Welp. Putting the car in carcas once again.

I use the phrase “this isnt supposed to happen” a little too frequently on this site. But the kiddie pool doesn’t hit the same once you’ve felt the deep end.

The original plan for this winter was to get the car sorted to the point where I felt comfortable attending a track day, without risk of the engine coming apart. While the car had been reliable and (mostly) fluid tight from the day I bought it, I was worried about the intense heat cycling of a 20+ minute HPDE session exposing some signs of age. I was particularly worried about coolant hoses underneath the intake manifold ending my day early, potentially catastrophically if it were to dump all of it’s coolant and warp this all aluminum engine.

To 1. understand the car better, and 2. fix every small leak and clean everything for a solid baseline, I figured the motor would have to come out. This was going to be a SIMPLE refresh. OEM Nissan gasket kit, some OEM hoses, and a once over of everything left. The wiring harness would assessed for signs of wear before the Link NS15X was installed to make sure I wouldn’t have any electrical issues down the line. The other notable change, which I already had the pieces to do, was the re-installation of the OEM turbo manifold in place of the HKS tubular one. This was all done in the name of reliability and cooling/packaging. Even with an OEM heat shield, I will still need a brake master cylinder heat shield, but it is significantly more durable than any tubular solution would be.

On top of that, I wanted to look over the rest of the footwork that was on the car to make sure it was in working order, but I didn’t have unreasonable expectations. The Stance GR+s, while fine, were nothing spectacular, but they held fluid and weren’t seized, so they would stay. I figured raising the car could get the geometry back to “good enough” for the chassis kinematics to be somewhat manageable. The CP9A Brembo front brakes and OEM rear, while visually asymmetric, felt totally fine and worked appropriately. The car already had Porterfield R4s in the front and Hawk Blues in the back, so that was enough to ship it and see how it did.

There were some other little tinkering projects as well: I needed to remove pretty much all of the interior, rollbar included, in order to install the S14 3 point seatbelts that I ordered within my first week of ownership. The power seatbelts were non-viable as the bucket seat interfered with the rear mounting point, as well as being generally less safe for my situation.

While out of my norm (an iterative build), I was really happy with this scope. It felt appropriate, both budgetarily and logistically. I knew I could wrap it up in a few months and be on track by the middle of spring if I didn’t have any major hold-ups.

But as car life happens, which it always tends to, a deal fell into my lap that I could not refuse, and as a result, the car has rapidly snowballed to a full build in a single offseason with no stone left unturned.

A good friend had an unfortunate run-in with an inanimate object one night, and thus was the end of the car we lovingly referred to as Cheryl. While it will be reborn as a track car in the hands of Aaron, it’s street days were over, and thus the partout began. Luis is a real homie, and I wanted to help as much as I could. A weekend was booked, and I headed south to Oregon for a good ol’ S13 teardown.

We are going to rewind in time a bit and take a long tangent to explain why this minor one car accident derailed my entire winter.

Many cars are devoid of what I would refer to as the “every man’s motorsport damper”. There are some chassis that are exceptionally blessed with options at reasonable price points. A good example are 949 Xidas for the Miatas/RX-8/ZN6. $2500-3000, while still a ton of money, buys an immense amount of rebound adjustable shock being that it is a true motorsports grade component that are actually resilient (30k rebuild interval). C5 Corvettes get the spec C5 Penskes for reasonable money. Ohlins Road & Tracks are another pretty good example when developed by the right person, although those are more aimed at street customers. There are some communities that have the budget and state of mind to buy higher end stuff, so E9XM, S2000, Porsches, and other similarly tracked out cars will have MCSs or JRZs floating around in the used market.

Due to the nature of the S chassis community, dampers that cost more than a 1 bedroom apartment rent payment are seldom seen adorning these cars. While there are options in the high-end, and I did interrogate those, spending over $6000 on a set of MCS doubles for a wet noodle chassis I had hardly driven seemed like a terrible idea. If that is out, we have to evaluate what the consumer grade options were. I used to say that Koni Yellows with GC sleeves was the go-to on almost anything, but unfortunately the prices of that setup have become outlandish for how old the technology is. All of the other options were so uninspiring that I considered selling the car due to the lack of options. Stance and Feal were at the top of my list, but neither were really targeted at what I wanted to do with the car. BC and Fortune Auto were hard nos. I really like Jon at Shaftworks, but they just aren’t for me. I’ve become really spoiled by great shocks, for better or worse, and nothing sparked joy.

That was, until the shining glimmer of hope was cast upon the land, and all of the parts to build a Koni 861X setup fell into my lap. I had known about these for years, but I had already thrown in the towel on finding a set due to the lack of units sold and the checks calendar nearly 15 year gap since housings had last been made.

The housings are the special sauce. Although not complicated in their construction, you do need some pretty serious fab equipment (fine pitch 2″ tap or a lathe) and the right measurements to put them together. Richard, (Veilside180sx on all the relevant forums) made small batches of them during the recession, with a few sets trickling out until the early teens. All of these were set up for whatever front knuckle you had (S14/15 had the M14 lower bolts) and for Z32 fork style rear knuckle, for reasons I will explain.

The damper insert itself is a universal application digressive motorsport damper, meaning no lower mount provisions, that Koni has made for a long time. It has found use all over the race community, and if you search “Koni 8611” on google, you get a wide variety of communities all utilizing them for wildly different applications. They make them in different lengths and shim stacks, and the 8611-1259RACE has a great valve pack and length of use in S Chassis. The two flavors, consisting of 8610 and 8611, are distinct in their number of adjustments. 8610s are rebound adjustable dampers, while 8611s have separate compression and rebound adjustment via a top knob and bottom screwdriver slot respectively. With double adjustable being the clear preference for those of us willing to pursue such an labor setup, you need easy access to the bottom of the insert to make tuning adjustments. This is made far easier with the Z32 fork mount vs the S13 stud mount as you can just unbolt the lower shock mount and swing the damper over to make adjustments via a bottom hole vs disassembling the entire shock or finding some alternate access solution, in the case of the stud mount.

Between the S13 diplomat Alex and myself, we were able to find all of the relevant bits scattered across the US. The large bulk of the parts came from an autoXer Denis in PA who had just switched to JRZ RS PROs and subsequently won SCCA Nationals in his S13. He had front housings that were modified to clear 18x12s, some fresh 8611 inserts for the front, some 8610s for the rear, and a smattering of sleeves, helper springs, and radial perches to make the whole thing work. I was able to locate another set of front housings via a retired track S13 friend Garrett, which gave me the base tubes to cut up and put lower mounts on for the rear. I, for whatever obscene reason, had saved a set of Megan tophats off college roommate Aidan’s S13 that I had worked on 5 years prior, and after a quick search at the offsite storage facility (my parent’s basement), I was able to find them. A set of BNIB 550lb F/400lb R Eibach springs(10k/7k if you think in denominations of 10) from Marketplace later, and we had our poor man’s motorsport coilovers (some assembly required).

While many things were tired (an 8610 showed up with no fluid, radial perch bearings crunchy, tophat coaxial bearings totally seized), I had all the hard to get/expensive stuff. I then began the process of designing and modifying what I had. I actually had a whole separate post in the works explaining all of the shenanigans above as well as putting together my own setup of all the different pieces. This included modifying the Megan tophats to accept imperial bearings for cost and availability, designing and implementing my own version of the Raceng CASCAM plates that could be built out of nothing but sheet metal, 3D printed parts, and COTS hardware, and designing my own lower mount interface that utilizes a 3 bolt flange to make adjustments quick on a stud style rear knuckle. All of these pursuits were really energizing for me, as it was a combination of necessity and exercised skills I was already really comfortable with.

I’ll take a secondary tangent to explain why I wanted the stud style rear knuckles real quick (we are really deep in the weeds now).

Currently all of the drop knuckles on the market (Wisefab Geomaster, GK Tech, PBM) all utilize the standard stud style mount, and since all of those feature Z32 parking brake and caliper mounting provisions, that defeats the point of a Z32 rear knuckle, especially if your goal is to go low and still drive hard. I was very determined to make drop knuckles work, primarily for the function, as well as that a set of drop knuckles cost less than spherical bearings for Z32 rear knuckles do (since SPL is the only real option, sorry GK).

I didn’t really see the point in going OEM Z32, but after thinking on it more, and consulting others that had run them, drop knuckles were starting to become undesirable. A internet friend just cracked a set of GK front drop knuckles, and their rear design had too many asterisk on their page to make me feel comfortable. All of them mentioned that you probably shouldn’t use the drum style parking brake for drifting as they were less supportive than the OEM backing plates, and advised modification in one way or another to accommodate particular setups. At some point, it becomes a safety concern, and I really don’t want to know what that sensation feels like. The adult in myself and others had also made some very compelling agreements that if I wanted the car to be functional both on the street and on track, it should be raised anyway, putting it outside the operating envelope of those knuckles. I had already complained that the car was too low to really jam over bumps without destroying the underside, and despite how low the car was in it’s former life, the frame rails are still very intact and nice on this car. I didn’t want to be the one to tear them up, so the decision was made to raise the car.

Ok, back on track. Why am I explaining all of this after telling you my friend crashed his car? Because Luis had a complete set of 8611s at all 4 corners that would just bolt on with minor mods (front lower mount diameter for my S14 knuckles) and Z32 rear knuckles, with parking brake cables, conversion brackets, stainless brake lines, and Z32 calipers that would just bolt on and work. No headache, no hassle, no work. Winning.

This isn’t to say that I will keep the 8611s exactly as they are. I am still working on retrofitting the Megan tophats to them as they will be cheaper and easier to run long term, as well as being nicer than the tophats it currently has. I’ll swap my springs over as they are the correct rates for track use, and clean/refresh/refurbish as needed. Ideally, I’ll find another weirdo in 2025 that wants to buy my big pile of nationally sourced parts, but I am not opposed to spares if a buyer doesn’t materialize.

My compromise on the drop knuckles to still make myself feel good is raise the subframe via solid bushings, get those painfully expensive SPL rear sphericals, and build the car around a 255/40/17 + 17×9 square setup for a larger overall diameter than my current 245/40/17 setup. All of those in conjunction should be more proportional, functional, and sustainable at a taller ride height. Don’t fret, it will still be on the lower side of a functional ride height; I can’t help myself.

Great, slam some knuckles, new shocks, and refresh the motor with gaskets and an ECU and send it, right? Unfortunately, not so simple.

Over the course of the weekend, through extensive discussion with Alex and Aaron during our 8 hour part out bananaza (running car to stripped shell on stock suspension with no interior), it was agreed that it would be best if I just buy Luis’s motor as well. I had a deep appreciation for how untouched and pure my particular SR20 was; It was a true low mile, unopened gem from an long lost era when “low mile 60,000km” engines from importers were actually real. My goal was to milk that for as long as possible, and eventually pull the head in the off season, refresh it with new valve guides, and put on an Apexi MLS head gasket and Mazworx ARP head studs so I could max out the T28 reliably. I was incredibly hesitant to give my motor up, but Luis also had a gem of his own.

He had rebuilt his motor as part of a batch of SR20s almost a decade ago, with a great local machinist and assembler at the helm. It had CP pistons, King race bearings, a rebuilt head, and a metal HG/ARP studs, making it all of the SR20 you should responsibly use (stock rods remain. They aren’t the problem anyway). Alex had a motor built at the same time that never hiccupped while making far more power. Luis babied the crap out of this setup, and this motor is exactly what I need to go the distance while road racing. Despite my lovely unopened motor and all of its magic still inside, cast pistons do tend to start melting during sustained load with forced induction, and I wasn’t about to scatter this thing if it was preventable. On top of all the internals, Alex yanked me over the edge with the inclusion of the basically brand new Nismo Coppermix clutch and Nismo 740cc injectors, as well as the Wiring Specialties harness. At that point, for the price I paid, it was foolish to not buy it.

After a verbal handshake of “I’ll figure it out”, I went home and posted my swap/motor for sale. I knew that I could configure it to whatever the market had tolerance for, as I was perfectly happy to sell anything from my longblock to a complete intercooler to driveshaft swap as we had all the parts from Luis’s car that I could middleman. I posted my swap, and 24 hours later, I had a buyer that had just blown up his dual cam KA and was looking to make the switch. Super awesome dude, and we were both super happy with the deal. I got to keep the parts that made sense from my setup, and he got a super nice motor connected to all the nice stuff left over from Luis’s car. Alex delivered all the parts during Thanksgiving break, and in the span of 2 weeks, I had a totally different SR20 sitting in my garage with all the pieces I wanted to make the car reliable on the track and spicy on the street.

I have since stripped the motor down to a bare longblock (findings in a future article) to evaluate what needs to be changed/replaced before it goes in. This was done in anticipation of Black Friday, a day which I knew was going to be absolutely disastrous to my finances. I had been planning/budgeting for it all year, but I didn’t anticipate quite how bad it would be.

The disastrous part was my decision to just hammer down with the goal of making the S13 as good as it can possibly be mechanically, while keeping my goal of OEM durability and serviceability. Literally every system on the car will be evaluated, interrogated, and upgraded if needed, with the goal (I’ll say it publicly for accountability) of reliable bottom 50s at The Ridge Motorsports Park, with the occasional hero lap into the high 40s on the right day/set of tires. I’m already on the back foot with abysmal chassis rigidity and no ABS, but we work with what we have.

Even though I now have more motor than previous, I am going to keep the car on an S15 T28 (and turn it down to 12-14psi on track) as I still want it to be responsive at AutoX and on the street. While it is more compromised for track use since it falls flat up top, it seems like all the real OG SR dudes just love a great T28 setup, and it also seems to be a zero compromise setup in terms of stress on the driveline (it doesn’t break clutches/axles/transmissions even when you are really mean to it).

T28 just matches the character and spirit of the car well. This is the “warm fuzzies” build with my dumb forum shocks and my noodle chassis that was in a magazine once, and the T28 is the warm fuzzies of turbos. 300whp on the street with quick spool and mid 200s on track will be great. More power =/= more funner (ignore the plans for my Lexus lol).

Well, now you know why my car looks like a husk. It no longer rolls as I have dropped the rear subframe out in preparation for a ton of work on the rear suspension. Its in a million pieces because that’s what it’s going to take to be the car I want it to be next year. With the scope expanding, the Lexus might get backburnered again, but more on that later.

Can’t say I haven’t been here before. Only thing left to do is to get to doin’.

Until next time.