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Thread: Project Thunderbastard

  1. #1
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    Project Thunderbastard

    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...
    Last edited by handsomedez; 13-05-2015 at 19:23.

  2. #2
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    The main reason for such a long delay in progress: my daily driver. 2000 BMW 330d SE Touring, now with 2.5" turbo-back exhaust, Evo VI intercooler, DTUK tuning box, Eibach springs, Meyle shocks, Meyle HD front wishbones, Powerflex wishbone bushes, Energy suspension rear trailing arm bushes, Meyle HD guibo bush, Meyle prop centre support bearing, M-Sport front bumper with CSL corner splitters, custom wide rear arches, E46 M3 wheels, M-Sport electric front seats, and full respray in its original fern green.

    I knew the Nissan would be a looooong project so wanted a nice and quick daily driver in the meantime. Didn't expect to do quite as much work to it, but I can't help myself!

    Will sort out a project thread for this too.


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    So once all the welding was complete it was time to clean up and paint the underside. The shell spent about 6 months outside on a mate's driveweay so there was a very light coating of surface rust all over it. Anything on the underside that was brown got cleaned up with the wire brush on the grinder, then treated with two coats of Hydrate 80 (rust converter). Then the whole underside got two coats of POR15 rust prevention, followed by Kent seam-sealer (effectively to VW standards), then another two coats of POR15 chassis coat.


















    Next up after this was to make up some new fuel tank straps. I snapped the old ones removing the tank from the old car, and when I priced up new ones from Nissan it was about £140 for the pair, so I figured I'd make my own. They're made out of 3mm thick stainless steel bar and now powdercoated grey. The tank is now fitted.



    Last edited by handsomedez; 13-05-2015 at 19:26.

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    Slowest. Poster. Ever. So many pics I didn't see on FB!

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    Next up was to prep and paint the interior and cage so that I could fit the car loom and start building up the stuff behind the dashboard. I opted for a Cadburys purple cage, and the car is going BMW Steel Grey. The masking took what felt like an eternity, but was worth it in the end!











    Last edited by handsomedez; 13-05-2015 at 19:30.

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    That purple on the cage is fecking beautiful!

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    Onto the engine. Like I said, about 4 years ago I picked up a Spec 1 RB25DET from an R33 auto that had been rear-ended. The car had only done about 60k miles if I remember right, and obviously had an easy life in an auto. I got the engine exactly as it came out with all ancillaries, loom, ECU, turbo etc. I paid £500 for it and collected from Ellon, above Aberdeen, again with the old faithful trailer!

    Fast forward to 6 months ago when I dropped it off to my mate and engine builder Alex (sxowner on here). To future-proof the engine it was to get ARP head studs, a metal head gasket, RB26 oil pump, Blueprint water pump, Dayco timing belt kit, Mocal thermostatic sandwich plate and a good check over. On inspection with the head off Alex mentioned it was a really good condition engine but the oil had emulsified presumably from storage in a damp garage, and there was brown sludge everywhere. So he thought it best to strip the engine down further. He recommended honing the block, new piston rings and new shells while the engine was in bits. He also stripped the whole bottom end, crank out, and cleaned everything, checked and re-assembled. He also wanted to re-seat the valves due to carbon build-up. The spec is now as follows following the rebuild/refresh.

    RB26 oil pump
    Blueprint water pump
    Cometic 1.3mm head gasket
    ARP head studs
    ACL race shells
    Nissan piston rings
    Nissan front and rear crank seals
    Nissan camshaft seals
    Nissan spigot bush
    Injector seal kit
    Cometic valve stem oil seals
    Block honed
    Dayco timing belt kit
    Braided turbo oil/water lines
    Greddy copy forward facing inlet manifold
    80mm throttle body
    Clutchmasters lightweight flywheel
    KYB 3-puk paddle clutch

    Still to buy a few bits and pieces for the engine like manifold gasket, turbo gaskets, cam cover gaskets, ARP flywheel bolts and other stuff I've forgotten! Cam covers are gonna be painted Cadburys purple too. Also got a purple silicone coolant hose kit. And aircon has been binned, obviously.

    Some pics of progress:





































    Last edited by handsomedez; 13-05-2015 at 19:34.

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    I picked up the engine from Alex today and it's off to the garage tomorrow to trial-fit in the bay and make up a gearbox mount out of SR20 and RB25 gearbox mounts.

    While I was waiting for the engine work to be done I did some work on the suspension and running gear. The front and rear subframes have been powdercoated, the antiroll bar brackets have been powdercoated along with a few other bits on the underside. The hubs, back plates, lower arms and steering rack have all been cleaned, de-rusted and painted with hammerite hammered-finish. The subframes are now fitted, all suspension fitted and skinny wheels on.

























    Last edited by handsomedez; 13-05-2015 at 19:37.

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    Once the engine has been trial-fitted I'm gonna start making up intercooler pipework, brackets to mount the fusebox, header tank, PAS reservoir etc. Then at last the bay can be painted and the engine can go in to stay and get wired up. There's still a very long way to go. Once the engine is running it'll be time to get a propshaft made up so the car can drive in and out of the unit. Then the brakes can go on and I've got braided hoses to run from the master cylinder to each caliper, no ABS. I've got a Z32 BMC and servo waiting to go on.

    Over the last couple of years I've been stockpiling bits. A cracking deal on a set of brakes came up so I sold my R33 GTR front brakes. I've now got a Brembo Gran Turismo front kit from a 350Z. They're huge 4-pots with 2-piece 355mm discs and Brembo pads. Rears are Z32 with grooved discs and yellowstuff pads.

    Bodywork wise I've got an FRP bonnet with Nismo vent, FRP boot, FRP doors, Rocketbunny ducktail spoiler, S14a front bumper with deep fibreglass splitter. The front and rear wings are gonna be proper metal wide-arches made using the wheelarch section from 4x BMW E46 front wings. This is what we did on the rear of my 330d to fit over the M3 rear wheels, and it worked really well. I'm not a fan of the FRP vented wings or overfenders, and I wanted something a bit different from the norm.

    For the engine, I'm chasing around the 400bhp mark which is apparently about as much as you want in an S14. I've bought a Conceptua Stage 5 hybrid turbo which should be good for around 450bhp at 1.1 bar. Also bought a set of R35 GTR injectors which fit using a top-feed fuel rail and wiring harness adapters (already sourced). Apparently they've got a really nice spray pattern and are more efficient than the usual Nismo, Denso, Deutchwerks etc.

    I've got a 4" thick intercooler to go on, and I'm making the pipework 2.5" on the hotside, 3" on the cold side up to the 80mm throttle body.

    Also bought a pair of bucket seats and side-mount rails. Still to buy harnesses.















    Last edited by handsomedez; 13-05-2015 at 19:39.

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    What a fantastic thread keep it coming cant wait for more, £400 wow you lucky man.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gerry View Post
    What a fantastic thread keep it coming cant wait for more, £400 wow you lucky man.
    Haha thanks, I know it was a steal! I suspect most folk were put off by the sheer amount of work required to make it into a car again. I've picked up a lot of bargains while stockpiling parts but that was by far the best one

  12. #12
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    Amazing work. This is exactly what I want to do once I have a decent sized garage, full shell rebuild. Best of luck with it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by misterjake View Post
    Amazing work. This is exactly what I want to do once I have a decent sized garage, full shell rebuild. Best of luck with it.
    Thanks

    Small progress this weekend. Got the gearbox bolted up ready to go into the bay for a mock-up of gearbox mount, intercooler pipes and brackets to make before the bay gets painted.

    First hurdle: it's really tricky to get the whole lump in with the gear shifter still attached, so went to remove the plate on top of the gearbox to remove the shifter. 4 of the bolts are normal 12mm heads, 2 front ones are torx screws and they just chewed so looks like I'll need to drill them out





    So that's tomorrow's job. Hopefully we'll be able to make up the gearbox mount ready to get powder-coated, sort out the intercooler pipes and radiator mounts. Still to give the gearbox a good clean and a lick of paint too.

    Meanwhile I've just done a deal for a set of 4 Rota MXRs 10" wide, so I'll keep a staggered set and I'm selling a staggered set.

    Last edited by handsomedez; 13-05-2015 at 19:40.

  14. #14
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    This is pretty much my dream build. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

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    This looks an ace project, love the colours inside the cabin, the cage looks brill!

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    Today got the engine and gearbox trial fitted we made up the gearbox mount using the original RB25 mount and chopping up the SR20 mount. It's now been removed and will be off to the powdercoaters this week along with the anti roll bar mounts which haven't been fitted yet. Also fitted the tension rod brackets which have just been powdercoated. You've probably guessed by now I've pretty much got a hard-on for powdercoating.









    Last edited by handsomedez; 13-05-2015 at 19:42.

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    Got a few bits and pieces done this week. Chopped up and welded on the bottom mounts for the radiator and made up some new brackets for the top then welded them onto the slam panel.



    Moved the header tank to the driver's side tub since it fits well beside the inlet manifold



    Made up a new bracket to mount the power steering reservoir on the driver's side in the corner up beside the bulkhead since that's not getting used for anything









    Also bolted on the whole front end to make sure the bonnet clears and make sure the intercooler is gonna clear the bumper etc


  18. #18
    Flamethrower def's Avatar
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    Nice work.

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    Quote Originally Posted by def View Post
    Nice work.
    Thanks

    Got these delivered the other day too. 235s and 265s.


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    So we finally got the engine bay painted today! This is after a few weekends of trial-fitting everything in the bay and adapting stuff. The intercooler pipes have been welded into the inner wings, as has a 3" pipe for the air filter. I'm gonna mount the filter behind the front bumper to keep it out of the engine bay away from heat. The slam panel was chopped up to give space for the radiator, so that's been strengthened with 3mm thick steel bar.

    I put a couple of skins of filler on the top of the tubs to smooth them in, then coated all the seams and welds with seam sealer. I can't remember what you call the gun used to apply it but it's all made by Kent and basically replicates factory seam sealer patterns of most manufacturers, so I went for VW-spec.

    Then it got a coat of primer, which we flatted back, then another coat of seam sealer over a few bits that still looked a bit rough, then paint.




















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