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Thread: GreyDesigns - Sr20 S12 - Build

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    GreyDesigns - Sr20 S12 - Build

    Right where to start, I am planning to build a new car...

    Why the S12? -
    I love old jap cars, I bought a mk3 supra at 18 or 19 and loved it. It was an ace car, even if it did consume all of my pay, cost over £2000 to insure and drank petrol like it was going out of fashion. I started learning to drift in it down at crail, but being an N/A it just wasn't fast enough for me. March 2013, I had saved for a while and finally had enough for a cheap S14, I searched around for a few weeks and one night spotted one going pretty cheap on ebay, it had hardly any bids and a horrible body kit, new tyres, new mot, loads of tax and lowish miles. It was going to end soon, so seeing it had just had a new MOT on it and I couldn't see any rust in the pictures, I put a sneaky bid down on it ",how bad could it be?"

    Turns out it was the worst purchase I could have possibly made. I got a flight down, and picked it up in some crazy rain, then drove it up from Southampton back up to Aberdeen in a very long day, when I got under the car the next morning, I was shocked to see it was rusty, very rusty! - In fact the car is fully rotten. To the extent where there is pretty much nothing holding it together (I'll take some pics of that soon!,) despite looking perfect on top. Spoke to VOSA, it was a dodgy mot, there was nothing I could legally do to get my money back. I had just thrown away the largest savings I had ever had, and I was very angry for a long time. I still wanted a drift car, So I sold the Supra and bought an E36 that I have been driving since and have built up a fantastic car out of it. But I still crave that Jap Turbo power, the heartache and hatred I have for my S14 had subsided, so I decided it was time to decided what to do with it. I almost bought back my Supra as a shell to save it from the scrapyard and fit the SR into that. Until I spotted this unusual S12 here on SXOC, in Scotland no less! And for hardly any money. I became totally smitten with the pictures of it from the add and former SXOC members build thread on here for it too.

    So, I get a lift up to see the car. Its a bit rusty in places, but the majority of the car is mint really! And it has some s****y Rotas on it. Deal.

    I know that it has some running issues and might cut out on me, and it did. On the third time while on the slip road for a bridge on the A9, I decided to throw in the towel and call for roadside recovery. A few hours sitting with this cool car on a nice sunny day, feeding some friendly cows. Piece of cake, and I save a load on fuel (I am used to waiting on recovery from previous Supra adventures.)

    We get the car hooked up to the back of the van, finally. End of the days dramas, time to go home, get something to eat. We stop a few times to check the exhaust hasn't been scrapping as it was only a few cm off the ground. No issues again. So at this point, I had driven the car for 40 odd miles, and we had towed it for 20 or 30. All of a sudden there is a loud scraping noise, and looking in the mirrors, the car behind is flashing its lights with hazards on and the car is sitting a bit funny..."F+ck, what now?..."

    Get out of the van to see my luck has not really changed with s bodies, as the S12 has no wheel now. Turns out the rear wheel nuts were loose for some reason (really loose) I had to run back 1/4 mile to find a my Rota wheel in a field. We hadn't even noticed it had fallen off as the exhaust had taken the weight instead, until it melted down. Luckily it came off the passengers side and not the drivers side, as that would have been a whole other issue if it had hit a car on the other lane!

    So here I am now, I own this cool S12 and a rotten S14. I plan to merge the two and try to make a respectable drift car out of it.

    I have never welded before, and I have never swapped an engine over before. So I have lots to learn and lots to go wrong, I can't wait.


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    That was nice rotas btw. Why it has blanked s****y, I have no idea. Now it looks like s****y... Haha. But yeah, nice wheels!

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    Now with 400bhp....
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    This thread need pics Sounds like an awesome project and I'm sorry but I did laugh about the random lost rim
    1998 Nissan 200sx s14a , 2000 std 5 speed with nismo supercoppermix clutch bn6 Sapphire Blue

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    I'm sorry, how can you lose a wheel and "not really notice"?? lol.

    Welcome to the build thread anyway you crazy cat.

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    Haha, it supprised us too. Apparently stainless steel exhausts dont make much noise as they wear down!

    And yes, I took a load of pics today. I will sneakily upload them when I get a chance at work tomorrow.

    Thanks for the welcome chaps.


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    Now with 400bhp....
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    Look forward to seeing this progress

    If it makes you feel better a mate of mine did the same with a mini on an aframe although it didn't wear out the exhaust
    1998 Nissan 200sx s14a , 2000 std 5 speed with nismo supercoppermix clutch bn6 Sapphire Blue

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    ooooooooh sweet. I want SR20 too! I will be with you all the way on this one!!

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    Nice, So clean!!!!! Nice front lip!

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    ooohhhhhh yeah I have the same bits.

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    Nice Rusty arch, its a shame as the rest are perfect with no rust at all, so I suspect this is an old bodge job coming back for revenge.
    10329695_769651123077778_2382594572766587655_o.jpg

    ECU located on the floor, for practicality...
    10497871_769651079744449_7872527280818690139_o.jpg

    Example of just how clean the majority of this cars underside is, all the nuts and bolts are perfect, nothing but light surface rust. Very happy about this.
    10497105_769651473077743_158704995818429999_o.jpg

    Shiny 'C' type gearbox - I think.
    10403963_769651339744423_5362053045630334584_o.jpg

    Some cool 'Custom' welded hangers on the exhaust.
    10380632_769651356411088_7846686321961336695_o.jpg

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    Quote Originally Posted by van_denton_san View Post
    ooohhhhhh yeah I have the same bits.
    Any idea what that rusty bracket looking thing is on the front?

    Mine are both rusted away, and they seem to just sit below the footwells. So I thought I would just cut some square holes and put some new stuff in.

    And thanks for the inerest in my thread btw. I will try and keep active and archived with this.

  15. #15
    Now with 400bhp....
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    I've got a lot of time for this, look forward to the updates
    1998 Nissan 200sx s14a , 2000 std 5 speed with nismo supercoppermix clutch bn6 Sapphire Blue

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    Time to update this sheet...

    FinalBoss took up one whole weekend, so I only got this last weekend to try and make a bit more progress.

    To summarise, I pulled my shitty S14 out of the field where it had been sitting and Jonny Mac came by and stripped some bits off it. I got my IC pipes back from S14 Stu as he had been using them while the car had been dead anyway, got them fitted back onto the car, and fixed some bad vacum lines too that Jonny had pointed out. Assembled my engine stand and 2 ton crane that I had ordered the week before, and had a quick look at my new Clarkey 150te mig (which I have no idea how to use yet.)

    I wanted to make sure the engine was running okay, and see what could do with being replaced before I pull it from the car, so - Upon trying to start the car, I realised NATS was being an grumpy child and decided to continually set the alarm off...after resetting the fob a bunch of times, that eventually shut up and started playing nice. However, I had no fuel pump priming for some reason. I quickly consulted with Joey200sx and decided to just hardwire the pump off the battery for the sake of testing, I think there was a bad ground to the pump, as just hardwiring the live still didn't have it working. Not really an issue, as none of that wiring will be used in the S12 anyway.

    So with the pump hardwired I got the car running again, seemed to be idling okay. Rattles like a train, but did hit boost without fuel cut. So the turbo gasket and vac lines I sorted must have been the main contributors to that mess.

    Next job, Make a more safe and sturdy temporary hard wire for the pump with just a big switch on live and a 30amp fuse, give the car more time to idle, then give it some light abuse and tempt it to blow up on me, and see if anything gives up (saves me wasting time fitting junk into the s12 if it will just blow up anyway!) - If the car runs fine after that, time to get the 14 ripped open and start a new shopping list!

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    Very crudely hardwired in the fuel pump with a cheap switch, but on testing the car I found I actually had no power. I had overlooked a serious vacuum leak - cold start pipe / idle feed pipe to IC cold pipe (Thanks Jonny Mac) - So I have bought a big oil pipe that should hopefully be able to plug it with, since I have no idea where the pipe is that is meant to go across there...

    I ran a compression test, the results were all pretty similar but the readings were lower than I would have expected. I will borrow a decent one and see how they are later.

    The sooner the car runs properly and I get boost, the sooner it gets ripped out. With the SXOC day at crail on saturday, and going on a two day drive the following weekend I only have this Sunday to work on the car. So if all goes well, I should get the engine pulled out the start of next month (and maybe have some spare cash to start buying parts and tools. I am still not sure how far I want to go into tidying up the engine.

    I will put some pics up of these bodged temp repairs soon.

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    Advice on welding would be, get a spec shit on the welder so you know what settings for what gauge metal.
    Make sure you use gas, and push into the gas rather than pull away if you can when welding.

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    S12

    This is cool I've had s12before and brother still has one which he needs to get back on road very cool looking motors. Looking forward to see what you do

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