2j40's S13 Drift Build!

[2j40]

Hey all,

 My name is Jordan, I am from Alberta Canada. I have always been a huge fan of the s13 chassis and ever since I was a little kid they have always been one of my favourite cars. With this thread I will be documenting my work on my 1989 240sx and the progress I have made. I plan on running this car in next years Drift West series. 


 Here is a bit of information about the car, it is like I have stated a 1989 240sx, it has a ka24e, 5spd, sunroof, no abs, open diff. Basically a base model with a sunroof. When I bought the car it needed alot of love It was missing the headlights, hood, front bumper, crash bar, tail lights, mirrors, all the locks, ignition, bunch of brackets and latches, exterior trim, ect. To be honest I wasn't even going to buy it, but a friend talked me into it ( I was looking for a cleaner shell ) but for the price I paid for it I was willing to gamble. My phone crashed and I lost the first pictures of the car but I will try my best to put these in order.

Right before the snow hit I ended up finding a hood, rad light assemblies crash bar, corner tail lights, two front bumpers ( shark and pig nose ) and some other small bits.

I then got to work and test fitted the hood and headlights as best as I could as I had no bolts or hinges.

Then I test fitted the tail lights

After waiting a for winter to pass I got back to work, I then installed the crash bar, bolted down the hood to some latches I aquired, bolted down the headlight, and installed the shark nose bumper.

I recently came across a good deal on a few odds and ends so up picked up a middle tail light section, ignition with key, two door handles with locks, a rear trunk lock and latch, the trim and the trim that goes under the tail light.

As soon as all of that stuff showed up I was already working on installing the ignition, locks and test fitting and painting the trim and handles.

Now that car was looking like a car ( ok a very broken car ) I decided to get it some rims, so I hopped online and found some Rays C-ULTRA’s. the tag on the rim said they were the correct bolt pattern so I snagged them up. Sadly they turned out to be 4x100. ( DOH! ) After telling a friend about my bad luck he told me he had a set of Core Racing Concept Seven’s that I could have as he just got new rims. Yes I know not the nicest rim ever or good quality but who cares drift spare.

So this is how she is sitting as of now.

I just got home from work so I plan on installing the hood latch, cable, and release, headlight trim, and paint the headlight covers today. Also will work on installing the interior. Yes I said install it I am hoping to insure and register this car so I would like to keep my interior.

Anyways hope you enjoy all the pics, now I got work to do!

Jordan.

[2j40]

hey guys been a while, set my priorities on fixing my daily driver so I havent had much time for the 240, until today that is!

hopefully tomorrow for the first time in 6 years this car will finally run! I purchased a motor off a good friend, its a rebuilt ka24e that is just begging to be boosted now before someone says what a waist of time it is or how I should just swap a sr20 into it, I dont care I have na-t’d a few vehicles and find it fun. I have found some one to help with my inspection so once she runs the next priority is fixing all the shotty wiring to the headlights and tail lights which im not looking forward too.

pics and maybe a video coming tomorrow!

[2j40]

well The engine and trans are in the car and look amazing, sadly due to the car sitting for so long the fuel pump is complete garbage and literally a solid thing of rust. So until I can take a video there will be no pics but the new engine looks very happy where it sits.

also the old engine is going under the knife and being turned into a ka-t next winter so it should be fun!

[2j40]

Well I’m getting a bit frustrated guys,

got everything hooked up and all she did was turn over. Discovered my fuel pump was bad so I replaced it, then after getting it to work and prime still nothing, then I found out my fuel lines were backwards to the rail oops, after getting that still no fuel goes to the motor. I tested the injectors and they work perfectly on another car. Swapped ecu’s still nothing, swapped harnesses still nothing, I have power at the connectors but as soon as they plug into the injectors nothin happens… Wtf.

I have another harness to try and a ton of relays and fuses. All connections are clean and all grounds are too so I’m at a loss…

[nickpavlyukh]

I wouldnt try another harness, just go over all the wires and make sure your grounds are all good because if a ground isnt good then you aint gonna have the right signal to any relays that control the injectors…

[2j40]

Yea my buddy just gave me a mint harness to try out, the thing looks brand new almost and a few handfuls of spare relays and a third ecu to try so hopefully tonight it runs

[2j40]

well After a few days of diagnosing I have figured it out why it would not start with a buddy of mine. I had previously went over the entire fuel system because I knew everything else was perfect, after fixing the few little problems that bothered me like battery terminals and two of the ground wires I still had no luck. my last step was to see just how much fuel the new pump was pushing. first we tried it out side of the car, it pushed amazingly, then one in the car it seemed to really die off. well the reason for that was my fuel lines were full of dirt or rust, either way it wasnt letting enough fuel pressure to the rail to allow the injectors to fire. We fixed the issue by going to the fuel feed line hose in the hatch and attaching a compressor and blew 80psi of air through it, instantly the flow rate was over 2x the initial output.

Anyways, I promised a vid once I got it running so here it is! Dont mind the raspy exhaust note, its only running a open header at the moment. The car is using a DSM rad fan mounted to the stock rad, It took 15 minutes at idle to register any heat at all so I would say that is a big improvement plus they come with a built in fan shroud.

[2j40]

Well small update for the car, couldn’t figure out why I had no lights to my gauge cluster so I pulled it out. Turns out mice
ate and or harvested the circuit board for their nest, so I said screw it and picked up a new dash, and digital cluster with HUD. I am currently not at home but will post pics once once I get back and have it re dyed and installed as my interior is blackish grey and this is a brown dash.

[2j40]

Small update,

Got working on fixing my stock chassis harness as a lot of connectors were just missing. I ended up replacing all of the tail light connectors. I now have tail lights but for some reason no turn signals. I have a little bit more to do tomorrow including fixing the rest of my front lights and grounding out my e -brake so the dash light goes away.