The PS13 Project – Here it comes.

There’s one thing you need to understand when it comes to projects like these, there’s no substitute for time…. I learnt a long long time ago that money is no substitute for time, unless your paying someone with as much (or more) passion for your project than you have, your better off learning the skills to do your job, buying the tools to complete it with the least amount of fuss, yes your spending time but earning a great deal of skill and that in itself is one thing that money cant buy.

Throughout any projects there are points you get to where you don’t know what to do next, what steps you have to take to progress and keep up that momentum. I get to that point all the time, so clouded with a list of jobs I just don’t know what to do next, the clarity almost always comes with pulling things apart, laying them out finalizing something and then putting it back on, it creates a chain reaction and almost always leads you down the right path.

Again its just spending time, time with the right skills, the right tools, the passion and direction to keep going and realize your dreams.

I have never struggled as much as I have on this project, the Hilux project really changed me, working with just minimal stock sheetmetal gave me such a calculated and clean base to build apon, it really made life easy and I could put everything exactly where I wanted it.

But this car I loved for being exactly that, I came so close to making a space-frame chassis that I literally had the grinder in my hand, I got distracted and decided to leave that job for another day. I started to think about my time in Japan and how much I loved the simple S13 that I vowed to keep as much of its sole as I possibly could, the things I hated about it were actually the bits that made me love it, I just had to work harder, realize that in the end it will all work out fine.

So when this weekend rolled around I stripped everything out of the interior, finished welded all the smaller brackets, drilled some extra holes for wiring passages, vacuumed it out, washed it down with wax and grease remover then masked up the windows and seals in preparation to paint it.

I spent this entire time building this car with the windows in, yes I would never do it like that again but I made the decision at the start to leave them in so that is what I stuck with.

4 cans of Machinery Grey pressure pack cans later the excitement grew, the shape of the interior is something that I had visioned a long time ago, I have a very critical eye when it comes to angles and roll cage structures, I wanted this cage to be a very angular structure that encases the driver and passenger while remaining simple and uncluttered. I decided against adding gussets everywhere, this car wont be log-booked or used in door to door racing, I simply want to spend some time enjoying it on race tracks doing sprint days. I also want the opportunity to cut out the cage and return it to the road when I am old and all the other S13’s have been written off.

While the interior drys I have turned my attention to the next thing, the Aero! Again I want to pull back on the extreme nature of the car and finish off the exterior in the way its always been, the same colour and overall shape with a little refinement.

I picked up an FRP replacement Nissan S13 Aero bumper as I didn’t think the stock plastic one had the rigidity to hold the carbon splitter I have planned for it. Also on its way from Japan is a stock FRP bonnet that will house the large radiator duct and air filter (more on that later).

I also picked up a set of 4.9:1 diff gears from Japan that will get that 6 speed truly working hard.

I am really feeling that buzz again.

The kind that pushes me along with every stage ticked off.

The stokes at all time high.

So the next few months will see each sub assembly finished off, fitted to the car, the Aero all sorted and mounted, the driveline complete, the wiring all redone and completed and the car fired for the very first time in a long time, I might even get the paint freshened up and the rear guards smoothed out so theres a lot to do!

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