Project LS2 S14 (1996 240SX SE)

turtl631 wrote: You could check out the Wilwood kits from Defsport on nissanroadracing.com, uses really affordable rotor rings and pads for reduced running costs. Way lighter too. The costs for Evo/STI pads and rotors are cray. wilwood brakes

I'm already invested in this setup so I'm going to be making it work. I've got the car down in GA right now at an event for display. I've got the brakes on and have actually bled and driven it at this point, but I'm going to need to bed everything in and get some seat time with it. Initial thoughts have me leaning toward downgrading the master cylinder bore size from a 1 1/16'' to a 15/16''. The brake pedal has very little travel before a large braking event takes place and it is difficult to modulate. I would like to make the feel more linear at this point.

Fair enough. That BMC should help a lot.

It has been a long time coming with this car. I suprised myself the other day when I thought back to when I actually bought it. It has come a long way in the 7 years I've owned it. The car has progressed in all areas of performance, except maybe the creature comforts and daily driving aspects. The engine is at a satisfactory level of performance. The car brakes well enough to offset the increased horsepower. The suspension is maintaining things well at this point although I am working on something different in the background presently. The exterior even looks great since I've had it resprayed by a talented coworker here at Holley, even though it has earned its fair share of rock chips and imperfections since then. Now it is time to finish the car out in the wheel/tire department. I've been making do with the undersized front wheels/tires since I've had the car back on the road, and it is becomingly increasingly annoying on the road course. I have been doing some snooping around over at the Nissan Road Racing forums lately and think it is time to pull the trigger on a square setup for the car, without decreasing tire size in the rear. That means making 275mm tires fit all the way around. I'm going to have to roll and pull the front fenders a good bit in the front, but at least the rears will be fine as they are presently. The wheel I'm going with is actually a wheel that I've just come across after realizing I'm not going to be able to get the 18'' Advan GT wheel to work without spacers. Enter the TCIII from Advan. For the longest time the internet, Instagram, and going to all kinds of awesome shows had me setting my aspirations too high. I wanted a 3 piece forged wheel in 18'' that looked good. The problem is I don't have the coin for that to be honest. So, that is why I'm excited about this wheel in particular. It is a great looking five-spoke design that, while not forged, is still very strong and lightweight through Yokohoma's flow forming manufacturing process. The photo below is a borrowed photo that google found for me

bmw7 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

I'm going to be getting these in 18x9.0 in the front with a +25 offset, and 18x10 in the rear with a +35. I absolutely cannot wait to get them fitted on the car. They are scheduled to be here just at the end of May/early June. I also have more pictures to upload to the brake swap update I did a few weeks ago. Will get those up as soon as I can!

If you're going with same size tire all around, why not use the same size wheels so you can rotate? That would drive me nuts unless you have tire mounting hookup or something. Still more work.

@Turtl631 the main reason for that is that I don't know of a 10'' wheel with a +35 offset that will easily fit in the front wheel wells of the car honestly enough. That was the wheel size I had the rear quarters fashioned to so I'm limited with running that size in the rear at this point.

The positive in all of this is that I'll still be able to rotate tires, it'll just require dismounting and remounting unfortunately. And let's be honest. I'm sure I'll be going through rear tires a bit quicker than the fronts anyhow.

Update! Had a weird vibration in the back of the car develop so I put it on the lift to scope it out. Discovered the ebrake cable brackets on the LCA's were loose so I tightened those back up and was back in business. While I was under there I decided to install the SPL Eccentric Lockout kit for the S14. Here is a pic of the shiny new bolts installed through the crappy old subframe and rusty Circuit Sports adjustable arms:

DSCF2446 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

After the wheels come in and I figure out which spacer I'll need to run and how extensive the roll and pull will be I'll take her over to Kenny (good friend of mine) who will get a good alignment dialed in on her. Hopefully with these additional parts there will be no way that the alignment could change when on track. Now to source another Eastwood roller. I borrowed one for the rear a few years ago and the owner has lost it since I returned it to him. Bummer...

Been a while since I've been able to post an update on the car. The car did well at the NCM track after all of the recent upgrades (larger wheels, tires, and brakes). I put them to use at the USCA event that came through town in early June and took seventh place in the GTL (under 3,200 lb class) with the car. The car ahead of me was one a 2,500 pound Camaro with 800 horsepower, and the car who beat it was a Miata with a K-series Honda engine longitudinally mounted sporting 300 wheel horsepower. Needless to say, a pretty fun group of cars and people to run around a track with. Leading up to the event, I didn't have an extreme amount of prep work for the car, or so I thought. I was really waiting for the following items to show up on the proverbial doorstep: an Eastwood fender roller so I could clearance the fenders for the 275mm tires in the front, the Falken Azenis RT615K tires, and the Advan TCIII wheels to get here from Japan by way of California. Everything got here the week of the event so ultimately I found myself in yet another rush before an event. Once everything came in, I was impressed not only with how the new wheels were going to look on the car, but also the sheer amount of additional tire I was going to have to make room for under the front fenders. IMG_5017 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr 

IMG_5019 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

IMG_5023 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

IMG_5028 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

After getting the tires mounted on the wheels, I brought them over to work and spent some time with the car on a lift getting them under the car to figure out how much pulling I was going to have to do and how large of a spacer I was going to need (ended up using a 10mm and installing the Nismo extended wheel studs I have had sitting around that I scored from Enjuku Racing). It's important to remember here that these fenders are pretty thin and that no two pieces of metal want to be pulled the same way. The clearance has to come from somewhere, so it'll be pulled from the base or the sides of the fender, and it's a mystery how that's going to make the rest of the fenders look until you're finished. Thankfully, this car is meant to be put to use, rather than just look nice, so I'm not greatly concerned about the end result as long as I can drive the track with no rubbing. That being said, they didn't look bad when I was finished. IMG_5055 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

 IMG_5056 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

 IMG_5058 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr IMG_5044 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

 IMG_5042 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr 

IMG_8760 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

 After the car was all dialed in and the fenders were pulled, I tested it lock to lock and then took it down the street to fill up at a nearby Shell and grab a soda and study the cars new look.

IMG_5065 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

I had the following alignment specs set on the car at the recommendation of a couple of friends that have these cars and drive them competitively here and there: Front: -2.25 degrees of camber, 6 degrees of caster, 0'' toe Rear: -1.5 degrees camber, 1/8'' toe-in total, .25 on each side Once I got the car back from that I spent the night before the event doing a bunch of little stuff, like swapping out the antifreeze for distilled water, ensuring wiring was thoroughly zip-tied out of the way of heat sources, fuel lines tight, harnesses secure, Go Pro installed, mandatory event stickers installed, crappy yellow headlights polished. 

IMG_5076 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

 IMG_5079 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

Once that was all done the car was up in the air from the coolant swap and I went to let it down. Pushed the lever to release the stops and it pushed completely down and didn't release the stop on the other post. Spent the next 45 minutes taking the covers off one of the other lifts in the shop to see how it should work. Ended up establishing the cable had slipped through on the other side and we had to manually release it and put a "do not use" sign on it until it could be fixed the following week. Went to bed at around 2 a.m.....

IMG_5062 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

On to the event: Got out to the event by 7 a.m. wondering how in the world I was going to be able to focus on less than five hours of sleep and got setup with my father.

IMG_5093 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

Drivers meeting: IMG_5085 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

The Speed Stop Challenge was first for my run group. It was set up differently than most that I've been involved with through work before. It used part of the slalom portion of the NCM track. I wasn't as quick as I wanted to be on this as I think the car needs a smaller bore master cylinder as there isn't a ton of pedal modulation available with the 1 1/16'' Z32 master. No ABS was interesting to get used to with the setup also. At least the rear brakes weren't locking up before the fronts. I had purchased some stock Z32 rear pads in case that ended up being the case, but thankfully I didn't have to.

11406910_10102131860132412_8943413141550516104_n by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

After I finished a few runs on the Speed Stop, I went back to my pit to check tire pressures and heard the horrific THWACK! of a car smacking the K-rail. I ran back over to see one of the Showtime Z/28 had lost traction in one of the corners and had slid cross track and slid up against the barrier. They are team players and were able to get spare suspension parts on and pull the fender out and continue running the event.

IMG_5091 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

Ended up finishing that portion of the event with best of 12.499 from start to finish. Good enough for 10th out of the 15 in the class that participated in the Speed Stop. Definitely room to improve, but glad to have better performing brakes than at my last track day.

GTL Speed Stop Results by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

As for the autocross, the car was a totally different animal with the larger contact patches in the front. Took a few runs to get comfortable with having a car that could actually grip in and take weight off of the rear by letting off of the throttle so easily. Had to be much more sensitive with my inputs to the throttle compared to when the 235s were on the front as I was always having to come off throttle to dial out understeer. Now letting off throttle the same amount had a much more grippy effect on the front and I had to dial that back a bit. I left the Sikky sway bar on the softest setting and stiffened up the coilovers a few clicks and that is all I changed on the autocross. The alignment and tire pressure seemed to be working out just fine on the front tires as the wear markings were coming over on the ed of the tire perfectly. I was trying to get the tires down to about 35 psi hot. Stephen Lee, good friend and competitive member of the Kentucky SCCA chapter was on hand and was able to give me a few pointers by riding along throughout the day. 

IMG_5095 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr 

11411977_432125190307442_7277678917185462554_o by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

GTL Autocross Results by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

On to the road course: I've only tracked this car a couple of times. One was on a short course of the track over the winter at what the NCM facility calls a "Track X". The most recent outing for the car on track was at the same facility at NCM but on the Grand Full course. This time we were donig the West course and so I was already familiar with it. The only thing changing was the fact that the car was enjoying newer parts. I was also stoked that the car was keeping up with some of the cars that were in my run group. Granted the car could probably be setup better in the suspension department, but in the GoPro video below I'm actually keeping up with and catching up to a new Z/28! [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrV6id6aVMA"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrV6id6aVMA[/URL]

GTL Road Course Results by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

 Overall results: Not having a ton of track experience other than a few track days and a couple of schools, I'm pretty stoked the car did as well as it did. I try to be as humble as possible, so I'm sure that it would've been faster with perhaps one of my nissanroadracing.com peers piloting it around or setting it up, but that's the whole point of developing a car over time: to see it progress. 7th place out of 18 registered is a-okay for my first time around. I look forward to seeing what it can do in a year's time at the same event! Thanks for reading! Any constructive criticism is welcome. 

GTL Overall Results by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

Looks awesome!

Was Spool disappointed at the lack of veetaks?

I could be wrong, so double check me on this, but shouldn't you actually be going to a LARGER bore on the master cylinder?

See, I think the smaller bore will actually generate MORE psi in the line for a given pedal pressure. Same leg muscle pushing down on a smaller area, right? So a larger bore will give you less percieved bite, but better modulation. Overall braking force will actually be limited by tire traction unless you change it really far in either direction. At least I think that's how it works with motorcycle brakes.

Super sweet build though. Keep it up.

Jambo wrote: I could be wrong, so double check me on this, but shouldn't you actually be going to a LARGER bore on the master cylinder? See, I think the smaller bore will actually generate MORE psi in the line for a given pedal pressure. Same leg muscle pushing down on a smaller area, right? So a larger bore will give you less percieved bite, but better modulation. Overall braking force will actually be limited by tire traction unless you change it really far in either direction. At least I think that's how it works with motorcycle brakes. Super sweet build though. Keep it up.

Way late in getting back to you on this Jambo, but I just spoke with an industry colleague who's writing a book on braking earlier this morning. He leans the way I do, that a smaller brake master, while not able to move as much fluid at a time, will do so with more sensitivity and more throttle modulation. I'm going to head down to Wilwood's booth at this show tomorrow and discuss with them in detail, but I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track here. In other news, Silvia is now FINALLY shielded from the weather. This was a great move for the car as it'll now be much easier to work on it out of the weather and have a place to store tools. Definitely thankful for the blessing. 

IMG_6288 by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

I missed some of the updates, but the car looks great with the new wheel/tire setup :D I would have gone for a set of 9.5"s all four corners, but that's my OCD :P Have you tried fitting the 10s up front with the 10mm spacers?

Also, there is a 1" brake master cylinder from the Z32 as well as the "17/16" and the 15/16. Gives some room for experimentation.

And if those headlights keep consuming plastic polisher, see if you can get some Euro-market S14 headlamps, they use glass lenses and the continental (non-British) will have the proper LHD beam pattern (and usually better bulbs!)

jsquared wrote: I missed some of the updates, but the car looks great with the new wheel/tire setup :D I would have gone for a set of 9.5"s all four corners, but that's my OCD :P Have you tried fitting the 10s up front with the 10mm spacers? Also, there is a 1" brake master cylinder from the Z32 as well as the "17/16" and the 15/16. Gives some room for experimentation. And if those headlights keep consuming plastic polisher, see if you can get some Euro-market S14 headlamps, they use glass lenses and the continental (non-British) will have the proper LHD beam pattern (and usually better bulbs!)

All good suggestions, sorry for the delay in response.

I have not tried fitting the 10s up front. Maybe during the winter when I'm in the middle of working on it I can attempt that.

As for the master cylinder options, I may be trying a Sentra brake booster here before long to reduce assist to the pedal, which hopefully will help accomplish what I would like to feel under my foot under regular braking on the street and under heavier braking on track.

As for the headlights, I'm going to rock them this way for a while. I thought about spending the money on the EDM headlights a number of years ago, but $500 was a lot back then and it is still a lot to me now. Probably a much better idea to use that money towards a carbon fiber hood or a 1.5 way rear diff at this point.

Maybe I'll get them for use on the street or something and swap them for track days. Who knows?

Took the car out to the NCM Motorsports Park just yesterday for a photo shoot for an upcoming media project. Looking forward to seeing the outcome. In the meantime, here is quick iPhone photo I nabbed before it got too dark.

28B5D8B5-581F-434A-810F-60A0FE82831F by eric.burnett09, on Flickr

2015 has left me with a to-do list for Silvia that I hope to accomplish over the course of the next year or so, some of it this winter since I'm blessed with a garage now. On the docket: -Install oil temp sensor and build out gauge on Holley dash -Install power steering cooler -Install oil cooler -Purchase and install OS Giken 1.5 way differential (no break in needed and a fantastic product overall -Work on getting the brakes dialed in a bit more. I need to figure out a way to reduce the assist on the pedal. Thinking I may have a solution worked out with a friend of mine on running a manual brake booster. We'll see what the verdict is on that hopefully sooner rather than later. -Purchase high quality brake bleeder (hate having to borrow people to do this kind of work). -Tighten up e-brake cables a bit (not something I learned from the Optima deal, but from normal use they are a bit on the loose side). -install solid subframe bushings to the car -repair rear swap bar mount that is cross threaded. -Experiment with different sway bars. -Install OEM steering rack bushings on Silvia. Have them lying around somewhere, just need to get the car up in the air and put them in. Over the winter I am also debating removing the engine from the car and sending it out for a bit of work. Oil pressure on this one seems to be a bit low in comparison to other LS engines that I've seen run in my experience.It also uses a bit of oil from time to time and I'd like to remedy that foible as well. Over time I've gotten a bit used to the power of the car as well and I must admit I'm a bit hungry for (a mild bit more). Here is the plan for the engine: -install forged pistons and rods. -Have a port job ran on the 243 heads (Probably a TEA program). -Install MSD's Atomic Air Force intake -Install larger throttle body The additional breathing capability will be aided by the cam I've installed. It's a little choked right now with the factory LS2 intake manifold (worst performing of all the factory GM composite intakes). I'm hoping for an additional 50-75 horsepower with all of that, but we'll see on the dyno.

Back to the master cylinder.

A smaller bore will increase pressure in the system for a given input of force.

The reason a smaller one may help out is that it will make the pedal softer and give it more travel. In theory having a little more travel should make it easier to modulate.

I'm right there with you on that one @thenico , I tend to agree and that is what all the research I've done has led me to think. I am also debating on trying a smaller brake booster to reduce assist. Perhaps that would help as well.

Ok, thanks for the info about the brakes. I guess motorcycles don't really 'move' enough fluid for that to matter. You're only moving the MC about half an inch and you've only got about 5 ft of total brake line even on a dual line system. So they're pretty much just about MC diameter and leverage of brake lever.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Hope everyone had a good time off of work or were able to use up the remainder of your vacation for some R&R.

So Silvia is going to be experiencing some changes for the better:)

Her heart is going away for a while. It's a bit sick and it'll be coming back in much better shape:).

Nice! I'm interested to see what your experiences are with a new manifold. As a fellow GM plasti-fold owner, I think an upgrade may also be in my future (different motor, but same problem).

4cylndrfury wrote: Nice! I'm interested to see what your experiences are with a new manifold. As a fellow GM plasti-fold owner, I think an upgrade may also be in my future (different motor, but same problem).

Absolutely @4cylndrfury! I'm excited to see how much it helps round the engines behavior out. I read an interesting article on HotRod magazines website the other day where the majority of the intakes for LS engines were tested. The AirForce by MSD did very well!

http://www.hotrod.com/features/1507-20-ls1-intake-manifolds-tested/

2016 is going to be a busy year for Project LS2 S14!

During the holiday season I removed the engine and packaged it to send to Westech Performance in Mira Loma, California. The engine will be used in several tests for LS engines before it is rebuilt and reinforced with more robust, powerful aftermarket components.

Before I sent it off however, I had to repair a stripped drain plug issue I created myself. The drain plug itself was fine, but the tapped aluminum hole in the pan had given up the ghost. I moved up several thread sizes and retapped it for a plug I picked up at one of our local auto parts stores. Reinstalled the pan on the engine. Then shipped it westward.

Fast forward to the next week and I was actually out in Cali in the latter part of the month for work. I took the opportunity to stop by, see the guys, and make sure the engine arrived in good shape. Everything was good to go after removing all the shrink wrap. Westech is without equal for any type of engine and chassis dyno tuning needed in southern California and for good reason. They've been doing it for decades now and have amassed a plethora of experience. Carbureted or EFI. Doesn't matter.

The engine will be rebuilt using a forged rod and piston combination, and will benefit from some improved induction components, namely ported heads, the MSD Atomic AirForce intake manifold, and a Holley 105 mm throttle body. Oil pressure will be maximized by a Schumann Dynamics Pro LS pump.

Richard from onthedyno.com got with me yesterday afternoon and let me know he had a chance to dyno the engine for a baseline. He put it in what Westech likes to call the "Polygraph Room"!

Results: Way back when the car was last on the chassis dyno here at work the car put down 419 rear wheel horsepower. On the engine dyno at Westech it generated 492 at the crank. That fits the 15% drivetrain tax perfectly. The only variables that changed from being tested in my car was that a 92mm throttle body was installed for cable actuation (mine is drive by wire), 1 3/4'' headers (as opposed to my 1 7/8'' set), and it was ran with no accessories (a Meziere electric water pump was installed).

Other updates on the car:

At one point, I had high hopes/aspirations of running A/C on the car. Now, in the effort to get more performance out of the car, I've removed the compressor and bracket I had left on the car from the initial installation and it saved me 17.8 lbs!

I also haven't have an operational stereo on the car for some time as well as well so I decided to see how much the door speakers and speaker pods saved me. That knocked off an additional 5.15 lbs!

Last night was one of the first nights back home in a while so I started on the project of removing my sunroof in order to replace it with a carbon fill panel. That is reported to save around 26 lbs up high on the car, so it is worth it to me, especially considering the sunroof leaks as it is, and you can't buy a new seal from Nissan without replacing the entire glass assembly..... That meant removing the fixed bucket Sparcos, AND the roll bar from the car. While I was in there I decided to take the carpet out and put some rust protection on the plates a friend of mine welded into the bottom of the car to make the roll bar more functional. In my hastiness to get the car back together I had neglected to paint that area. So the carpet came out as well. Then I got a funny idea and decided to see how much weight could be removed from the car by removing all of the sound deadening. No dry ice methodology here folks, just a 2.5 lb sledge and a cheap pry bar! Came out in big chunks. I've still got a little cleaning up to do but the bucket I'm storing the removed material out of and it is getting heavy.

I also received a manual Nissan Sentra brake booster in the mail that I purchased off of eBay the other day. It is also lighter and will hopefully offer me more pedal feel/modulation (as opposed to pushing on a wall and having instantaneous brake actuation) than I have currently.

Here are the two side by side for comparison. It is sad you can't just go to NAPA and order a manual brake booster for a 240SX anymore. I'm not excited about running new brake lines to the master cylinder either, but it's all in the name of better performance right???

See you all next time!

Trying to get Silvia as light as possible in an effort to enhance her on track manners/capabilities.

Took more stuff out and weighed it all to document what you can expect if you choose to do something similar on your S14. This all added up to a whopping 77.605 pounds of weight saved. I haven't weighed the factory seat-belts that I removed from the front seats yet, but I'll edit that in as soon as I remember to bring them to work to put on the scale.

With a carbon fiber hood, the car will have lost almost 100 pounds for not much money invested at all. The USCA class that I run in states in the rules that you can run the car at 95% of the factory curb weight, which by my calculations allows the car to weigh in at 2,615.35 without a driver.

Sound deadening and sunroof drains:

Foglights and brackets:

A/C Condenser:

Sunroof assembly and glass: .

Back piece of sunroof that broke off:

Sunroof Shade Panel:

Material off of firewall:

I also weighed my current automatic brake booster and the newer manual brake booster for reference which saves me 2.41 pounds on the driver side of the car:

Also wanted to include a few photographs of the sunroof panel being fitted by a good friend of mine Blake. This is a panel from Lee Skidmore at Northwind Composites and I'm interested to see how it all works out. The desirable Kognition panels are no longer made from what I understand so I went with what there was at this point.

Can't wait to get this thing clearcoated and installed for good so I can put a non-sunroof headliner in the car and forget about leaking sunroofs forever!

Looking good! Don't forget to use UV-protecting clearcoat for the carbon fiber

Also, 105mm throttle body?!

We make the throttle body, we'll see how much power if any it adds on the dyno before I end up deciding on using it or sticking with the factory 90mm drive by wire. I don't want to give drive by wire up for a cable but it's all up in the air at the moment.

It occurred to me that I never uploaded the weight differences between the factory S14 seats and the Sparco seats with the Planted Fabrication seat rails installed. So here it is:

That's another sixteen pounds taken out of the car. I'll take it!

Just started getting some photos sent over to me of the engine getting put together the other day. I figured I'd save a few up and then share all at once when I knew how it all turned out.

Here is the breakdown on the new engine build for Project LS2 S14 version 2.0.

-6.0 LS2 aluminum block bored five over to make room for..... -Forged CP pistons -Carillo Rods -243 LS heads with TEA stage two port job, utilizing Ferrera valvetrain components -105 MM Holley cable throttle body -MSD Atomic AirForce intake manifold -Schumann Dynamics Oil Pump -ARP rod and head bolts -We are testing several camshafts with it. It will most likely end up with a Brian Tooley Racing camshaft installed, which I am told which greatly increase the lifespan of the valvetrain components.

Here are some images of engine getting put together.

Initial pull on the engine with the cam I sent the engine to them with made 553 horsepower. Second cam they put in pushed things to 561.

From here what we're planning on doing is taking those ported heads and sending them to Brian Tooley Racing along with the MSD intake manifold. They are going to port match the heads and intake manifold so they work better together. The heads will be cleaned up even further, and then milled a bit to gain back some of the compression lost from installing pistons with a lower deck height that have valve reliefs.

Hopefully that will push us up a bit further in the power department (not that it really needs it at this point).

As for the transmission, the guys at American Powertrain called me to let me know that they are missing one piece from Tremec, one of the sliders that goes in between gears 3 and 4. They said it has been on backorder for 60-90 days already and are looking everywhere for one to put in the build. So that is on standby at this point.

Will update when I know more.