First thing first, the car
got booked into Liverpool Exhaust for some standard bolt-ons to raise
the bar.
A
new 3-inch exhaust & dump, 600x300x3inch intercooler, intake
and Hybrid GFB bov were bolted on. This brought
the standard boost up by a couple of notches and allowed the 200sx
to run cooler.
Next
the brakes were an issue and thus
a new
set
of Bendix
Metal
Kings
were supplied by
Dom from Autostyle and discs machined at Canley Vale Workshop to
provide better stopping grip.
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| Intercooler |
Intercooler & BOV |
Intake pipe by
passes the battery |
Engine bay shot with
the IC in place |
Top view of the IC |
Top view of the IC |
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| With the front bar on |
BOV |
Dump pipe |
New exhaust |
After the setup was
complete, a new AVCR
was ordered through Jetspeed to
allow in-cabin electronic boost control.
An engine
strut brace was also strapped on, to provide more cornering stability.
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| AVCR |
AVCR Solenoid and
engine strut brace |
AVCR boost sensor |
With this setup, the
car recorded 149.1kw at the wheels on 15psi at SAS Automotive dyno.
Thats a 49.5kw improvement
from the stock standard
100kw at the wheels.
The
luxury spec 200sx sound system is pretty top notch with 6 speaker
surround and a CD player. But
it could be better. So out went the old system and a new Pioneer
audio system was installed. Thanks to Kris Bocian for his excellent
skills in wiring up the stereo with Gerry from Autostyle putting
his golden fingers
to work to fine tune the system. After some more tweaking the audio
system
was complete and sounded nice.
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| Pioneer Bullets in the doors |
Pioneer tweeters |
Pioneer Gold
12 inch sub |
FH-P6600 deck |
V12 1000Watt
4 channel amp |
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V12 1000Watt
4 channel amp |
To provide more traction
a new set of deep
dish Mahdi Caesar Type-TS-5 18inch rims were ordered from
Japan through BigOTyres. Ula and I looked at a number of Rims
before settling down on these beauties mainly for their classy
look and originality. The rims were wrapped in 235x40 Falken rubber
at the front and 285x35
Pzero's
at the
rear.
Traction
is phenomenal! And so is the camber. :p
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| Rear |
Front |
Rear |
285's |
Comparison |
"Who's bigger?" ;) |
Whilst in Japan
doing business, friends Gerry and Dom from Autostyle executed
the "Ernest parts
wish list". Upon their arrival in Sydney, a surprise awaited
me - a set of Tein
HE "Drift Spec" coilovers with tops. Out
went the old suspension and in went the new with Mikes help.
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| Old setup |
Mike hard at work |
In with the new unit |
Comparison |
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"where do we start?" |
Something wasn't right. The Pzero's had
a life span of only 3 months. Obviously the camber was a culprit
with 6 degrees on the right and 4 degrees on the left. The car
was taken to Pedders Suspension for some adjustments without
any good outcomes. The right side couldn’t be adjusted;
obviously something was wrong with the suspension. I was advised
by Dom from Autostyle to take my car to Sutherland Suspensions
as they deal with all type of sport/race car suspensions. Close
analysis proved that the right hub was bent - most likely from
an accident.
An accident? A memory flash brought back my incident on the race
track. Yap... now i remembered spinning off the track. A new
hub was ordered from Mr Nissan (Mr rip your wallet out) and installed
and adjusted. Perfect, now only 3 degrees of camber at the rear.
Still a tad
too much,
but
excellent for the race track and taking those corners at high
speeds.
By this time, hunger for more power popped
up on the agenda. Speaking to the boys at Jetspeed and Liverpool
Exhaust, it became apparent I needed to go beyond the standard
power-ups.
Li from Jetspeed ordered a dual ball
bearing Turbonetic
T04 turbo (water and oil cooled) along with a HKS 46mm external
wastegate for the 200sx. Since the turbo was not a straight
bolt on job, the car was sent to Liverpool Exhaust to get a
new custom exhaust manifold made up along with a new dump pipe.
Upon the completion of the piping, the new exhaust manifold,
dump pipe and the turbo exhaust housing were sent away for ceramic
coating. Upon their return the whole setup was put together by
the boys (Shev and Craig) at Liverpool Exhaust.
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| New Turbonetics T04 500HP
unit |
Manifold setup |
New dump and
external wastegate |
Engine bay |
"Here's looking at
you kid" |
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Liverpool Exhaust
workshop |
Trying to get to the
injectors |
380cc injectors |
600cc injectors |
While all of this
was happening, I started searching for a tuning shop. Unigroup
came to the "rescue".
Unigroup organised and sent away my standard injectors
to get them machine drilled with a capacity of 600cc. Removing
and putting the injectors back into the engine proved to be a
great deal of time and sweat due to the nature of the intake
manifold setup.
The car was finished at Liverpool Exhaust,
but, we couldn’t start it as it still had a standard ECU.
So Dom from Autostyle provided towing services for the 200sx
to Unigroup.
Unigroup suggested instead of using EMS,
I should use a TSI due to its nature to work with the standard
ECU and only control ignition and fuel once the car is on boost.
Sounded pretty sweet considering the standard ECU would still
control the idle, air con and other engine safety features.
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| Valiant doing final tweaks |
TSI being
programmed
through the laptop |
Dyno run |
224.6KW |
Dyno sheet |
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| TSI |
The 200sx spent
around 5 weeks at Unigroup, during which a new 500HP Walbro fuel
pump and the TSI were
installed. The car was tuned with the new ECU (TSI) and AVCR,
producing a mind blowing 224.6KW
at the wheels at 15.5psi on standard internals.
After taking delivery of the 200sx, next a
visit to Croydon for a dyno run was organised to get some benchmarks. The power
figures were off to Unigroups dyno. 226KW unigroup
vs 209KW at Croydon. As time went on, the TSI did not prove
to be "the best thing since slice bread". The 200sx
was back for further ECU patching as the car would stall occasionally,
warm up was an issue, power seemed to be dropping off during
atmospheric changes and the idle was always too high. Although
drivable, having payed for goods which were unfit for purpose
raised some concerns with the choice of this tuning shop.
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| On the Croydon dyno |
209.5KW |
Whilst driving
(and boosting) to pick up pizza from PizzaHut, a loud pop, grinding
and a loss in power
started eminating from the gearbox. Turned out the brass button
clutch died. This was a great opportunity to get something better.
A
call
to Croydon
and a decision to import a OS Geiken twin plate clutch was made.
Upon the arrival of the new clutch from Japan, the car was driven
(slowly) to Croydon for a clutch
and flywheel replacement.
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New unit
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Old clutch
- brass button unit
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Explains
the slippage...
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CRD installation
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New clutch
- OS Geiken twin-plate
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Things got better when Lee from Smithfield
Interior Designs called to say to bring my car down. The car
was overdue to get the interior done and now things were falling
in place nicely. A choice of light green (aquatic some say)
swede inserts with cream
leather interior was put in over the old seats, door inserts
and gear boot. This brightened up the car nicely.
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| Stripped while waiting for
the new leather retrim |
Interior back in |
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| Green swede inserts with
cream leather |
Then remembering the promise I made to
Ula that this was it... no more mods... I changed my mind.
With the aim to reach 300rwkw, the car
got
sent to the best in the field: Croydon Racing Developments for some JUNing. :-)
Engine Rebuild - visit no.1:
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| Engines out |
Stripped |
Engine bay |
Engine block |
Ready for machining |
Engine Rebuild - visit no.2:
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| Machined block |
Machined block |
Machined block |
New JUN gaskets |
JUN rod x 4 |
JUN / Cosworth head |
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| JUN piston kit |
JUN head and rod |
JUN / Cosworth head |
JUN goodies box |
Titanium valve washers |
Titanium valve springs |
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| Machined crank |
Machined crank |
Machined crank |
Engine Rebuild - visit no.3:
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| JUN / Cosworth head |
JUN / Cosworth head |
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272 JUN cams |
Ported & machined |
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Engine Rebuild - visit no.4:
Engine Rebuild - visit no.5:
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Yours truely |
Turbo setup |
Ported & machined |
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Engine Rebuild - visit no.6:
Engine Rebuild - CRD basic startup tune to get the engine running in:
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Apexi PowerFC (ECU) |
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Dyno Tune |
The car got a standard run-in tune on the new ECU (I wouldnt even call it a tune, just something to get it running while the engine wears in) running stock boost (7/8psi) which generated 180rwkw.
The old T04 was replaced with a GT700.
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The new next
to the old |
New turbo |
After a drive to Melbourne and back to wear the engine in and a visit to Liverpool Exhaust to upgrade the 3inch exhaust to a 3.5inch, the car was taken to CRD for a power tune yielding impressive results. 313rwkw @ 22psi on 98 octane.
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| 313rwkw @ 22psi |
313.1 RWKW (Rear Wheel KiloWatt) @ 22PSI.
Which is 419.8 HP at the wheels.
With around 20% drive train loss in the equation
= 503.8 Engine Horsepower.
After the car was power tuned, it sounded superb. On idle, it now grumbles like a rotor. And on boost like a jet taking off.
Although a pleasure to ones ear, a nuisance to anothers (ie. neighbours).
In went an Kevin Davis's active butterfly - http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/article.html?&A=2291 - valve to control exhaust noise and backpressure.
During tests, the reduction in noise at 4,000rpm is 10db. Success! .. what one does for their neighbours :)
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| Valve |
Switch - 3 modes:
auto, manual or off. |
Control unit |
Valve installed |
Valve installed |
Exhaust view
of the flap |
To keep the oil temps down, further mods went in like an oil cooler and an oil catch-can.
Car is pretty much in a finished stage and has been retuned to run on 100 RON (Octane). There are obviously more things that can be done but where does one end.
The journey has been superb. The people I've met along the way, the friends I made and the experience gained is priceless.
Here's a snap of some pics which were sitting gathering dust. In no particular order.
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