All the trimmings

Didn't the logo come up tops! I'm extremely happy with the way the logo has come out...not to mention the trim so far. The trim is currently in the very capable hands of Chris, Peter and the team over at Trimcare in Welshpool. The rear seats have been trimmed, the vinyl on the door trim has been repaired, and the time the photos were taken, they were still to be resprayed back to factory original colour.

- Door trim insert logo
- Door trim inserts ready for fitting
- S13 Rear Seatback trimmed ready to go



While Trimcare have been working on the cloth trim pieces, I worked on the boot - specifically the rear Cusco Strut Brace and the additional OST brace. Essentially you fit the main brace and centre the bits, then fit the triangulating braces that reach to a plate on the floor. You mark the holes on the floor, drill a nice clean guide hole using a small drill bit, then proceed to drill the main hole. Then get on your back, riggle under the back of the car (mmm, looks so clean under there), and pit the backing plate into position which is just above the differential. I also fitted up the Zenith Boot Brace which ties the ends of the chassis rails together in a similar way to the standard S15 rear boot brace does.

- Holes drilled in boot floor for bottom plate
- Zenith Rear Boot Brace

Of course all these bits will need to come out again, but finding all the bits and making sure it all fits is all part of the process.

Now the plastic trim in the boot usually covers up the top of the suspension towers, so once you fit a rear strut tower brace, it no longer fits. So the solution is to cut holes in the plastic trim so the brace and come through as well as giving enough room to adjust the coilovers damping. With this in mind, and the use of an engraving/dremel tool I set about cutting holes on an already busted set of trims. Using a tape measure and pencil I roughed out a guide to cut. I fitted a 20mm cutting wheel to the dremel and made my first cutouts, cleaning up the corners with a small 8mm diameter grinding stone. Test fitting revealed that the holes could be made smaller, so with that I measured out on the good trims and an hour or so later it was done. These boot trims were also dropped over to Trimcare so that can be refinished in the factory colour. The edges of the holes will get a clean rubber trim put around the edge.

- Suspension tower trim hole (passenger side)
- Suspension tower trim hole (driver's side)

You can see though that the original colour of the car (ie. white) is showing through the holes, so I masked up the area and used some Wurth's Matt Black paint to darken the area. Once the trims go back on, it should look need and tidy.

- Suspension tower painted (passenger side)
- Suspension tower painted (driver's side)

As the paint can was out, I quickly masked up the rear tow loop that sticks out under the rear bar and painted that too. It was looking rather scummy, but I sanded it back and found a cleaner black plastic trim and now it's up to spec. Oh, and considering I was tinkering at the back, I refitted the number plate lights that I had cleaned up. This also involved taking the old tape off the wiring which runs inside the boot and re-wrapping in new tape. With new bulbs in place and a bit of grunting trying to plug them back in (as the plugs are up on top of the steel bumper), all went in without a problem.

- Tow Loop (top)
- Tow Loop (bottom)
- Number plate lights re-fitted

Meanwhile Marc has been completing the wiring loom, the Splitfire coils are in place, the injectors are wired up and there's hardly a wire to be seen thanks to the Marc Palmer Special Service (you really need to look for them). Oh, and all that stereo gear was picked up thanks to Alex at Westside Car Audio in Osborne Park. I got a great deal on the gear, including the DDLinear Flagships. The amps are tiny and much lighter than an older 1000w monoblock is, so it evens out the use of all the dynamat ;) Now I might have to upgrade my iPod because I need a later version...but that's a tax deduction anyway.

Seeya round
Brendan

PS> Apologies for the later than normal posting date.

This is DYNAMATAAAAAA!

Hooray...the last of the dynamat (except rear parcel shelf..dammit) is in the boot (trunk). After I ran out a couple of weeks, it took a few days to order, then more to deliver etc. But Friday I focussed on completing it...meaning the drivers side boot floor, suspension tower, outside guards and rear panel around the lights.

- Dynamat on the boot driver's side
- Dynamat on the boot rear panel

Once that was done, I went and tracked down some rear boot carpet and floor mats. After a good vacuum and clean, the floor mats just didn't seem to be coming up any good. The floor carpet was a little better. I'm going to get the floor mats remade now with a nice plush carpet. There's also a possibility of getting some badges made up for the mats based on the logo I designed, but still waiting back on quotes for them.

Next was to sort out the fuel pump. Now my original plan was to use a Sard single pump surge tank, but due to time restraints, we're just going with an in-tank pump that we'll use in the surge tank later. The pump chosen is the Bosch 044, but in an in-tank installation. The modification and fitting to the standard fuel cage was reasonably straightforward thanks to some instructions from NissanSilvia.com and help from the C-Red team.

- Fuel pump access prior to the dynamat
- Original S13 fuel pump setup
- Bosch 0 580 254 044 (The 044) Fuel Pump
- The 040 vs 044 fuel pumps - swapped over fittings
- Bottom of the bracket removed
- Fuel feed pipe shortened
- Fuel feed pipe attached to 044
- Completed 044 fuel pump assembly
- Completed Pump Install now with dynamat

In addition to these main things, I installed the electric aerial and went and got new (ie. used) license plate holders as mine seemed to have caught the attention of the spray painter's gun.

- License Plate light covered in overspray
- License Plate light in great condition

I'm due to get the seats back from the trimmers sometime later this week so I'll be throwing those in on Friday. Greg was helping out on Saturday too, working on getting the fuel system complete involving the Sard fuel pressure regulator (FPR), fuel filter and fuel lines to the rail and back. Oh, and I got some new pedals too from Natetune on NissanSilvia.com, aren't the purdy.

- Nardi Foot Pedals

Until next week.

Cheers
Brendan

PS> Sorry for the title, was still thinking of all those 'THIS IS SPARTA!' funnies that are running around at the moment (see the movie '300').

...and the interior continues to go in...and out!

Greg and I (me in passenger seat) checking out the seating positions

So the focus on the interior was kept up last week...this time in the form of the front seats, carpet and dashboard. To start off with, I remind some of you that I did purchase a new set of carpets sometime ago for Sillbeer. They were really nice and moulded to a point for the S13 floorpan. Unfortunately, it required a fair amount of time in marking with chalk the holes and cuts required to make it all fit correctly. Now when I purchased a used interior a little while back, a carpet also came with it. The colour was a darker grey than the original, but had a few stains and a lot of glass fragments spread throughout. I decided that after I had vacuumed and cleaned this one, I'd make a final decision on whether to use the new or old. The old one won. It came up a treat, and took all of 5 minutes to install.



As you can see from the photo, it came up very nicely and all the holes are exactly where they're meant to be. Next job was the seats - which are from an R34 Skyline GT-R. Reasons for these are comfort, height and OEM function. The only requirement (as with all GT-R to S13 seat fitment) was a modification to the rear outside seat mount. I had previously fabricated up a tab in mild steel to sit in the groove of the original seat mount, and after tracking down the 'Welding Gnome', had him TIG weld the tabs in place. A quick coat of black satin paint and an overnight dry, a search for the appropriate class of bolt and we chucked them in. Needless to say that due to my perfect marking, they bolted in without a hitch. See pics of the tabs:

- Fabricated tab sized and marked
- Tab TIG'd into place by the 'Welding Gnome'
- Fabricated tab painted and bolted in



I mentioned previously that Greg had fabricated a new bracket up for the throttle cable so it fitted correctly on the GReddy Plenum. This was painted up and fitted, it should clear the bonnet easily while looking fantastic while it does it.

- Throttle Bracket from back/top
- Throttle Bracket from back
- Throttle Bracket from front
- Throttle Bracket with cable fitted



Another fitment in addition to the dashboard was the new Nardi Deep Corn steering wheel. This is a very stylish black leather jobby with the red stitching. I've used a genuine Nardi boss kit - but as I suspected (see pics), it's rear diameter doesn't cover the hole on the S13's steering column cover so I'll have to fabricate something to fit in there.

- Nardi horn button
- Nardi Deep Corn red stitching
- Dash and Steering wheel installed
- Nardi Boss Kit for S13 Box
- Nardi Boss Kit for S13 Front
- Nardi Boss Kit for S13 Back

The leather wheel I purchased from Yahoo Auctions in Japan, but I recently purchased a suede version of the Nardi Deep Corn for motorsport applications through a supplier on nissansilvia.com named 'natetune' at a very good price along with some pedals and the boss kit.

Other things done are the seat belts are now in - brand new from Klippan. I fitted the horns up to replace the tinny 'beep beep' ones that Silvia's usually come with. These have been tested, and they're more BMW spec than Barina now. And I ordered and received a nice black plastic air diversion plate for the radiator/intercooler air flow from High Octane (on their ebay store). Yesterday I took the rear seats, door trims, glove box, centre console lid, gear stick boot and handbrake boot down to Trimcare in Welshpool to be retrimmed in a material close to centre panel of the GT-R seats. Chris will be taking care of them all there and I should have back a week Friday. Some of these pieces will also be copping a logo I've designed for the car based around 'specB' which will also be placed at strategic locations on the body. The logo was designed with strong influence from the USDM Nissan Sentra SE-R specV.

This week while half of the interior is away, I'll finish off the boot Dynamat'ing now that I have had another box delivered, finish off the fuel system (delaying the Sard surge tank at this stage) and get it ready to turn over.

Drive safe.
Brendan

Finally some interior goes in

Finally after finishing the Dynamat in the main cabin, it was time to start fitting interior trim pieces back into Sillbeer. I would have been continuing on with the boot Dynamat installation, but I ran out half way through, so have to wait for another box to come from my ebay supplier (billy588). So first up it was through my box of bits and pieces for appropriate trim. Unfortunately that turned up a black for the back seat panel, so I went out to one of the shells and found the whole back section still intact. After a bit of grunting, and saw fingers on those little press studs (they really do fly when they pop out), I had what I needed. The cleaning process for most of this stuff is first to give it a wipe down with a wet sponge to remove the thick layer of dust. Second is a wipe down with some household cleaning spray to remove any dirt and grime. And finally a good wipe over with the tyre shine to give it back some moisture.

- Side interior trim
- Dynamat on rear floor area (driver side)
- Dynamat on rear floor area (passenger side)

The same car provided a lot of other panels, as well as from a few other sources. Rear seat belts were also fitted and test along with finding the hinges for the rear seat back - but they're quite rusty at the moment so will need to give them a quick sandblast before leaving them in place.



Another part of the interior is of course the roof liner (or hoodliner). I had a couple to choose from, but neither were in very good (clean) condition. So I chose the better of the two, and with some newly acquired Armor All interior cleaner, I gave the entire roof liner a good twice over (as well as a good scrub). The results are amazing and gives a nice smell to the roof too.

- Roof liner before cleaning

Saturday morning I attempted to find and fit a set of front seat belts, and I had some success in finding the correct brackets and the correct drivers side belt. Unfortunately the passenger side belt I found was made for another mounting angle so it would not reel out, only retract. This was after 3hrs mind you, so I gave up and have a new set on the way. In the mean time I tracked down a couple of good interior side panels - went through 3 drivers side ones before I found one with minimal scratches and all the clips in place. This is the one you see in the trim picture above.

While I was working (ie. wasting time) on the belts, Greg was in to make up the throttle cable bracket. The reason for a new one is that the GReddy plenum sits high in the engine bay and the mount on the plenum is also offset from the original location. Therefore and new low profile offset bracket was made. It looks mint, and after a lick of paint should be just fine visually too.

Marc at C-Red is working on the electrics this week, getting the wiring loom sorted and tucked away and the ECU plugged in. Hope there to be some news on when we can start her up when I go in on Friday.

Getting exciting now.

Cheers
Brendan

PS> Please note that I do get quite a few questions from people asking about things I have done previously on the car. To help out with this, I've dropped in a Google search for sillbeer.com to track down any info you're after.