my offerings for this chassis. I'd been looking for a cheap SE for quite some time as I really wanted a car on hand for use in developing parts. There are several local S12s I could borrow for development but there's nothing like having one of your own on hand all the time. This car is also going to be my driver most of the time so I'll be highly motivated to develop parts that make it faster. <_< Anything and everything that I build for this car has the potential to become a production part.
The first thing I'm going to do is swap an FS5R30A transmission into the car. My future plans exceed the torque capacity of the 71C trans. The transmission in the car now is broken.
The next likely project is making the rear suspension fully adjustable for camber, toe, and track width (poke) while moving the pivot points up to lower the rear roll center and reduce the camber curve. I've had a plan in my head for this for a few years and a fully adjustable rear suspension crossmember is a product I'd like to produce for the S12 and Z31.
At the same time I will do either rear coilovers or adjustable perches with 5" race springs or whatever is a good fit. I want to be able to buy springs in 25 pound increments and set the ride height wherever I want.
The front will get coilover springs using modified SE struts with my own upper perches developed for 510 use.
Adjustable lower control arms and T/C rods will likely come next.
I'm going to need swaybars to complete the suspension and will likely just buy a set. It's not worth the effort to make my own.
The car is going to get fast, so a full roll cage is in order to stiffen the chassis and hopefully keep me alive should I stuff the car. In addition to street use I intend to run track days, do a little drag racing, and hopefully hill climb the car on occasion.
Five point belts and a set of Recaro seats will probably go into the car at the same time as the cage.
I'll have to pick up another R200LSD, or buy an ARB air locker for the front of my Pathy wheeler so I can pull the Nismo LSD unit out and swap it into the S12.
At that point the chassis should be pretty well sorted and it'll be time to start on the motor. :yay!:
The logical first thing to do to the engine is build a high capacity Competition Oil Pan similar to the ones I produce for VG510s and Z31Ts. VGs cannot tolerate any amount of oil starvation. The S12's saving grace is that it's front sump so there isn't far for the oil to go when the car experiences it's highest snap G - at corner entry. A baffled pan is a requirement on a corner-bending mid sump VG510 or a well sorted rear sump Z31T. The downside to the front sump layout is that hard launches with serious power can send most of the oil to the rear of the pan uncovering the pickup. I do not know at what point this becomes critical as I don't know of any serious turbo VG S12s. I'm going to need to add a turbo oil drain fitting and a temp sensor bung to the S12 pan, might as well add a couple quarts and a diamond trap to make it full race while I'm at it. :yes:
The initial motor 'build' will involve turbocharging the stock VG30E using Z31T injection components and turbo on a set of top mount turbo headers of my own design. I'm going to locate the turbo at the right front corner of the engine using up part of the battery's stock location. This gives the shortest practical intercooler plumbing since VG throttle bodies are always on the driver's side. I love my air conditioning and have all the plumbing worked out so none of the stock components except the battery and airbox have to be moved. I intend to run 12psi as that's the upper limit of stock Z31T stuff which is what most people would likely use if they bought a set of these headers.
Distant future: Down the road a ways I'm going to build a serious turbo VG engine with the goal of 400hp to the ground on pump gas. It will use Z32 based fuel injection with some trickery from HKS. Other than pistons I have all the major parts for this engine build. This motor is why I need a 30A trans. I'll talk more about this in a year or so if all goes well.
My goal is to have the car to this point of it's development (VG30E+T) by Summer so I can enjoy it during the nice weather rather than working on it. I already have most of the expensive parts to do all of the above. This is a really fast/aggressive build plan, the shortest time frame I've ever tried to achieve building something like this. It's also the first time I've laid out a plan before I even bought the car. I know exactly what I want to do and which components I want to use. I've been thinking about many of these mods since Dennis bought the S12 and have worked out most of the details in advance. I will take lots of pics and try to keep this thread up to date as I'm working on the car. I'm self employed and whenever possible S12 development is going to be at the top of my to do list. Wish me luck.
