Finished off a few little bits but overall I havent got much done on it lately. A quick pic of where things are up to now. The guards, bumper, bonnet and side skirts are all mounted. I need to get some more slicks as the GT3 rears I have wont fit under the guards.

Ive started making up the exhaust. Im trying to make it sit as high as possible so the flat floor and diffuser will still be effective.

I think i'm going to chop it in half now and re-weld it to have it going out the passengers side at the rear. Having it go out the drivers side will make the exhaust straighter but as i'm having the flat floor, the gearbox and diff will be getting hot with no airflow around them. I think a cooling channel running between the flat floor and gearbox/ diff/ exhaust will be wise. At the start of this channel I am thinking off having the air intake. Hard to explain in words but I will get some pics up when I start the floor

So i've given up trying to make my own body kit. It was a hell of a lot of work and I enjoyed doing it, but I just wasn't going to be able to do it to a good enough standard. So it all ended up like this..

Since then I have bought;

* Dmax S14 Facelift bonnet

* Msport S14 Facelift bodykit

* Msport Rear guards

* Fibreglass boot

* Fibreglass GT wing

* Soon to buy Dmax front guards

Tomorrow I will start on fitting the rear guards

Head games

Things have changed alot without changing at all since my last post. I am soon to order/have ordered a number of parts which will change the direction of the build completely. Sometimes you just have to admit that maybe you bit off more than you could chew.

In saying that, come the end of June the body work should be on the car and in that time hopefully I will be able to get the wiring a bit further along. The September 11 trackday deadline is approaching increasingly fast as each week goes on and I am really keen not to go to another trackday as just a spectator!

Aside from the body work the main things left to do are..
- Fab up the side exit exhaust
- Get the intercooler piping back from the welder and fit it.
- De loom the wiring/ add the new wires from the gauges and ebc
- Make up the front splitter, diffuser, flat floor
- Possibly lexan windows and fiberglass doors

And that is pretty much all the big stuff that is left!

Fuel lines are all finished now, hooked up and ready to go except for the wiring. Ive also put the sensors for the oil press, oil temp, and water temp gauges in. The oil return pipe is finished and all hooked up.

Ive had a chat to Andy from X-tune and it looks like he will be able to tune the car for me. All going well this will be happening in the next few months.

Now I just have to put my head down and get the body work finished!

Ive now got all the fuel bits I need. Surge tank, Fuel cell, Walbro intank are in. I just have to finish up a bracket for the bosch 044 and that can be installed along with the feed line from the surge tank. Other than that the fuel lines are finished! I have put the fuel filter where the fuel tank normally sits.

Turbo lines are finished except for the oil return, which I am getting drilled out and a 90deg adaptor screwed in.

The Oil filter relocation kit is mounted and all lines are hooked up to the oil cooler/block. I only ended up using two of the braided hoses that came with the kit. One was the right length and the other one was chopped into two and two new fittings were crimped on.

I must say a big thankyou to Richard and Steve from Kapiti Diesel for helping me sort out the fittings and braided lines over the last couple of weeks.

Intercooler piping is off getting welded at the moment and once I get it back the car should be getting close to being started! The only major thing left is the wiring.

Not much progress on the body work. Im quite unmotivated to work on it at the moment. Mechanical work is so much more fun! Although I have had some ideas on how to make quite alot less work for my self in the body work department, so I will have to see how that goes.

More grinding, plastering, sanding and sawing. Put the wheels back on to see how it was turning out. We have re-done the front guards, more JGTC styled which should be better on the aerodynamic side of things. Still lots and lots to do on the front bumper.

My new goal is the NZ Silvia day at Taupo on the 11th of September, which gives me ample time and no excuses not to have it going by then! After this there is another two days at Taupo every 2nd month that I want to get to as well.

Ive bought all the intercooler parts I need (thanks Luxury sports and DSR Turbo) and have just finished chopping them up to fit. Its all worked out really well and with the exception of the 90deg silicon bend coming off the turbo, all the curves are aluminium and smooth. I will only need to use 4 joiners for the hole intercooler system. Hopefully next week I will be able to get the pipes welded up.

Off the front of the turbo I didn't have much room. So I have decided to go straight down using a 90deg aluminium pipe with the Z32 airflow meter attached to that. I'm looking at making a cold air box to sit slightly above the front splitter, with a  decent sized duct in the bottom middle of the front bumper to make sure ample air is available.

Sam R came over last weekend and gave me a hand with the plaster. We got quite a bit done. The front is really starting to take shape. Now its mainly just grinding and sanding and sanding and grinding until we get it done.

All the small things

Not much exciting in this update. Ive put the fuel lines, powersteering lines, brake lines and front brakes on. Made up some brackets for the oil cooler and some c shaped washers for the radiator to sit on. They will raise it slightly and mean that less air is getting blocked off by the stock metal brace that goes east to west along the engine bay. Ive chopped up the powersteering resivor bracket and welded it back together. It now resides at the end of the passengers side front tub.

Plaster, plaster

Lots of plaster. Luckily the frame I made for the front guards and bumper is reasonably solid. I'm up to about 110kg of plaster that I have put on the car now, and thats not including the water that's mixed with it. I think the chicken wire and plaster combo has worked well, but if I ever do this again I will be at least doing the front bumper in high density foam.

The dream of having the body work done by the end of the weekend, turned out to be just that. Although I got a fair bit done, I now realise there are many, many more hours to be spent sanding and grinding until it will be ready.

Chicken wire

After having the idea of using chicken wire to form the shape of the body suggested (thanks sam :)), I gave it a go and its turned out pretty well. After plastering over it, its super strong for what i need as the wire provides something for the plaster to sink through. The shape of the front bumper is still very much in progress. It will be much rounder at the front once im done. Ive got a long weekend this weekend so im hoping to have the body pretty much ready for fibreglassing by the end of it.

Christmas Holidays

Over the christmas break I got quite alot done on the car. The rear guards are well underway, Dad came round and finished off installing the cams and tapped the water feed and return. The engine is back in and ive fabed up some brackets for the intercooler. As far as starting the car goes I need a few fittings for the fuel lines, the turbo lines, the wiring needs to be done, intercooler piping needs to be fabed and the exhaust needs to be made up. So things are getting reasonably close!

 Ive started the front bumper but theres alot of work to go and I still need to start the side skirts but they shouldnt be too much work. Then theres just the splitter, flat floor and diffuser to go!

A run down on where things are at so far

The plan is to build a time attack based s14. I started with a very straight s14 sr20de auto, in incredibly good condition for its age, and things have spiralled out of control from there! I will still be using an SR20DE but adding a turbo to it which should make for a very torquey, responsive engine. The down side due to the high compression is I will be restricted to about 250kw for reliability's sake.

So far the car has, been completely seam welded, front tubs, a custom rear floor for the fuel cell and also for a diffuser to sit, and an 8 point roll cage from the front struts to the rear struts has been welded in.

I am using a stagea rear subframe (with custom Als Workshop (http://www.alsworkshop.co.nz/) solid Aluminium bushes) which push the track out 25mm on each side and this combined with 25mm spacers and +15p 9.5wide wheels, means I have an excuse to make a reasonably extreme widebody kit!

I started off with the idea of putting a 180sx front on the car and the front guards have been cut in half and joined so they are now front 180 and rear s14. Since then I have had a change in plans and the car now has an s13 bonnet and I am in the process of making a custom front bumper from scratch. The front guards have been widened by approximately 60mm each side and the rear 90mm each. I am in the process of making these at the moment, as you will see in the pictures below. A full flat floor including front splitter and aforementioned diffuser will be the next step.

The engine has just had Brian Crower valve springs and 264deg camshafts installed. The oil return has been drilled and all that needs to be done now before the engine goes in, is to get the water feed drilled. The oil feed will be coming from a sandwich filter adaptor and the water return will be into the standard SR20DET water pipe. Dayne from DSR Turbo has hooked me up with one of his brand new DSR2871j turbos, which should be the perfect compromise between power and response for the levels I am aiming for. An aluminium radiator will cool the water, while a half sandwich mount half front mount positioned intercooler should give me a good compromise between lag and temperature. Fuel will be supplied from the Jazz 30L fuel cell through a Walbro 500hp intank fuel pump to a surge tank (yet to buy) and then onto a Bosch 044 external fuel pump, which will send the fuel to the Sard 550cc injectors. I will be running the standard manual gearbox mated to an SR20DET flywheel and 5 puk Excedy clutch.

On the handling front I am using Neotech adjustable suspension, adjustable rear toe and camber arms, and adjustable castor arms for the front, a front whiteline 3 point adjustable sway bar and a front Cusco Strut brace. At this stage the braking department is taken care of with front and rear R32 GTR brakes.

I will try to update this blog weekly as the car gets closer and closer to moving under it own power, for the first time in two years :).