Bakemono Nissan S15 - Build Thread!

[Ryno]

Got the car back in action for now, turns out I had two broken subframe mounts.

[Ryno]

When you say you had two broken subframe mounts, were these cracked on the subframe, or the pins on the bottom of the car?

[BakemonoRicer]

Ryno, I was referring to the rubber bush mounts. The subframe itself and chassis are all good.

[Ryno]

Cool, that's fairly common. I thought you may have broken something more serious.

[BakemonoRicer]

I haz shiney now.... no stealth black in this build.

CNC billet flange, 45mm v-band, T3 single scroll steampipe goodness....

Expecting full boost at ~3400rpm, gonna pull like a freight train to 7500rpm (yes....I'll be bumping up the rev limit)

[MrFijiGold]

Looking good mate.

Keen to see more updates

[BakemonoRicer]

3 weeks ago:

I decided it'd be a good idea before installing the new harmonic balancer to replace the front crank seal. I needed something that I could use as a 'press' for the new seal, and after looking around the garage decided this piece from an old whipper snipper would do the job best.

Lubricated the seal with a bit of engine oil, then pressed it in flush by winding in the crank bolt...

I applied some loctite antisieze to the crank snout after cleaning it up, then installed the ROSS TUFFBOND harmonic balancer







Replaced these little clips with brand new OEM items, as the old ones were broken meaning the plastic stip wasn't secure...



Next up was getting rid of the stock fuel pump. The car has been turned off for ages now, so I just opened the tank lid and then siphoned most of the fuel out of the tank. Obviously, it was a shit of a job due to the fumes from the fuel. I fitted up the hoses, replaced the valve assembly with the R33 GTR item, then installed the new Nismo pump.







The car was looking pretty angry with the new oil cooler mounted up, so I got to work removing the stock oil block & replacing it with a Tomei N2 Oil Block (thanks SamB87 for the advice). I'm running the oil temperature sensor in the N2 Oil Block, and the oil pressure sensor in the GREX Filter Relocation Block. I used sealer for these sensors, but I decided I'm going to refit them using PTFE tape (only way I can have 100% peace of mind, lol). The braided lines look pretty flash, but I need to adjust the angle of the fittings onto the N2 Oil Block so that they clear the alternator...

Next chance to work on the car will be the Easter long weekend, so hopefully I get some solid work done...... will keep you all posted

[BakemonoRicer]

Got to have another crack working on the car over the long weekend…

I took off the oil block & reinstalled the sensors with teflon tape (I figured I’d have more peace of mind with this than the Loctite Greymaxx). With the N2 Oil Block reinstalled, clearance between the 45 degree swivel fittings and the alternator is bloody tight. I had a few attempts adjusting the projection of the fitting & test fitting the alternator each time, and in the end I had as much clearance as I could get (~1.5mm lol, it’ll be enough). The ‘inlet plenum to alternator brace’ came in contact with the lines – so I simply notched the brace to give me clearance. I protected the lines in the corrugated conduit where necessary, though realistically I’ll buy some more to cover the whole line. I’ve modified the horn brackets for clearance purposes as well.

Reinstalled the stock plenum & SR20DE big throttle with fresh gaskets & torqued everything to suit.

Next up was the fresh set of HKS Drive Belts. Due to the lack of clearance between the fitting & alternator, pushing the alternator across far enough to ease on the belt isn’t possible. The black fan pulley pictured below is obviously removable, so I pulled it off then wrapped the belt around this & the alternator / crank pulley. Eased the fan pulley back on & the belt was in position. Reinstalled the fan then adjusted all the tensions, and also rotated the crank pulley to T.D.C as well in preparation for the cams/valve springs/rocker arm stopper install.

I made a simple bracket for the Sunline Racing Radiator Breather Tank, mocking it in position so I could figure out how where to fit the 34mm adaptor. After some measuring and thinking, I marked the lower radiator hose and went about making a couple proper cuts for it. The same logic followed when it came to installing the Water Temp Sensor adaptor in the upper radiator hose, there’s not much room at all for it so the position needs to be bang on…I’ll remember to get a picture next time.

The SARD Racing Radiator had me excited, the thing is a real nice bit of gear. I applied thin strips of foam around the radiator to help with sealing, installed the fan shroud (can’t be fitted in without this!), and eased it into position. The last picture is how the car sits until next time I work on it….

[Jordy32]

Looking good mate.

Nice to see someone using quality parts in these cars, too many slap jobs going around... Keep it up!

[XKLABA]

No light weight pully wheels ?

[BakemonoRicer]

Looking good mate.

Nice to see someone using quality parts in these cars, too many slap jobs going around... Keep it up!

Cheers mate!

Nowadays it's near impossible to find a clean base - most S15's have been crashed & flogged a few times over. It's a shame because they have a lot of potential but usually end up with some basic power mods & plenty of cheap china parts...

No light weight pully wheels ?

XKLABA, I did look into running them but convinced myself there wasn't any room left in the blown out budget lol

Any advantages?

[XKLABA]

Basically the same as light weight flywheel just to a lesser extent, less inertia, almost always one of the first things I do lol

Plus they add some colour in the engine bay

[hortz]

Are you replacing old / warn parts or are you just spending money for the fun of it?

[BakemonoRicer]

Basically the same as light weight flywheel just to a lesser extent, less inertia, almost always one of the first things I do lol

Plus they add some colour in the engine bay

Really do like the Greddy pulleys, they look sweet in the anodised blue. I'll put them on the 'to do list' down the track...

Hopefully the harmonic balancer makes a nice enough difference for now...

Are you replacing old / warn parts or are you just spending money for the fun of it?

LOL - so if I didn't have old/worn parts - i'd only be spending money for the fun of it?

Isn't the purpose of modifying a car to try & improve it in as many ways as possible....

[GH05T]

My theory is always that its cheaper to upgrade rather than fix.

Edited April 7, 2016 by GH05T

[hortz]

LOL - so if I didn't have old/worn parts - i'd only be spending money for the fun of it?

Isn't the purpose of modifying a car to try & improve it in as many ways as possible....

sorry, I guess what I was asking was "are you replacing parts as they need replacing. Or are you replacing bits as you find what you want?"

[BakemonoRicer]

14/05/2016

Had plenty of parts arrive from the land of the rising sun... the OEM bits are mainly related to the valve spring/cam install which should be coming up in the near future.




There was a ticking noise every time I used the air in the car which was pretty annoying. Finally tracked it down - turns out the 'Fresh Air Mix Actuator' unit has shat itself. Took out the dash surround & replaced it with a new one. No info on the internet about this so hopefully this will help people trying to track the issue down!





Given I'll be relocating the battery to the boot for better weight distribution, I got a spot weld remover bit & drilled out all the spot welds from the battery tray. This took plenty of time as finding each spot weld was pretty damn time consuming, same with drilling them all out carefully.

Once I'd removed the battery tray, there was plenty of surface rust & oxidisation underneath. First step was to use a flapper disc to grind away the gunk, then I went through the motions with 180 grit, 400 grit, 800 grit, & 1200 grit to really smooth out the metal. After that I cleaned the bare metal with brake & parts cleaner, then layed down several mist coats of etch primer....looks pretty neat : )

[BakemonoRicer]

29/05/2016

Had a bit of a tinker with the car on Sunday.

The first job was to modify the factory audio brackets to suit the Defi DIN. I chose the DIN as I do think its the neatest option & is a bit more stealth than dash mounted gauges.

As you can see in the pictures below, the factory audio bracket holes have projection to suit the factory CD player (which has deep recesses in it). To do it neatly, I just used a hammer & a copper punch to flatten the projections. I then used M5 truss head screws & lightly torqued them to suit. The CD player and audio is completely gone in the name of weight reduction ( & yezzz, cheaper than buying a proper sound system lol)








I re-fitted the Oil Pressure Sensor with teflon tape (applied in clockwise direction of course). I like attention to detail, but damn, it's pretty time consuming lol.





The water temperature sensor has a clear path from the upper radiator hose through to the passenger side wheel arch where it enters via the grommet I punched a hole through. I'll need to buy some smaller corrugated conduit to protect the cable with.





I made a trip to Larrikin products (automotive electrical shop) in Seven Hills to buy some gear for the battery relocation. It's a small shop with lots of gear & the owner is a top bloke, highly recommended!!!

Through the drivers side wheel arch I'm running 3 gauge (25mm2) battery cable protected in conduit, with the Defi Oil Temp Sensor & Oil Pressure wiring passing overhead. Basically, the spot where I punched a big hole in the grommet is the easiest path/angle to clear all the fuse box gear inside the cabin etc. I'll apply some black sealant around this when the time comes to make it water-tight, and I'll be concealing all the wiring underneath the carpet.

[BakemonoRicer]

Here is the finished product with the paintwork. A fair bit of time & prep work went into it for such a small area, but it's nice to look at a decent end result. For those with a keen eye you will also notice a HELLA isolator switch – yes I’m going through with relocating the battery into the boot. This is acting as a terminal block to keep everything tidy, clean & easy to route. Ring terminals are snug, crimped & protected with heatshrink. After this picture was taken I also protected the 2 grey cables with corrugated conduit.



I removed the catback & replaced all the old worn out bushes with replacement OEM items. Here is a picture below for just how much they sag over time, definately a good idea to do it!



The end tanks of the ARC have been designed with flow in mind & wrap around to run parallel with the chassis rails. Take a look at the offerings from Plazaman, Trust or even HKS to understand the difference. The first fitment issue I ran into was that the braided lines from the GREX block were smack bang in the middle of an end-tank.A lot of thinking & measuring was required as I knew it would come down to millimetre clearances.

The end result which works best is an –AN10 90 Deg Female to Hose End fitting off the GREX Block, and next to it is an –AN10 45 Deg Female to Male fitting coupled with an –AN10 Female to Hose End Straight fitting. This allows me to keep things neat and swivel the 90 Degree fitting just far enough to clear the FMIC end tank/pipework & still keep clear of the 45 degree fitting.

Here is a few photos during the process of making the braided lines.







Thinking outside the box is always needed when it comes to getting the clearance needed....







The car's starting to look fairly savage - I'm just stepping back to enjoy the view....

[Hadouken]

Make sure the oil cooler doesn't touch the radiator.