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BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#154084 2019-03-02 19:27 |
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Trans-Transplant & The Major Test
Finally, after some busy weekdays, I'm able to work again on my car!
It is now time for toying up with three different RB blocks I acquired at last week. Additionally, it is time to see how far the Silver Queen can really be pushed with all upgrades applied. Let's jump into the update then! [28 Feb 2019] It's the end of the month, and almost all ice and snow in the city has been melt. Though freezy cold rains still occured (occasionally followed by heavy winds), it means that spring has almost arrived and it is officially safe again to deploy semi-slick tires to the fullest yay! Also, administration offices normally receive requests at days like this, so what I did was renewing the HR34 sedan's registration at local DMV and had it go through sha-ken test. Thankfully, being a garage queen that hasn't been modded in any way, it passed the test quite easily. The DMV would send me new plates the next day, and thankfully Ii should have done most of my works by then.
It's been around two or three months without trackday, and my Silvr Queen has gone through a lot of transformations. I really should have one soon to find out how far I could really push it, especially since my tests so far are limited to public roads testing which of course is restricted with speed limits and traffic laws. And uh, another thing is, due to the state of my Silvia and a lot of business going on, I have to miss the first Attack Maximum Challenge event of the year, which was delivering some surprises, specifically since no one would predict Canadian time attack master William Au-Yeung and one of Australian's time attack ace Adam Casmiri would compete as well! To top it off, both Will and Adam brought their signature cars to compete at the event (Vibrant Performance Civic FB for Will and JDMYard/Hardrace Civic EG6 for Adam). Both succesfully shattered the FWD record held by Nob Taniguchi with the HKS TRB-04 Swift, with Adam scoring 54.901 seconds and Will officially holding the new record with 53.071 seconds. To be fair, Nob's Swift had less fancy aero tricker than Adam's EG6, let alone Will's Civic FB. But then, basically almost all Civics used in Tsukuba has similar aero kits like Adam has on his EG6, even the famous Aslan EG6. This demonstrates just how critical and important aerodynamic works is in the world of time attack racing. Yes, you could tune the engine all you might, but in the end what matters most is how to glue your car into the track. [01 Mar 2019] The new plates has arrived! And more importantly, time to do the inter-transplant for the RBs. As you've read on the previous update, AJ (RocketBunnyS13) kindly gave me his complete RB25DET engine to me, out of his S14 that is currently undergoing restoration. AJ said that all parts are healthy, except for the fuel injectors. But that doesn't really worry me, I've got an idea on what I should do with it.......and thankfully all of this came with 5-speed manual transmission as well as ECU and it's harnesses. Quite handy for the other RBs I own then.........
First off, the easier ones: The RB26 inside my S15 came with harnesses but no ECU, and I have to sort the wiring manually afterwards. So for the moment I have to use the ECUs from AJ's RB25 and adjust the wiring as far as I could. Additionally, I also fitted the flywheel from it, but not the clutch. I've explained in previous updates that I had acquired Nissan CD009 transmission, which is originally for Nissan 350Z and Nissan Skyline V35. This means I have to source the clutch that would fit them. At least I still could fit flywheels intended for RB blocks thanks to the adapters I bought along. ANother thing I fitted on it was the alternator as well as it's belts.  There are a hell lot of things I should buy for this car at the moment, but for now the priority is to have it run inside the engine.....naturally there's no Silvias running on RB engines after all so it's be a big disaster if I got it wrong. So the priority list at the moment consists of Z33 clutch, intercooler setup, sorting the rest of the wiring, get a driveshaft, and get manual pedals set (I'm an idiot for forgetting to buy manual pedals set). And probably a seat and power steering as well, and definitely a short throw kit, or even a sequential shifter kit if I can find one. Then the very first iteration of this project can be launched into the world technically.
 Next up, the big one: Time to move on to the HR34. As well as the fitting the plate I've got from the DMV, I decided to pull the engine out (this took some hours, three big full swear jars and some painful muscles). What I'm doing to the RB20DE is fitting the 5-speed MT from AJ's RB25 along with the clutch, and a bit of experimenting: I manually increase the cylinder bore of the engine a bit(holy number nines I swear this is sweat inducing that you can't swear during the process. At least I had markers and pencils in my supplies), then I fitted the internals (crank, rods and pistons specifically) from AJ's RB25 to create a makeshift bore and stroker kit since the bore is 8mm larger than the ones from RB20, and the stroke is 2mm longer. I also did some ECU and cam tuning to the RB20. "But Smoke, why not fit the turbos as well?" No, not yet. I've still got ways to go on mastering the art of grassroot drifting before I step onto the turbo league (or not at all).
 So what's left from AJ's RB25 are the empty block with most of the pins, an entire head setup, intake manifold, fuel injectors, exhaust manifold, and the turbo, as well as the electrical harnesses. These will serve as spares if at one moment, well god forbid, the RB26 is destroyed and I have a severe lack of money as I experienced at the moment. Sure, there would be a lot of disadvantages from downgrading to RB25DET, but since most parts of them are interchangeable as I've demonstrated at this moment, I could make it into a RB25DETT or simply another RB26 if I'm lucky enough.
As for the visual parts, I'm not planning a lot for the HR34. I simply would fit new wheels for it, and perhaps adding universal-fit bash bars behind the front and rear bumpers if possible. I'd like to keep the stock bodykits, I don't think it would need to go flashy. I mean, as I'm still a beginner on drifting world, there would be times when I uhh....again, god forbid, send the car into a tyrewall or an armco or even worse, a concrete wall, hence the need of bash bars and not a bodykit. Though the facelift bumpers look comical and GT-T bumpers looks handsome........And I think I'd like to keep this paint on, and perhaps slap some of my homemade stickers (check them HERE!)or other kinds of stickers.  Later that day I did some time trial info browsing. You might know that I chose the S15 for it's myriad options of tuning and it's lightness, and the current Tsukuba track record holder is a heavily tuned S15 driven by Tomohiko Suzuki, or better known as Under Suzuki. I was able to track back that very project and turns out Suzuki-san way back then is simply one of us: An employee/office worker who spent his spare time tuning his car and attending motorsport events. His S15 build was started and finished way back then, almost 10 years ago (according to his personal blog), and had it's first spotlight at 2010 as an amateur builder when he won the Second class with the S15 that he still kept until now as the S15 we know today. His project back then relies a lot on aftermarket parts as I expected, except perhaps the front bumper, front quarterpanels and the rear bumper. I don't think those parts are aftermarket as well. Nevertheless, the figures for it are already mad: It produces 612 BHP and could set a time of somewhere around 55 seconds. I really hope I could follow his footsteps, except perhaps I'm Forever an Am.
And oh, I also listed the stock RB20 parts I've uninstalled, namely the auto transmission for V$1000 (since it's a low miler), stock internals for V$2000, and clutch for V$300. It is a great thing this HR34 spent it's time as a garage queen, as everything was still in pristine condition. [02 Mar 2019] Speaking of Tsukuba and time attack, today's trackday time! I'm sure after all the upgrades I've put inside the Silver Queen, you might ask how it would do at Tsukuba Circuit. And well, it's time to find the answer. After breakfast, I went off to Tsukuba Circuit at 9am and arrived at 10.15am. After the Attack event last week, I could see some teams trying to improve their cars, and predictably there are a lot of FWD cars. Everyone's still in shock seeing the performance of Adam and Will I suppose.......either way, they might jump-start their tests to avoid heavy trackday traffic at Sunday.
After parking my car at the paddock, I rather hurriedly going to the stewards office to get a VBox recorder. Thankfully, they still had some despite of a lot of TA cars attending the trackday today, and I came back to the paddock with excitement. And oh, the VBox rental costs V$50, I should inform you. After some minutes of installing and calibrating the VBox, I lined up to the pitlane and waiting for green light at the exit. Oh, by the way, with all the mods but stock aeros, anything under a minute would make me very happy.  Light went green and I set off. Time to cook the tyres a bit first. Initial impressions are amazing: The car kept on feeding itself on power and torque, so much that I have to fight a micro bit of understeer on tighter corners. It's still extremely stable though, just like before I put engine mods on it.
 For a man who's rarely experienced with more than 300+ BHP of power AND not fully utilizing it for a whole lifetime, unleashing all the power of the mighty 4G63 engine sure felt like experiencing a fast-forwarded clip of a rollercoaster ride. The world blurs away from the side windows as my eyes, hands and mind trying to coordinate with each other to control the Evo. At urban areas, the Silver Queen simply wants to punch me in the face. On highway and touge roads, the Queen asks me to run gently with her, like a couple in a flower fields. It becomes clear that here in racetracks the Silver Queen wants to either have a rollercoaster ride with me OR wants me to perform a base jumping stunt, with her rudely pushing my back as I jump off the cliff. Thankfully, the new brakes can match the car's performance now, giving me more confidence to pick later braking points
 As I approached the final section of the track, I prepare myself for what we're waiting for: Some hotlaps! 
 I pushed myself and the Silver Queen harder lap by lap, sometimes while avoiding traffic. I can hear myself internally screaming "Come on girl GO GO GO!" at times in my mind when exiting corners. It was just THAT intense driving this car now! It was sooo intense time passed quickly as I scored almost 30 laps on the track
 
  The results? Insert drumroll here........I'm delighted to report that my fastest lap was 59.672 seconds!!
Well, had it have aero trickeries it might as well dipping around 57 or even 56 seconds, but as the Silver Queen doubles as my daily, this already satisfied me a whole lot, after all my target is simply under a minute. My lap time in general ranges from higher 59 seconds to 1:02 territory, largely due to the presence of traffic. Still, I can't imagine entering this car entering time attack events competitively, as it might end up in the middle pack or even the bottom pack. And that's where the S15 comes to play much, much later someday. But damn, that's a lot of improvement from 1:05+ territory back then. I spent the rest of my trackday having some cooling down laps for the Silver Queen. I can imagine brake dust forming a mountain on the wheels already, and she's already showing a sign of fuel thirst.......and of course it would be rude to ask her stopping immediately. 
 Finally, I brought the Silver Queen back to the pits. Stepping off the car wand returning the VBox back to the stewards office was quite a chore after all the actions on the track. But eh, it had a happy ending after all. Project Silver Queen is a success but I do really hope I can top it off with my S15.
 At the end of the day after I get off the track complex, I simply aided the Evo's fuel thirst by stopping at a gas station, then come back home and had a full rest.
Dear my Silver Queen, I love you   Welp a lot of improvements happen this week! My wallet hasn't affected much for the moment so I'll just put it here:
That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!
This post was edited by BigSmoke (2019-03-09 21:07, ago) |
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