My 9.5 year build, thread is now under construction

[Auss15]

I know I promised my mate Spoonman that I would get around to putting up a build thread and I know Meddler will also be pleased. I guess a lot has happened in my 9.5 years of S15 ownership which started out as a dead stock Australian delivered pearl white, which at the time was pretty hard to find, auto Spec S (different to the Jap version). I had a S14 for 2.5 years prior to this which was a great car, but I always wanted an S15. It had 29K on it and was in great condition as it was owned by a mature lady owner from new. My first mod was a 3 inch stainless steel turbo back exhaust which gave me around another 15KW of power and naturally increased the boost by about 1 psi.This is one of the first photos of it when I first got it

I wanted a SpecS in preference to the SpecR because it had no sunroof which being 6'2" meant I couldn't wear a race helmet without touching the roof. Anyway I will continue the journey with pictures and mods, watch this space

 

[Mike]

Looking forward to seeing how its transformed!

 

[meddler]

even still has the same numberplate

 

[Auss15]

The wife bought those, so I have to hang onto them, you can relate Chris

 

[Fruitbooter]

About time...

Looking forward to seeing the story

 

[JDM_virgin]

This is going to basically be an auto-biography! Can't wait to see the transformation

 

[S15_SAM]

Is the 200sx badge on the boot standard on the Australian one?

 

[meddler]

The wife bought those, so I have to hang onto them, you can relate Chris

I know about having to keep the wife happy. Still they are a good plate for the car.

Is the 200sx badge on the boot standard on the Australian one?

Yep.

 

[Auss15]

So within months of new ownership I was lucky enough to receive from my family a day booked at one of our famous but now defunct race tracks called Oran Park. It was a tracvk experience with driver training. It gave me an opportunity to see how the car went with stock suspension and brakes. I was supprised how well it went compaired to my old S14 which I had upgraded the suspension on.

 

[spoonman]

Mate i just pooed a brick, you finally started a thread............................................. wait just going to take this in, 9 years of ownership................... yep,, More please

 

[Auss15]

Yes mate, 9 and a half years.

One very important thing I did which had a huge impact on the future mods I did to the car was in 2005 join the Nissan Sports Car Club. They were a bunch of guys who had formed in 2002 with their main interest being S13,S14 and S15's. Their moding knowledge was invaluable and stopped me making expensive mistakes.

Well now I had taken it out onto the track it became obvious that I needed something better then the stock intercooler with our warm to hot Summer months.
So I booked it in at a SR specialist and dyno tuner CRD, and had fitted, on advice from the guys (with future mods in mind) Tomei Pon cams, 550 injectors, Walbro fuel pump, Turbo Smart FPR and Greddy intercooler.
It was tuned to 163KW with the aid of a piggy back ECU called Unichip as it was still an Auto and I had to run the stock ECU. Boost was risen to 14psi.
I also decided to ditch the stock rims and went with a AMG 18x8 rim and Firenza tyres which ended up being rubbish.
So this is where he was at towards the end of 2005.

 

[S15_SAM]

What sort of track days did you like to do mate? 4x4 offroading by any chance

Looks super clean!

 

[Auss15]

Haha, yes well that was my next step, suspension. At this time I was fighting a harder battle, convincing my wife that I needed to make some changes. She couldn't understand why I was taking perfectly good stock parts off the car...

 

[Larsz]

Looking forward to the rest of the story. I always like this kind of threads Car looks very clean as said!

 

[meddler]

I have owned mine for 7 years now.... man time flies!

 

[Auss15]

So the next step was some handling options, my first mod was Whiteline non adjustable sway bars. I also decided to modify the stock airbox by removing the snorkel and cutting out the front and added a K&N panel filter.I also installed a catchcan and front strut brace;

Next step was shocks and springs. I had previously used Koni adjustable shocks and King springs on my previous S14 and was convinced at the time that it was a good set up..(which in time I learned was only good for light street driving). I went ahead and installed them and compaired to stock were a lot better. I also developed a desire to have some decent Jap rims instead of the Chinese rims I had...Fortunately one of the NSCC guy's, Eugene, was bringing in a lot of parts from Japan and as time unfolded he would supply me with quite a lot of quality Japanese parts for my car.

 

[Auss15]

So I managed to get a set of bronze Work Kais, 18x7.5 fronts and 18x8's rears. The stock ride height though was starting to bother me, but I knew I couldn't go stupid low because of my bad driveway.

I also decided that I wanted to convert it to manual after doing a NSCC trackday.
My friend Eugene was able to get me a full manual conversion with a low kilo box from Japan.
I also got a brand new Power FC and Blitz DSBC as I wanted to get rid of the stock ECU which was limiting the tune and boost I could run.

I ended up getting the car and parts to one of our club sponsors and after a few issues (he didn't want to put the Exeddy lightened flywheel in because he wasn't going to use non Nissan flywheel bolts)
We put the stock dual mass back in with the Exeddy clutch.
Got the car back after a couple of weeeks and was very happy with the change.

Went and had it tuned and got 196Kw at the rears.

 

[Auss15]

Next step was other handling options, I purchased and fitted Cusco rear camber arms,toe rods and castor arms plus front camber bolts. If I was going to lower the car more I needed some more adjustment and wanted to set up track settings for trackdays aswell.I also put slotted front and rear rotors and Ferodo DS2500 pads all round as a good compromise for street and occasional track driving.

I put in a Cusco rear strut brace, the no holes one.

My next track outing I managed to take 4 secs off my previous time on Bridgestone REO1R's..


Me on the front row far left, it was a great day of racing with other Silvia's

Lot's more to come

 

[JDM_virgin]

Haha, yes well that was my next step, suspension. At this time I was fighting a harder battle, convincing my wife that I needed to make some changes. She couldn't understand why I was taking perfectly good stock parts off the car...

haha i know that feeling, my mum is constantly moaning why i have bits strewn across the house... they just dont understand!

 

[spoonman]

nice 1970's sweat shirt.....