EssOneFive

For the interior been slowly adding Carbon accents, from the centre console and clock shroud bought from various sources, to experimenting myself and making a few parts; console lid, Steering wheel accents and coil pack cover, all could be better if im honest, but it’s a start and everything I do I pick up experience, I find it fairly therapeutic

Next on my list is to get the corner sections of the front splitter painted, quick mock ups makes the front end look much harder…not too far off of the Aero Bumper but different enough to look unique, looks miles better than the black, I just have to work out the colour…the car had been painted in Japan so I’ve got no idea what it is, I’d previously tried to get it matched when I added the roof and rear spats, it’s pretty close but not 100% match, I believe it’s fairly close to a Toyota Chaser colour called White 057. Eventually I will get the whole car done, but for time being I’ll live with it.

I drove the car for a few days after fitting of the new ECU only to break down again. Same thing as before, it’d stall and not start again plus as I’ve said occasionally the power seemed to drop away. At this point I was at a complete loss and beginning to lose the will to live, parked it up and forgot about it for a few months. I mean I’d got rid of the 14A because I was tired of ploughing money in to a car that constantly went wrong, and here I am doing exactly the same a few years later. So gave it some thought, and remembered something that had happened about 6m ears previously remembering I had a tall mate sitting in the passenger seat and accidentally kicking the panel that hides the ECU and the car stalling, it fired up immediately again but wondered if there was something in it. So I removed the F1 harness checked continuity, all checked out. So at this point engine wise all seemed to work as it should, I’d had an issue with the old ECU but that had been replaced…but the bit between was second hand. I identified the problem was with the F1 plug or the wires going into it, as I was able to stall the car whenever I wiggled the harness slightly but couldn’t zero in on which wire specifically. Amazingly! I was able to find a brand new hardness from Nissan (at huge expense I might add) and ordered it. Fitted it immediately and it started straight away and has worked fine ever since and the engine performance has stayed. So having removed the old harness I stripped it down finding quite a few wires badly taped together (this was inside the insulation sleeve) so I’d never had seen it if I hadn’t dissected it, so my conclusion was a few of the wires were losing connection and with the vibration of the car would ‘cause it to stall, or the NVCT wouldn’t operate causing engine power to drop off , but then reestablish the connection because of the same vibrations. Actual FML

I don’t use the car over the winter months and will periodically turn it over let it run for a while but on one particular day it simply wouldn’t start. Getting a starter motor click, wondered if it was the battery that’d been stored over the winter, it was old so bought a new one. fitted, still the same. Then thought perhaps the starter motor itself was sticking, tried the whacking it a few times but nothing. Again it was pretty old, decided to replace that for a new one, again still won’t start. Went through all of the fuel pump wiring, making sure it all good replacing most of the wiring…again it’s getting on a bit, but still not turning over. A mate kindly offered to come over and have a look eventually finding the battery relocation kit had basically fallen apart inside a joint block, so we replaced that too with all new joints and cables and it fired up! Took it for a quick drive all good. Later that same day decided to go out for a drive, got 300yds down hill and the car cut out. Got recovered 300yds home 😂 mate came around again and went through absolutely everything, timing, CAS, injectors you name it it was checked, he also brought his other half standard S15 ECU along as a last resort, after drawing a blank we decided to fit the standard ECU and it fired up instantly. We came to the collusion that the PowerFC had crapped itself, not common but not unheard of. So I went online ordered a brand new PowerFC from Japan, took about a month to turn up, then had to get the map thrown on it. So around 6weeks later all done popped it in the car, fired up instantly took for a drive…happy days! But then noticed something, the car at times seemed down on power, losing its urgency and again the timing sounded like it was slightly off.

Bought a from splitter from Japan, I’d previously put in a universal rubber one which looked ok if you squinted from 30’ away so when this Aerowerkz came up I had to have it, IMO looks much better for it, adds a bit of Carbon too 👌

Around 2yrs ago I bought a period correct 🫣 Apex’i PowerFC sent the car for mapping with Martin Battye came back an absolute animal, using all of the GT2871 turbo, don’t get me wrong on the old Piggy back it was ok, but the PFC was just that bit better.

With the K-Sports being all round 💩 I was offered some Porsche Cayenne turbo brakes with 360mm Lexus Disks redrilled for the centre with a custom mounting bracket the braking performance is wild, it’s scary how well the stop, but the calliper fitment is pretty tight, I think it’s around 2mm clearance

I’ve had Wilwood brakes on the 15 and the 14a for years but decided I wanted a set of K sport, sold off my Wilwood 345mm brakes and got hold of some K-Sport 330mm…which I regretted almost immediately, the braking was nothing on the Wilwood, the felt really wooden and didn’t inspire any confidence.

The finished centre caps

Never been a big fan of the original centre caps, IMO they look a little too VIP, decided I was going to make my own caps, so 3D printed some from PLA, then came up with variations for the centre cap, once decided on which type (I ended up doing pretty much the original logo for the wheels) I cut them out of reflective gold and got them domed, they’ve lasted years and haven’t faded.

Chatting to another S15 who happened to own the SSR Koenigs I’d lusted after he mentioned he was selling his wheels to get something else, agreed a price and drove up from Essex to Scotland a few days later to collect them.

When I owned my 14A there was a set of wheels I’d lusted after for years, no idea who they were made by as they aren’t that common, I’m not saying rare, just uncommon but eventually managed to find a set from a company over in Ireland (remaining nameless) that imports parts from Japan. Ordered a set, knowing they’d need refurbishment (which I greatly underestimated the cost of) I wanted them regardless. So I ended up selling my old wheels whilst I waited for the new ones to arrive. When they turned up at my mates garage he had the forsight to sling them on the balance machine only to they were bent in both directions, oscillating up and down and waving in and out, they were f*cked, and were talking £1400 wheels, called the importer who said he didn’t have the same spec but could supply even more aggressive for another £400 which I agreed to but only on the condition they were straight. Waited weeks and weeks for them to turn up…and when they did first thing was to throw them on the balance machine only to find they were worse than the originals! Sent those back demanding a refund. In the interim I needed another set of wheels so bought some XXR 527D, was never really a fan of them but being new at least they were round. This is where the fun started, wheels had been sent back but I was now being ghosted by the importer, months went by... Unsure what to do and out of desperation I called my bank explaining what’d happened thinking they were gonna tell me there was nothing they could do as I’d paid by debit card (not credit card) amazingly they called the importer and the money was transferred within an hour!

A few months went by with lots of head scratching trying to work out what was wrong with it when the engine started rattling 😕 I was being told the bottom end had failed but it still ran albeit noisily, I even drove it for a further 400 miles but I’d decided to try and find a proper S15 DET, this served two purposes 1) the engine wouldn’t rattle & 2) it would elimate the looms that had to be modified to run the 14A engine. Luckily I was able to find a good condition engine with only 37k miles on it. I purchased a second hand DET F1 harness plugged it all in, and everything worked perfectly as it should have done, power was back, steerijg felt right, heaters worked properly 👌. I’ve never really investigated the old engine which I still have but I suspect now it was probably air in one of the lifters 🤷🏻‍♂️

This is where the problems started. We’d spent hours and a reasonable amount of money getting to this point, it worked just not properly, the steering felt heavy, the heating and climate barely worked and the engine was hugely down on power like really lethargic, exhaust note sounded a bit weird too.

The car drove under its own steam after spending 48hrs being worked on

So, I’d mentioned I didn’t have a need for a new car, this was simply because I’d previously owned a UK Spec 14/A Touring that like nearly all other 200SX’ had succumbed to rust and I’d thrown in the towel, I was done with haemorrhaging money. But my drunken state had other ideas, just prior to scrapping the 14A I had removed most of the parts and put them into storage. Later finding it very handy in the purchase of the new car. So the car was sat outside my mums place gathering rust (only kidding) it’s actually pretty straight. So, I’m rather fortunate to have a very good mate who runs a garage, even more fortunate is he is allowed to use the garage out of hours. So with a bank holiday weekend a few months after buying it coming up we decided we were going to start on the car. The car was wheeled in, and started, we spent the entire weekend changing everything from, engine, gearbox, suspension, Intercooler, fuel system, wiring, brakes and wheels and it did actually move under its own steam by the end the Sunday! Mammoth task, and even now I’m not entirely sure how we did it.

So back in 2016 (I think) I was trawling the forums (marginally drunk I might add) and stumbled across someone selling an SR20DE S15 fairly cheaply, in my slightly inebriated state I said I’d buy it, only to realise the following morning I’d agreed to buy a car that A) I didn’t have the money for and B) I didn’t need. So I ended up searching not only down the back of the sofa, but under it too, eventually finding enough to scrape enough together to buy it. As mentioned I didn’t need another car in fact I didn’t have any space for it either, so it sat at my mums place for a few months whilst I worked out what I was actually going to do with a car that barely drove because the timing was so far out bum dyno said it had around 70bhp, the diff and gearbox were literally hanging out of it but it was a fun 7hr drive back. So here it is, in all its glory.