I'm Ken, from Ibaraki, Japan. I had owned a TT Z32 previously and was looking to get into another fast turbo Nissan, so about 3 years ago I started looking at S15s, as the Z32 is a little too heavy and wide for daily driving here. I ended up finding a very clean unmodified one for a very low price.
Unfortunately it had two big problems, one being the turbo which didn't...exactly...exist. The other was...
...it had the strangest transmission, apparently designed for people with one leg, which floated sleepily between gears whenever it chose. But, given the price, I saw past its faults and enjoyed it for what it was, a beautiful and reliable commuter car with sporting intentions. Which was OK, acceptable and almost useful in a world of kei cars, cyclists and minivans proudly labeled "BABY IN CAR" creeping slowly from stoplight to stoplight.
Impul wheels, four of them...starts everyday, rolls from place to place, what more do you need. Anyway it worked too well and I got bored and decided to start breaking stu-err, "modifying" in hopes of making a money pit-err, "making it better."
I decided it needed 300ZX brakes because, logic at work, they worked on my 300ZX, why not.
Endless pads, Stoptech steel braided lines with proper AN-style fittings ordered from the USA because they're quite expensive here, and a BM-50 master cylinder from a Spec R, which is biased for the 4 piston caliper in the front and the stock single piston caliper in the rear. So I left the rear calipers alone, 20% to maintain balance/pedal feel and 80% because laziness.
Then boredom struck again and I built a computer in the car, based on a Raspberry Pi Model B, with a Sony amplifier under the passenger's seat and CD rom in the glovebox, which acts as an entertainment system. I wrote a Python script to pull data off of the ECU via CONSULT, but I realized there are much better systems already out there which do the same thing and gave up.
Installed some extra power points in the glovebox and still maintained space for a glove or two.
Here's a video demonstrating the speed and emulation capabilities, not bad for a 700 MHZ processor and 500 MB ram...
And that made it a lot more fun to spend time in the car, happily listening to movies during my daily commute and retro gaming in 7-11 parking lots.
The end.
Yeah, so then I lost my mind and decided the car needed a manual transmission, and that if I was going to swap transmissions I may as well swap for a turbo engine given the trouble involved...but if I was going to swap for a turbo engine, I may as well swap for an RB25, because torque, and it really can't be *that* much more difficult than an SR swap, can it? Well, can it!?!?
So I read EVERYTHING on the internet about RB swaps. Literally, I think I purpled-out every Google result for the string "RB swap silvia". And then I decided that the plain old RB25 wasn't enough, I wanted the NEO because it's ****ing NEO actually because it has variable valve timing. People went on and on about the difficulty of getting it wired up properly, so I contacted Yury of Wiring Specialties about making a custom harness. I was surprised how excited he was at the prospect of doing so, especially into an S15. At the same time I had found the perfect donor engine at a great price.
And, of course, I realized that if I put an RB25 in the car, I'd spend the rest of my days opening the bonnet and wishing it was an RB26.
So I asked Yury to make a completely different harness, which he didn't seem as excited about, based on an R33 RB26, because I was assuming I could find a cheap R33 engine and fix it up.
6 or so months later I had a beautiful harness which was essentially an R32/33 harness with the ABS and accessory bits from the S15 OEM harness spliced in.
Then it turned out that every R33 engine looks like it's been in a fire, so I bought a clean RB26 from an R34 V-Spec for a regrettable sum.
Sleep now, more to come tomorrow.


Unfortunately it had two big problems, one being the turbo which didn't...exactly...exist. The other was...

...it had the strangest transmission, apparently designed for people with one leg, which floated sleepily between gears whenever it chose. But, given the price, I saw past its faults and enjoyed it for what it was, a beautiful and reliable commuter car with sporting intentions. Which was OK, acceptable and almost useful in a world of kei cars, cyclists and minivans proudly labeled "BABY IN CAR" creeping slowly from stoplight to stoplight.

Impul wheels, four of them...starts everyday, rolls from place to place, what more do you need. Anyway it worked too well and I got bored and decided to start breaking stu-err, "modifying" in hopes of making a money pit-err, "making it better."
I decided it needed 300ZX brakes because, logic at work, they worked on my 300ZX, why not.


Endless pads, Stoptech steel braided lines with proper AN-style fittings ordered from the USA because they're quite expensive here, and a BM-50 master cylinder from a Spec R, which is biased for the 4 piston caliper in the front and the stock single piston caliper in the rear. So I left the rear calipers alone, 20% to maintain balance/pedal feel and 80% because laziness.
Then boredom struck again and I built a computer in the car, based on a Raspberry Pi Model B, with a Sony amplifier under the passenger's seat and CD rom in the glovebox, which acts as an entertainment system. I wrote a Python script to pull data off of the ECU via CONSULT, but I realized there are much better systems already out there which do the same thing and gave up.

Installed some extra power points in the glovebox and still maintained space for a glove or two.

Here's a video demonstrating the speed and emulation capabilities, not bad for a 700 MHZ processor and 500 MB ram...
And that made it a lot more fun to spend time in the car, happily listening to movies during my daily commute and retro gaming in 7-11 parking lots.
The end.

Yeah, so then I lost my mind and decided the car needed a manual transmission, and that if I was going to swap transmissions I may as well swap for a turbo engine given the trouble involved...but if I was going to swap for a turbo engine, I may as well swap for an RB25, because torque, and it really can't be *that* much more difficult than an SR swap, can it? Well, can it!?!?
So I read EVERYTHING on the internet about RB swaps. Literally, I think I purpled-out every Google result for the string "RB swap silvia". And then I decided that the plain old RB25 wasn't enough, I wanted the NEO because it's ****ing NEO actually because it has variable valve timing. People went on and on about the difficulty of getting it wired up properly, so I contacted Yury of Wiring Specialties about making a custom harness. I was surprised how excited he was at the prospect of doing so, especially into an S15. At the same time I had found the perfect donor engine at a great price.
And, of course, I realized that if I put an RB25 in the car, I'd spend the rest of my days opening the bonnet and wishing it was an RB26.
So I asked Yury to make a completely different harness, which he didn't seem as excited about, based on an R33 RB26, because I was assuming I could find a cheap R33 engine and fix it up.

6 or so months later I had a beautiful harness which was essentially an R32/33 harness with the ABS and accessory bits from the S15 OEM harness spliced in.
Then it turned out that every R33 engine looks like it's been in a fire, so I bought a clean RB26 from an R34 V-Spec for a regrettable sum.


Sleep now, more to come tomorrow.
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