Adam's Stagea Drift Car ... Wait What?

[timmy_89]

great thread. cant wait to see what else you do with this.

definitely unique, love it

[currymeister]

good read-would read again

[Run-It-Hard]

Cheers guys!

Small update:

car got tuned, made similar power to the previous setup but full boost is over 1000rpm ealier which is great.

Did the cursed sundays drift day, had some fun. Stagea decided to troll me again and had me thinking my engine was going to blow or some shit (the ol' pumping too much oil out the head). Happened to bend both tie rods AGAIN! so I might fab up some KTS rods and ends to fit the Stagea ... hopefully.

Benny's conned me into going to that south circuit practice night on the 27th ... should be good!

Got a lot to update, just been flat stick =/

[Calsonic14U]

Nice bud. How come she keeps bending the rods? Just to much weight to transfer? Will come down have a look at the practice day

[Run-It-Hard]

I'm thinking so man. Stagea ones were thin as, standard S14 ones are a little beefier and they didn't bend as much ... but still.

KTS are 16mm in thickness I think they should last a while. I'll have S14/33 stockers in at EC though so they'll probably bend haha.

[Run-It-Hard]

Cursed Sundays drift day vid of the Stag and Skyline - VIEW ON THE BLOG

With the Cursed Sundays drift day at Wakefield park done and dusted, Benny went through the footage off Paulie’s Go Pro that I borrowed off him ages ago lol.

Both cars were relatively problem free. The Stagea decided that it wanted to pump oil into the catch can, and Benny managed to buckle one of his newly acquired VSKF’s.

All in all, a great day with a great bunch of people and most importantly, stupid amounts of track time.

A more thorough update later, but for now enjoy the vid!

[Run-It-Hard]

Results – Guess the power figure - VIEW ON THE BLOG

For a while now I’ve been running a guess the power figure competition, where the three closest guesses won Run It Hard! merchandise.

Readers had two seperate chances (here and here) to guess what power they thought the Stagea would put down on the rollers.

Well the results are in, the Stagea made 315HP/235KW on 18psi. Not exactly how much I was expecting (as I’m sure many others were also expecting more) but it’s the result none the less.

Out of the 61 guesses recorded on the blog, the winners are:

1st place – Phouc guessed 234kw, only 1kw off the final power output
2nd place - B3n guessed 233kw, only 2kw off the final power output
3rd place – Troy guessed 239kw, 4kw off the final power output

I’ll be in touch with the winners shortly. Thanks to all who participated, and we’re open for ideas on future competetions!

[Run-It-Hard]

SPRINGS ARE JUST SPRINGS - VIEW ON THE BLOG

We all know the Nissan Stagea is a big, heavy ‘car’. So when it comes down driving one enthusiastically, you might feel like you’re on a boat when it’s about capsize. I attempted to reduce this feeling with some Whiteline sway bars. They helped a lot but it wasn’t enough. Reason being is because my Tein Super Flex Wagon coilovers come with pansy spring rates.

But that’s ok, they were decided with comfort and “low down style”. After lots of deciding I opted to go for Swift Racing springs as a replacement, in 12kg/10kg. While I was at it, I went with shorter springs which ultimately means I can go lower than the Tein setup.

What made me go for the Swifts is the countless reviews I read. An example would be A guy buys BC coilovers with 8/6kg rates. Installs coilovers and doesn’t like the harshness, goes to the effort to take them out and prepares to sell them before a friend suggested to get Swift springs. He does just that and comments that the car is less harsh over bumps/shitty roads but is more planted throughout spirited driving and increases his confidence when pushing to the limit. Almost sounds too good to be true huh?

Swift claim the reasoning for this is because they use fewer coils in a spring. They are also made out of an exclusive material that allows this to be possible. Another plus is that this material Swift Racing have designed, is quite a bit lighter than conventional steel springs. Oh and they never sag with age too.

I was still skeptical about how awesome a bunch of springs could be, but as usual I went on the hunt on where I could get my hands on some Swift springs. I searched through Yahoo auctions and found a used pair of 10kg springs that would be perfect for the Stagea. So I snapped them up and I got Jesse Streeter to order a brand new pair of front springs for me.

They arrived just a few days before Cursed Sunday’s Wakefield park day. So I got to work! It was tedious changing the springs than adjusting the height several times to make sure it was exactly where I wanted it. I was eager to take the car for a spin to see if these springs are as good as people say they are.

One thing I was worried about is that if 12/10kg would be too harsh on our shitty Sydney roads. But after the initial drive, they are barely any firmer than the Tein springs. It was when I drove the car a bit harder that the Swift Springs really came to life, the steering response had improved, the body roll has almost been diminished and the car feels much more stable through-out cornering and going over bumps/dips. It’s crazy!

The big test would be Wakefield, last time I was there I was sliding around in my GTR seat multiple times and going over photos proved how bad the body roll actually was. This time around, well I think it’s as good as it’s going to get. Driving it feels so much nicer over bumps/dips and drifting it has a lot more grip all round, body roll is reduced dramatically and comfort has barely been affected. Considering I’ve nearly doubled the spring rates I think it’s quite a feat.

My mind has been changed on springs being just springs. I know what I’ll be using from now on.

[Run-It-Hard]

PHOTO DUMP: CURSED SUNDAYS DRIFT DAY - VIEW ON THE BLOG!

Pictures from Cursed Sunday’s private day have just emerged from Streamline Media and they managed to get quite a few pics of the Stagea and Skyline. Most of these were taken early on in the day, you can see that my front lip is already mangled though haha.

Benny baking hard.

Stagea following suit.

Putting on a show

My week old lip demolished, nothing a few cable ties didn’t fix!

Benny has a knack for loosing his side skirts, he rolled up next to me on the straight and I could hear something scrapping, I’m like “uhh bro, you ran over your sideskirt”. Funnily enough it was still mostly intact and went back on the car.

Blurry Stagea is blurry.

Benny is so happy that the R33 pumps out smoke now, we made a switch to Rotalla tyres … they are pretty rad for the price, grip right to the belts, don't delam and smoke up. What more could you want?

Ah, it was a good day. We are doing it all again on the 27th on the new EC South circuit. Can’t wait!

[dori34]

cool review on the swift springs!

they are rated highly for a reason

awesome pics mate & car's looking heaps good.

[Run-It-Hard]

Suichuuka – flower gear knobs - view on the blog

One thing that I’ve been meaning to buy the Stagea was a fresh gear knob, the old blue bubble shifter from the Skyline just didn’t cut it anymore. There’s nothing blue on the Stagea, it looked so out-of-place so it had to go. But it had to be replaced with something even quirkier.

For years now, I’ve always wanted a ‘Suichuuka’ … a flower gear knob. After some half-assed searches for one the trail went cold. This happened multiple times, they definitely aren’t easy to find if you don’t know where to look. It was until I went to the gong to catch up with the boys from Cursed Sundays that my search had re-commenced.

Luke is rocking one on his widebody S13. It’s the first one I’ve seen in person and I knew that it was time to find myself one.

The following days, I spent some time on the translator, trying my luck in Yahoo for something cool. I found lots of odds and ends that’s for sure, but not a Suichuuka (check out this post on Nori Yaro about the history behind them). The trial had started to get cold again, but then I came across a company called Seiko that produces the very gear knob I was after!

Julie was in the same boat as me, she saw Luke’s Suichuuka and wanted one pronto! Heck she was getting into her Asain mode, trying to haggle him to sell it lol.

Seiko produce these gear knobs in two different lengths (as I’m sure you’ve worked out by now). The short version is roughly 150mm long.

The long version is roughly 200mm long. It’s also quite a bit thicker than the short version. They have 2 different threads built-in too which is cool. Unlike the bubble shifters where you need to use that chatty thread adaptor that tends to snap. So each Seiko flower shift knob has M10x1.25 and M12x1.25 built into it.

I’m so glad I finally got my hands on a flower shift knob. If you’ve always wanted one yourself, feel free to hit me up!

[Run-It-Hard]

Video – SMP drift practice 27/02/13 - VIEW ON THE BLOG

The ARDC held a drift practice night on the 27th of February, on the new SMP South circuit. With a cheap entry fee and close to home venue, Benny and I were keen as mustard to get out there and see what the fuss is all about.

We only had 3 or so hours of track time, but it was enough to get a feel for the track. It’s short and sweet and I dig it a lot, I just hope they let us drift a few more corners. Time will tell I guess.

Enjoy the vid!

[Run-It-Hard]

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND - VIEW ON THE BLOG

Alrighty with the ADRC South circuit practice night done and dusted it’s time to put the Stagea to rest for a month or so, why? well rego is about to lapse and I don’t happen to have the ludicrous amount that the RMS/Insurance company (for greenslip) want just sitting around. I also happened to blow my diff towards the end of the night. So regardless the car wouldn’t be moving for a while haha.

Aleks from All Stars approached me last week, he asked to do a photo shoot on the shaggin’ wagon. As usual I was down for whatever. So that happened today with Dahtone Racing being the back-drop (thanks Anth for opening the shop!). While the car was looking all pretty I took some photos too, it could be the last time the car will be wearing the SSR Viennas. Oh and I lowered it too. This is the height I want but there’s some work needed to be done so I can drive it properly.

The rear inner wheel well needs to be cut and extended so there’s from the rear wheels to travel. As for the front, well I’m thinking of converting to a McPherson strut setup. As it sits right now the double wishbone setup (more importantly the A arm and Upper control arm) rests around 10mm from the chassis, so imagine what happens on every small bump in the road.

If I went McPherson (think S chassis) I would reduce a lot of weight on the front end from the factory cast items, driveshafts and control arms. I would also be able to run more lock, a lot more. I’ve had a look under the car and I think it’s do-able with the 4WD subframe. I’ll need to mod the RWD LCA to suit the ball joint the 4WD LCA mounts to off the subframe, I could get top hats and bottom mount for my current Teins, and the castor rod looks like it’ll line up (or be very close to it). My only problem at the moment is the sway bar and how to mount it.

As for the diff, I’m going to swap it out for a conventional R200 RWD setup. On the Stagea there is the ATTESA pump that mounts above the diff. Seeing that I have no desire to ever run the car in 4WD again, it can go to the scrapper. Depending what I can find I may go for the 5 bolt drive shafts too.

The subframe will be coming out yet again ( I think this is the third or fourth time now) and I’ll be getting it braced using GKtech’s new reinforcement kit. I’m also swapping out my intercooler for a larger HKS unit as its limiting the turbo and engines potential.

Theres many other things I have on my mind that I might or might not do, time will tell I guess. The goal is to have it back up and running by April for a full day of thrashing at South circuit.

[Run-It-Hard]

Photo dump: South circuit practice night - View on the blog

Pictures from the last south circuit are up! quite a few photographers were out on the night and got some snaps of the Skyline and Stagea. Thanks to Kinetic Imagery, MPN Digital and James H for the snaps!

[beenowened]

Awesome build mate.

Keep up the good work.

[Run-It-Hard]

MY SECOND YEAR OF OWNERSHIP - VIEW ON THE BLOG

One day and two years ago, I was in Camperdown (somewhere in Vic) picking up a completely original Nissan Stagea RS4 DAYZ edition. So I thought it would be good to go over the past two years of ownership, all the ups, downs, achievements and heart breaks.

A group of four (including myself) headed to the Sydney domestic airport at the crack of dawn. We flew to Melbourne, hired a car and drove for 2 hours to get this Stagea. At the time, it was the exact model I wanted, colour and had the elusive DAYZ bodykit. It was reasonably priced and had low kilometers too. It was a very clean example compared to others I had seen previously.

March 2011

At this point I had only owned the car for 6 days, there was a skid pan event coming up and Yuan, among with a few other mates were suggesting I should take the boat for an afternoon sailing session. I ended up being convinced a few hours before the event so straight after work I headed to Dahtone Racing and Anthony pulled out the front shaft for me … it has been out ever since.

I was keen to see what it’s got and it blew my expectations away, I was very impressed with it.

May 2011

This was probably the peak of the first build, a lot of parts I had ordered from Japan had arrived and made their way on the car. I had my old Weds Borphes (which made their way to Julie’s S14) on at the time too. Most mods were mainly cosmetic and suspension.

June 2011

This is the month where everything was tipped on its head. I had just been informed that I was going to lose my licence for 6 months, for speeding in Victoria when I picked up the Stagea. I was pretty shitty to say the least but life goes on.

Anyway at one point I took this as a positive, as I had my manual conversion parts lying around, along with aftermarket ECU and all sorts of stuff … waiting to go onto the car. But somewhere along the line I decided that I was bored with the car, and I should get rid of it seeing that I can’t drive for 6 months.

It was also the first time I drifted it in the dry, again exceeding my expectations … the Stagea loves the skids.

August 2011

At this point the Stagea was stripped back to stock and I even put it up for sale. Somewhere along the line I bought that bucket of shit R33 skyline and well the Stagea was neglected.

November 2011

The first Raceline Wakefield matsuri, the Skyline was destined to drift at this event but I blew my first engine at Wakefield two weeks prior. I couldn’t sell my spot so I took the Stagea out on the track to try my luck. Did it skid … yeah, nah.

July – September 2012

July was the month the Stagea got a new lease on life, after the brand new rebuilt engine had failed in the Skyline, I decided enough was enough, so I cut my losses and parted it out. I did keep some goodies off it for the Stagea though.

Parting out the Skyline ment I could go on a shopping spree, so I did and I bought a stack of parts from Japan that landed around September.

October 2012

The Stagea had made its way to Dahtone Racing, ready to under-go an extensive list of modifications. Everything I had originally planned and more.

Manual conversion, bigger turbo, exhaust, intercooler the lot. We happened to have a lot of set backs during this period and ultimately it cost me missing out on two events I had planned to go to since the new rebuild.

December 2012

December was a good month, I finally got out to the track in my own car. Although there were many flaws with the setup I still managed to have some fun in it.

January 2013

This month was pretty shitty, I had a brake caliper fall off, a turbo oil drain hose perish, a truck side swipped the passenger side and I got pulled over and fined for running an amber light.

definitely wasn’t a good start to the year.

February 2013

I did some more drift days and sorted out some bugs, I was starting to get comfortable with the car and more confident.

March 2013

Here we are, right now I have a broken Stagea … kinda. The diff blew at the last South circuit practice night and rego runs out this month. So the Stagea is getting a rest and will be revamped slightly. There are a few things I want to do that have been bugging me for a while now.

So within two years, my Stagea has gone through a lot of changes. Although all the shit that has happened with it, it’s still been the best car I’ve ever owned. I hope to have it in my possession for many years to come.

[Run-It-Hard]

Random Snap - Close call

This photo popped up late last night on Facebook, captured by GottaStayRare. It was taken back in December when I took the Stagea to Driving Sports last north circuit drift day.

The Stagea was kinda sketchy to drive, it was the first time I’ve drifted it with all the extensive work carried out completed shortly before this event.

Over the day I was building confidence and manjiing everywhere I could pretty much cause it was just too laggy to do anything solid with. Anyway half way through the day just after turn 4 I came over the crest and the Stagea straightened up, heading straight for the wall. I thought I was going to hit for sure but the boat pulled up in time … just.

Lets just say I didn’t go trying that again for a while, haha.

[Run-It-Hard]

Controlled breathing - Part I - VIEW ON LE BLOG

If you’ve owned a RB series engine long enough, and like to give it a beating. Chances are that you’ve found oil build up in your catch can, or intake pipes quick smart! For some though (like Benny) you might not have a single drop of oil in the intake pipe after a long hard day of drifting. Unfortunately I happen to have the former. So I decided to do something about it.

My whole goal with the build of the Stagea was to keep the engine bay as standard looking as possible, so I really wanted to keep the standard breathing in place. After the last event I attended (it was IDA at Wakefield, December) I knew that I needed some sort of setup. The Stagea happens to have a lot of blow by. So I looked around on Ebay and found myself a cheap catch can that has a removable base and lid.

This old Greddy style can wasn’t baffled though, like many small cans on the market. So I came up with a design and got to work. Anthony welded it up for me and it now rests inside the catch can. The idea was that the air must pass through the baffle in order to escape, which would mean there would be minimal oil in the outlet hose unless the can was filled past the baffle plate.

Many people run steel wool wrapped in stocking inside their catch cans, and that just didn’t sit right with me. Anthony suggested I used some fuel cell foam instead so I went with that and stuffed the bottom section of the can full of it.

The catch can originally came in some gay polished finished that looked tacky, and as we all know anything shiny in an engine bay is a defect these days. So I scuffed that shit up with some 800 grit sandpaper and painted it with my favorite, White Knight flat black engine enamel.

With the Cursed Sundays drift day just around the corner, I got it all installed and ended up venting it to atmosphere. So did this can actually do anything? Well it’s hard to say because my magical RB25 was filling it up after a few laps! All I could do is drain it and repeat. The blow by problem was worse than I thought it originally was. It was good to be able to gauge exactly how much blow by it had though.

Part II coming up soon!

[Run-It-Hard]

Controlled breathing - Part II - VIEW ON THE BLOG

With the recent fitting of the catch can to my Stagea, I feared the worst. I thought “how can a standard RB25 blow so much oil?!” So I took it to Dahtone and we preformed a compression test.

I was anxious to say the least, but the results came back consistent and not too far off the factory specs which is pretty damn good to me! So it just happens to be that my RB25 is pumping too much oil into the head, and cannot drain it back quick enough.

I didn’t want to go and pull apart a mint engine to fix this tedious issue that the RB is renowned for. So I did some research into the baffle design on RB25 cam covers.

As you can see there isn’t much going on with the standard setup, there is a big opening towards the back of the cover and only a small piece of mesh to slow the flow of oil before exiting out the cam cover.

The ultimate goal was to slow the oil down, to a point where a minimal amount would be able vacate the cam cover.

The first thing I noticed was how small the drain holes in the baffle plate were, I did some testing and under a medium flow of fluid, the drain would struggle to release it all and overflow.

I then opened the drain using a flat head screw driver, and tested again. The enlarged drains were more efficient and even handled a higher flow.

Next up I designed some metal plates to baffle the cam cover. I went for three in each , one was placed at the back to restrict and slow down the flow of oil entering the breather section.

The other two were welded in-between the standard mesh. Basically I wanted to reduce the oil entering past the mesh, and escaping out of the breather holes. The idea of the baffles was to keep any oil that enters in the drainage section of the OEM baffle plate.

to finish it off, I filled the cam cover with fuel cell foam, to further slow the oil. It’s super dense where the drain holes are to emphasise this.

For those keen on adding their own baffling, just a word of warning. You will need to drill out the plates as they are spot welded on. You’ll also need to tap the holes so you can use bolts to secure the plates.

While the covers were off the Stagea, I gave them a coat of paint … black as always.

The recent practice night was the test to see if the extra baffles have helped keep oil within the engine. Although the track is a lot shorter than Wakefield, I was still on or near limiter for roughly 30 seconds at a time.

Anyway I checked the catch can, plumbing and the intake pipe after the event and there is no oil to be found! It'll be interesting to see if it's the same senario next time I go to Wakefield, but so far so good and I think this'll do the trick.

[Run-It-Hard]

WEEKEND WALLPAPER - LOW DOWN STAGEA - VIEW ON THE BLOG

I haven’t done a Weekend wallpaper for quite a while now (Since August last year!) so I guess I better stop being lazy and get on it! Here’s some desktop goodness of My Stagea right before it when into my cramped garage to get pulled apart for the billionth time.

Download wallpaper.

Download wallpaper.

Download wallpaper.