So I thought it's probably about time I start a build thread since my car is finally close to actually being built!
A bit of history - I started out with a stage 1 S14, which I crashed slightly so converted the front end to S14a, then bought an RB25DET which sat in my garage for about 4 years with big plans of fitting it but never actually happening. I also had plans of a roll cage of some sort, but the old shell was going to need a bit of welding and proper de-rusting so I decided to buy a new shell to start afresh with (more on that later). It was by no means a rotten shell, but to treat everything properly, chop out and repair rusty sills etc seemed like a lot of hassle.
So around 2 years ago I broke the old S14 in my mate's garage, removing as much as I could, only really leaving in the glass and a few engine bay bits that I don't need for the new car. The old SR20 was sold as a complete package for a grand to fund some some of the stuff I needed for the new car. I kept the rear subframe, all susppesnion parts, dash (and everything behind it), brakes, all running gear apart from the gearbox, all panels, lights etc, full car loom, fusebox, and stored pretty much everything in my shed. I sold the old wheels since they were weak offsets and needed spacers all round to fill standard arches.
Onto the new car. A shot blasted shell with £1400 worth of weld-in Fabricage came up for sale for what was a sensible price, and it stayed for sale for about 6 months with no takers. I kept an eye on the for-sale thread and the price kept dropping still with no takers, presumably due to the amount of work required for a bare-metal build. I offered £400 and the seller accepted, so off I went to collect the shell from a village near Colchester with the trailer! Oh and did I mention that the shell came on a rolling trolley which bolts to the front and rear subframe mounting points? And it came with a private plate - S14 ADK?
The shell was fairly holy. If it was still a complete car to be honest most of the rust wouldn't have been apparent, but because it had been shot-blasted any thin rusty metal just got blasted out. The main areas needing repaired were the usual suspects - rear of the sills and inside all four wheel arches. Nothing major, just small areas to be plated. Anything ropey looking was chopped out and replaced properly. At the same time we made jacking feet out of 3mm thick steel channel, welded onto the sills in the original jacking points. Most of you will know that the main cause of bent and/or rusty sills on Nissans is using the jacking points. Now they're strong and actually usable with a trolley jack.
Around the same time as we were repairing the shell I decided I wanted to prep the car to be able to fit wide wheels front and back, so the front and rear arches were tubbed. I bought a set of Rota MXR 18x11 ET8 brand new (was a good deal from JDM Garage) with the intention of fitting the same size all round (265 tyres front, 285 rear) but I've since had a re-think. To fit the 11j fronts I need around a 12mm spacer to clear the coilovers, and it would look a bit daft with spacers on the front and not the rear, so I bought a pair of 12mm slip-ons and 16mm slip-ons. This meant I needed longer studs, so all four hubs now have 20mm longer studs. In hindsight I'd rather not fit spacers at all so I'm trying to sell a pair of 11j wheels to fund the same wheels in 10j ET12, which should hopefully mean no spacers required. If I can do this then I'm gonna go for Federal RS-R tyres front and back - 235 fronts and 265 rears. Since these tyres measure up wider than they should be there shouldn't be too much stretch front or rear.
Much more to come...