15yrs in the making, our S13 Time Attack build continues to this day, but how did it all start? This will be a very rapid overview and pic dump for anyone interested in the history of our ongoing labour of love.
A copy paste from an old Nissan Silvia forum post shows where the car was at back in 2012 after 3yrs of ownership. It started out as a 5k street car with a couple bolt-on’s. Did a drift day, decided that was not for me, did a fun day at Winton and decided grip driving was more my jam and worked towards improving the car and driver. More track days, more power, more grip, better brakes, cooling, cage, basic aero etc. It probably spent too much time being modified and not enough being driven…
Back then, the mod list looked like this, I’m sure some of you ran some of these parts as well!
1989 S13 Silvia K’s – CA18DET: 146ks , standard bottom end, fresh head gasket/ARP studs/etc
***Engine***
GT2560/T28 BB on 17-18psi – ~180rwkw
Greddy FMIC
Pod Filter, Heat Shield, and Cold Air Intake
3″ Turbo Back Exhaust with de-cat
RX7 460cc Injectors
Turbo Tech Boost Tap
Adjustable Wastegate Actuator
Apexi SAFC V2
Apexi SITC
Drift Catch Can
R33 BOV – plumbed back
Grex Oil Filter Relocation Kit
BTR Oil Cooler Thermostat
JJR Oil Cooler
Alloy Radiator
Surge Tank Seteup – 2L Tank, Walbro 400lph lift pump, Walbro 255lph main pump. Aeroflow fittings and hose.
Custom Semi Solid Engine Mounts (boxed/ DIY urethaned)
***Suspension***
BC BR Coilovers (Height, Damper and Camber Adjustment)
Front Strut Brace
ISC Rear Camber Arms
GKTech Rear Toe Arms
***Wheels and Brakes***
17×8 and 17×9 Volk(Rays) Emu Racing Rims. Federal RS-R 235s
S14/S15 Front Calipers
RDA Ventilated and Slotted Front Rotors
RDA Slotted Rear Rotors
QFM A1RM Pads all round
R32 GT-R Master Cylinder
***Interior***
Momo Gear Knob
Momo Pedals
Auto Guage Smoked Water Temp, Oil Temp and Oil Pressure Guages (Oil Temp has warning buzzer and peak recall).
AEM Wideband Air Fuel Sensor and Gauge
A Pillar Boost Guage
Blitz Turbo Timer with Boost Guage and Lap Timer
Stripped interior
NS.com was dying so the build moved over to Skylines Australia (SAU) – the NS thread can still be found on the wayback machine here.
SAU was full of more grip-oriented drivers who would in time help me iron out some of the horrible handling I’d introduced with my random parts.
I tried Whitline, GT-R, and various S-Chassis swaybars, different alignments, compression settings and adjustable arms before getting the car feeling decent, the final recipe looked like this.
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BC BR Coilovers – 6-4 clicks from softest
Whiteline camber bolts
S15 Power Steering Rack with solid steering bush
GKtech high misalignment tie rod ends.
Nagisa Auto roll centre adjusters
Cusco castor arms
R32 FLCA’s
S15 RLCA’s
Rear Strut Brace
ISC Rear Camber Arms
GKTech Rear Toe Arms
S14 subframe with reinforcement plates
Solid subframe bushes, angled for anti squat.
S14 front sway bar, standard s13 rear with new links.
S15 helical centre retaining CA crown/pinion for the ratio.
Poly engine/box mounts
The car also copped a few extra bits and pieces in the quest for more lap times and fun.
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Nistune
CA18DET Exhaust Cam on intake side and Adjustable Cam Gears
R33 Rear Calipers
R33 Brake Booster
DIY Brake Ducts
Better Pads/Rotors
Velo GP90 Passenger seat
JRP 10 in 1 multi gauge
With a bit more boost we churned out almost 200rwkws the cam/gears upgrade was done separately and gave us the last 8-9rwkw.
I’d also spent most of a season trying to get the little CA to breath without puking oil out everywhere, even though the they do have a balance tube top to bottom. Compression was good, but as we’ve all seen, the Nissan stuff cannot empty the head fast enough. In the end we ended up with 2 baffled catch cans vented to atmosphere, a mess of pipes, and a drain back to the sump via the dipstick. We gave the Morosso Crank Case Evacuation kit a go as well but it was basically useless.
In 2018, in what was to be the final season in this form the car received some 17×9 Rota’s, 255 AR1s, some small flares and cut guards, a revised front splitter made from Alumalite (saving 10kg), a rear bumper infill, a cheapo bodykit, so more gauges and various repairs and adjustments to get it through the season as I continued to push for PBs – the splitter and swaybar end links were always on the hitlist. .
GPS/GoPro purchases allowed me to start taking video clips earlier in the season, and you can see various laps and stuff ups on our YouTube, which also helped me focus on improving my actual driving and not just throwing parts at the car – I did start to actually get comfortable behind the wheel.
At the end of the season, we came away with the win, snagging an Under 2L turbo/4L NA category win – good times! At the same time as all this was going on, I’d also bought an R34 GT-R and been working away on that for a few years (project overview here), as well as a brief stint with an AU XR6 which was a lot of fun.
During the last season, I’d been accumulating CA18 parts in prep for a refresh, cams, turbo, spare block etc, but then changed tact and opted to go the SR20 route instead and shoot for bigger numbers (All the good stuff, worked P12 head, Nitto/CP/ARP bottom end etc etc). The parts were accumulated and ready to be sent off for the build, but on top of all of this we had made the call to move house out to a rural property so things ground to a halt for a while as we completed that move and got stock in to home improvement.
We’ll call chapter 1, the car had clocked a 1m37s at Winton (on the old surface) and a 57s lap at Logic on the old AR1s, getting faster every time I took it out. The car was effectively retired at this point with the plan being to continue the “quick refresh” once we got setup in the new place…