PS13 NA – Getting Motivated

This years coming to an end faster than I could imagine, I started 2013 knowing it wasn’t going to be an easy year, I made a promise to myself to not start any new projects until the ones I have are at a point where I am happy with them. Unfortunately this meant 2013 wasn’t going to be a “driving year” sacrificing track time to spend time and money in the garage in the hope that 2014 will be a much more social and outgoing year behind the wheel. When I started the Hilux build I knew exactly what I was putting myself through, to my surprise it has re payed me a great deal more than I ever imagined, while I wait for the tailshaft to be finished (today hopefully) I have had time to reflect on 2013 and make sure I am where I want to be come 2014.

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Im more than happy where the Hilux is at right now, before 2014 I want to get some testing done, build a storage compartment in the rear so all my spares can be easily loaded for the journey to NZ and just make sure its ready for a long year of driving.

The RPS13 is in a good place right now, with the majority of hard times behind it it has gone from strength to strength this year, I have fixed a number of the small things I didn’t like about it, had two track days in it and now it will end the year looking as clean and tidy as it ever has.

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So it was time to turn to the PS13, with over 4 years of limited use I knew exactly what I wanted to do to it. 5 or 6 years ago I did a lot of work to this car and since then have learnt a lot about fabrication and chassis development. I wanted to undo everything I had done and redo it again using the lessons that the those past 5 years have taught me.

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It was an ugly job cutting away everything that I didn’t need anymore, factory sheetmetal is a real pain to work with, adding and subtracting from it isnt easy and it needs a lot of preparation. I wanted to start from scratch and give myself plenty of room to add the new roll cage.

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I believe I can make the new roll cage weigh the same as the bolt in Cusco item I removed, then make new seat mounts pedal box mount and the car should be much lighter than before.

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The engine bay will be reworked aswell, Ill be cutting out everything I have done here and doing it again in a much neater/ lighter fashion.

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The entire front will be remade out of lightweight tube and house the PWR radiator produced for this car, it lays on a 35 degree angle and makes the most of the Nissan Aero front bumpers air inlet, none of the bodywork will be changed and the interior/engine bay will be repainted the same machinery grey as you see it here.

Tonight after I fit the tailshaft in the ute Ill be cutting out the front tubs and cleaning up the rails.

8 Comments
  1. Best looking s13 ever. This is the car that started my love for all things ets!!

    Reply
  2. Hopefully you can share in future posts all the new things you’ve learned and why you are changing them so we can all benefit from your knowledge!

    Reply
    • I will do that, mostly its about making the steel work blend into the chassis so it looks a lot more integrated.

      Reply
  3. Are you still aiming to road register the PS13NA? If you are then a post on how you go about this would be interesting. I mean when do you talk to the engineer, how much do you have to planned out and approved before you start, what parts are an absolute no or yes? I know it’s not as fun as showing us all this incredible fabrication, but getting a race car road registered is something I’ve never seen covered in a blog before.

    Either way really excited to see how you build this up and how it contrasts with the Hilux and 180SX.

    Reply
    • Thanks Marcus, the goal is to get this club registered, in Victoria a car 25 years or older can have a safety official from a car club look over the car and deem it safe for road use, its only a limited amount of days per year you can use the car but its worth it. There will be no engineering involved and all im doing is integrating the steel work into the original chassis a lot neater than it was before.

      Reply
      • Ah, thanks for that.

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  4. love this car mate! well all of them for that matter haha. would you be looking to sell your foot raiser box?

    Reply
  5. im liking this ps, will you keep the two tone?? just wondering what sort of power roughly expecting to get from your sr20

    Reply

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