Author: sr20tuning

The painting has begun! Daily updates on the Paintjob page can be found.

Good news for the 180 in that it will finally be painted starting next week. I have purchased a new spray gun and more black paint and thinners, so I have all the materials needed. This time around there is a much more realistic chance of actually getting it done, as I have taken the entire week off work, and I have a good friend coming over to stay for the duration. The only thing that can spoil the party is the weather, so fingers crossed.

I’d like to give a wrap to Auto West in Penrith for the paint supplies. Not only are they about half the price of the generic auto stores, but the staff actually seem to know about painting and the products they sell. A pleasure to deal with. I picked up my new spray gun, 8 litres of pre-thinners mixed matt black paint, 20 litres of thinners (for the primer) and a few little things for $150, which is fantastic. The spray gun is a much better product than the previous unit I was using, and has a nicely constructed reservoir attachment (the part which broke last time), so no dramas there. I have some fresh batteries for the camera too, so I hope to update regularly. Wish me luck!

• Getting the 180 on the dyno to see how it’s going with the new boost. My guess is just under 150 kw @ wheels.
• Getting the 180 to Eastern Creek to try and run a 13 second time like I should be. Might have to wait until I’ve got some half decent tyres though, as buying second hand makes a lucky dip with what is available at the time. The current Yokohomas on the back are 225s but consistently lose traction coming on boost in second in the dry, first is a joke.
• Doing a big well deserved service on the car. This includes a fresh second hand sump (the current item is battled scarred from Japan), fresh engine oil, new oil filter, new fuel filter, new gearbox oil, and maybe new spark plugs. The gearbox oil is a real big one, I think the oil was not changed during compliance like it should have been, and now the shift quality of the gearbox has deteriorated to a crunchy monster. After hearing good things I want to try using some Redline Shockproof Gear Oil, which may be expensive but hopefully worth it.
• The biggy is to paint that damn ugly car. I’m sick of being embarrassed in it, and attracting the wrong attention just trying to drive around normally. Can’t wait to have a car that has looks to back up its performance.All of this will hopefully happen in the next few weeks before I go back to uni, so it should be an exciting time.One thing that occurred to me is that people must assume that I have had an accident when they see the silver guard and primered bonnet. I have the proof in the pictures on the Exterior Evolution page and I will post up a picture of the old green guard accident free when I can be bothered.

Boost controlled was ordered, sent, received and installed. All the details are on the Blitz SBC iD II page. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to dyno the car and take it down the quarter mile, should be big improvements in both areas. I have been practising launches now for a long time, and have slashed my 0-100km/h times from long ago, so if the night is cold then hopefully I’ll run a 13 second pass.

I also got a new pair of wheels for the back of the 180. 16×7 inch and very Japanese. Unfortunately even with spacers the offset was incorrect for the front, the tyre was fouling the coilover spring. Damn shame because they would have looked awesome on all sides. Check out the Exterior Evolution page for pics.

Still in the market for the boost controller, hopefully it will be in the mail in the next few days, I can’t wait to install it in a custom location for maximum visibility.

Over the last couple of days I machined up a nice little aluminium billet handbrake button to complete the handbrake modifications. I have created a new page showing step by step how to create a Drift Spec Handbrake.

Well what a mess up! I started getting into the paintjob quite enthusiastically, and as soon as I had gotten the spray gun settings worked out and the front bar and side skirts completely done, the spray gun started to have issues. First the paint feed became very inconsistent, with long periods of time in between paint spraying. When fiddling with the reservoir a small washer that holds everything together sheared off forcing me to adapt other means of supplying paint. These worked intermittently until a blockage encouraged me to hook up a second positive pressure feed to the paint line, which not only freed the line but sprayed huge chunks over the bonnet. Needless to say I was not impressed and whilst contemplating pulling the car out of the Autosalon, I heard the news that SilviaNSW would only be competing in the Final Battle later in the year. Laziness set in and then the car has stayed since that moment the way it appears on the Exterior Evolution page.

My focus turned to performance again and I have been saving and looking for a boost controller since. I originally planned to build a cheap manual controller as seen on Autospeed but a few frustrating hours on the pneumatics suppliers website left me empty handed. I turned my focus to Japanese electric controllers, starting with a Greddy Profec B, then considering a Blitz dual SBC spec R, Apexi AVC-R type, and now finally a Blitz SBC iD-II. This will be the next addition to the car and I hope to have it asap. I plan to test it on the dyno for maximum safety, so hopefully my dyno dramas are over now.

Things are about to start happening very fast for the 180, as it is confirmed it will appear in the Silvia NSW Club Display at the 2003 Sydney Autosalon. The cars that appear at the Autosalon are really not my type of thing, so we will be attempting to entertain onlookers with something refreshing and different. All I can say is that the emphasis won’t be on airbrushing and huge chrome wheels.

Therefore, it is time to start painting the car in the matt black I had always planned. I will miss the green, but I am proud to say I am not being weak and switching to a ‘nice’ colour. There is no way to describe a matt black paintjob except as drift. In the same spirit I refuse to remove all the imperfections in the body, the only change I will be making is a new right front guard as the current one has always been cracked and will no doubt rust at some stage.

The exterior evolution will cover the progress of the paintjob, which I am doing myself in true drift fashion. I have limited time also so the job will be completed within two weeks. Sure to be a crazy time that’s for sure.

A you can see I have moved the welcoming disclaimer to the very first page so it is not so useless and also to improve the function of this page. I have also created a new page for the car’s current Specifications. This will simply list everything about the car concerning modifications.

I have commenced work on my cold air induction setup too now that the old factory intercooler is gone, look out for that page shortly too.

The 180 is back with front mount installed, and driving very nicely. For the details, see the Intercooler page. Basically I am happy because many of the bad side effects of fitting a front mount have not happened to me. Firsty the car is not any laggier to drive, which is a big bonus. Secondly I have only lost a smidgen of boost, after hearing it would drop back to factory levels and drive slower. It definitely doesn’t drive slower, in fact it maybe even feels a little more eager to rev. Another bonus is that there is no difference at all without the BOV regarding drivability. There is no lag between shifts, only a very nice flutter. The cooler is doing its job too, having driven the car hard enough the other night to have the exhaust housing of the turbo glowing red, the core remained cold. The Inlet end tank was quite warm but the outlet end tank quite cold still. I eagerly await a hot day to see if performance will suffer as much as it did previously. Therefore, the modification is a complete success thus far. I hope in the near future to build and install my boost controller to what power the standard turbo is good for at 12-14psi.

On another note I have changed the front bar back to the factory item. This is explained in the Exterior Evolution page.

Through no fault of my own the intercooler installation was not completed on Friday, instead the car has had to be left at the workshop for the work to be completed. Therefore I will be unable to visually document the work on the car. Hopefully I will have the car back by the end of the week with lots of pictures. Due to pricing dramas it appears that I will not be running a BOV at the moment until I scrape up some extra cash to have a nice plumb back system fitted. I originally wanted to reuse the factory BOV but apparently the labour involved would push the price past my limit. Anyways, hopefully good news to report in the next few days.

Well the car made it on the dyno ok, but the result was a quite disappointing. After trouncing the previous dyno run down low in terms of power and boost response, the top half of the rev range saw the power taper back to near the previous run with only a very minimal gain up top. Problem solving is about to go underway, and the problem and some possible solutions can be read in detail on the Dump Pipe page.

The car is still on track for its intercooler installation this Friday so I look forward to that.

Also one day in the future I promise to stop being lazy and go through the site and fix up all my typos, etc.