Deathbed-13: Allowing the princess another life

[PUNKMETHOD]

Heya everyone. Been a lurker here for years now, but I thought it couldn't hurt to open up a build thread here, so yeah!
I'll just take a moment of your time to introduce myself - Lukas, 21 years old, born and living in Germany. Everything else you'll learn as we proceed.

Where do we begin then? 16th of February, 2013. Age 17.
After a somewhat unsucessful start with S-Chassis (having owned a 200SX for 2 years already at that point, which I then disassembled to sell in parts) I had found what was deemed to be the lady on my side, my partner in crime, a 1989 Nissan 240SX (imported to Germany from the US by someone, obviously):







Seemed like a truly clean example, especially at 1350€ - but back then, prices were still alright, unlike today.
There only appeared a couple small issues, the spoiler was done for, radio not working, new wipers needed. Damn, good buy!

Back home with it, one of the first actions was to put it onto a lift in a garage to check the underbody and state besides for the TÜV (car inspection) here.
So, in addition to the things above, new tires were on the list as well as a power steering pump since the one in was leaking.
First things first though, I changed the hatch dampers for ones I still had from the old one and gave the radio an easy fix.
All done, TÜV was an easy thing, no issues. Perfect! Made sure it made it's way to the first meet before I even had my own license.

Random interior picture incoming



All original, as you can see. Completely stock everything.
Well, except for the steering wheel I installed, that is, shortly followed by another radio.



I know, not all that interesting yet, but stick with me for the tale, trust me you'll read more interesting things.



Got rid of the rotten spoiler with a temporary fix.

Anyways, end of the year already and I decided to treat myself and the car (.. end of the year '13, that is).



HSD DualTech Coilovers, what other real mod do S-chassis guys do, right? All about that #lowlife :'D





Anyways, shit happens, as we all know. 2nd of April, 2014. No, not a drift failure - purely.. well, I'll not tell ya. Embarassing stuff.



The guy that I paid to fix it told me it was all done good, metal pulled out etc. - keep this in mind for the ride, you'll have to remember it later.
Yeah, I'll not post a picture of it fixed with my ugly face in front of it, I'll just spare your eyes. Just imagine it fixed.

At that point I was considering either getting a more suitable exhaust + headers or go for rims together with the coilovers.
All I know is I had big dreams!



As for many of us, the guys over in japan truly inspired me.
However, I was far, so so far from being able to be that cool. Why? Because low money. Still was a student at school, so didn't really have much sources of income yet.
Still...



Anyways, I'll spare you guys a lot more little things in terms of service or short stories that occured (simply for the lack of pictures to back it up)
2015 I decided to join the cool guys, ordered some fender flares (before they got the super hype kinda, I guess)



And since I now had a steady source of income, I decided to go hard mode and order a rare budonoki ducktail from japan.



Tape test fit - of course - as soon as both was with me.











You might be thinking I actually bought the ducktail because of the inspirational picture above, but to be honest with you I had almost forgotten about that one in the meantime. I had like 3 options (all in japan) found that I liked and asked some people which they'd take. All said the one I chose was the one they disliked most. So, I bought that one.



Small goodie in the meantime.
2016 already. Found a lot of new friends, got rid of badly-influential ones of the past.













And since I am a full retard for things other people do not have, I decided to get a (here) rare brown interior to replace my blue one.



Plus, brought it back to be recognizable in terms of being a 240SX.



Oh yeah, and still hadn't installed the flares at that point. Made a large order to replace the gay beige interior leather though.





Sittin' with the squad.



Anyways, I gotta thank these guys at this point again for being an inspiration and a family 24 hours a day. When I got my way into their group, things escalated, accelerated, whatever..
Fucking wide shit.



10x17 +15 all around, 235/40/17 on them.
So, of course, it was time to test mount those monsters with the flares.



Left.



Right.
Yeah. Wait. What?



My heart sank immediately. Something was not right at all.
I bought another complete axle.



Only to notice nothing was off.



Nothing appeared wrong on the underbody either. What the fuck. So.. body itself, I presumed.
Rim comparision:









So we started up the whole "project" - part of the project. Projectception.
As you will see in the next couple seconds again, the problem of above persists.









We began searching for the issue with like 5 or more people, all scurrying around the car in and out, finding a accident damage of some previous owner in the trunk boot (don't have a picture on me irght now), the boot itself being deformed (To be honest, I never really noticed. Rarely checked under the carpet, almost never even. Never needed the spare.)

One of my best mates told me to just throw it away already, it's not worth the hassle, just get a new body/chassis and swap over.



I decided against it. As maybe some can relate, I had experienced far too many things with this car, too many memories attached. I broke my promise with the previous S13 and there was no way I would break my promise again. Not. Fucking. Again.

Literally can't see shit anymore.



Swapped out the whole interior while I was at it.



(On car jack) - added tire lettering (by pen)

We tried our best to make the rear sidewalls match, but as you can see the difference still is obvious once you compare.
But still so in love.





Anyways, I could finally fucking drive again.
And of course, one of those drives had to be to Germanys largest JDM meetup, so called Reisbrennen.







One more thing I forgot to note - when we were working towards the flares, we basically white'nd the whole garage when the angle grinder hit the rear right sidewall. (Mind you, the one I had "fixed" before..) So.. shittons of putty / filler.



The trunk boot, as mentioned before.



Everything outside sat well, but as you can see the damage IS large.



No way I could say no to this beauty though. I made another promise, the promise of letting someone who actually is able to fix the whole crap as soon as I could afford it.



Added more window vision disruptors to promote my site and give the whole thing a title.



And more nonsense, such as the net on the left.
Painted the steering wheel black, upgraded the brakes a bit..



And from last year's last meet:





Then decided I'd keep the loyal soul that the KA24 is.









I'll have to indulge into engine plans at a later point, these are not installed yet.



Got hold on HUD and digital speedometer, meanwhile. <3 Oh. Also not installed yet.

Alright guys. If you've stuck with me so far, you'll now actually be able to dive into what is happening right now.
I started an internship in a car body shop for the next 3 years this february. With the best boss(es) e v e r.
So, as said, started on the first of february.
By the 18th, things escalated.







Began disassembling the rear end AT WORK. Boss then assumed the car had a hit on the rear right end, thus deforming the boot and underbody (hidden above the fuel tank), as well as pushing the right sidewall out enough to warrant the difference in fitment.



I started grinding down that sidewall, only to find MASSIVE amounts of filler / putty, from the guy who "fixed" it. You'll see clearer pictures of this in a bit.



So, the plan was to take everything out, pull it straight again and reassemble with new parts.





Bought this cheap for said parts.
Unfortunately, in the meantime, I was unlucky enough to have not one but two complete garage doors (that were just standing around on the lot of work) fall onto the 240 when it was storming, giving me even more to fix.







Rust underneath the hatch seal. Annoying.
Started by cutting out the rear panel. The guy on the picture is my boss, nicknamed Jesus.



No, that's not rust in the boot, just brown color.
Next up brought the parts car back home.





.. and halfed it.



.. and disassembled more.



Well, not just disassembled. Drilled out all welding spots to get the body parts completely.





Lamp eye / rear panel





While the new parts (sidewall, rear panel and trunk boot) were sent to be de-rusted and de-painted chemically (like, sunk into a chemical pool), I started doing exactly the same on my 240. Very, very weird, unusual feeling. You know, asking yourself if you'll ever drive it again even and all that.





All the rust you see here is because it was sitting blank outside. :p



Of course also had to un-mount more. Exhaust, fuel tank etc.



^ Result of that day.



Continued by drilling out the boot of mine, still wavy as fuck as you see.
More workshop pictures.





The Impala is a 67' and is getting a full restoration right now.



Just like the Daytona Competizione.

Anyways, back to 240 things.



All nude.
Now it was time for the right sidewall to go, now actually seeing just how much fucking material the guy put on:



I honestly want to punch him into the face so fucking hard.
Whatever, nothing I could do except continue and make it all right.



Completely drilled apart.



Finger for size.



Cut off the sideskirt since I needed it for the other sidewall - pleasantly surprised with no rust inside.





Began finding and fixing rust everywhere, making the whole ordeal larger than imagined. Not it wasn't just about fixing the rear more, but getting the whole body / chassis DONE.











Then began fixing the garage-door-damage.





And RocketBunny V9, 2028 Preview.





Continued with disassembling even more, since we decided well why the fuck shouldn't we paint the whole car while we are at it?





Got the door-inlets done professionally since that is something I can't wrap my head around, the result is mental nice (and I'll provide better pictures once they're in of course)
Aaaand more rust finding, removing, sealing up.



[IMG]i.imgur.com/andteHc.jpg[/IMG]





Alright. It is one 1 am here now. I'll update this thread with the CURRENT STATE probably tomorrow, if I'm not at work for 15 hours again (normal work + double that for the 13)

Last picture for today:





Also, if anyone cares to know: From price listing (officially by Nissan workshop hour requirements, not just us) this repair would cost ~$15000.

[PUNKMETHOD]

Alright, not exactly tomorrow but finally have the time to write some more out to whomever it might interest.
So, as I wrote in my previous post, the initial plan was to get the 'new' parts worked in terms of de-painting, de-rusting and then getting them coated, all done by the same company. Sounds good right? Thought so too.

Unfortunately for me (and not), they messed up and forgot to coat them, simply sent them back bare as they were. When I discussed my plans of being done by 4th of August with my boss, he immediately 'made' the decision (for me) to actually cancel the coating order, since that would've taken another 3-4 weeks. (That was 3-4 weeks ago, so I'd probably get them now or last week.. horrible for the planned deadline.)

So, two days afterwards I went to pick them up after school.



I stored them in my own basement for a week (until the next saturday) without being told to pretty much not touch them, as they'll begin rusting even from just touching them. Weeeell. Because of that, I had to grind them all down again.



All shiny! After being done with that, we had to make some basic adjustments / fixes to them first.



Night shift that same day, coating all parts with rust-preventive primer.







.. and of course also filler applied.



Over the course of the next couple days (basically since the day we night-shift'ed, above) we've been there for 15 hours a day. So, since 2 weeks plus. Very tiring, but it needs to be finished for hte major JDM meet in Germany early August.



Some more rust I worked on, left mirror. Sealing appears to have let through some water etc.
We also started reworking the left inner rear fender, which we didn't really do well when we executed it the first time.
Starting with cutting it out..





As you can see, shitty-ly done, had to be re-done (rust things!)



Also brought the sidewall back into shape since it was deformed from trying to match it with the previously thought bad right sidewall.



New inner fender taken from the parts of the parts car.
Time for the bad news (as I think I have referenced in the previous post)





Some braindead retards that exchanged the left rear sidewall somewhen before it was mine SOMEHOW managed to MISPLACE the whole sidewall - effectively making the left sidewall be 100% the problem, not the right one I replaced for the matter. It did not fit at all towards the end (width as seen from rear wise) nor did it fit towards the door, which is why they used putty to get the correct clearance towards the driver side door. So. Fucking. Pissed. Can't even describe how much I despise whomever managed that.

Anyways, no time to sink my head in sand. We spent an evening reworking what they messed up, making sure both fenders would sit properly and correctly, taking the fresh right sidewall as a base to work with.

Also, after extensive test fitting..



.. my boss began the welding process, as I personally am too unexperienced so far in terms of welding. (Thank you so much again Alex, even though you're not gonna read this)



I got that blue glow under my car!



Actually didn't take pictures for a couple of days after that, simply because of stress / being terribly exhausted. Many things were done, cutting out all windows, de-rusting the front windshield frame, as visible in the pictures before grinding down the complete left sidewall and right door to fix mistakes of the previous owners and or garages, uninstalling some more parts in preparation for paint soon,... etc etc.

THIS IS HOW IT SITS NOW. All welded up, welding spots / seams grinded down.











Also, to give some more detail - since the previous execution of mounting the fender flares wasn't exactly good, we've come up with a different solution using VW parts.
Holes were drilled accordingly and filed to squares:



And these cute little plastic pieces will occupy said squares, in which I will be able to screw the fender flares tight without having to worry about rust any longer.

[Tate]

Body Filler Chronicles.

That's a tonne of work. But she looked killer before, and shall look killer once again.

[PUNKMETHOD]

I guess I could've named it that, now that you mentioned it.
Work's going to continue today, hopefully finishing up the body before paint and filler work.
Some new stuff already came in as well - new license plate, license plate magnets etc. So, some small goodies to make good things better.

[atkins]

Totally awesome that you held on to that car even at a point where somebody else would just have replaced the whole body. But in the end you will have a body where you can be sure that there are no hidden rust spots or damages. Subbed.

[BB's Original]

Sick build, cant wait to see more!

[PUNKMETHOD]

Alright guys, sorry for my absence but I've been more than busy - especially since I had a deadline set on the 3rd of August. Anyways, I'll let y'all catch up now.



This is what the chassis looked like almost done, some sanding still to be done here. Unfortunately both sidewalls had to have some body filler - on the right because of the heat from welding both the sideskirt and the rear lower part as well as working on the arch.



Similar on the other side, but I explained the state of that in my last post already, so I'll spare you that. Anyways, this is what it looked like going into the cabin, on the jack so my painter could treat the underbody as well.



Quick shot after the rust-preventive coat was on.



Spray-body-filler for the left wall to sand down in shape.



And everything primer'd.
Now it actually was time to find a color.. or to word it differently: I was forced to, after postponing the decision over weeks and or months.
In the end, it came down to two manufacturer colors, of which the right one was a bit too light and blue, the other too dark and green. Thus.. 50/50, middle. Sorry for the bad quality picture here. I'll improve on that!





Spots where the windows are glued to (as well as the ducktail) were left primered for a better bond. Also, the guy's my boss, again. :p

However, the super big problem was that these pictures were from tuesday last week. Remember, My deadline was two days later, thursday. Nothing in, basically, so far.



Fortunately, I had a mate come in on wednesday to help me with nerves and getting the thing back together.



Thanks a ton Phil!

Anyways, Thursday was stressful. We had the interior 90% together, but still none of the exterior, and now he wasn't there to help. So I solely had to go ahead without losing my nerves.. very thankfully my boss (and later the other one as well) joined me to actually make the goal appear real. I still missed the deadline (time on which my group started the drive to the planned meeting - Reisbrennen, the biggest JDM meet in Germany). but managed to begin my drive about 2 - 2 1/2 hours later only to arrive 1 hour after them.

Also, mucho luv for my KA24 which started up right away after at least 4 months and ran smooth as a kitten for the next 700km (~430 miles).
On friday, I even went ahead and dyno'd it.



135.7 WHP @6151RPM, 222.9 Nm @2858RPM. So basically some HP lost over when it was fresh out of the factory, but gained torque. Exhaust's not exactly well sealed right now, so I'll blame that a bit. Otherwise, I'm very happy with the result after at least 140.000km. Expected less, to be honest, so thats nice. Can't wait to begin work on the engine though.







As visible, I didn't even have time to give it a good wash before I got there. I know, I know, it's not all finished yet, but I couldn't do anything about my painter running low on energy after the weeks of overtime. No worries, we'll paint the rest as soon as possible.



Matchbox'd!

[BB's Original]

Loving this shot! Did you raise the rear end while it was on the works? It looks a bit higher for some reason(maybe it's just the perspective tho).

Also, some of your pics are missing the http:// so they just wont load.

[PUNKMETHOD]

Just perspective, it will have to go lower soon enough though. Need to work-over my current suspension first however.

[PUNKMETHOD]

_______________________________________________





_______________________________________________






_______________________________________________





_______________________________________________





_______________________________________________

[kevvy_dawg]

Epic - sub'd for sure

[PUNKMETHOD]

Alright alright, almost a year since I last updated. Sorry for my absence, I'll try my best to catch up on everything that has happened meanwhile.
If anybody still remembers the last post of mine, that one contained another engine / engine swap I had thought of doing, however since that's not the case I deleted that post.

Anyways, let's go.



Since the body was nearing completion, I started on other areas of the car, such as heat wrapping the 4-2-1 header. The biggest reason for this was because the transmission tunnel / foot area in the interior heated up waaay too much before, besides the obvious advantages of heat wrapping of course.





I spent most of the time attending events and simply driving, something I had missed in the 6 months prior to it being able to drive again. Or well, simply being back together and legal to drive.



Now it also is one of the very are 240SX's that have seen the Nürburgring!
Just for the fun of it however, no time or anything.



Not too long afterwards, I started out planning the ITB's that I have posted about in an earlier post for the KA24E. I'll get into more depth what's to come engine wise later on in this post.



The good friend of mine that made the 3d then printed out a first version just for trying purposes, however we had to switch up materials for it to hold up and being able to be mounted.





This is the final product mounted on the GSXR ITBs, he came up with a system that allows us to switch up the intake headers if we decide to go with a different length tube after testing it on the dyno. Very nice imo.



More photoshoot stuff.

While the 'development' or progession of the engine stuff goes on as a side thing all the time, I had to tackle some issues and maintenance starting this year.
I decided it was time for more information in my driving position, so gauges first.





I deleted the rear wiper buttons as well as I forgot what it was on the left side and opened those openings wider in order to mount the gauges, since I wanted to keep the vents in tact.



Illuminated as well for the readability at night, of course.
For those interested: I needed to cut out the button openings a bout as well as the plastic underneath this panel / cover to allow the gauges to move in further.



Next up, I decided it was time to do more engine related stuff - I wanted to have a light flywheel. And since it would be stupid not to simply change out clutch and pressure plate with it, that's what I did.





I went with the XTD stage 2 kit, driven at least 2 if not 3000km by now with no issues at all.
Since the cylinders of the clutch system went leaky after a fluid change, I replaced those two for new replacement parts as well.



Brakes also got a refresh.
New brake pads and rotors front and back, brake fluid as well. Went with Brembo / Zimmermann combination in the front, Brembo / Power stop in the back. Can't complain, much better than before.

The only problem was that the master cylinder went leaky towards the brake booster, so I had to replace those two for new parts as well. But I guess one shouldn't complain about a whole new brake system, right?



Did some headlight experimenting as well. I do not want to run round headlights / small led bars though, so if I go through with this I will have to come up with something else. I want it to look as stock from factory as possible, just Z31 style.







But back to actual modifications instead of maintenance. Decided it was time for a bit more bite engine wise.
It's not much, the original camshaft was completely reworked to the values of the NISMO R4 Camshaft that was produced for the KA24E.
I decided for the R4 simply because it basically is a 'proven system', it's known to run, NISMO figured it out, so that's how it is.

The values are as follows:

89-90 240SX STOCK Camsahft
intake: 240 degrees duration, .409 in valve lift
exhaust: 248 degrees duration, .409 in valve lift
Nissan Motorsports - R4 "High Performance"
intake: 270 degrees duration, .402 in valve lift
exhaust: 270 degrees duration, .402 in valve lift

Together with the camshaft, I also replaced all hydraulic lifters since there were noisy ones. That problem still isn't gone, but eh, what can I say. It's a known KA problem anyways.
Figured it'd be the best time to do an oil change as well, and with that I wanted to relocate the oil filter to a more reachable position instead of the annoying original one.



The whole lot of stuff I bought for the matter.
It now sits on the passenger side behind the strut, towards the fire wall.



The oil filter top can be seen here.
So as you can clearly see - disassembled again. Why?
Because it was time for more PAINT. Hell yeah.



Bit by bit the princess was getting her final color.



Was a lot of work after everything was done to get the gaps between bonnet / qp's / doors and such correct, but it was worth the frustration.



Friends of mine definitely were gently surprised to see it done as a whole, since I had been working on it in the silence.



Then took part in a rallye together with my boss (blue shirt) and his Volvo Amazon, hence why there's advertisements on the door.



Of course, then it was photo shooting time again! Needed my love in color on pictures to share.

The results:














Far from done though, as always. Next up was getting rid of the unusable rear seats of the S13. However, I've never really liked just throwing out the whole interior for naked metal in the '13, so I had somebody make a custom carpet:





... and bought another KA24E (rare here) which I will build up while being able to drive the S13 with the current KA24E.
And thus I'll now state plans for the engine:

Rework the block, also get it to 89.5mm (Sorry, I am missing a couple specific terms in engine work stuff)
Heave the crankshaft alone as well as together with clutch, pressure plate and flywheel
Carillo Pro-H Beam Connecting Rods
Arias Sport Compact Dome Pistons (10.8:1)
Nismo R5 Camshaft (Regrind)
Custom Titanium valve springs
4-2-1 Header with 2.5" catback
Suzuki GSXR 750 Individual Throttle Bodies
ECUMaster Emu ECU
XTD Lightweight Flywheel

I am also planning to send the crankshaft and cylinder head to the USA to Rebello to let them do their magic.

That's it for today.

[Miroteknik]

respect for all the work done to this, what a journey.

throw some spacers on the rear wheels!

[Fruttolo]

Just wow dude! I love it, throw some wide 18s on it and it will be FIRE

Hope I can come to see the 'ring soon too

[PUNKMETHOD]

respect for all the work done to this, what a journey.

throw some spacers on the rear wheels!

Thanks dude! Appreciate it.
I actually have +20mm spacers laying around which makes em it real nice, however I still have to get those legal with the car. Some places I was at previously disliked -5 total.

Just wow dude! I love it, throw some wide 18s on it and it will be FIRE

Hope I can come to see the 'ring soon too

Haha just as above, really appreciate it! To be fair, I'm not too fond of 18's on her. Love the hotboi style but I prefer 16 's / 17 's for mine. But I would love some wider 17's. Like 11 or 12 wide maybe.
Make sure to visit the ring dude!