Build Thread: Adam's Nissan Stagea C34

[bigkevracer]

Again? WHY?

I thought your partner intelligently talked you round and you were keeping it?

[Big Fella]

AGAIN Really, I thought we'd been thru this, Keep it build it into a crazy stagea and enjoy when you get your license back!!!!

[GoldZilla]

http://vimeo.com/25900971

and it's for sale!

*shakes head*

"No dedication, no commitment..."

I, too, thought you'd decided to keep it.

[Run-It-Hard]

I did, but we are planning to move house soon and the money could be used elsewhere rather than the car.

[Big Fella]

I vote for the opposite, sell the house, live in the stagea like a gypsy and spend bulk monies on mods

[SatchiThaStagea]

VERY disappointing.........

[KiwiRS4T]

Sorry to hear - never seen anyone do so much so quickly and with great photos!

[RS4-S]

the stagea is the ultimate house moving machine! sell the 200sx

[Mr_RS4]

Ok so I'm hoping someone can help me out here, I might as well keep posting in this thread instead of starting a new one seeing as its kind of on topic anyway.

I'm doing the S14 subframe swap and pulled everything out of the car on the weekend. Now I'm stuck. I know which subframe to get thats the easy part, not sure what to do diff wise.

I've got a S1 auto and have the 3x2 bolt diff flanges which rules out being able to just use R33gtst driveshafts and bolt them straight on, which everyone seems to say is all you need to change (I'm guessing that S2 stageas use the 5 bolt diff flanges or something). I don't want to go with a GTR subframe swap as I want to keep my shocks and the rest of the stagea gear.

AFAIK the stagea diff housing is the only one with the attessa mouting points on the housing (GTR's have the elsewhere), so I'm going to have to keep my housing. If I get a GTR diff I will end up with the GTR 6 bolt diff flanges, meaning I will have to use GTR shafts and then I'll be up for the GTR hub, brake and shock conversion too (want to aviod that). And all the GTST diffs I've seen don't have the abs sensors on each diff flange, only the stagea and gtr diffs I've seen have that.

So my idea's are to just give up on the LSD centre for now and use S14 driveshafts (they all seem to be the 3x2 bolt pattern too and hopefully will fit), or (I read this in another thread somewhere on here) that you could use the GTR diff and driveshafts, put the whole diff and flanges into the stagea housing, use the GTR shafts and hubs but use the stagea knuckles so I keep the "eye" style shock mount. Or another idea (this would be idead if it will work) can I get the 3x2 bolt end of my stagea shafts and swap them with the 5 bolt end of gtst shafts?

If anyone can help out it would be much appreciated......

[Mr_RS4]

And another question, if the S14 shafts will work (or gtst with my 3x2 bolt ends on them) and I still want to put and LSD centre in, what will work with 3x2 bolt flanges, obviously S14's use this bolt pattern so will an S14 centre fit in my housing, might have to swap the back plate or something. I know most people do this the other way around, but if a skyline diff centre will fit in an S14 housing just by swaping the back plate, surely it works the other way around?

As you can tell I haven't played around with diffs much before

[Daleo]

If the R33 GTS-T half shafts are the appropriate length; is there anything stopping you from using the matching R33 GTS-T companion flanges?

Is the spline count or spline length different?

[Mr_RS4]

The only thing thats stopping me there is I'm yet to see 5 bolt flanges with the abs sensors on the flanges (see the pic I used above with the red lines around them), all the R33gtst diffs and other non GTR or Stagea diffs I've seen don't have the sensors on each flange. Look at the pic you'll see what I'm talking about. I assume the S2 auto and factory manual stagea must use the 5 bolt flanges because the guys that have done the S14 subframe swap on here (keeping the rest of their stagea parts) have S2's and have used only the subframe and R33 driveshafts and changed nothing else.

I've been looing around on the net a lot and all the pics I've seen of S14/15 drive shafts all have the 3x2 bolt ends on them (same as my diff), so I think for now I'm just going to give that a go. I'll be using an S14 subframe too, so there isn't any reason I can see why they won't work. A lot of the rear end parts on S1's are the same as S14 anyway or at least interchangable. If this works I'll sort out an LSD centre later on, will probably just save up and go for a Nismo or something instead of messing around with a thrashed out second had one.

[Daleo]

The only thing thats stopping me there is I'm yet to see 5 bolt flanges with the abs sensors on the flanges (see the pic I used above with the red lines around them), all the R33gtst diffs and other non GTR or Stagea diffs I've seen don't have the sensors on each flange. Look at the pic you'll see what I'm talking about. I assume the S2 auto and factory manual stagea must use the 5 bolt flanges because the guys that have done the S14 subframe swap on here (keeping the rest of their stagea parts) have S2's and have used only the subframe and R33 driveshafts and changed nothing else.

I've been looing around on the net a lot and all the pics I've seen of S14/15 drive shafts all have the 3x2 bolt ends on them (same as my diff), so I think for now I'm just going to give that a go. I'll be using an S14 subframe too, so there isn't any reason I can see why they won't work. A lot of the rear end parts on S1's are the same as S14 anyway or at least interchangable. If this works I'll sort out an LSD centre later on, will probably just save up and go for a Nismo or something instead of messing around with a thrashed out second had one.

Yep, I follow what you're saying I'll get back in my box now.

Cheers, Dale.

[Mr_RS4]

Actually after more searching I have found that the rear knuckles in the stagea are pretty much the same throughout the series of silvia's, skylines's, stagea's, laurels etc....and the hubs seem to be the same too (except the 4 stud S13's)so there really isn't any reason why I can't use S14 3x2 bolt shafts. (Cheapest and easiest way, but still have the non lsd diff)

But something I didn't know you can also do is remove the abs rings off the diff flanges and press them onto non abs diff flanges, have read on a few different sites where people have done this (same reasons as me). So that clears that one up. (could still just get a gtst vlsd and shafts, swap everything into my housing and swap the abs rings over to the gtst flanges, little more work than first option but get an lsd)

And also I've read up on couple of threads on different sites (sau included) where people have put the GTR diff into S14's for the extra strength and thicker drive shafts, all they've had to do is change the yoke for the tailshaft (I wouldn't need to do this) and removed the S14 hubs and put the GTR hubs into the S14 knuckles, the rest stays S14.

At least I seem to have found answers but now have more thinking to do.....grrrrrr!

[KiwiRS4T]

Actually after more searching I have found that the rear knuckles in the stagea are pretty much the same throughout the series of silvia's, skylines's, stagea's, laurels etc....and the hubs seem to be the same too (except the 4 stud S13's)so there really isn't any reason why I can't use S14 3x2 bolt shafts. (Cheapest and easiest way, but still have the non lsd diff)

But something I didn't know you can also do is remove the abs rings off the diff flanges and press them onto non abs diff flanges, have read on a few different sites where people have done this (same reasons as me). So that clears that one up. (could still just get a gtst vlsd and shafts, swap everything into my housing and swap the abs rings over to the gtst flanges, little more work than first option but get an lsd)

And also I've read up on couple of threads on different sites (sau included) where people have put the GTR diff into S14's for the extra strength and thicker drive shafts, all they've had to do is change the yoke for the tailshaft (I wouldn't need to do this) and removed the S14 hubs and put the GTR hubs into the S14 knuckles, the rest stays S14.

At least I seem to have found answers but now have more thinking to do.....grrrrrr!

I have an R32 GTR diff (mechanical LSD) in my car with 6x1 axles. I wanted the better lsd for obvious reasons and the 6x1 axles because they are thicker and stronger. The abs sensors were swapped over from my Stagea ones and I have retained the eye type shock mounts so that I could keep my Bilsteins. The workshop found a way to mount the abs stuff (haven't had a good look to see how yet). There is a problem with finding the right axles (GTS4, GTR. Z32) so I can't tell you for sure which ones worked but I didn't buy any RS260 ones.

[Mr_RS4]

Yeah as I've found out you can just press the abs rings off the flanges and put them on other flanges (I'm guessing this is what your workshop did) and probably bolted all R32 diff and 6x1 flanges into your stagea housing. I guess you kept the stagea cradle too seeing as they had to use different length drive shafts to bolt up to the R32 flanges being that its 50mm wider and you wanted the GTR style 6x1 bolt axles. If you look closely at a gtst diff for eg. without the abs rings on the flanges you can see a slight taper where the rings will fit. Buggered if I know why Nissan did it 2 ways???

It doesn't seem as hard as I originally thought now though, but I have a lot of other stuff to do on the car right now that takes priority over a GTR diff and axles (it's only making 165awkw atm anyway and its still auto for now) so I'm going to just try the S14 ones, I know they have the same 3x2 bolt pattern as my flanges. Seeing as I'm using the S14 cradle and afaik the splines aren't different then I can't see why they won't work (fingers crossed). But later down the track I will get a GTR diff (put into my housing), axles and hubs (bolted into my knuckles)as I now know this combo will work and will probably convert to brembos at the same time.

I will post again once its done and let all know how it goes.

[pipster11]

best bet would be to pull a flange out of the diff, count the splines and if they are the same, chuck the s14 flanges in the stagea diff

im pretty sure all the r200's are the same inside so i doubt they'd have a different spline count

[Global_Warmer]

This thread has really gone to shit since RUN-IT-HARD decided to sell this car because of some silly excuse.

[Mr_RS4]

This thread has really gone to shit since RUN-IT-HARD decided to sell this car because of some silly excuse.

I would of started another thread except for 2 reasons. 1). This was already a topic of discussion in here anyway as he WAS going to do the same conversion (everyone always whinges about new threads getting started when one already exists) and 2). he's selling the car now anyway so where else is this thread going??? If a mod wants to move it or delete it fine by me.

[Run-It-Hard]

This thread is not all doom and gloom after all!

That Stagea of mine

For those wondering, I’ve still got the Stagea. It’s been on the market for a couple of months now and I haven’t had much interest in it unfortunately. In saying that maybe it is a good thing I haven’t sold it yet.

Since the whole loosing my licence thing, a lot of shit has gone down. I’ve moved out, and scored an awesome new job which means I can afford to keep both the Skyline and Stagea. I’ll admit, the Stagea is the most practical car I’ve owned, it has saved my ass hundreds of times and well, I’d like to keep it that way.

So, I’m thinking of just having it as the daily, lowered on some nice wheels … continue with my subframe swap and add a tow bar on the back for when “shit happens” to the Skyline.

I miss how it used to look.