S14 Revamp
Quite a bit has changed on the s14 since the last post. I’d upgraded and changed certain parts along with a new tune to address issues I had.
Quick hit with the holesaw and it was in.
End result. I like.
I also decided to get the manifold ceramic coated as the steam pipe was looking a little crusty. The manifold itself is a custom single scroll T3.
Mounted up the kit to see how it all fitted.
There was a clearance issue with the outlet pipe and a bracket on the tub.
I removed the bracket and “massaged” the area for pipe clearance.
Smoothed it back out with some filler.
Then primed and painted.
The welds were far from pretty but they were strong. I also decided to learn on alloy which is meant to be a bit more difficult than steel.
I’ve since improved my alloy welding skills quite a lot so I might try to remake the hot pipe one day.
I also had to weld up an intake which was much easier being stainless steel and just fusion welding (no filler)
I also welded a fitting to my cold pipe for the air temp sensor. From this, I learnt the importance of grinding down fittings for flush fit up as I tried to fill the gap between a flat base fitting to a curve with filler which was a waste of gas and filler rod while also looking ugly.
For this build, I also changed over to a NA throttle body as recommended by others due to the larger diameter. S13/180 already come with the larger diameter throttle body regardless of aspiration.
I also fit an eccentric throttle wheel for extra bling and to see what the difference was.
Exhaust:
I decided to modify the dump to add a flex bellow and to create a new front pipe altogether.
These are cool because they’re completely smooth inside essentially being directional two pipes
Next was to make the front pipe. I was being extra careful when welding the flanges as they can warp easily with too much heat resulting in leaks as the v band join won’t seal properly.
The end result? Invisible front pipe. It was much better driving the car without constantly bottoming out.
This is a photo of the old front pipe clearance for comparison.
Another thing I ended up changing was the cat back exhaust. I originally had a DMAX blast pipe cat back which was just rediculously loud and had this annoying note around 3-4K rpm and was super raspy due to the equal length manifold. I pulled it off and sold it to Vince.
Safe to say I was pleased with the new exhaust as I no longer had the brown note between 3-4K rpm and it was surprisingly a fair bit quieter with just the one muffler.
I just used standard barb style fittings and non braided hose to keep things simple. The Raceworks top feed fuel rail itself I chose specifically as it didn’t require a plenum spacer or iacv spacer/replication. I was quite happy with the quality of the Raceworks fuel rail kit and would recommend this or the Taarks kit (came out a month after I bought mine) as neither require spacers when using 1/2 height injectors.
For the new injector plugs, I just reused the original loom then crimped, soldered and heatshrunk the Bosch plugs on then taped over to be extra sure lol.
The flex fuel sensor I managed to mount under the BMC so it’s hidden away. If you have the option, I recommend getting the smaller flex sensors which are available just so you have more room.
I went ahead and removed the cams then started on removing the stock head studs. The amount of force required to remove the stock ones felt worrying lol.
I did the method of replacing the head studs one by one so that you don’t need to remove the head. I got all the new studs in and went ahead and did the final pass for torquing up all the studs.
I had to call out the thread doctor to save my ass then buy another set of head studs express from Taarks as my tune was 3 days away...
New studs came and we fitted the replacement successfully. In hindsight I would’ve gone for the SR20 spec L19 head studs as they wouldn’t have snapped on me lol.
I also got some dress up rocker cover bolts from Taarks.
Tune time:
Made it thanks to the help of the Wideband correction.
The car tuned up quite well. We had a scare where my oil cap popped off causing a puff of smoke but luckily I brought the standard oil cap in my bag of spares.
Aero:
That’s it for now. I’ll be making another post shortly. I’ll also try to post more content regularly.
This may be a bit of a long read but there’s photos if you just wanted to gloss over those instead. I’ve also broken up the sections in regards to areas of the car that were modified so it’s a bit more organised.
ECU:
Ever since the I got the car I’d been having strange gremlins where some days it would run well and others it would run rough.
I eventually traced part of the issue down to the AFM where I noticed my readings would change due to the not so great wiring from whoever installed the z32 AFM before I got the car which.
Evan found a Haltech Platinum Pro plug-in for sale for a good price one day which I jumped on after originally looking at going Nistune with a flex board.
Upgrading to a newer ECU which isn’t tuned via printer cable opened up a few more possibilities such as engine protection, extra sensors, MAP, flex fuel etc.
The Haltech itself is just part of the puzzle with the other being all of the extra sensors/solenoids to properly utilise it.
The sensors/solenoids I decided to run with the Haltech were:
- 3 Bar MAP Sensor (Haltech)
- Air temp Sensor (Haltech)
- CANBUS Wideband Sensor (Haltech)
- Flex Fuel Sensor (Continental - From a wrecker VE commodore)
- Nistune flex signal converter
- 3 Port Boost Solenoid (Haltech)
- I/O Harness
There were two issues that I encountered with getting this ECU to work with the sensors/solenoids were as below:
- The 3 Port Boost Solenoid has to be wired into the factory boost controller wiring. You can use Narva #56262 to terminate the Solenoid wiring into a plug that clips into the factory loom.
- I had to use a flex fuel signal converter as the ECU wasn’t able to recognise the flex sensor output directly. I used a Nistune signal converter as a solution to this issue.
I also decided to grab a Haltech wideband gauge which I installed into the trim where my cigarette lighter port was located.
Quick hit with the holesaw and it was in.
End result. I like.
Turbo/Intake:
I was previously running a Hypergear ATR28SS2 which I found was a touch laggy for the 250kw it made on P98.
This worsened when I fitted a stock manifold that was modified for external gate as it removed the internal divider. Sure I had gate and an extra 10kw, but I lost 2-300rpm of response which was noticeable.
I’d always wanted a high mount turbo setup mainly because it looks cool, but I was sort of finding it hard to justify spending a heap of money to redo my whole turbo set. However I ended up finding a well priced GTX3071r high mount kit so I ended up buying that.
I also decided to get the manifold ceramic coated as the steam pipe was looking a little crusty. The manifold itself is a custom single scroll T3.
Mounted up the kit to see how it all fitted.
There was a clearance issue with the outlet pipe and a bracket on the tub.
I removed the bracket and “massaged” the area for pipe clearance.
Smoothed it back out with some filler.
Then primed and painted.
The high mount setup needed some new piping to work so I did the least practical thing which was to buy a welder and teach myself.
After very little practice, I went on and made my hot pipe.
The welds were far from pretty but they were strong. I also decided to learn on alloy which is meant to be a bit more difficult than steel.
I’ve since improved my alloy welding skills quite a lot so I might try to remake the hot pipe one day.
I also had to weld up an intake which was much easier being stainless steel and just fusion welding (no filler)
I also welded a fitting to my cold pipe for the air temp sensor. From this, I learnt the importance of grinding down fittings for flush fit up as I tried to fill the gap between a flat base fitting to a curve with filler which was a waste of gas and filler rod while also looking ugly.
For this build, I also changed over to a NA throttle body as recommended by others due to the larger diameter. S13/180 already come with the larger diameter throttle body regardless of aspiration.
I also fit an eccentric throttle wheel for extra bling and to see what the difference was.
Exhaust:
The turbo kit I bought came with a front pipe to suit but it just hung way too low. I couldn’t even fit two fingers between the lowest point and the ground which resulted in me bottoming out constantly when I drove it after the tune.
It was pretty battered after copping more hits than Elvis and was at risk of damaging the manifold due to no flex pipe in the system either.
I decided to modify the dump to add a flex bellow and to create a new front pipe altogether.
I used one of these flex bellows instead of a mesh type as I was worried about them falling apart and causing internal obstruction later on. I also changed the join to the front pipe to a v band as the two bolt flange was a pain to tighten and would’ve been harder to align.
These are cool because they’re completely smooth inside essentially being directional two pipes
Next was to make the front pipe. I was being extra careful when welding the flanges as they can warp easily with too much heat resulting in leaks as the v band join won’t seal properly.
The end result? Invisible front pipe. It was much better driving the car without constantly bottoming out.
This is a photo of the old front pipe clearance for comparison.
Another thing I ended up changing was the cat back exhaust. I originally had a DMAX blast pipe cat back which was just rediculously loud and had this annoying note around 3-4K rpm and was super raspy due to the equal length manifold. I pulled it off and sold it to Vince.
I decided that if I were to change exhaust, I wanted to go with a Japanese Cannon but the problem with most Japanese exhausts is restriction due to JASMA and ground clearance (if they have mid mufflers).
After a bit of searching, I decided on the Kakimoto GT1.0Z system which was annoyingly made to order.
Safe to say I was pleased with the new exhaust as I no longer had the brown note between 3-4K rpm and it was surprisingly a fair bit quieter with just the one muffler.
Fuel:
I decided to change over to E85 for extra power and safety as I now had an ECU which could support flex fuel. The setup itself is quite basic as follows:
- Raceworks top feed fuel rail
- Bosch 1150cc injectors
- Turbosmart FPR800
- Proflow fuel filter
- Proflow e85 safe fuel lines
- Fittings to suit
I just used standard barb style fittings and non braided hose to keep things simple. The Raceworks top feed fuel rail itself I chose specifically as it didn’t require a plenum spacer or iacv spacer/replication. I was quite happy with the quality of the Raceworks fuel rail kit and would recommend this or the Taarks kit (came out a month after I bought mine) as neither require spacers when using 1/2 height injectors.
For the new injector plugs, I just reused the original loom then crimped, soldered and heatshrunk the Bosch plugs on then taped over to be extra sure lol.
The flex fuel sensor I managed to mount under the BMC so it’s hidden away. If you have the option, I recommend getting the smaller flex sensors which are available just so you have more room.
Headstuds:
I decided to install some head studs as well as a precaution since I’d be around the limit where the stock ones can stretch and lift the head.
I went with ARP 2000 VW Jetta spec which had been recommended as an alternative to the SR20 spec as they were meant to be slightly longer and also Taarks had them in stock whereas everywhere else had to order them in.
I went ahead and removed the cams then started on removing the stock head studs. The amount of force required to remove the stock ones felt worrying lol.
I did the method of replacing the head studs one by one so that you don’t need to remove the head. I got all the new studs in and went ahead and did the final pass for torquing up all the studs.
On the second last stud I heard a snap and fell over. I originally thought I snapped the socket but then I realised that the head stud snapped...
I had to call out the thread doctor to save my ass then buy another set of head studs express from Taarks as my tune was 3 days away...
New studs came and we fitted the replacement successfully. In hindsight I would’ve gone for the SR20 spec L19 head studs as they wouldn’t have snapped on me lol.
I also got some dress up rocker cover bolts from Taarks.
Tune time:
With the car all reassembled, I just had to setup the Haltech to recognise all the sensors and scale the injectors so it would start and run because I was driving it to Trent’s.
Made it thanks to the help of the Wideband correction.
The car tuned up quite well. We had a scare where my oil cap popped off causing a puff of smoke but luckily I brought the standard oil cap in my bag of spares.
We had an issue where the gate wouldn’t open which was remedied by wiring the boost solenoid to the stock wiring and also removing a spring from the gate because it wasn’t opening enough.
The graph below is compared to my old ATR28SS2 setup.
Aero:
I changed my rear bar to Kouki with pods as the Zenki rear wasn’t suiting the Dmax bonnet and Ganador mirrors.
That’s it for now. I’ll be making another post shortly. I’ll also try to post more content regularly.
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