Author: sr20tuning

The modding has begun! The first thing that I have installed myself is a 50mm steering wheel spacer from GKTech. For some reason when trying to lift my right leg for heel and toe braking, my knee would hit the underside of the steering wheel and prevent the required range of motion. The steering wheel spacer fixed this problem, but revealed the MOMO wheel has some dodgy bits. I’ll look to replace it at some stage in the future.

I attempted to install a 2nd hand Cusco front strut brace yesterday, but the S15 black top rocker cover sits too high. Some googling to do to see how others have solved this problem.

My 2nd hand differential has arrived, and I spent last night researching and identifying exactly what it is. I’m fairly certain it’s a KAAZ 1.5 way, which is exactly what I want. I plan to fit this tomorrow, as well as fix up the vacuum hose to get the electronic boost controller functional. A new LSD page will be added in time.

Finally, I have been in contact with Unigroup Engineering this week. Their online reputation has gone from strength to strength over the last decade, which is great since I was such a fan of their work with my previous cars. After I do some servicing, I’ll chuck the car on the dyno to see how it’s travelling. I have a graph from 2013 for 215 rwkw, but it doesn’t feel that fast. Top end is good but the midrange is very average. I’m not sure if the S15 VCT is running. If it’s not, the cam timing might be locked in the upper rev range ‘zone’, comprising low end performance. Finding out if the ECU is from an S13 orS15 will help in working out what is going on. Worst case scenario is I can run some sort of rpm sensor and manually trigger 12V to the solenoid at the desired rpm.

More questions than answers so far with this car, but solving them is so enjoyable.

After 11 years I’m back in the game. Shortly after the last post in 2005, I had an accident with the 180, due to a silly rush of blood to the head. I was extremely fortunate, escaping injury, attention from the police and financial duress. I managed to sell most of the parts, buy an A31 Cefiro and then later a V8 Soarer. For the next decade I owned non-grey imports for the first time.

At the time of writing, I have just picked up a 1993 Sileighty, my 4th S13. It’s fairly modified and will make a great track car with a few more mods. In 2013, it made 215 rwkw on the Unigroup dyno. My pants dyno tells me it’s not that fast, and certainly not as fast as my previous 180. There are some question marks over exactly what parts are fitted. I’m told it has a Garrett GT28 fitted to an S15 blacktop SR20DET, which has an external wategate, currently running 15 psi. Other engine mods include turbo back exhaust, FMIC, BOV, injectors, POD filter, RB25DET afm, fuel pump and Nistune ECU.

Chassis mods are coilovers, swaybars, what feels like an aftermarket clutch and some rear bracing. The wheels are almost the best feature of the car, 17 inch in diameter and sitting wide in the guards. Other mods are s15 seats, a MOMO wheel, drift hand brake button, and crappy stereo.

There are some glaring holes in the modifications, such as the factory brakes. Not wasting any time, I have a myriad of parts already in the mail. These include R33 front brakes, GKTech larger rear discs, braided brake and clutch lines, front strut brace, what is believed to be a KAAZ 1.5 way diff, oil cooler and filter relocation kit, winged sump and a few little parts.

Initial plans are to fit these parts, give the car a good service and then get it on the dyno to see what power it’s got and the state of the tune. It smells very rich. There is a Turbosmart electronic boost controller installed but without the solenoid connected. So much to tinker with, so little time. Eventually I will be an occasional track car. These days I have a near new vehicle as my daily driver, so I don’t have to worry about being carless after a break down or when work is being completed.

I’ve just finished copying and pasting 85 blog posts from the original site (including finally proof reading!), and in time I will transfer all of the content pages. New content will be created as opportunity presents.

 

 

The final update of the Sump page has been completed with it finally going on the car at my scheduled service. There was a few issues with the swaybar fouling so be sure to read before you buy one of these. Next is to wire up my Greddy oil temperature gauge to which the sensor is already plugged into the sump.

This weekend I’ll be attending the F1 grand prix in Melbourne, to see Mark Webber hopefully bag a podium on his Williams debut. Fingers crossed for Mark. In other news look out for my mug and a tiny interview in the latest issue of SPEED magazine.

The new Sump page has been completed (final update to happen when actual fitment occurs). Read about oil surge and how to fix it with an aftermarket winged sump, diagrams included. This should go on in the next week weeks at the next scheduled oil service, along with two Greddy gauges: oil pressure and temperature. I’m currently shopping for a new cat-back exhaust and tidying a few little things for rego so I’ll post up anything interesting. Happy reading and please  don’t forget to click on the banners.

First of all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, even if it is quite late. It’s been a long time between updates as of late, and this comes down to three things. Firstly I have just completed my last semester of University, the one with the huge major project and all the rest. Secondly, I’ve recently been married, and have flat out after uni finished organising followed by my honeymoon. Thirdly, the combination of the previous two left me no time and money to play with the car. Things now look better in terms of this site.

I’ve finally finished a new page, which is a Basic Guide to Suspension. Something like this I had been meaning to do for some time, but it has ended up a lot less technical than I had originally planned. It makes for easy reading and has introductions to most of the suspension parts you’ll come across on these cars. The reason the page was finally underway was because I finally fitted my rear upper arms, and solid steering spacer. A Cusco half cage has been added as well, which I wasn’t expecting this early. A big thanks to Harry for his bargain supply of the cage, and his great help fitting it and the suspension arms.

The Specifications page has been updated with new parts and some better images for older parts.

Next on the agenda will be my Trust copy sump, still waiting to go on. I will creating a new page on this to show the problems with a factory sump, and the features of an aftermarket sump with animations and all. Watch this space.

As a side note could I please ask that you click my banner once or twice. More clicks equals more mods and more site growth.

The car has been running fairly well, although the lack of Optimax knocked it around a bit. I’ve had to replace the fuel pump too for a Walbro 500hp item, after it failed and left me stranded last week. My suspension parts in still in transit, and my sump is waiting to go with the next oil change in about 1000km.

I have a little more time now to update news, so here goes. As happy as I was with 218 rwkw, I am eager to extract a little more. Studying the dyno graph on the results page shows two things. Firstly the boost was surging like crazy throughout the run, which normally happens on the dyno and a little in the higher gears on the street. Secondly a power run on 19psi was performed, but was aborted because of slight pinging caused by the boost irregularities. As can be seen, this run was making an extra 5kw+ through the midrange and a less than this up top. It’s safe to say even aborted that the 19psi run cracked 220rwkw after lining up the graph lines.

So if the turbo can handle more boost with efficiency then the engine will make more power it seems. I’m well aware of turbos running out of puff like the t25g so I won’t be pushing it forever, but the attraction to sample some runs up to maybe 20psi is strong. To fix the boost surging I’m hoping to use the adjustable HKS actuator fitted to the turbo. I plan to set this wastegate base line at around 14psi (currently ~9.5psi) so that the ebc has less work to do. Once this is sorted then more tweaking could take place. Expect a new page for this.

I’ve updated the Exterior Evolution pages with some nice pics of the car all washed and pretty.

My sump has also arrived, but the quality may be too poor to use on the car. I’ll need to do some investigation into cleaning and preparing it before I even think about putting it in the engine. Expect a new page on this too.

Finally I am about to order a few little suspension parts to correct the rear camber and hopefully tame the beast a little. Time will tell, and full details will be posted. Look for lots of updates in the weeks to come.

Last night was the latest Silvia NSW dyno night, with the 180 putting in a pearler of a performance. Since tuning at 196 rwkw on the rebuilt engine, nothing has been done except some flogging and then a service (oil and plugs). I was a little disappointed with the power the car was making on paper, which was told to me to be the fresh engine being very tight. Over the last couple of months it seems to have loosened up, with an oil change the other day producing fairly dark thick oil from the final stages of the running in process. So better fresh oil went in and 218.7 rwkw was the result. I am very happy that the car has made the numbers I’ve been mentioning for a while now, and I feel there is more in it with some fine tuning.

This was good enough for 2nd most powerful SR20 on the night and 3rd most powerful outright. Got to be happy with that. By some rough calculations the engine should be making around double the factory kw level, which means around 300kw @ flywheel. Compare that to the top HSVs which have the same power but are several hundred kg heavier and you should be able to tell how the car drives.

The winged sump I spoke of previously is in the mail, but has been for some time so hopefully it will come soon. Next are a few more suspension tweaks, to aid traction which is limited in such a light, powerful car, that has such quick spooling. I’d like to find a safe, legal place to take some videos of the engine’s response soon, just to show off how good it is. Stay tuned.

Yes I’m still alive, just very busy. In a couple of weeks I’ll be finished my uni major project (and unless I fail uni forever), will have heaps of time to do those updates promised. As even more parts are added to the car a lot more development will take place in the form of some custom setups. The aim is to make the car much more track ready and durable. First up is a bigger sump which I’m trying to source as we speak.

Apologies for the delays on the big update. At the moment I find myself in a situation where I am unable to get down to Unigroup to chat and have my dyno graphs printed for me. None the less I will start to make some updates where I can.

In short the following will be updated:

• The basic daughterboard page.
• The z32 afm page.

 

New pages:

• Daughterboard tuning page including summaries of z32 afm and larger injector calibration.
• A general tuning theory page.

 

In the near future:

• Servicing guide.

 

And maybe one day:

• DumHed’s tech articles including 5 stud conversion, custom DE to DET setup, and more.