Djays12's S12 Garage Thread

Looking good your car is badass  .....So what kind of racing are going for.....grip, time attack, drifting.....????

And the autopower cage do they make those already made for our vehicles?????

Thanks.

Yes the cage is specialy built for our vehicle. They build them on order. It took me 6-8weeks to have it to my door.

For this summer I will stay on lapping event and maybe 1 or 2 autocross.

Next year I may get into road racing if I get something more decent as engine than my CA20E... probably KA24DE-T

Hot shit man! You stripping the rest of the interior panels ( back seats obviously )?

Eventually yes. For now I'm leaving it there to make a division between the trunk and the interior.

bigjerEventually yes. For now I'm leaving it there to make a division between the trunk and the interior.

Been a while since the last update. The car have now been on the road for a while... The old CA20E is burning more and more oil every year and is whining for me to replace it.. probably gonna built a KA24DE-T next year, but it will stay like that for now.

By the time I took a few shot! (I've posted them somewhere else on the forum I think but here they are again)













And I also received my Bartco strut brace.. Wow this bar is crazy stiff! I though my car feeled like a go-kart with my coilovers and race tie-rods.. Well now it feel like a kart!

I badly felt doing an oil change about 3 weeks ago and hurt my wrist landing on the concrete.. it was really sore.. Took some racing driving liscence the weekend after with some painkiller as my wrist was still hurting..That was some awesome times! I was surprise on how I could always push the car to it adherance limit and correct it when the car was starting to slide. The car had a bit of oversteering but after lowering the rear damper level the car was perfectly neutral! here are a few shot

Surprisely I was able to follow that FD3's on the track! But that civic with R compound was faster than me in the curves.. I'm gonna need some R compound for next year too!








And last week I went to the hospital for some X-ray of my wrist and guess what? My wrist is broken and I got a 4mm displacment between both half of the broken bone... I'm gonna have some surgery this wednesday.

So yes I did pass my Lapping/Solosprint liscence with a broken wrist... but I'm done for this season!

And finally I just received my ADDCO rear sway bar today. It's gonna be my last mods for this year since I'm out of funds and got a broken wrist which will take 12 weeks to cure! Crap!

damn man looking good! sucks to hear about your wrist though

bon courage pour le swap

wow dude, take it EASY and let that thing heal.  Believe me, you will not regret it by letting it heal right over extra time.

AWESOME PICS  Do you have any larger versions?  particularly the one of the battleship in the background?  Thats hella badass!

good to hear the car will hang with some solid machinery on the track

please leave the interior in the car it looks som clean with a full interior and a cage.

So I've decided to get my s12 project going, and obviously I need to be a cool kid and document my progress on here. So far I've changed all the v-belts, spark plug wires and spark plugs, and that made it run better than the steaming pile of crap it was when I drove it home. I also stripped the interior and am going to remove the sound deadening soon. PICTURE TIME!!

The goods

OMG working hatch! Great for storing tools while I'm working.

In the process of changing belts

After some confusion as to how the back seat came out, I finally got it

Some interior pics. So glad Nissan decided granny beige was a necessary interior color lol.



The Clarion cassette player. Super eighties, although I don't know if it works or not.

The digital dash. According to my brother who I bought the car from, it was swapped in by one of the previous owners who happened to be an electrician. Too bad he couldn't manage to rewire the internals to actually approach anything near reliable. Hopefully I can find an analog dash and switch over.

A nice picture of the rear, which leads up to...

The little "present" my brother left for me. Because he just knew that sprayed on pink headlights was just what I would want, not a composite housing headlight swap.

The nice moldy carpet. I guess leaving it in a field for about 5 years with the window open will do that do a carpet. It's basically junk now, because that picture was taken after cleaning it.

Also did I mention that the previous owner was a smoker? No? Did I mention that he also must have been a magician to get these cigarette butts where they were, hidden underneath the carpet?



There are some problems I'm having right now, the main one being that the car isn't registered right now, but hopefully that will be fixed tomorrow. Or technically later on today I guess. The other big problem is the idle. It is terrible to say the least. When I first start it, it idles super low, so I have to loosen the idle air adjusting screw until it will keep idle, which makes it go from about 700 rpm and almost dying to 1500 rpm and revving too high for idle, and then it goes back down and repeats it. Then, after it gets warmed up, it just idles suuuuper high, around 2100 rpm. Here's a video of what I'm talking about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJibdAcVQQY.
I was thinking it's either a fouled up or broken sensor, some disconnected wire, or a vacuum leak. Any suggestions on any common things that go wrong with these cars that would cause this? I'm probably going to post some more pics tomorrow, especially of the rusty ass muffler, which looks like it is literally made out of rust.

Also I might have a power steering leak. Just maybe. (The wet spot on the cardboard was below the spot where the steering column hits the axle).

Athens...which makes it go from about 700 rpm and almost dying to 1500 rpm and revving too high for idle, and then it goes back down and repeats it.

i see your from vancouver...i am from long beach...couple hours away. Start looking for a kade to swap in....

Your normal idle should be around 750 rpm, obviously there is something wrong. Prolly not your battery or basic electrical connections, but check. Check your air filter, fuel filter, check for vacuum leaks, check that your TPS is properly set. Possibly low fuel pressure, bad fuel pump.

i see your from vancouver...i am from long beach...couple hours away. Start looking for a kade to swap in... .

Yikes that carpet looks horrible lol but otherwise nice car! Although im not a fan of the red pin striping.

might be the air regulator causing change in idle condition cold vs warm, super common issue on these.

I would use a spray such as starter fluid or carb cleaner in an aerosol can, shoot it around the lines and note any increase in idle, thats your vac leak.  If they are old or brittle at all, swap them all.  DO THEM ONE BY ONE tho!

car looks good man, you'll love the KA-DE in it!

Started taking out the sound deadening, and I should be done tomorrow. Now that I have some money I'm going to get it registered and then get the KADE! Then I just need to talk my friend into letting me use his shop for the swap, as my parents garage is much too small and cluttered to do anything in (The car doesn't even fit in it lol).

Ok so change of plans. The KA isn't happening anymore, mainly due to a lack of space to do the swap in, but also because my friend who had it had to use part of the harness for his 1jz swap into his s13 (which he just recently finished). So now instead of KA swap time it's get CA20 running good time so I can drive it full time instead of driving my VW around. Most of the sound deadening is out now, just need to get the rest out of the hatch and its good, but there's still a bunch of residue left over from it. Any recommendations as to how to get it out without damaging the paint as well? Also I've began hunting down my idle problem, starting with the vacuum hoses which I am replacing.

This is where I'm at right now


What I'm wondering is what this is

I think it's the Air Regulator from looking at the FSM, which could be causing the problem. What I want to know is if everything on there is necessary, or if I could just take some of the lines off and plug them to make it less complicated. I'm assuming it's necessary, so if it is, what is a good way to clean it? Brake or carb cleaner after I take it off?

I also saw this line coming off of it. It looks like it goes into the intake manifold.

Is it a vac line, or something else?

Also there's this line coming off part of the intake that goes to the Air regulator. Is this a vac line or something else, because I can't find it in the fsm or the nissan4u vacuum diagram I'm looking at.


And when I was underneath my car looking around after I finally got a jack and jackstands, I found these.
Boot's completely torn off

You can't see it very well here, but it looks like my oil pan gasket is leaking

And because the digital dash is such a POS, I decided to slowly get the gauges to make a custom dash! Mainly because its only 200 for all the gauges, and its going to be way cooler than any other s12 dash. But mostly because I needed a speedometer that worked more than 30% of the time.


It's also registered now! Just needs insurance and I can drive it, which is all the more incentive to get it running good.

Almost forgot, I checked the ECU for codes and it gave a 22, 23, 24, 31 and a 32, which according to the diagram on the ECU means Fuel Pump, Idle Switch, Neutral Switch, Load Signal and Start Signal. I only understand fuel pump out of all of those.

it should go to the intake.

Got some more shit done on ye olde s12 recently. Turns out that my right-rear wheel cylinder was seized. Discovered this when i was taking off the rim to check the drums for a lab in my auto class and the rim burned me when I touched it. So I used my amazing class discount at napa to buy wheel cylinders for both rear wheels, along with all the springs that were in there for about 45 bucks, then I fixed it in comfort on a lift yay! Also adjusted my ebrake so it works a little better, but it still sucks at doing anything other than hold my car on a mild incline. Got a speedo cable on the way from a member on here too, so now I can mount my nifty speedo, likely with some duct tape because I'm just going to end up putting it in place of the dash anyways so why bother with a real mount lol.

Still need to replace the tie rod, and I think the distributor assy is leaking oil? Looking in the FSM it shows that it goes into the engine, but can it really leak oil from there or is it just leaking from somewhere around there?

the dizzy has an o-ring where it goes into the head that can leak oil

EternalSwap on 05:31:26 AM / 04-Nov-10the dizzy has an o-ring where it goes into the head that can leak oil

Took the antenna off, welded a ring of metal in the hole and sent it to the paintjob :)

ahh ok I need to do that...

So earlier this week I was feeling a lil bit lazy, so here's what happened:

1. I decided to read a book


2. I was reading it upside down so I ended up with a dash in the trunk


...and a lack of dash where it should be..


So I decided to fix my wiper motor since it is broken, so I went on zilvia and asked how we do this, and I started to work it









Is there anything I did wrong?

Nah seriously I decided to give a big rush on the car this month, I'll rebuild the engine, tint the whole dash in black and redo some of the wiring on the car to make it simpler/cleaner.

The bad news of the day, my flywheel is cracked all around the friction surface.. how the fuck did this happened?


So tomorrow I'll bring the transmission to a transmission shop, shop for a gasket kit, rings, flywheel and other stuff. Sound like a fun month of vacation ahead of me :P

Sweet,  do work man.  How extensive of a KA rebuild are we talkin'?

With the time I have ahead of me to do everything, it's gonna be pretty basic. Ported head, 240/248 cams, port matched intake and exhaust, new rings, bearings and gaskets. At the same time I'll add an oil cooler, I have a thermostatic setup for it so I can keep the oil temp steady.

Well long time no see, a lot have been done in the few last days. The rear calipers have been sent to be rebuilded today, the rust in the engine bay have been mostly dealed with, the engine is all apart, waiting for the gaskets and rings to come in before tackling the engine.


I got a ACT streetlite flywheel coming too. Should make the KA feel a bit more peppy and more important, replace the cracked flywheel!

Today I took care of the engine harness, when I did the swap I didn't really knew what I was doing and decided to run the engine without IACV. The engine ran fine but the wiring job was ugly and there was no idle when the engine was cold (had to give it some gas for the first minute to keep it from stalling),

First of all I started by identifying all the wires that were not used, and recovered the IACV wires (I had cut the connector for it when I did my swap). I have another intake manifold with the IACV unit on it, so I'm gonna use that one!


Kinda hard to believe the engine will run with all that taken of the ECU plug haha


In the end I got rid of all these wires O.o haha that's a lot! Mostly AC stuff, Automatic transmission stuff and some other wires that I decided were useless


Now I just have to make a connector for the IACV valve and another one for the tachometer signal, and wrap the thing in some fresh loom!

And I started taking off what was in the way to work on the front half of the main harness, mostly the SMJ.. super multiple junction nissan call it.. I just name it shitty messy junktion.


but right now my brain hurt from looking all these diagram today, so I'll have a rhum and relax for the rest of the evening!

Do work son!

sideways_s12 on 12:27:10 AM / 12-Mar-13Do work son!

Nice work!

went to home hardware to have a corrostop paint mixed specially to match the body of the car!



yup, paint brush job! :) it's gonna last for quite a while!





Tomorrow I'm getting on the engine again, I'm expecting my gaskets and rings by tomorrow or friday!

Bay looks great!

Def looks good bro...

So i'm going on a ship for 4 weeks thursday, the engine is not in the car yet.. and that is not my garage. lol fml! But no worries tho, the engine should be installed tomorrow.. I'm not gonna be able to drive it though because I'm needing some driveshaft hardwares. Well at least I can push it!

Got a new (well to me, at least it's in good shape) rubber coupling. The old one was more than due for retiring.


Replacement for the cracked flywheel ;) act streetlight freshly surfaced.


oh yeah!




Nom nom nom


Engine mount filled with polyurethane!


So what I have still left to do before the summer:

Finish the electric box that will go in place of the battery

Get done with dyeing the dash and installing it.

Make bracket and install the bride seat

break in the rebuilded engine/tranny

ABUSE THE THING ALL SUMMER! :)

Lookin pretty sweet man! Love ka s12's =)

Looking good man. I wish my engine bay looked as fresh as yours. Maybe someday in the future.

So another update, mostly pictures, I haven't got the time to work on the car yet since I'm back, I was stuck between some university parties, appartment shopping and selling some parts. I had time to buy some goodies for the car, here are the pictures, they'll talk by themselves :P

Rear suspension and crossmember, I'll slot the subframe for camber adjustment, paint everything and put some fresh urethane bushings everywhere!


These are not of any interest, they will be a good test for fabbing the molds


Now you wonder why I say these Erebuni sideskirt are of no interest, well here is why!


That's right, new fresh MAD sideskirt to match the MAD bumpers!




I'll work on the fit of those, fix them, paint them and then they'll be ready for the molding process. I'll wait until I start to work on my catamaran hulls to fix the fiberglass on them where needed.

But I couldn't resist to put the front bumper over my bumper to get an idea of the look and how high above the ground the lip will be.


not too bad, should be able to drive around with no problem with a bit of caution.

Nice! Are you planning to sell a few molds after its all said and done?

I'll either sell the molds if I can find someone to duplicate them or keep the mold.. S12 owners are not very wealthy (in general) so I don't expect a lot of these kits to be sold!

Sad but that's the truth of the S12 market!

Well I couldn't hit the track this year, I finally finished the car a month ago. New louder exhaust, new alignment, freshly broke in engine.

Here's the alignment setup, very pleased with it:
Front: -2.5 camber   4.5 caster  0 toe
Rear: -2.8 camber 0 toe

The last 150kms of the break in were done on some twisty back roads with a friend with a modded sport touring motorcycle... he should have listen to me when I told him he won't be able to keep up with the car in the turns :P Very happy with the way the car handle! Brought the car to 180km/h, bounced it on the rev limiter and gave it a lot of beating. No smoke at all and the engine feel solid! Glad I took the time to rebuild it properly. Can't say I feel the gains of the lightweight flywheel and porting/exhaust work though.... Didn't expect so either since I didn't drove it for about 8 months before that... I'll just assumed there are some gains. I will have to get the car to the test n tune 1/4 miles next year to confirm the gains!

Now I'm making plans for next year since this winter will be hitting soon, I'll mainly work on the suspensions, because the next winter it's gonna be swap time again with something much meaner than the KA24DE.

So for this winter:
Front Suspension:
-Front M30 knuckle assembly with T3 Roll Center Adjuster
-Weld the front coilovers to the M30 strut
-Heim joints on the front LCA (maybe, not top priority but I would love to do this)
-Shorten and re-thread the inner tie rod and the tension rod. Right now the car is at 0 toe with the tie-rods fully adjusted... same with the tension rods, 4.5 caster feel nice but I wanna try 6* of caster
-Replace the T3 tension rod washer that go through the tension brackets with some custom ones to add some anti-dive geometry.

Rear suspension:
-Slotted subframe with a design like the Datsport 510 subframe
-KAAZ super Q 1.5way lsd set at 60% (if cash allow, shouldn't be a problem though).
-Heim joints on the rear arms (maybe, not top priority but would love to do this)
-Maybe replace the rear spring for stiffer ones (6kg/mm -> 8kg/mm)

Bodywork:
-Erebuni body kit... if not enough people shows some serious interest in buying a copy of the kit I'll modify it a bit to my taste

The car will be lowered a bit in the back once I have camber adjustment, and it should roll a little less with both roll center jacked up (lowering the outside pivot on the subframe raise the roll center at the same time than correcting the camber). I can't wait to get it to the track again. Hoping to make some interesting kills at the lapping sessions next year... I might give a try at some autoslalom events too!

What engine are you running again?

Ka24de^

It have been a long time since I updated it, the car was sleeping in a barn over winter. But here is what is going on:

Got a power rack / pump / lines, I'm going to put a power steering on the car again. I wanna try autoslalom this summer and manual steering will suck... and a power steering rack is not a bad idea for the swap I have in mind for next winter.

Made a custom adjustable subframe, it's a copycat of the datsport 510 subframe.

Bought a brand new Quaife ATS differential and a n/a z32 finned differential cover. The differential is going in soon, as for the crossmember, I still have to buy some uniball bearing that will replace the bushing on my control arms. It should happen sometime this summer.

Got a set of S13 arms that will be modified, the bushing end is going to be shopped and replace by a rod end. Once this is done, I'll remove the front suspension/steering component and rush on welding the coilover on the M30 strut with the T3 RCA and get the tension rod and tie rods shortened. Then I will be able to get a proper alignment up front!

Erebuni kit will be worked on during those sunny days, I'll do most of the fitting myself, I think that only the front bumper will need professionnal work. I decided not to make any mold from it, seem like there is not much interest and it will involve a shitload of time and money. I'm hoping on having the full kit installed by the end of the summer.