so i thought i may as well start a build thread for my zed. it used to be my daily driver but because of the ever tightening rules and regulations i decided to turn it into a track only car. i've always wanted a car thats fast, loud and extensively modified so i figured this was this best option. im a noob at the whole track day thing so any help and advice i can get from you veteran racers will be welcome. i've joined the Nissan Sports Car Club so i can get my CAMS licence. this build is done on a very small budget so im doing as much of the work as possible myself. the car has/is: 1992 slicktop 2 seater twin turbo sapphire blue rebuilt engine with Arias forged pistons standard turbos with 300hp ball bearing cores 600x300x90 front mount Blitz pod dual trumpet BOVs cat back dual 3" exhaust with stainless cannons Koyo radiator Turbosmart fuel reg blue silicon intake pipes Whiteline adjustable front sway bar with spherical links Extreme 6 puck clutch and pressure plate el cheapo manual boost controller Drift Ignite oil pressure and water temp guages fixed back Sparco Sprint V racing seat Monza 6 point harness (not in yet) GReddy style front bar carbon GT wing Pulse battery and possibly lots of other things i can't think of. what it doesnt have, ok ready, egr, prvr, aivs, battery tray in engine bay, aircon and everything associated with it, heater and everything associated with it, carbon canister, all interior trim except door cards and top half of dash, all sound deadener, stereo and speakers, aerial, rear wiper, window washers and lines, about a million brackets that nissan installed just to piss us off, every wire from things i have chucked has been plucked out of the loom as well. again there is probably lots i've forgotten so i'll put up some pics and let them do the talking. howshe looked as a road car. i don't have these rims anymore im going to get some lightweight 17 or 18s. how the engine used to look. i painted the valve covers when i had the plenum off to polish it and delete the throttle coolant pipes. some of these old photos are done on my old phone so sorry if they're bad. the interior was black leather with electric seats and velour trim. this is how it looked after stripping started. the loom behind the dash is half the thickness now and i filled a whole bin with wires, conduit and electrical tape. battery Koyo rad GT wing. im going to make it a little higher and make better end plates for it. donk! now im going to concentrate on getting the weight evenly ditributed. i'll get some good shots of the interior tomorrow and put them up. and the result of the weightloss.
Looks like a fun project! A couple of things, make sure the wing is helping you with downforce rather than just adding drag and keep the Pulse battery on a trickle charger. I have one which I am quite fond of but it's starting to die already (2.5 years so I guess it's OK) but I think it would have lasted longer if I had kept in on a charger when I was not driving my car regularly.
thanks Peter, the battery has lasted a couple of years now but i start the car every few days, im pretty happy with it. after ditching so much electrical gear the volts have gone from sitting on 13.1 to 14.3.
Yeah, I've got the same one. It occasionally went for a couple of weeks without being driven and didn't like it at all. Excellent battery and value for money though. So small and light. Also, if you've not done it already have a look at re-routing the PCV system to draw from the top of the intake cam covers rather than down the side near the battery tray. On long right hand corners the oil can pool up there and get sucked into your intake. Not pretty. I think JT did a really good write up on how to do it.
cool i'll look into that. i have to get a big catch can anyway so i may as well do that the same time. going to put it where the battery used to live.
Also don't forget to replace the bottom long rubber radiator hose with a metal one. Sometimes the rubber one can get sucked shut when it gets hot.
some interior shots. the dash panel i made is only temporary, i'll make a new one when i get all the gauges and switches sorted. these next 2 shows the big nothingness under the dash. roof needs lots more stickers i made my own infill panel out of fibreglass just to see if i could. came up ok but i'll make a better version soon. disregard the number plate i forgot to hand it back in.
modding the front bar. i got this bar for a grand total of $0. it had some decent size cracks and splits so i had to rapair them with fibreglass. then i had to trim the top and measure and drill holes for the Dzus clips. i already had them in the standard bar and i previously made up a bracket for either side to bolt onto the guard for the clips to lock on. all done. took a lot of fiddling and swearing to line up the clips with the brackets but it works great and painted body colour now. after ditching so my stuff from behind the bar i only have to undo 4 bolts, unscrew the blinkers and pop the Dzus clips to have the whole bar off in 2 minutes. its the best thing for getting on and off trailers. now i have to finish the bonnet vent and it'll be looking pretty sweet.
i'll take some photos this weekend and post them up to better show how i've gone about it. i just made up some simple brackets to bolt to the quarter panels which have the Dzus mounts connected to them. Dzus clips unhook from the outside with a flat blade screwdriver. simple and effective system but a real pita to line up square.
this is all it takes to remove the front bar. indicators were already out but only take like ten seconds to unscrew and unplug. turn the Dzus clips on either side a quarter of a turn undo the two bolts holding in the center panel and lift it out undo the two bolts holding the middle top of the bar (near bottom of pic) then slide the bar out from the front mount nothing else is connected to it so thats all it takes to get to this notice how much room there is now beside the intercooler for brake ducts to run directly from the fog light holes. this is the bracket i made for the Dzus mounts to bolt on. the whole arrangement bolts to the original mounting points for bar to quarter panel. had to slice the top lip off to get the bar sitting flush
i bought Aerocatch bonnet latches because i prefer how they sit flat instead of sitting up like the old style ones. catch closed catch open bonnet is pretty pretty pretty grubby right now, im still trying out some ideas. last vent i made from fiberglass didin't work out how i wanted so i ripped it off to start again. wouldn't mind just leaving it flat and making more of a scoop arrangement underneath. also i think i'll paint it black up the center the width of the vent and leave the outsides body colour.
I like that quick release front bar .. I want . good to see another slicktop on the track .. I just have my dash out and removed all the crap under there ...about 12 - 13kg about to go through some wiring removal ....any tips? Did you remove all the way to the fuse box in engine bay?
thanks man, the front bar makes things so easy now. might put 1 more clip either side just next to the headlight. only tips i can give is show no mercy. there are miles of unwanted wires for a track car and will make the loom half the size. if your ditching the stereo and other stuff remember to leave a power wire somewhere in case you want to wire some guages to it. the fuse box job is still on the cards, i just got sick of staring at wires for so bloody long although heaps have been taken out from the engine bay to make it simpler. i even ditched the IACV with all its pipes and wires and made a plate to fill the gap where it lived. i'd like to do the FPCU bypass and get rid of it and its wires to neaten up the cabin more but i can't find any info on deleting it altogether.
Interesting.. Like your attention to detail.. How much more does the bonnet weigh with the putty in it?
at the moment there's no putty in it. its just one layer of fiberglass and thats all thats remaining of the vent i tore off. im thinking about leaving like that but cleaning right up. then it'll weigh the same because of the big hole i cut into it.
I'm at that stage with the wiring too, I've pulled out the loom that actually runs the engine and am thinking of binning the rest and starting again, huge amounts of useless stuff everywhere and a fresh start might be easier than tracing the one or two wires I need through all that mess. There is one connector coming off the engine loom just next to the ECU with 12 or so wires through it, I assume they are things like ignition, gauges, fuel pump and the like so I'll have to sort that out but other than that a fresh start seems to be the way to go for me. Maybe a little more troublesome if you are keeping your car registered. Regarding the quick release front bar, how solid is it as speed just attached at the top like that?
it actually sits on there pretty solid and the Dzus clips are really tight so they won't pop off anytime. i do want to put 2 more clips in just to be safe and eventually i'll get a big front splitter made up so im going to look into making a couple of solid mounts underneath that are easily accessible and still quick to take off.
