Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 56

Thread: Matas' 200SX S14 Zenki

  1. #1
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0

    Matas' 200SX S14 Zenki

    Having now owned the car for a while, I felt it was time to post a project/build thread. Realistically I have not done much significant work to the car, however every thing I have done I've been documenting it on my spreadsheet and by pictures. May aswell have text documentation of everything, as well as being able to share with and interact with everyone on here, afterall, this forum has already proven to be extremely resourceful. It was only right I paid my membership fee and started this thread!

    This is only my second car, previously I drove at 2006 Seat Ibiza 1.9TDi (PD100) was a mint first car. The S14 is heck of a change from before, but I love it.
    Here's a picture of both the S14 and Ibiza when I owned both at the same time.


    I'm one to write shitloads of text, but will also post a lot of pictures, so choose what you like . Additionally, I'll post a link to my Flickr album, which has endless photos, sorted newest to oldest.

    Flickr image album


    In June 2016 I purchased my 1995 200SX S14. Here's how it looked upon purchase.




    It was a real mission to buy it. It was at the other side of the country and I had no insurance on any car to get there. Ended up being a train journey to my friend JackB's (fellow SXOC member) house and then going with him to go look at it. The previous owner kindly agreed to deliver it to Jack's house, where it would spend 2 weeks until I managed to arange insurance to get it back home up north.

    The car was previously owned by few members on here. It was owned by "Deeman" and then sold to "Big Dubs" who started a build thread for this car himself. It can be found here. http://sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?567864

    In the end, he started to part out the car and I believe it was entirely in pieces. He then ended up selling it to his friend, who I believe pieced the car back together. No idea how much of the stuff currently making up the car, is original and what had to be reacquired. All I know is I have multiple boxes of bolts and pieces, the interior has been put together missing many bolts and clips, I'm sure it's like that throughout.

    I have a bunch of progress to catch up on writing up, so will keep updating it until I reach the current state, which isn't much of a change from previous if I'm honest. I have no experience of working on cars previously, so everything is new to me. One thing you'll notice I do a lot of cleaning and tidying because at least I know what I'm doing.
    Last edited by Matas; 14-06-2017 at 12:48.

  2. #2
    Guest Zeldoz's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Eastbourne - East Sussex
    Posts
    1,696
    Rides
    0
    Looks a good base! Watching this one

  3. #3
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    So the first time driving it was sketchy to say the least. The car has a paddle clutch and a lightweight flywheel which was fun for the first time. It was pitch black, I hadn't driven any car for over half a year, the cluster lights didn't work so I had no idea how fast I was going, the headlights allowed for about 5 metres of visibility, but lord was it fun, me and JackB were loving it . Jack helped me do an oil, oil filter and fuel filter change. At this point, I hadn't ever even jacked up a car myself, so changing the oil seemed like an accomplishment.

    Decided to check the condition of the tyres AFTER travelling across the country. Probably not the safest trip I've ever done.




    First thing I decided to do was clean the interior as it was filthy and not a nice place to be. The car came with rather nice S15 seats front and rear, but they needed a good clean. So did the carpets since a bunch of polish was spilt on the rear seats and back carpet. Everything got a wet vacuum wash.



    One day I went to my car and noticed the exhaust was hanging on the floor, one hanger snapped off the underside of the car. Looked under to find that the another hanger had also previously snapped off and the exhaust was being held by jubilee clips attached to a rusty exhaust heatshield which was loose itself, nice. Took that to get welded up, which gave me my first sight under the car.








    Not too bad overall, but there had to be some rust of course. At the end of the day, it is an Sbody. The rust is there, you just have to find it.

    Also had the rear bumper off around that time, more crust. I was also suprised to not see any kind of bumper support. I read that apparantly they didn't come with one? That's definitely something I want to look into getting in the future.


    Decided it was probably quite important to be able to see the speedo at night so I replaced the lights with some LED ones. Looks quite blue in pictures but it's a nice white. Problem is all these shitty LEDs never last as I learned from my previous car and it's sidelights.



    Had a random visit from a tasty turbocharged Capri one day, had to get a photo.


    The 12V socket didn't seem to work. Took it apart and it ended up being due to this being super crusty and needing a clean up.


    The rear number plate surround wasn't really looking black anymore so I gave it some love with some Autoglym Vinyl and Rubber care. It's nothing permanent, but ocassional application really transforms it. The exhaust sitting to the left was due to the jubilee clip exhaust hangers at the time.

    BEFORE



    AFTER


    More to follow!

  4. #4
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    I wasn't ever keen on the 14A lights and set out to change back to original Zenki lights as soon as I bought the car. I ended up doing a trade with a local member on here for his lights. Much better in my opinion.

    Kouki



    Zenki


    I also wasn't really a fan of the aftermarket wheel that came with the car. Fortunately, in the box of parts that I got with the car, there was a 14a wheel. Once again, I'd prefer the original zenki wheel but it's not a priority. I never managed to figure out the airbag wiring and the horn doesn't seem to work. Both are still something I need to figure out.

    Nice tidy interior.


    Carried on developing my cleaning obsession, spent into the hundreds on products now.


    At some point I replaced the shitty Emusa Automotive ebay spec coilovers which had movement in the top mount if you pushed the wheel, the collars were seized and generally felt like shite. I bought some used HSD Dualtechs from a member on here. This drastically improved the ride, however I've never ended up getting it aligned and still had sketchy tires, so I've always found the car to be unstable in corners, I've never felt comfortable to push it. Hopefully this is something that get's addressed shortly. Lost the pictures of the coilovers when I killed my Note 4. Rippo

    Overall the car sat quite a bit higher than when I bought it. The rears were quite tucked into the arches when I first got it. Here are some images of ride heights.

    How I bought it


    After fitting the HSD Dualtechs


    At this point, it was time to go back to uni and I decided to take the car with me at first. In the end I decided I didn't fancy paying shitloads for insurance and barely using the car. By October I decided it was the most sensible decision to cancel my insurance so I can spend that money on the car in the future. I went for one final mad drive in the A/B roads west of Newcastle and into the North Pennines, before bring the car back from Newcastle to home where it would hibernate over winter. At least it was avoiding the winter salty roads.

    Here are some pictures of the drive.





    Probably the best drive I had in the car. The further I drove, the quieter it got. I remember it being what would normally be rush hour, yet I kept randomly stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures or be childish and do a launch without interuption of anyone.

    Also randomly, here is a photo I love that was taken prior to me purchasing it. BigDubs sold this S14 to get that Chaser, I don't blame him hahaha.
    Last edited by Matas; 17-04-2017 at 01:05.

  5. #5
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    So seeing as I'm currently on holiday, I thought it'd be a good time to try catch up to the current day state of the car. I've gotten as far as October 2016 in the previous posts.

    So I dropped the car off back home and let it sit and hibernate inside what used to be a horse riding arena on our property.

    This was it's home over winter.


    I came back from uni over Christmas, but as far as I remember I didn't do anything to the car. Although I did decide I wanted a DSLR camera as an early Christmas present for myself so I got some cool pictures of the car. Many pictures from here onwards are taken with the DSLR and I've been loving trying to learn stuff about photography, no idea where the interest randomly came out of.

    Here a few I was pleased with.









    I only came back from uni every 4 weeks or so, usually for a weekend but one time I managed to go home abit longer with the intention of getting some work finally done to the car. I picked up an Apex short shifter and decided I wanted to change the transmission and differential oil. The back two bolts on the shifter where are absolute piss take. The colour of the oil that came out the diff and gearbox were entirely black, nothing like the new stuff.





    At this point, I've started to learn that any job seems to take 5 times longer than it really should when you have no experience on working on cars previously, however it's all a good learning experience and I love the fact I did it myself.

    Once again I was back during the Easter break from uni and decided to do some more work on the car instead of revising for exams. Great idea
    At this point I had made myself a mini list of stuff that needed doing in order to pass MOT. But first, more photography! Here's a photo I absolutely love.

    Last edited by Matas; 10-06-2017 at 20:53.

  6. #6
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    The rear brakes were absolutely toast and I certainly needed to replace the discs and pads for the MOT. I ordered some MTEC drilled and grooved discs. I also got a great price on a bunch of brembo pads so I got 3 sets of rear pads and 2 sets of front pads. Changing the brakes was an absolute faff, I wasted a massive amount of time trying to get the pads in, messing around with those metal clips to find that they were anti vibration clips and that many people said to just chuck them away.

    In the process of bleeding the brakes, one of the bleed valves rounded so I ordered some replacement ones and changed both of them on the rear, ended up just hammering on a 9mm spanner and undoing them quite easily actually.

    The rear calipers are not in a great state and could do with being rebuilt as they were likely seized, the old pads were ruined. I cleaned up everything so they were reasonable.






    And after cleaning up abit and with the new discs and pads.



    The front pads still have plenty of life and the discs look decent. The car came with some R33 GTST calipers, I believe they are 296mm discs, no idea on brand of discs or pads sadly.



    I decided the engine bay needed a good cleaning.

    Before



    and after, ain't perfect, but it's an improvement.


    Next on the list was cleaning up the insides of the wheels, all of them were filthy on the insides.



    One also had a lot of red overspray (So does loads of the car), ended up cleaning all of that off.


    And here is the same wheel after some love.




    Cleaned the rear arches of all the dirt to discover some rust, not good at all.

    Worst bit at the top of one of the rear arches.




    I ended up taking the rear interior apart a while later to get a better look.




    Then more at the bottom of that arch and at the other side, lovely!


    Other side wasn't trouble free either, bottom bit next to the sill was crusty af. Later found the underneath of that to be rotten and failed the MOT because of it.


    And from the inside, even worse.


    But wait there's more!
    Front arch, can see carpet.



    Took up all the interior carpets and then there's some extra bits that are left in the footwells. The passanger side where the hole is visible, the carpet is damp. The driver side is soaking, I'm yet to find the hole . Worrying as it's next to the fuse box.

    Ordered some new rubber, Goodyear Eagle F1 A3s. 225 for the front and 245 for the rear.


    At this point it was decided destroy the existing tyres a little and test the diff.
    Last edited by Matas; 10-06-2017 at 23:00.

  7. #7
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    Made a few discoveries, it appears I have either rear subframe locking collars or aftermarket bushes.


    The front intercooler isn't attached to anything, noticed it first from the movement when doing this video and then investigated. Can only see that one hole it's meant to bolt to which it won't even line up with.





    The manufacture date of the tyre on the spare wheel is 1993, stingy Nissan supplied a new car with a 2 year old spare tyre. Funny looking fitment


    After claying the worst bits of the car, I've realised the car is in dire need of some paint correction. The car was really contaminated, claying the roof for 3 seconds would cause the clay bar to be filthy. Here's an image I editted to show how visible the shit is up close.


    And a whole stack of swirls all over the shop



    Sadly over the winter the lacquer peel has gotten a lot worse and the bonnet is just flaking away, not sure what to do about it when it comes to compounding and polishing that area. I imagine I'm just going to have to have the whole panel resprayed soon enough.

    When I got the car, it had no rear wiper but the motor had been left in, it looked turd just rusting away so I decided to remove it. Straight away I rounded the nut so I ended up cutting it off with a dremel.



    Bought a 36x30mm hole plug and test fitted that. Cleaned all the tape residue off that I previously covered it with and then siliconed that plug in.


    My heat blower would only work on setting 4 aka hurricane mode. I read that it's a damaged resistor, I purchased a replacement one for a k11 micra which seemed to do the trick.


    A couple of glam shots, I picked up a Tomei gear knob at some point before taking the car off the road which I forgot about. The lacquer peel on the bonnet isn't as visible when it's all cleaned and waxed. Then again it was put away for yet another month as I went back to Newcastle to do my exams.



    Will continue to update in the next few days, not much left.
    Last edited by Matas; 10-06-2017 at 22:59.

  8. #8
    Guest JackB's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2015
    Location
    St. Albans
    Posts
    450
    Rides
    0
    Mr rust buster will wave his magic wand and it'll be through MOT in no time.

    Roll on July! Looking forward to seeing this thing again and having our cars back together, will be pretty sweet

  9. #9
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by JackB View Post
    Mr rust buster will wave his magic wand and it'll be through MOT in no time.

    Roll on July! Looking forward to seeing this thing again and having our cars back together, will be pretty sweet
    Rust buster is that the welder? Let's hope the car doesn't shit itself doing so many miles.

  10. #10
    Guest Daz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Essex
    Posts
    16,954
    Rides
    0
    I feel your pain with the rust. I'm currently doing the sills on mine right now. Your's looks about the same as mine were.

    Nice little burnout . I'm liking the car

  11. #11
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by Daz View Post
    I feel your pain with the rust. I'm currently doing the sills on mine right now. Your's looks about the same as mine were.

    Nice little burnout . I'm liking the car
    You've taken on a big job yourself mate. Impressive that you're able to do it yourself, I hope to be able to do work like yours some day. Unfortunately I've just got to wait to find out what my final welding price is and hope it's been done well.

    Cheers mate, I'm just trying to get it into the best condition I can. Might aswell have a play when you order new tyres eh

  12. #12
    Guest Zeldoz's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Eastbourne - East Sussex
    Posts
    1,696
    Rides
    0
    My LED bulbs for the clocks arrived today! Will be fitting them tonight!

    Car looks great. Lovely and clean inside!

  13. #13
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by Zeldoz View Post
    My LED bulbs for the clocks arrived today! Will be fitting them tonight!

    Car looks great. Lovely and clean inside!
    Have you had the cluster out before? If not, I followed this the first time - http://www.nicoclub.com/archives/rep...ights-s14.html

    The bulbs go in two ways, I found that one way would cause them to be on when the lights are off, in that case rotate them 180 degrees. Also, if I remember correctly, the lights wouldn't work until you plug in the dimmer switch, that got me puzzled. If you've done this already then I've given you entirely useless information , maybe it'll help someone else.

    Thank you very much, cleaning is probably the only thing I'm quite good at when it comes to my car, it's even cleaner now. You'll see when I update again!

  14. #14
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    After I got back from finishing the uni year, I took apart the rear interior to be able to see what was going on with the rust at the rear, I already showed some of the images earlier.

    The rear of the car ended up looking like this,


    Of course once I had it all taken apart, I couldn't resist cleaning cleaning all the rear. The cleaning got a bit out of control and I cleaned absolutely everything whilst re-assembling the whole interior. The only thing I wasn't able to do is wet wash everything due to weather and the vacuum cleaner being a bit dead. I also had picked up a zenki steering wheel to replace my 14a one in order to get the horn and airbag working. It looks pretty tired, may have to ask my mum kindly if she would like to retrim it






    I bloody spilt a drop of Autoglym rubber and vinyl care on the seat and only noticed the next day when it had dried, need to clean that up.

    Really need to replace the gear gaitor thing, no idea why such a simple thing hasn't been done already. I keep forgetting about it. Can't really see in the image that well but it's all ripped and abit grot.



    So the interior was back together. I had resolved the airbag light issue, got the horn to work, changed the rear brakes and had the tyres ready. I thought everything was going to be okay for MOT. Well that's a lie, I was hoping for the best with my decat exhaust, which was ambitious.

    I even gave it a clean the day before, looked quite good despite the ever increasing lack of clear coat on the bonnet.



    The result? Yeah exactly what I dreaded. Rust. It failed for a bunch of things and got a stack of advisories too.

    The silly things it failed on were:
    Front number plate being illegal, not allowed to have a jap plate according to the mot man
    Handbrake not operating as normal due to the "drift button"
    I forgot to tighten a bolt that holds the handbrake cable bracket to the brake caliper

    The not so silly things it failed on were lack of cat and rust. I knew there was some bubbling on the sill but I didn't dare poke, MOT man was a bit more brave.

    Took it to him like this


    and got it back like this


    And then rust at the back of the sill, near the subframe mounting points on both sides of the car.



    Annoyingly after failing MOT, I had 3 three days before I was going away on holiday for a good while, I also need the car ready quite quickly. Luckily the MOT man recommended someone for welding who was in my village and I took it to them the next day. I got quoted £400 to fix those bits of rust it failed on, it seemed quite reasonable so in my pickle of a situation I went with him and left him my car before heading off on holiday. He said that if it's terrible once he starts cutting into it, then price may have to change but luckily today I got confirmation that it's done and it won't be any more than £400.

    In the end I decided to buy a 3inch Magnaflow 200cell sports cat whilst abroad and got it delivered to him and getting him to weld that in too. Some of the interior bits were going to be in the way for the welder, so to save his time; aka my money , I removed all the interior. Quite annoying considering I only put it all in two days prior.

    The carpet had previously been cut to allow for it to come out effortlessly, so I took that out to. So as the car stands, it's like this and I'm going to be collecting it on Saturday. I'll need to put in the interior, swap over the handbrake with another I bought and change the front plate for MOT once again on Monday! Wish me luck.



    Yay I'm up to date!
    Last edited by Matas; 15-06-2017 at 23:31.

  15. #15
    Guest Brookie's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Huddersfield
    Posts
    509
    Rides
    0
    Good effort mate you don't hang about do you!

  16. #16
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by Brookie View Post
    Good effort mate you don't hang about do you!
    Cheers mate, I've got it booked in for an alignment at slide motorsport next week too, get it all checked over too. The handbrake lever doesn't look like it will arrive in time for mot. Bit worried, I'm somehow gonna have to bodge my old one. I'd be pissed off if I fail because of the handbrake. No idea how to really fix it.

    Got a bunch of stuff to do and it needs to be ready in less than 2 weeks to do like a 1000 miles, no time to hang about
    Last edited by Matas; 16-06-2017 at 11:49.

  17. #17
    Guest gus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    73
    Rides
    0
    Looking good dude, I'm pretty sure that the front plate is legal though and the guy is talking bollocks on that one lol.
    Nice to see another zenki though

  18. #18
    Guest Daz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Essex
    Posts
    16,954
    Rides
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by Matas View Post
    You've taken on a big job yourself mate. Impressive that you're able to do it yourself, I hope to be able to do work like yours some day. Unfortunately I've just got to wait to find out what my final welding price is and hope it's been done well.

    Cheers mate, I'm just trying to get it into the best condition I can. Might aswell have a play when you order new tyres eh
    Yeah, was very daunting when I first went in with the angle grinder but it's worth it so far.

    Can't argue at using up the last of the tyre haha.

  19. #19
    Guest Brookie's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Huddersfield
    Posts
    509
    Rides
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by Matas View Post
    Cheers mate, I've got it booked in for an alignment at slide motorsport next week too, get it all checked over too. The handbrake lever doesn't look like it will arrive in time for mot. Bit worried, I'm somehow gonna have to bodge my old one. I'd be pissed off if I fail because of the handbrake. No idea how to really fix it.

    Got a bunch of stuff to do and it needs to be ready in less than 2 weeks to do like a 1000 miles, no time to hang about
    I'm sure you'll get it sorted bud. Slide motorsport might had a handbrake lever that they could send out, might be worth giving them a buzz.

    Where are you taking the car in a couple of weeks?

    PS: Definitely the best colour for a Zenki

  20. #20
    Guest Matas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Near Harrogate
    Posts
    316
    Rides
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by Brookie View Post
    I'm sure you'll get it sorted bud. Slide motorsport might had a handbrake lever that they could send out, might be worth giving them a buzz.

    Where are you taking the car in a couple of weeks?

    PS: Definitely the best colour for a Zenki
    Slide do have one and most probably I'd be able to collect it on Sunday, I just have to figure out how to get there now, which is a challenge in itself.

    I need to go to Newcastle then back to Harrogate. A few days later im going to from harrogate to St Albans > Japfest Donnington > St Albans > Goodwood Festival of speed > St Albans and finally back to near Harrogate. I'm hoping the car doesn't spew it's guts everywhere in that time. Can't wait though, gonna be fun.

    I really do like red, but there's two zenkis that I love that are black and grey, it's probably more their styling though, probably would look good in red.


Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •