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Thread: Matas' 200SX S14 Zenki

  1. #41
    Guest Matas's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lewisw View Post
    Looks really smart mate I do like a zenki.
    Quote Originally Posted by sx rider View Post
    You've done a great job with this thread & your car is coming along really well mate, damn rust in these is a pain in the arse. Its a shame people stopped wax oiling underbodies & cavities, its was the done thing in the 60s & 70s. Would have saved a shed load of cars from being scraped thats for sure.

    Keep up the good work
    Thank you both, appreciate the kind words. Damn right the rust on these things is "rotten", even though everything may look clean and tidy, you can guarantee there's feckloads of rust hidden all over the shop. Dread to think about the insides of chassis rails and inbetween panels that can't be seen. My mind is entirely overhelmed by all the rust I've seen recently

  2. #42
    Guest nessie's Avatar
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    that is some amazing progress/update!
    I cant believe how much rust developed since 2017!
    Besides driving on the salty roads this winter, but do you have an explanation for it that could have caused it? Surely the 200sx arent that bad?

  3. #43
    Member sx rider's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matas View Post
    Thank you both, appreciate the kind words. Damn right the rust on these things is "rotten", even though everything may look clean and tidy, you can guarantee there's feckloads of rust hidden all over the shop. Dread to think about the insides of chassis rails and inbetween panels that can't be seen. My mind is entirely overhelmed by all the rust I've seen recently
    I had all the rails ect waxed in mine. Might be worth looking into as them do seem to rust from the inside out.

  4. #44
    Guest Matas's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nessie View Post
    that is some amazing progress/update!
    I cant believe how much rust developed since 2017!
    Besides driving on the salty roads this winter, but do you have an explanation for it that could have caused it? Surely the 200sx arent that bad?
    Well I mean I discovered the fact that there's definitely holes in the front arches in June of 2017, but I just continued to drive the car, had I of stopped in say September, then maybe there wouldn't have been as much damage. I'm certainly to blame for making it worse by using the car, but I had already just spent loads fixing rust at the time. The rust is always there on these cars, it's just about finding it or waiting for it to emerge.

    Rust wise, the plan is to give the rear arches some attention prior to the summer and then just enjoy the car in June and July, after that I've pretty much decided that the car is getting taken apart and I'm going to go ham on the underside. It's going to be a massive task, however the car deserves to be fixed.

    Quote Originally Posted by sx rider View Post
    I had all the rails ect waxed in mine. Might be worth looking into as them do seem to rust from the inside out.
    Yeah I think it's inevitable that I'm going to have to cut into the rails and sills in places, at which point I'll inspect them all, deal with any problem areas and then fill it all with cavity wax once they're clean.

    Going to be such a huge job and learning experience. Main concern is that I don't usually tend to be 100% happy with my work the first time.
    Last edited by Matas; 18-03-2018 at 20:17.

  5. #45
    Guest joey200sx's Avatar
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    Good read, glad you are spending the time to keep her up to scratch and enjoying her on the road.

    Cracking looking car in red

  6. #46
    Guest Matas's Avatar
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    Not much to update really,but I'm getting inpatient to start working on it again. Just two weeks and I'll be done with uni for the year! Sadly it's going to be a nasty two weeks first.

    After the front arch fixing, there was a lot of overspray of the schutz which we used, I don't know if previously mentioned but we didn't spend too long masking this up as I had no issue removing overspray and had planned to be going over the whole car again anyway. As I had planned to be doing my mates Civic Aerodeck VTI-S, I thought I'd get brushed up and have a stab the worst bits on my car again, turned out doing all my car apart from running out of time on the front bumper. With doing mine and my mates car, I spent an entire week with a dual action polisher, got pretty sick of it at the end.

    Fortunately, I don't get sick at the sight of this.


    I've also changed the rocker cover gasket as that was leaking oil. The old gasket was totally brittle. Can't say it went all that smoothly initially for such a simple task, ended up re-doing it -_-.

    Apart from that, I went out for a few drives since, got some pictures and also happen to have picked up another car. I was supposed to be buying something like a sensible E46 320d touring, so I could travel to work on the s14 on weekends cheaply and generally have a sensible car. Didn't work out that way, I bought a P11 Primera GTLE because, well SR20!? We'll ignore the fact it arrived home on a trailer and that it was meant to be a sensible car but instead is abit broken and needs a bunch of work.... Here's some pictures.





    And the new (W reg :O) rusty Nissan.




    As soon as I'm back home after exams, the plan is to get paint quotes for the rear wing, one sideskirt end cap and the rear spats and get those all on ASAP.


    Should hopefully be a nice visual change, as I've not changed the apperance of it since I've purchased it.

    Also playing with the idea of changing to the other set of red front wings I have, the lacquer peel on one of my current wings is getting pretty out of had and the other is badly painted. Sadly the bottoms of those wings are rotten and need new bits making up, fortunately, it's the sections that are painted black and which will also be covered up by the sideskirts.

    Quote Originally Posted by joey200sx View Post
    Good read, glad you are spending the time to keep her up to scratch and enjoying her on the road.

    Cracking looking car in red
    Appreciate the kind words. I've pretty much commited in my head that after this summer, it may be off the road for a while so I sure as heck will enjoy it over the summer and then get to work in August I guess!
    Last edited by Matas; 29-04-2018 at 01:04.

  7. #47
    Member sx rider's Avatar
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    Looking good dude. I am planning to buy a dual action polisher this summer. I think I am going to practice on my daily and mates T5 before I let myself loose on my s14a though!

    It'll look good with the spats and kouki spoiler on, keep up the good work!

  8. #48
    Guest Matas's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sx rider View Post
    Looking good dude. I am planning to buy a dual action polisher this summer. I think I am going to practice on my daily and mates T5 before I let myself loose on my s14a though!

    It'll look good with the spats and kouki spoiler on, keep up the good work!
    You can't really go too wrong with a dual action polisher. Admittedly I did make a **** up on my mates car using a thin microfibre cutting pad with his incredibly soft paint, but previously on my own car with chemical guys foam pads I've not done any damage. Just do a bunch of research and you'll be sweet. Check out Larry from AMMONYC, he's a mad man but I can relate to him entirely. Obsessed Garage has done a bunch of good videos. The videos when he visited Optimum Polymer Technologies was quite informative.

    Yeah can't wait to get the aero fitted. Would love to change the rear bumper but to buy a fibre glass one for 200 and then have it painted is just more than I want to spend. Waiting for the fluke chance a red one comes up for sale.
    Last edited by Matas; 29-04-2018 at 15:33.

  9. #49
    Member sx rider's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matas View Post
    You can't really go too wrong with a dual action polisher. Admittedly I did make a **** up on my mates car using a thin microfibre cutting pad with his incredibly soft paint, but previously on my own car with chemical guys foam pads I've not done any damage. Just do a bunch of research and you'll be sweet. Check out Larry from AMMONYC and Obsessed Garage has done a bunch of good videos. The videos when he visited Optimum Polymer Technologies was quite informative.

    Yeah can't wait to get the aero fitted. Would love to change the rear bumper but to buy a fibre glass one for 200 and then have it painted is just more than I want to spend. Waiting for the fluke chance a red one comes up for sale.

    I've watched a few AMMONYC videos but not seen Obessed Garage before, I shall check them out The paint on my daily is pretty bad so I am not too worried about learning on it. I've got a selection of Meguiars polishes for cutting, polishing and waxing so I'll get a selection pads and work out things from there I suppose.

    Have you gone through many pad's or do they last quite a long time?
    Last edited by sx rider; 29-04-2018 at 15:52.

  10. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by sx rider View Post
    I've watched a few AMMONYC videos but not seen Obessed Garage before, I shall check them out The paint on my daily is pretty bad so I am not too worried about learning on it. I've got a selection of Meguiars polishes for cutting, polishing and waxing so I'll get a selection pads and work out things from there I suppose.

    Have you gone through many pad's or do they last quite a long time?

    I would guess the professionals go through quite a lot of pads, but I've never really heard any of them specify a life expectancy of sort for a pad. Eventually the pads do start to fall apart aswell as just getting clogged up. You do notice when it doesn't seem to work as well as it did initially. Make sure to clean out the pad consistently and they do last.

    It all depends on the job, but at maximum you'd need two pads for cutting and two for polishing for one car and you'll still have use in those pads afterwards. I could talk about it forever haha, if you fancy any advice in the future do let me know. Shoot me a message on instagram if you want a quicker response

  11. #51
    Guest Matas's Avatar
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    Might be time to update this thread to show I got to this situation...


  12. #52
    West Of Ireland Rep NismoNut's Avatar
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    Brilliant thread, great to see you using it while still maintaining it. I’ve made the mistake of taking mine off the road to do a list of jobs and then got carried away, next thing you know it’s a year later!!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    My S14.5 Rebuild Thread - clicky --
    http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=468362

  13. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by NismoNut View Post
    Brilliant thread, great to see you using it while still maintaining it. I’ve made the mistake of taking mine off the road to do a list of jobs and then got carried away, next thing you know it’s a year later!!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    I second this. It’s a dangerous thing to do lol!

    Car looks great right now, really come together and changed so much! Waiting on more!

  14. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by NismoNut View Post
    Brilliant thread, great to see you using it while still maintaining it. I’ve made the mistake of taking mine off the road to do a list of jobs and then got carried away, next thing you know it’s a year later!!
    Quote Originally Posted by Zeldoz View Post
    I second this. It’s a dangerous thing to do lol!

    Car looks great right now, really come together and changed so much! Waiting on more!
    Thank you both for your kind words. Whilst I agree with you both, my car doesn't. I debated taking it off the road in August for a more extensive refurb, however the car decided that for me anyway.

    Nice to see some interest after my post, best start a lengthy catch up post. Going back to May.

  15. #55
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    How did the car decide to take itself off the road? I hope it’s nothing too serious!

  16. #56
    Guest Matas's Avatar
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    Right I'm finally typing this up. Been meaning to update this for aaaaaages, but with all the report writing for uni work lately, the last thing I've wanted to do was spend more hours writing this.

    So we're going back to May.

    14th of May, my last exam for the year and my birthday. Next day I packed up my stuff ready to leave home, with a maybe 200 mile detour upto Scotland for the Status Error 6TWO1 meet. Was a properly cool meet with a shed load of cars from all over. Amazing turn out for a Tuesday night meet.









    So I got back home from uni and arrived to a bunch of goodies I purchased.

    Genuine "navan" rear bumper and fibreglass navan side skirts which I picked up for quite a good deal. Here's those along with the Kouki wing and spats I picked up previously being mocked up to the car.







    Spot the newly acquired Primera in the garage. The plan was to start using the Primera from the 1st of June and have the S14 off the road from then for a little bit for a few changes. I purchased a new Apex type 3 manifold which I was going to fit as I knew all my exhaust gaskets were blown and needed changing.

    In the end the Primera was a bit of a pain to fix, but I only needed to buy one rear caliper, new rear discs and a driveshaft which only cost me £90. The car came with boot full of brand new parts and service items, so up to this day; over 3000 miles later, I've spent less than £500 on buying the car, get it trailered home and parts and servicing. Do really like the car but won't go into it much further as writing a thread on the S14 is long enough

    So on the 1st of June, the Primera went on the road and the S14 went off the road.





    After taking off the exhaust manifold, as expected I discovered my T28 turbo was beyond it's best. It had been smoking like a train on idle and upon inspection had a lot of play with significant damage to the compressor wheel. I picked up another T28 which had a cracked exhaust housing and made 1 good turbo out of two bad ones.

    Annoyingly the Apex manifold which I intended to fit was totally crap and nowhere near flat so it wouldn't actually fit, despite it being brand new from Apex.

    Along the way of swapping this all over I suffered many snapped studs, bolts etc. Managed strip the turbo oil feed bolt AND the oil feed port on the block, however managed to recover everything after lots of stressing. I needed the car ready for my planned trip down south and Wales.

    Whilst I was faffing around pretending like I know how to work on a car, I had sent off some of my new aero to be painted. In the end I decided I wasn't happy with the fibreglass sideskirts and didn't want to put the money into them to make them mint, so they were sold on.

    Aswell as new exhaust gaskets and a different turbo, I fitted a new hardrace front anti roll bar and changed the ARB drop links front and rear.


    I managed to get the car sorted out in time for the trip and headed down south to meet JackB and some others, where we had a few more days before setting off to Wales. In that time we fitted a new Walbro 255lph fuel pump, some touring side skirts I've had for a while and some new number plate lights for the new bumper.

    Here's the first proper photo I have of the new look of the car as we were setting off to Wales. Love the way the car looks at this point, whilst I wanted the Navan side skirts, putting on the touring side skirts which cost next to nothing was a giant improvement too. I've wanted the Kouki wing since I purchased the car so was super stoked to have it on. Paint match wasn't 100 percent but it's not bad at all.



    I'll cut this post here, a lot of text as it is. to anyone who actually cares and is reading all this crap.

    More to come!


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