S13 Silvia Tuning

February 12 - 2004

The IDA event set to take place at the Creek on the 15th has been cancelled. instead in its place IDA will be having a night at Oran Park on their drift circuit on Friday the 20th. With a try track and only 20 places available it promises to delivera good time. Myself and a few local friends have already secured our spots, so only disaster will stop us competing. Two days later Oran Park is holding 'Driftland', NSW biggest drift comp. The best 5 drivers out of the twenty on the 20th will have a chance to enter this competition. On the last days form I would not expect to get picked but if it were going by the first skid pans efforts I would be more confident. Fingers crossed then that I drive as well as I can and get to drive in both events. I will be at the 22nd event spectating if not driving at least.

I have become aware thanks to DumHed that I need an S14/S15 coolant elbow before I install the Apexi turbo onto the car. It turns out the coolant feed for the turbo changed on the transition from S13 to S14 SR20DET, and I will need to make this change if I intend to utilise my braided lines in full for the installation. More news as it happens.

February 9 -2004

I am eagerly preparing for the next IDA drift day at Eastern creek this sunday. Since the last event I have chased and fixed a failed rear wheel bearing, and have sourced some more rims for the rear to drift on. The day is on Sunday on the Eastern Creek figure 8 and skidpan, come check it out if you can. Pics of the new wheels can be found on the Exterior Evolution page.

The next stage of engine mods is moving closer. I( have no idea what is happening with Badbiki coming from WA so i have started looking into alternative tuners. I am in discussion with Unigroup but am unsure if they the ecu retuning experience neccessary to setup the car well with the larger injectors and air flow meter. It also looks like the injectors are not HKS or Sard, but possibly 'Essential' 550cc units. This is the brand which best resembles them in my HyperRev catalogue.

February 1 -2004

Recently my aftermarket injectors arrived, which have turned out to be 550cc Sard injectors. I've started yet another page dedicated to covering requirements for SR20 injectors and on fitting aftermarket items. Check it out here: Sard Injectors.

January 29 - 2004

Last night was a huge success for Initial Drift, with a large turnout and a strong performancve from the demonstrating drivers. I felt I drove a little below the level of skill that I did on the wet skidpan day last month, but i had some good moments none the less. Hopefully I will have some video footage soon of some of my finer moments.

Go over and check out Initial Drift, it is going to be huge!

Found some dynamite info on my Apexi turbo, and the AX Turbine page has been updated with it. Provided all goes well I hope to make almost 240rwkw on just 17psi with this turbo, with very close response to stock. Time will tell.

January 28 - 2004

Everything is really happening now. Tonight is the IDA drift exhibition which I am driving in. The car is ready now, after having my old aftermarket diff from the black car installed yesterday. I will pick up some cheap 15 inch second hand rubber to destroy tonight and then I will be 100% ready to go. Look out for an update on this soon with pics ad vids of the car in action.

Yesterday I picked up the new turbo for the 180sx. The s15 turbo I was looking at fell through and an Apexi AX53B60 P25 came up for sale. Whilst almost double the price it is a nice piece of gear, capable of 340PS and featuring ball bearing and water cooling. It should be good for 240rwkw if I have the guts to wind it out that far. The turbo is in excellent condition and came with braided oil and water lines too. Check it out on the Apexi AX Turbine page.

My HKS 600cc injectors should also arrive this week, which means everything is on schedule for daughterboard tuning in mid Feb.

January 25 - 2004

On Friday night the 180 went on to the dyno to see the health of the engine and the effect the HKS cams have on power output. Remember that aside from the actual engine being different, everything hanging off it is the same as the old car. Performance wise this include the exhaust, FMIC and piping, ebc, manifold, turbo, injectors, afm, TPS, wiring loom and ecu. Therefore comparison wise it should be fairly accurate, with very similar power outputs for the same mods.

The car however felt quite weak in comparison in the days leading up, having little midrange and only pulling ok right up top. The dyno reflected this with the first run giving 162 rwkw, and about a 15kw deficit in the midrange to the last run (164.9rwkw afer manifold). Yavuz from Unigroup suggested we fiddle with the base timing and other parameters to see if all is well, to which i agreed. Well I'm lucky I did because he used his experience to work some magic, advancing the ignition timing to a detonation free 179.5 rwkw run, with greater midrange then before. Next run 179.0 rwkw and then to finish 181.4rwkw after a slight cooling off period.

Obviously I was extremely happy, the midrange was slighter better than before with a solid 15kw gain up top. The car still has an occaisonal misfire, to which Yavuz suggested new plugs gapped down slighly to fix. I will be taking his advice soon.

To see the graph and a video of one of the runs check out the results page. A huge thanks to Yavuz and Chris from Unigroup for there time and knowledge. I highly recommend them to anyone.

January 22 - 2004

It looks like the 180 will definately be engine wise completed in the start of February. As of today I have a set of 600cc straight fit HKS injectors, and a low kms used S15 T28 ball bearing turbo. The next step is to have an aluminium induction pipe made up from the turbo inlet snout to the larger 80mm external diameter RB20 air flow meter.

I have spoken with Badbiki and it seems I can expect at least 200rwkw. his personal cars runs the same setup except with the smaller S15 injectors and afm, and minus HKS cams for 204rwkw. Maybe 215rwkw will be the go after all.

January 21 - 2004

I have finally completed the brake upgrade page, with the fitement of the Z32 calipers on redrilled S14 discs. Some good comparison info has been made between S14, Z32 and R33 front brake setups. Follow the link for details.

I have bitten the bullet and decided to complete the engine package in the next few weeks in time for tuning in early Feb when the who's who od ecu tuning comes from Perth to NSW.

Now that I have the HKS cams I wanted the next steps are larger injectors, the fitment of my RB20 afm, a larger turbo and tuning. I have decided on an S15 turbo for now, as it should provide instant response with huge top end, to the tune of at least 200rwkw if all is good. There are a few S13 redtops SR20DETs around making over 200rwkw without the cams or larger afm, so it should be quite achievable. Perhaps a figure as high as 215rwkw is attainable if all goes well. The highest S15 turbo figure I've heard of is 226rwkw, on a newer S15 motor.

This should be the perfect tractable setup for some hard core drift, which is available to myself and others courtesy of Initial Drift Australia, a new club starting up that provides its members with regular track drift time. I can't wait.

January 19 - 2004

The part swapping is almost completely finished now. Yesterday the turbos and the ecus were switched and the grey car is running pretty well. All that remains is the differential and the alarm, both of which I hope to have done this week.

The car is running a slight stutter at the moment, which I'm hoping will disappear when I put in the spark plugs from the black car. Regardless the car will go on the dyno at Unigroup again later this week, to check all is well and what effect the cams have on power output. I am worried that the injectors are at max duty cycle, and the car on the verge of running lean, so dyno run depending the car might have to be run on lower boost until some larger injectors and the RB20 afm go on in the future.

January 17 - 2004

Most of the parts have been swapped over between the two cars now. Tomorrow the factory ecu will replace the Haltech as will my standard turbo replace the HKS 2540. After getting my boost controller up and running to deliver 14 psi with this turbo, I experienced ~200rwkw and was quite impressed. The turbo is quite laggy but the top end is great.

Tomorrow my upgraded brakes go on as well, which are now Z32 calipers which I traded with a friend for the S14 calipers. The same but lighter alloy in construction.

After tomorrow the only parts left will be the differential and the alarm system, which will be changed in just over a week.

I've started up a new Exterior Evolution page for the new car, check out the pics. The Specifications page has also been updated heavily, to match the specs of the new car. Now most items have a link to view an image of the said modification.

January 14 - 2004

This will be one of the biggest and most significant updates ever, due to what has happened and the fact that so much has happened. Firstly the reason it has been so long between updates with all of this news is that I upgraged my PC, and had to wait until now to get back all my old software. So in chronological order....

Firstly we changed the gearbox to the fresh one I had purchased, and it was a bastard job. Taking two full days it finally went in, it really was that bad. On the first day the old box finally came loose from the car and smashed helper's Craig fingers, enough force to burst the sides of them open from the pressure. Needless to say he retired hurt and myself, Dave and daniel finished the job. A very big thanks to all of them for their help. The new box was much better than the old but it took a while to settle properly before first and reverse didn't grind on engagement.

Soon after this I noticed some chassis damage on the right hand strut tower in the engine bay. It seemed a combination of countless accidents in Japan and the hugely stiff suspenson had cracked the car to bits. A huge split had spread from the battery tray to the adjacent corner of the engine bay. I truly feared for my life everytime I drove the car knowing thisdamage, which thankfully wasn't very many times. The decision was made that a new shell at least had to come, another straight S13 to move everything into.

A strange twist of circumstance saw another friend from Silvia NSW looking to replace his smick 180sx with something rougher to use at the track, and another friend looking to buy a SR20DET to covert his non turbo Silvia. Discussions were made, deals were done and I found myself trading my black 180 (minus driveline) + money for the new grey 180, and the driveline going to the third party.

This week the grey 180 was picked up and the long process of switching over parts from one car to the next. I am however picking up some parts that are staying on the new car at extra cost. The most significant of these is a set of HKS step 1 camshafts. Exactly what I wanted as previously mentioned on the November 19 update. The cams are under 3000kms old and are 256 degree inlet duration, and 264 degree exhaust duration. Cross another part off the list.

Some suspension gear is also staying on the car, mainly though due to the difficulty in swapping them. Firstly a set of pineapples is installed in the rear subframe, aiming to quell axle tramp. More significantly a set of Whiteline swaybars are installed front and rear, which are a great step up from what the black car was running (probably factory). The grey car handles very well, better than the blasck car ever did, with much softer coilovers. I will be sopftening mine to emulate this, as the mid corner grip especially over rough road is excellent.

The new car is very interesting in its specification, missing almost every power option. HICAS, ABS, power retract mirrors, cabin lights and power windows are all absent. The rear spolier is also gone, but from factory, it looks like there was never one there. Perfect for me as the bootlid has beautiful smooth paint on the surface. Perhaps the car has a lot of potential to be lighter than the last.

The engine of the new grey 180 is another SR20DET, but further modified to mine. Apart from the usual stuff it has a HKS GT2540 turbo, 740cc injectors, HKS cams and runs Haltech management. This is a very similar setup to what I am aiming for, take the exact turbo choice and the engine management. THis engine has shown the goods before, recording a 211 rwkw power figure. Currently it runs no aftermarket boost control, so its making similar rear wheel power to what I'm used to but with muchless midrange. I'll hopefully get my Blitz ebc in before the turbo is taken out to experience the type of result I'm looking for in the future.

Very soon when more parts are swapped I'll put up a new page of pictures detailing the new car. Stay tuned...

December 16 - 2003

The 180 has hit the dyno again to the tune of 164.9rwkw, a solid 7.5kw gain from one modification. Thanks to Yavuz from Unigroup Engineering once again for his patience in looking after exactly what I wanted. The poor factory T25G is being pushed and pushed further, and i think so is the fuel system. The extra airflow created from the manifold has made the air fuel ratios a tad leaner, suggesting the injectors are reaching max duty cycle. Read all about it omn the completed Exhaust Manifold page, and the graphs on the Results page.

I was previously going to get the HKS cams next, but I feel the addition capacity for swallowing air will not be met by the fuel system, resulting in a lean out. Therefore next stage will be the tuning of the car with the 550cc injectors and RB20 air flow meter in place. This should maybe give the car a crack at 170 rwkw, through the lessened intake restriction mainly. After that I will have brief tune done with the cams, to see the absolute max I can squeeze out the t25g before he hks turbo is used. Should be fun indeed.

I'm dying to hit the drag strip again, and will do so very soon after the new Western Sydney International Dragway in opened. The better surface combined with more power, better traction from better tyres and a lot more experience from myself in launching should see times tumble. I now seem to get consistant flat 6s for the 0-100kmh test, with only half decent launches, almost a second quicker than my best launches when I last raced. Therefore I won't be happy if I don't break straight into the 13s. Hopefully a low 13 second ET is available with some more practice. Time will tell.

December 15 - 2003

I'm glad to report I had an awesome day on the skidpan and figure 8 track at Eastern Creek. The car performed faultlessly (except for an intercooler hose blowing off and giving me a scare) and really was beautiful to drive sideways. I started the day about average but by the end I could link almost all of the figure 8 course sideways. I highly recommend such a day to anyone with a rear wheel drive car. The track is very slippery, so not much power or an LSD is required. Days like this are run regularly at Eastern Creek by MotoConcepts and Aaron McGill.

I'm hoping someone got some video footage of the car as my pics are useless. Already I have put my name down to drive in a full day of drift at Oran Park

This week I hope to install the fresh gearbox as well as have the car dynoed to test the effect of the new manifold. Expect updates for these very soon.

December 11 - 2003

Today the manifold was installed with the help of friends Craig and Daniel. It took a fair few hours but in the end everything went on. I am pleased to announce it seems to have made a great positive difference. Read all about it on the Manifold page.

The car therefore is all set for the skidpan day at Eastern Creek on Saturday, when combined with the fresh tyres I picked up for it a few days ago. Hopefully I can get my gearbox in early next week, to make the car a true pleasure to drive. I will most likely devote a new page to detailed the procedure for changing a gearbox/clutch, with the usual step by step picture instructions.

I must thank all you viewers for making this site a great success. Any day now it will pass 30,000 page hits, it seems people are recognising the value of the content I have worked hard to provide. As the the car grows, so will the site, and hopefully so will the viewers.

December 8 - 2003

This should be a great week for the 180. Firstly my manifold has arrived, and therefore is ready to be put on midweek on a day off. This is excellent timing with the old turbo to manifold gasket recently expiring, now to the point of not being able to reach full boost in most gears. A new pic is on the Manifold page. Expect a detailed picture guide on the install toewards the end of the week, and dyno testing very soon.

Secondly I have secured purchase of another second hand gear box to replace the extremely crunchy one in the 180. I will freshen the oil in it before its installed which I can hopefully do myself. I possibly won't have the correct eqipment and tools however. Either way i will finally get to see my mystery clutch for the first time.

Lastly this Saturday I will be driving on the new Eastern Creek Raceway skidpan for a drift practice day. I finally have a chance to go nuts in my car in a safe environment. It will only get better too with Oran Park announcing they will be harbouring drift on their go kart track and north circuit in the future.

November 19 - 2003

The 180 is now registered for another year which relieves me greatly. I have now moved onto stage 2 of the engine mods. Stage 1 was aiming to reach the limits of the factory T25G turbo and was as follows:

- full 3 inch exhaust sytem

- large FMIC

- raise boost to ~1 bar / 14 psi

- reprogram ecu

The aim for this stage was 160rwkw, and I have almost achieved that with 157.4rwkw minus the ecu remap. The reality is that there is very little top end gainto be had from this, as the air fuel ratio is already near where you would aim for and the car is apparently running detonation free. Therefore i'm starting stage 2 now and will have the ecu tuned to suit these mods instead. Stage 2 involves a larger aftermarket turbo and is as follows:

- 550cc straight fit injectors

- fitment of RB20 air flow meter or VG30 afm if needed

- aftermarket equal length stainless steel turbo manifold

- HKS step 1 camshafts

- HKS GT 2530 bolt on turbo second hand

- reprogram ecu suit all of this

The aim for this stage is around 220 rwkw. In the end though it makes what it makes and it's assured it will be bloody fast with this package, so I won't be too picky witha dyno number I hope. Internals will remain standard sans cams unless they break, which I hope they don't as the engine seems to be running quite well in its current state.Tuning will be the key as well as regular maintenance, which I already undertake.

To make the car a better all round package there are still a few other things I would like to do:

- upgrade front brakes (just need brake pads now to bolt on S14 setup)

- half roll cage

- oil cooler and remote filter kit

Luckily for me many things came on the car which would certainly be required at this power level, things like an aftermaket fuel pump, a tough clutch and a thicker radiator.

The first of these items on the way is the exhaust manifold, which I have just found a good value item on NissanSilvia.com. Pics can be found on the new Exhaust Manifold page.

I have begun some editing of the site, by splitting this page into two to help loading times. Look for a lot of proof reading corrections and other small changes soon.

November 6 - 2003

Something I've wanted to do for a long time is a reference guide to tyre sizing, which I have finally got around to. I think everyone will agree this is a fantastic resource when purchasing non standard size rims. The new page can found here: Tyre Selection.

November 3 - 2003

I have started performing small tasks to tidy up the car for rego. As seen on the Interior Evolution page I have moved my ebc display and cleaned up the centre console. Other jobs include fitting a battery strap.

Most interestly I performed another important step in my quest for a quality cold air setup. The fuse box has been relocated and a small shield made to protect it. Step by step pictured instructions can be found on the Cold Air Induction page.

October 31 - 2003

What a great day! Uni is now finished for the year allowing me a lot more time to work and earn money, and work on the car. Expect a lot of small updates as I fiddle with different areas od the car. Very soon I will have a good picture guide on how to relocate the headlight fusebox, making way for a decent cold air induction setup.

I will also take the time to go through and refine the site, including checking grammar and spelling (previously too lazy to check). I might consider some site altering to make it run faster too, such as making thumnails for all the pictures.

Today as planned I redrilling and machined the S14 rotors in the uni workshop. I am pleased to reveal that I must have done the job well, as everything fits nicely on the car. All that remains for the conversion is for me to purchase some new brake pads for the front and maybe rear, and some fresh fluid. I will be onto this as soon as I have the car registered. See the progress on the S14 Front Brake Upgrade page.

October 30 - 2003

I'm immensely enjoying the car at the moment, constantly taking it out for drives just for the hell of it. It is hard to enjoy it on pblic roads responsibly, therefore I am keen to get to the track in the near future. Which brings to back to the brake upgrade. Today I have removed one of the front dics from the car ready as a template to redrill the S14 discs at uni tomorrow. I will also see if I can give them a light skim to clean up the surface, but am unsure if the lathe available is suitable. Some comparison pictures of hte old to new brakes is available on the S14 Front Brake Upgrade page.

Therefore all I will need after that is brake pads for the new calipers and some fresh brake fluid, and the conversion is ready to take place. Can't beat Nissan for inter-family parts fitment.

The car is due for re-registration within the month, which I plan to use to re-register the car as a two seater. This requires the removal of all the rear seat belts and seats (which I've already done). The advantage of this is that I shouldbe able to legally fit a half-roll cage in the rear as long as it is padded.

October 27 - 2003

What can I say a very happy update indeed. The dyno day was yesterday and 180 pumped out a very strong 157.4kw at the rear wheels. Not only is this figure about as good as you get your an S13 SR20DET with my mods but also the way in which the car is running was very pleasing. For the first time I was able to pull a full run all the way until 7000rpm without having to back off for detonation or a lean air fuel ratio. The is running very near to the mixtures that would be aimed for if the ecu was being remapped, so doing this would only net a handful of additional kilowatts. Therefore in its safe state I'll probably leave the daughterboard tune until I have both a bigger set of injectors and my RB20 air flow meter ready to go, to maximise value for money.

Dyno graphs and pics can be found on the Results page, and hopefully in the next few days I will have some videos to upload as well.

Also yesterday I picked up a bargain set of S14 front brakes for $200. Including the calipers, rotors and some spare brake lines all now that is required s a redrill andclean up of the discs, and some pads. I will documenting the exact process and have created a new page to do so: S14 Front Brake Upgrade.

The site by the time this is uploaded will have passed 25,000 page hits which I think is a tremendous achievement. This site contains nothing such as a message board to keep regular viewers returning and racking up mega hits. It is safe to assume that there might be at least 10-15,000 individual visitors.

October 20 - 2003

I have had some minor repairs made to the car in the form of some welding to the intercooler support tag and the dump pipe. Details and pictures of this can be found on Front Mount Intercooler and Dump Pipe pages respectively. This means that car car is ready to enter the next Silvia NSW dyno day at Unigroup Engineering this Sunday. The last recorded figurewas 134.9rwkw when the car was fitted with the POD filter, cat-back exhaust and CES dump pipe. Further modifications since then are the front mount intercooler, the Blitz ebc running ~1bar, and the 3 inch high flow cat. I am hoping for 150rwkw, which was my original aim for these modifications.

October 12 - 2003

Just a quick update to tell of a slight change to the Exterior Evolution page, which has now been split into two pages to aid user friendliness. Another pic of the car with the new KT rims has been added and can be found with the others on Page 2. I will probably do a similar deal with this page, and no doubt one day I will go through and proof read the site to remove all my typing errors.

October 11 - 2003

Finally the wheels are on the car, and after a bit of fiddling I am very happy with the results. One thing I was disappointed in was the position the front wheels sit in. I was hoping for the rims to be almost in line with the guards without spacers but this just wasn't the case. The rears sit beautifully with ample tyre/strut clearance and fantastic width. However the fronts sit an inch or so inside the fenders.

To combat this I reinstalled my previously uses bolt on 20mm spacers. This pushed the wheels to very nice width, but I am disappointed they were needed. I also lower the front of the car a little less than 10mm to get a slightly better stance. I was able to do this all from the strut top in the engine bay without removing anything, thanks to my special camber tops.

So now the car is looking much better and the handling is perhaps even better. Wider track with lighter rims and a slightly lowered centre of gravity make the front end feel very nimble.

Check out the pics on the Exterior Evolution page.

The next step for the car is to fix a few niggling little problems, such as the crack in the dump pipe and also one of the intercooler support straps has snapped.

Another dyno day is upcoming so finally I will have a correct power figure. Afte the inclusion of the new cat I am confident of nearing my 150rwkw target for these current mods.

October 9 - 2003

Yesterday didn't quite as planned. A logistical error with the wheels meant that they only left Adelaide the day before instead of last Friday as previously thought. Fingers crossed for receiving them before the weekend. I did at least pickup my new high flow 3 inch cat, for which I've made a new small page for: High Flow Cat. I installed it this morning in drizzling rain, but there were no dramas which is a nice change.

On the road the car seems to have picked up some extra midrange, and boosting slighly harder. It is hard to tell though as throttle in this weather will spin the wheels coming on boost in most gears. Some dry weather should tell the full story, and trhen I'll be able to tell if the car has picked up any more boost.

October 8 - 2003

Today should be a great day. This morning I installed my GAB rear strut brace with a little trouble, pics can be seen on the Interior Evolution page. I have been told my wheels are due in in a few hours, so I am getting ready to drive down and put them on. Needless to say I'm excited, as it's been about a month since I first spied them for sale on NissanSilvia.com. I plan to pickup a high flow 3 inch catalytic converter I had lined on the way as well. It looks like I have sold the BSA rims previously on the front of the car, so the brake upgrade can be in motion in the next few weeks. I plan also to install a brake bias adjuster, to stop the front wheels locking up too easily with the new braking capacity.

October 2 - 2003

Good things are happening at the moment for the 180. The wheels should be on the car by mid next week, and I have finally secured purchase of a rear strut brace, which should arrive around the same time. I've decided that the best brake setup for my buck will be used R33 4 piston calipers, on new DBA R33 size rotors, drilled to the 4 stud S13 pattern. Some decent fluid and hopefully pads should enhance the braking performance a great deal, and have the car ready for some safe track time.

The car should be getting lighter and lighter too, as the new wheels should save around 30kg I imagine, in overall mass, rotating mas and unsprung weight. I nshortthis means acceleration and handling should both improve slightly. Today I plan to strip the carpet and maybe other stuff I find in the front half of the cabin. Look out out for an update soon with pics.

There is a chance too that I might be able to acquire a slightly damaged late model Type X 180sx front bar, which should go nicely. Fingers crossed.

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