Bahnstormers PS13 project

[Bahnstormer]

So, thought I'd start a thread on here to document the car's progress. This is all copied from another forum I'm a member of, so the timeline may not make sense straight away.....

This will be my fourth Nissan S-body car, I've previously had an S14a, an S13 hatchback and an S13 Sileighty, so I know my way around these quite well. Got a few plans for this one, nothing massive but just a few loose ends that need taking care of.

Current spec is:

Tubular manifold
Aftermarket turbo down pipe
Garrett T28
SR20DET rocker stoppers
Greddy front mount intercooler
Apexi air filter
3" straight through exhaust
New stainless steel expansion tank
DMAX D1 coil overs with top mount camber adjust 32 way damping adjustable from the bottom
Adjustable front tension rods
Nissan 4 pot callipers
Z32 track rod ends
Cusco rear subframe locking collars
Work Meister S1 wheels
Supermade Instant Gentleman bodykit
PS13 Projector HID headlights
Crystal rear lights
It also appears to have a paddle clutch and a 2 way diff fitted, which makes roundabouts interesting

I've already decided the rear lights are going to be changed, although I quite like the style, they're showing their age a little. The front lights are slightly strange too, the dipped and high beams operate independently of each other, so I'll check out the wiring for them. Currently the car has no stereo, so I'll be sorting that out pronto!

The bodywork is pretty much perfect, with no rust that we could see anywhere. There are a couple of little areas that need tidying, but it's nothing that an afternoons work won't sort out.

So, if you're interested in seeing something a little bit different on the forum, I'll be updating this thread with progress as and when it happens, but for now here's a quick pic I managed to take on the way home this evening :thumbsup:



Tomorrow I'll engage in a spot of "automotive archeology", seeing what has been left in various crevices by the previous owner in Japan.

[Bahnstormer]

Took a few pics today, excuse the dirt!






Now, I'll warn you, the next image is going to be controversial. The previous owner did something very bizarre to the stereo surround. I can't actually describe it, it was that odd. Basically, it had been sprayed gloss black, then using what I can only describe as oil paint, it had some crazy kind of fire/flowers/splodges painted on to it. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan.

I removed the stereo surround and managed to flat the raised bits down so it was smooth again, but I decided to do something a little bit mad with it, instead of having just a sea of black plastic inside (something Jap interiors are known for). Et voila, one sticker-bombed stereo surround. I'll be honest, it's not something I'd ever have done to either the ST or the RS, but for some reason, it works in this car. I also fitted a brand new gear gaiter as the original one had endured 23 years of hot Japanese sun and was starting to look a bit like Dot Cotton. By the way, the mats are the original mats the car came with from new.



Tomorrow, I'll finish putting the stereo in properly (I've been waiting for some little screws to turn up). I've got a new set of front indicators/sidelights to fit as I managed to break one when I was changing a bulb. Oh and also fathom out a rar fog light for it, as I can't see one anywhere (although the car is MOT'd :brow: :busted: ).

I'm also going to try and rescue the rear lights. The problem with them is that the red has faded, so they appear slightly pink when they're switched on. I've got hold of a can of red lacquer, so I'll see if I can mask them off and get a nice finish on them. If not, I'll just replace them and I'll only have lost the cost of a can of spray.

[Bahnstormer]

So, a little update! Having decided I really didn't need a double DIN stereo anymore, I opted for a nice single DIN Kenwood unit with USB, BT and DAB, which I managed to fit last weekend, along with a pair of Alpine 6x4's in the front doors and some Vibe 6.5" components in the rear shelf.

Also, some parts have started arriving this week

Currently waiting to go on the car is:

3" Stainless cat back, twin silencer system + new bolts and gaskets
3" Stainless decat (S13's dont require a cat for the MOT, regardless of age :thumbsup
Bonnet lifter kit (so I can ditch the rattly old bonnet prop)
Power Magic Pro - neat little device that allows you to leave a dashcam plugged in permanently without the risk of killing the battery
Assorted spools of wire and terminals so I can rig up a rear fog light but still use the OEM rear fog light button (I hate after market fog light buttons)
A pair of H1 Philips Xtreme Vision bulbs (dipped beam)
A pair of H3 Osram Nightbreaker bulbs (main beam)
A pair of H3c bulbs (front fogs)

And I'm waiting on an OEM storage bin which goes underneath the headunit. I've had to source this one from the US as there wasn't one anywhere in the UK at the time.

The car has triple projector headlamps and currently has HID's fitted for the dipped beam, but I'm changing them for halogen bulbs for a couple of reasons:

1. The HID's are awful! They don't dazzle anyone, mainly because they're a cheap and nasty kit with less light output than a candle. (I'm not saying I want them to dazzle anyone, but you know what I mean).
2. The projectors operate in a way which is quite unusual (to me at least) - when you switch main beam on, dipped beam switches off. This means that if you've been driving on main beams for a while, then have to switch to dipped, the HIDS are stone cold and take about 10 seconds to warm up to full brightness again, which makes driving home at night through the forest quite interesting :dunce: . I have no idea why someone thought this lighting setup was a good idea......

The main beam on the other hand, is excellent - it lights up the road and nearby area's very well, but there is a very yellow tint to the light, so I thought I'd update those bulbs at the same time.

The exhaust that's currently on the car is a 3" system from the cat back, but there are no silencers or resonators in there at all, so it's unbearably loud, especially on motorways. It also exits under the car, so there is a gaping hole in the rear bumper where the tailpipe should be.

So, that's it for now, I'll hopefully get this little lot sorted at the weekend, along with some pics and maybe a vid of the exhaust

[Bahnstormer]

Here we go, a couple of pics. Nothing super interesting, as there wasn't really much to see :lol:.

Old exhaust. Rather loud........


New exhaust on:


Bonnet struts fitted (spot the tiny battery :lol:


I also made a start on sorting the headlights out, but only managed to get the main beam bulbs fitted. It seems the previous owner decided to bin most of the original wiring loom, so the HID's are staying for the moment, until the parts I need to make a new loom arrive (already on order).

The new exhaust is so much quieter now, much better than the old one which I took off :thumbsup:.

So, that's it for this week, next week I'll grab some pics of the horrific job someone has done on the headlamp wiring and correct their shoddy workmanship. Should be fairly easy to do, Nissan used a single H4 bulb connector to power two separate bulbs (H1 for dipped and H3 for main).

[Bahnstormer]

A little more progress on the front lights this weekend. Unfortunately, I had to work on Saturday morning so didn't get much else done, but did manage to finish the lights at last. Most of Saturday was spent removing about 18 feet of dodgy wiring and about 20 earthing points that had been added just to run the HID's. Below is a pic of some of it - I'd actually thrown a lot of it away before I thought about taking a pic.



That lot was all crammed in behind the headlights and front bumper . Once I'd managed to remove it all, I set about making new harnesses for each headlamp. I'm quite pleased with how they've turned out tbh, much tidier and there's no danger of any of it getting caught in the fans.




I then got the spot lamps working too (they're the inner most projectors in the lamps and come on with the main beams). Also removed the front fog light switch which didn't appear to do anything other than switch the sidelights on . I went to a local Jap meet this evening, which gave me the chance to test the new lights and I'm happy to say it was worth the effort to change them back to normal halogen bulbs, the lights are MUCH better now, with far more usable light. There's also the added bonus that the dipped beams don't need to warm up when the main beams are switched off!

After finishing the lights I set about removing the standard cat and fitting my decat to it. Normally I'm not a fan of decats for various reasons, the main one being that it's a PITA to swap back over for the MOT, however PS13's don't need a cat for the MOT, so won't have to worry about it again :thumbsup:.

I've also ordered a few more parts (yeah, I know. The "parts waiting to be fitted" pile isn't getting any smaller :lol:

Complete set of door hinge pins and bushings as the drivers door has dropped slightly, so I may as well do the whole lot in one go.
New rear lights as I've never been able to get the finish on the existing ones up to scratch.
New Greddy Profec OLED boost controller. The car is currently using the standard solenoid, but it's capable of much more with a decent EBC. It actually arrived from Japan with a Profec fitted, but it was removed as it wasn't working properly.
Pair of standard front seats from an S14. The drivers bucket I've currently got is way too small for my lardy :lol: and standard S13 seats seem to be really hard to get hold of. Thankfully, S13/14/15 front seats are all interchangeable, so won't require any modding to fit :thumbsup:
I'll also be ordering a set of discs and pads for the rear but I need to work out what brakes it's got on there first. These are 4 stud as standard, but this car has had a 5 stud conversion in the past, probably from an S14 or S15. I think the brakes are probably the same between those two, but need to make sure first.

[Bahnstormer]

Rear lights, EBC and door parts arrived yesterday, so I'll get them fitted at the weekend. I was pleasantly surprised to find the rear lights are held in with 6 easily accessible nuts, so should be a nice easy job. I also found I'd ordered LED type rears instead of normal ones - I'll see how these look on the car before deciding if I should ask nicely if they'll take them back and exchange them for non LED ones :lol:.

The boost controller looks nice and easy to fit, just a switched live and an earth to connect inside the car, then a very thin harness to pass through the bulkhead grommet to get it up and running, followed by endless tweaking of settings to get it boosting nicely!

I've also decided to add an extra 12v outlet to the front of the car. The standard one is in the front of the arm rest, which is ok if I want to leave my phone in the center console, but as I use it for sat nav etc, the power lead would end up trailing all over the cabin when it's in use. I've already got a spare 12v socket, so I think i'll mount it in the back of the dash storage bin where it'll be out of sight, but still easy to get to. (I'll be using some "add a circuit" type things for this and the EBC power connection).

[Bahnstormer]

So, busy day! I finally managed to get around to fitting the DAB antenna for the stereo, got the new rear lights on (despite being LED units they're not too obnoxious), fitted the new seats and also got the boost controller installed and loosely set up. So, a few pics :thumbsup:

I decided I didn't want the DAB antenna in the front window, they look awful and you can spot them a mile off. So this time, I decided to put it in one of the side windows where I can't see it :lol:. Plus they're tinted so it can't be seen from outside :thumbsup:. Pleased to find it works perfectly!



Got the S14 seats in. I had to remove the S13 seatbelt mechanisms and fit them to the S14 seats as the S14 doesn't have any seatbelt warning wiring but the S13 does. Thankfully they swapped straight over :thumbsup:





Then I moved on to the rear lights while the weather was still good. No pics of the old ones unfortunately, but these are far nicer. I opted for the smoked version to match the smoked units on the front of the car. They're actually brighter than the pic suggests, not sure why they look so dim.....



And finally the boost controller. This took literally 10 minutes to fit, it's a very well thought out kit :thumbsup:. Most of the connections are under the bonnet, leaving only a very thin harness to feed through into the cabin to the control panel. It's a bit bling for my taste, but it does the job very well :yep:.

[Bahnstormer]

Another little job completed today! Finally got the rear fog light wired up. I wanted to keep it looking as factory as possible and had intended to use a UK S13 rear fog light switch, however the PS13 doesn't have the wiring for a rear fog like a 180SX does, so I couldn't use it. Instead, I got a fairly discreet round switch and fitted in to a blanking plug in the dash. Then I ran the wiring to the rear of the car and re-purposed the drivers side reverse light, so there's no nasty fog lights hanging down off the bumper :thumbsup:.




I also finished setting up the EBC, so the car is now boosting and holding at a healthy 1.0 bar and kicks like a rabid donkey :thumbsup:.

[Bahnstormer]

A couple more little jobs completed today :thumbsup:

Finally got the Power Magic Pro installed today, so I can leave the dashcam plugged in without fear of the battery going flat :thumbsup: I installed it under the center console so it's out of sight, but easy enough to get to if I want to change the settings or switch it off completely:



I also fitted the extra 12v outlet so I can plug my phone or satnav in without having the power cable trailing across the car. Again, I wanted it out of sight but easy to reach, so I fitted it in the back of the dash storage pocket.




And last but not least, I changed the lethal front indicator bulb fittings. I say lethal because they are a 501 bulb as standard, which is fine at night but completely invisible during the day. To overcome this I used a pair of mk1 Focus rear indicator fittings and "massaged" them to fit the Nissan lights . Hopefully people will now actually be able to see where I'm going :lol:.



I've also taken delivery of a complete set of S14 discs and pads so they'll be going on next weekend. The current fronts have plenty of meat left on them, but the rears are very low, so may as well replace with new ones all at once I think.

[Bahnstormer]

I thought the car was running a T28, turns out it's actually a T25g, so I picked this little puppy up this morning:



It's got a tiny bit of play in the bearings so the plan is to rebuild it, possibly to a slightly higher spec but we'll see. I'm not decided yet whether to do it myself (I've done a couple before) or, as Turbo Dynamics are just down the road, to leave it with them. Depends on how lazy I'm feeling :lol:.

Also now on the shopping list are:

Uprated fuel pump - Walbro used to be the chosen brand in the SX world, but I'm investigating other possibilities too, maybe Deatchwerks.
444 injectors from an S15
Engine management upgrade - Sadly not as easy as an ST as there's no OBD port, so it'll be an ECU out jobby. Will probably go down the Nistune route from Horsham Developments.

[Bahnstormer]

So I got the pump fitted today, didn't make a start on the brakes as the weather started to look a bit grim. There's plenty of meat on the existing brakes anyway, so no massive rush to change them.

Thankfully, the fuel pump was as easy to change as I remember, so took me about 30 minutes from start to finish.

[Bahnstormer]

Picked up this little beauty after work today



For those who don't know, its an Apexi Power FC L Jetro (the ecu) with FC commander (the handset). It's a completely stand alone engine management system which can be mapped to suit any new mods as and when they're added. I was originally going to go for a Nistune daughter board, but this came up at a very good price locally. Plus, it has more potential if I ever want to run really big power :thumbsup:.

[Bahnstormer]

Got a couple of little jobs done today :thumbsup:. it was nice to actually get some parts fitted rather than just buying them and having them sat around :lol:

First up, I fitted a brake master cylinder stopper. The bulkhead is made of tin foil, so whenever you apply the brakes it flexes a little, taking away some of the braking efficiency. This little gizmo prevents the master cylinder from moving, giving a better pedal feel and better braking. For £12, I'm happy with it.




Then moved on to fitting new discs and pads all round. The fronts had plenty of meat left on them, but the rears were beginning to get a little low, so that's where I started (and I'm glad I did.....).



After the rears were on I started on the fronts, however ran into a small problem. As you can see, the front spacers are held on with some odd flush fitting nuts which require a special tool to remove (which I'm guessing is still somewhere in Japan....). So, I've had to order one online, just waiting for it to arrive now....


I also took the opportunity to swap the wheel nuts for some slimmer, internal drive jobbies from Driftworks. The ones which were on the car were massive and getting a socket on them was quite difficult, so there is damage to the paint on all of the wheels inside the nut recesses. I'm having the wheels refurbed soon, and don't want them getting damaged if I have to remove them, so thought these would be ideal.



That's it for now, hopefully have some more updates soon! :thumbsup:.

[Bahnstormer]

Nice easy little job done today, but an important one none-the-less......I now have WORKING intermittent wipers! The intermittent setting has never worked since I got the car, so my first port of call was the relay which sits on the passenger side wing. Replaced it with a new one, but no joy . Took the stalk out and it looked fine, but then I remembered I had a UKDM wiper stalk in a box of spares somewhere. This also had the added bonus of having the adjustable intermittent function, so decided to give it a go and see what happened.

The old stalk:



And the "new" one. The little blue section moves left to right depending on what setting you have the intermittent function set at:



This week I also decided that I'll re-bush the entire car. It's currently got a mix of solid steel bushes with a few standard rubber ones thrown in for good measure. Whilst this is still fairly comfortable, the vibrations can be annoying at certain speeds. Obviously, this will be fairly time consuming, so I'm currently speaking to a a well known Jap tuner who will have a complete rear subframe for sale in a couple of weeks time. The plan is to strip it down, have it power coated then re-bush it and fit a complete new arm kit to it. Should be fairly easy to swap the whole lot over on the drive

[Bahnstormer]

Just got the wheels back from being powder coated :thumbsup:. Decided to go for a colour change to gold and also had just the outer rim polished this time. Work fanbois will hate it, but I couldn't care less :lol:. Will get some proper pics at the weekend as the car is filthy at the moment.....




Not sure whether to run with the centre caps or not......Meister S1 wheels don't have them from new, but I wasn't keen on seeing the hub nut caps.....

[JackB]

Loving the look of this, the wheel colour choice on white looks great as well

[Sean-B]

Nice project mate. Lots of good work been done.

[Bahnstormer]

Loving the look of this, the wheel colour choice on white looks great as well

Nice project mate. Lots of good work been done.

Thanks guys . As you may have guessed from the parts I've copied over, I've been running about in fast Fords for a little while and I've got to say it's nice to be back in a Nissan. Don't get me wrong, the ST and RS were both awesome cars, but there's something about S bodies that makes them so enjoyable to work on!

[Oreos]

Looks lovely! Centre caps for hard parking maybe?

[Chriscooke]

Every loves a nice ps, keep it up