Greetings from Belgium

[XortioN.BE]

Time for an update:

Continued adapting the GP kit in orde to make it all fit, will require some more adjustments



It seems like a wide wheel will be needed



Eating some JDM food while cleaning the garage!



Valve cover also needed some attention, my god what a mess!



Seeing this made me wonder how it's possible that an engine with this much dirt still ran, seems like it's not a waste of time cleaning this out.



After clean up it got a good sand blast and powder coat.



Which made the engine look even more like ... well an engine


Close up of the wrinkle effect



Disassembled the front lights



And powder coated the frame in high gloss black (actually used for Harley bikes, bling bling )



Next I attacked the rust on the window frame



Which went without a hassle, will be getting some putty to flatten it all



Subframe had to go in orde to give me some room for the next rust job



We have a lift off!



It seems like the previous owner has already touched this part of the car too.. unfortunately!



As it seems he had juist welded another plate on top of the original rust hole, which has made it all worse over time. People like this should just not touch a car





Better get rid of all the rust ..



.. so I can start from a clean base!






Has been a good month progress-wise, then again I try to work on it 3-4 times a week (sometimes even until 1-2 o' clock at night).
Since my girlfriend has to work this week and I took a week off I hope I can make some extra progress!



Also collected some spare S12 parts (from several owners/cars):

- Spare blue interior (everything starting from the back seat with panels included)
- Spare rear lights
- 5 front indicators, mine are broken
- new engine to open front light
- rear subframe with diff, brakes and suspension .. you never know :P
- Front grill
- Front suspension with brakes included, I'll be using these to create my own coil-overs
- some other various bits and pieces

So actually I got like half an S12 in spare parts, that'll keep mine alive! Gooooood

[XortioN.BE]

Did some epic hours previous 2 days, with this as a result:

Fixed part 1



Closed it so the interior looks good again





Better than what it used to look like



Closed the rear of the sill, added some sealer and paint (don't mind the color, just needs some paint so it doesn't start rusting soon)



In goes the exterior part of the sill





Do I really have to do it all over again on the other side

[tim murphy]

if its like mine yes . but its better to cut the rust out then weld on top looks like you making good progess love the look of power coated cheers

[XortioN.BE]

So driver & passenger side wheel arches are done! Now just some small rust fixes left

Removed outer & inner wheel arch until there isn't a single spot of rust left



Reacreate inner fender & give it some paint



Weld in wheel arch (which is a Mazda 323 arch that I made 5cm longer and recreated the bottom parts myself)



Subframe goes off



And taken apart



Grind it to bare metal



Epoxy primer it



And make it shine



Also replaced the worn bushes and pushed in some new bearings (what a pain to find them )



Small difference





Also did the same welding on the passenger side (and a bit more since it was even worse than driver side.

Seems like the previous owner had already 'repaired' it







But hey ... there I fixed it






Again cool before - after pic





Panoramic view on the inside




Scrape of all the dirt and anti-stonechip layer and grind down all the rust spots to bare metal, providing it with some neutralizer and paint. Almost ready for a new coat of anti-stonechip

[bigdaves12]

Loving it mate, I might have to widen my rear wheel arches too so will be stealing your idea for the mazda 323 arches

What wheels are you planning to run, mine are 8j front 10j rear

[UmBongo1]

Excellent work.

Can't wait to see it when it's complete.

[XortioN.BE]

So obviously I have made some progress during the past months:

Fixed some more rust stuff bla bla bla
Repainted the underbody of the car and put my subframe on







And then after some hard work on the engine/tranny, it's finally in!

Some information that might be interesting for other S12 owners getting the CA18DET engine:

I used 300ZX engine mounts which are more rigid (less vibration/engine movement) combined with te S13 engine brackets on the S12 CA18ET subframe. I am using the stock S12 transmission combined with an CA18DET clutch + bearing (90-... not the pre 90!!!). Engine does sit a bit higher which makes the engine rub agains the hood, so I will probably be using hood spacers and search for a GP hood

Brake lines are kinda close to the exhaust and I had to remove the original heath-shield because the exhaust was stuck against it, I will be making a custom heath shield to resolve this issue.

I used S13 steering pump but used the return line of the S12 steering pump, which made it easier to fit the return line.

Setup:
- CA18DET
- CA18ET gearbox
- 300ZX engine mounts + s13 engine brackets
- T28 turbo
- XS power exhaust manifold

What I also did:
- Give the drive shaft some fresh pain
- New clutch
- New brake lines to the rear
- New gasoline-lines
- And ofcourse a lot of engine stuff


To the point, pictures:

[tim murphy]

Good quality of work looks like it's going together well nice paint work trying to get mine started at the moment keep the up dates cheers tim .

[XortioN.BE]

Time for an update

Finished putting together the engine and wiring it all up




Looks much better then 2 years ago




And fired it up for the first time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBjTqBF4-bc


Also made a trip to the UK to pick up some MK2 parts (complete front-end, gearbox and some various trims).





I was really looking for the MK2 front because I just LOVE the bonnet and it would solve my under-the-bonnet-problem of space lacking with the MK1 bonnet:




Difference in space with the MK2 bonnet

[tim murphy]

Good to see another silvia finished the standard of work on yours is professional mine is finished to not to bad of work just cover 90 miles cheers tim