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Snikty's ST Blog

Snikty

Site Supporter
Greetings Folks!

After owning my ST for a little over a year now I have finally decided to start a blog. Unfortunately I am only a mere enthusiast and hence my progress on the car is going to be completely dependent on the size of my wallet so it will be a long term project. However I do have very big plans for this car as I think they are an amazing piece of engineering and worth keeping mint while still showing off the enormous potential they have. This first post will be fairly lengthy as I want to try and be as thorough as I can with the blog just so it keeps me focused and so I have my own record of the work that goes into the project. So here goes...

I bought a 1989 March Super Turbo from an import dealership in August 07. Here's how it looked when it arrived from Japan. It had 105ks on the clock when I bought it and has a little over 110 on it now.



Then I took it home :grinning:



I had to take a personal loan due to the nature of the car and had a bit left over so got some new rims.



About three months after getting the car I had a nasty boost leak that caused my ecu to start doing some really strange stuff that basically meant I couldn't move the car anywhere without cooking the engine. So it remained parked for about a fortnight while I did some shopping around.

I tried several mechanics and at the first mention of twin charge I got dumb looks and became instantly scared. So when I found the my current mechanic and mentioned twin charging he reacted with, "oh ok, cool" as though it was nothing new so I decided I had found the right guy. So I had the car towed to the workshop and they held on to it for about 6 weeks. In that time they replaced the bulk of the ignition (ie leads, plugs, starter motor, dizzy, rotors). Replaced all the thin induction hoses. Most had at least an inch of splitting at the ends. Replaced oil n air filters, timing belt and all oils. Replaced front discs and front and rear brake pads. And had an inspection carried out on EVERYTHING. After all that it was put up on the dyno to check/clear fault codes and adjust the ignition timings. Which ended with...



I then decided that 'MARCH' number plates would look really hot and heard a rumor that Nissan Australia was going to release a special edition K12 over here that would be called a March. So I got a bit anxious that if that happened someone else may get them. So I got em as soon as I had the cash. As it turns out they didn't release a K12 March. I stand by my decision... :wasntme:



Next I had to take care of some of the body work. Namely my driver's side door and a spot in the bottom of the driver's side windscreen.

I was expecting to have to take the windscreen out and it became a slight issue to source a K10 windscreen over here. As it turned out we were able to chip out the rust then grind it out completely without having to get too close to the glass, sometimes you do get lucky breaks....haha bad choice of words. It also turns out the windscreen that was in there was a particularly high quality one and it would have been an awful shame to crack it as it would have cost a bit in its day.

Now the driver's side door is a little hard for me to talk about. Lets just say if I ever meet the previous owner I am gonna punch em in the throat. Basically they had fabricated over the top of rusty holes then bogged over it. In the process they also filled in the drainage hole. So we cut about 200mm off the bottom of the door and put in a new piece of metal. I don't have any photos of the car itself after the body work was done as its pretty much gone straight from the body shop back to the mechanics. But I've attached pics of what we took out. I could rant for days about it but a pic says a thousand words and all that grr



So now the car is back in the shop and is getting the suspension completely redone with kyb shocks and king springs. I am getting the rear brakes replaced as the passenger side one is in a really bad way. Replacing gearshift bushes, sway bar bushes, the rear lower engine support, fixing an oil leak, crank and cam seals, lower control arm bushes. And, as per Ed's sage like advice, I will be relocating the lambda sensor. That will basically have everything that was 'wrong' with the car fixed and gives me a nice clean pallet to work from. And now comes improvements...

While the things listed above are getting done I am also going to replace the exhaust. I've not yet decided what exactly I will get with that, and am very open to all suggestions, but will probably look at something silenced cause I just have a personal preference for performance cars that are extremely quiet when being driven normally. So I will post some pics of that work and the body work in a few weeks.

As far as my future plans for the car go...I pretty much want to do up everything that possibly can be done up (that's the point of a project car, right?). Having said that I think it would be silly to start speculating about what I might do with the engine, induction, ecu etc as these are all things that may not be attended to for another year or two. However I do have a firm idea of what I'm aiming for with the aesthetics of the car. And that is as follows...

Firstly, this will always be a white car. I thought about various colours over the past 12months and I still think I really like the look of white on K10s. It will get some kind of white, light weight Japanese rims, I have my eye on some 'vintage' enkeis but am not entirely sure yet. Will pop nissan centre caps in em and paint em in blue/red along with the old blue/red nissan logo valve caps and red and blue anodised wheel nuts. I may look into blue/red anodised exhaust tips also but that is a long way down the track. Will get it resprayed and have some kind of red and blue decal but not sure what will look good yet, I have a few ideas. Basically I am of the opinion that you make a car look good by showing it for what it is...and I see this car as having that sporty/rally look that just screams, Retro Japanese! And I think I can do that and make it look good without going TOO over the top.

With the interior I will get black suede trims, perhaps with a small blue n red flash in it. White faced dials with red lighting on Speedo and blue on the rest. Will get a multi-guage at some point which I will mount above the air con vent on the right of the dash. And will keep the old red digital turbo timer (see Original Interior Photo), which is now mounted a little neater.

Then, due to the laws over here with roll cages, I will have to get the car converted to a two seater and registered as a commercial vehicle. I will do a lot of the prep work for that and hopefully get a little weight out of it. I will be doing a similar thing to what cisco did with his blue K11 for anyone that knows of him. Despite the personal safety factor, K10's are just too rare in Australia for me to not put a roll cage in it. I can also get a dry cell battery put in the back once that work is done. When I do that I can also move the seats back and hopefully make the car a little more comfortable for a 6'5 giant like myself :grinning:

So that is basically it for now and what I intend to do. Thanks to everyone who managed to read the whole rant and hopefully you will all enjoy following my progress as much as I enjoy sharing it.

Peace
 

Ed

Fusion Motorsport
MSC Founder
Official MSC Trader
Very nice! Sounds like your going about it the right way if you ask me :)
 

Baz

Ex. Club Member
Brilliant writeup man and the car looks excellent in white and the engine bay pics are astonishing!! Lke yourself(while my car is still track and drag orintated)I have started collecting parts over the last few months to make it a road car again some day.
Kyb sr special suspension with quality lowering springs from japan,I hav a Gti-r brake setup,purely for power reasons,and hav aquired a nice set of wantanabe 14" two peice lightweight rims.
I always had the intention to have this as a road car there was 77k kms on it when I got it 2years ago and there's 109kms(Rebuilt at 80kms) on it now so I've done quite abit of driving in it.The cars actually goin to be garaged until march:grinning: now to get alot sorted out.

Very nice! Sounds like your going about it the right way if you ask me :)

Good man Ed your sound
 

smidge

Small Car Enthusiast
Site Supporter
awesome write up mate!! sorry to jump straight in with this, but it would be a massive (enourmous, HUGE!) help to me if you could keep track of the part numbers and/or brand and how to get parts like rear brake shoes, timing belts, sway bar and control arm bushes etc etc, cause i have to do all that stuff too! (massive help...)

also don't be shy to ask on the ST forum about exhausts and mods and front mounts etc, i'm more than happy to share any info and mistakes etc that i've made, send you pics or whatever, you and I are somewhat on our own down here... although i'll bring mine up to QLD one day for a side by side photoshoot! :D
 
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Snikty

Snikty

Site Supporter
Thanks for the good feedback guys, I'm at that stage of things now where I'm getting super excited about it all. I can start doing little things with the aesthetics myself while I'm saving up bulk amounts of cash for the engine work.

Hopefully it will all turn out the way I'm seeing it.

Oh yeah smidge, a photo shoot with the two cars would be awesome!! Just wait until I at least have a fmic to match yours :grinning:
 

smidge

Small Car Enthusiast
Site Supporter
sounds good! the scarcity of parts means i can't really think about squeezing more power out of mine, i'd just like it to run properly for as long as possible so i don't have to sell it any time soon
 
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Snikty

Snikty

Site Supporter
I'll be keeping logs of all parts that go on the car so that will be no probs. Email me a list of everything you're after and I can ask about it for ya. Happy to help you keep your little beastie going any way I can.
 

linz0577

Ex. Club Member
just brought a superturbo help please!!!

hello all never used a furum before so please forgive me if im writing in the wrong part ive just brought a 1989 march superturbo yesterday. it starts up fine but there is a red light on the dash and the car goes about 1 mile an hour think its in limp mode or something. my brother looked at the ecu and said the flashes look normal showing no faults. so does anyone know what this red light means ? i think it may be a senser but not sure the of the fault
so can anyone help many thanks for taking the time to read this .. john
 
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Snikty

Snikty

Site Supporter
Chapter II

Today I collected the ST after a 3 month stint in the workshop. It's upsetting that it took so long but a happy day all the same.

First up I had a major service and replaced timing, air con and supercharger belts.

Next up I had all the susspension fixed up. So I am now on boge turbo shocks, which are gas shocks that are slightly stiffer than standard, so far they seem like a pretty nice smooth ride but I will give them a good run in over the next two weeks then make sure everything is still ok on em. Coils are king springs and I just got them set to match the original ride height. Reconditioned sway bars, control arms and replaced link pin bushes. Reconditioned the steering rack, rear brakes (replacing drums and shoes). Had rear axle straightened. Got a wheel alignment.

After all that was done I got a custom exhaust. It is 2inch mild steel turbo back, which has been done very neatly to fit under the original turbo heat shielding. A high flow cat positioned further back and then back box and a small cannon on the back.

Overall I'm really happy with how it has turned out. The ride is amazingly smooth and a lot of the rattles are gone. Will take some getting used to the stiffer steering. The gearbox feels nice and firm now too which I like, altho nothing has been changed on it. I was braking well in the rain, so that's a good sign for the brakes. I haven't had a chance to drive the car hard yet as its been raining but I think the response when I go high throttle is gonna be great. It feels a little laggy and like it could do with a good remap while in super charger range tho. I think its just going to be a case of getting used to the response for now, but will get it on the dyno when we get some weather that isnt ridiculously hot with 100% humidity :down: Hopefully when I get the suspension rechecked I can do that.

I've taken a bunch of random shots of the under side of the car and near the turbo heat shielding...but couldnt be bothered removing it. I'm not much of a photographer, sorry lol. I'm going to give the car a cut and polish this weekend and try and get some decent photos of the car. Will also try and do a quick vid file so yas can check out the note on the exhaust. Its sounds very beefy and you really couldnt be blamed for thinkin it was a 2 litre hehe.

Finally I just wanted to say thx to everyone on the msc who has helped me out along the way. I couldnt have done it without yas and an especially big thanks to the other ST owners, yall are really helpful and I appreciate it heaps...and thx for putting up with my random ST related postings while I've been going stir crazy from having no car, you're all good sports :grinning:

Thanks for reading, Steve.

 
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Snikty

Snikty

Site Supporter
Can I ask why you kept it at the same height just out of interest?

1. My driveway
2. I think I need lower profille tyres for those 15s before I look at lowering
3. I will be going for a semi-rally look with the car so lowering was never really on the agenda. I even thought about slightly lifting the back end and putting mudflaps on it lol Just for something different to the standard sporty look
 

Baz

Ex. Club Member
I want your st. . .good work and done right the first time will last for years!

The Rocker cover and inlet paint looks so fresh
 
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Snikty

Snikty

Site Supporter
Thanks heaps, dudes!!

I'm really happy with it all so far.

Just about to try and figure out how to use this video camera (I'm such a techno-phobe lol) then going for a big drive and taking some photos and hopefully get a decent sound file for yas.
 

smidge

Small Car Enthusiast
Site Supporter
great update! The control arm bushes went in ok? do you have any info on where i might be able to pick up a set?

you've inspired me to get off my ass and repsray my bumpers, yours are so clean!

Also did you get that dump pipe made up especially? my local exhaust guy took one look at mine and said too hard but i'd really like to get a simpler setup in there than the big cat. The other issue was not having the space for a cat as it would have to go behind the gear shift linkages and by then won't be getting hot enough to be efficient anyway...
 
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Snikty

Snikty

Site Supporter
great update! The control arm bushes went in ok? do you have any info on where i might be able to pick up a set?

you've inspired me to get off my ass and repsray my bumpers, yours are so clean!

Also did you get that dump pipe made up especially? my local exhaust guy took one look at mine and said too hard but i'd really like to get a simpler setup in there than the big cat. The other issue was not having the space for a cat as it would have to go behind the gear shift linkages and by then won't be getting hot enough to be efficient anyway...

Yeah man everything in regards to suspension, control arm bushes etc worked a treat but I paid a bomb for getting bits modified/custom made. So I don't think there is an easy or cheap option I can offer you and it isnt a case of picking up a set its a case of getting a set made up and paying through the teeth for em. I'll see what I can find out for you though. Everything suspension related ended up being a nightmare and almost came to blows between my mechanic and fulcrum (essentially what I have is a fulcrum custom set-up). I was going to see about getting a second set made for you but they were being such asses about it that I didnt want to ask for any favours...especially since I'd have no way of knowing price or quality until they were on my car...and if you didnt like/want em I'd be stuck with em...

Haha dont be fooled about the bumpers...the top edge of both back and front bumpers are pretty badly chipped on my car...I just happened to miss that in these photos :)

Yeah the whole exhaust is custom made, down pipe included. Apparently the guy that did it is a bit of an exhaust master and had no troubles with it.
 
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Snikty

Snikty

Site Supporter
Seriously, if its not one thing its something else...

Just discovered that my fuel is filthy...not sure if the fuel tank is rotting or if the fuel was contaminated but its not looking good, injectors are all clogged up now...so going to clean it all up and get it on the dyno, hopefully it'll be running properly soon...Its frustrating when you can feel all that power there but it just doesnt want to play ball...
 

Baz

Ex. Club Member
Seriously, if its not one thing its something else...

Just discovered that my fuel is filthy...not sure if the fuel tank is rotting or if the fuel was contaminated but its not looking good, injectors are all clogged up now...so going to clean it all up and get it on the dyno, hopefully it'll be running properly soon...Its frustrating when you can feel all that power there but it just doesnt want to play ball...

Jesus christ man thats a shame!!!! Best thing to do is take the tank out and inspect it and, if you need a set of injectors I have a set there for you can have just pay the shipping. . . .loving this car man you've put alot of effort into it (more than most might I add)so I'll help you out as best I can to get it going again

Baz
 
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Snikty

Snikty

Site Supporter
Jesus christ man thats a shame!!!! Best thing to do is take the tank out and inspect it and, if you need a set of injectors I have a set there for you can have just pay the shipping. . . .loving this car man you've put alot of effort into it (more than most might I add)so I'll help you out as best I can to get it going again

Baz

You're a champion, Baz!!

I went out and inspected it all yesterday. The fuel that was drained out looked like mud...it was feral. When we sprayed cleaner thru the fuel filter (the forth time!!) it was still spittin brown crap out. This is a 9month old fuel filter with about 1000 ks on it. My mechanic actually thinks its most likely dirty fuel and was pretty much hinting that I should take a sample of the fuel and go have a fit at the petrol station owner (i always get it from the same place and he is sure its been consistently bad, not just one bad batch)

We're takin out the fuel tank, flushin it, cleaning/replace all the fuel lines, fuel pump, cleaning the injectors etc. So far it looks like its not damaged it just needs to be cleaned up and pressure tested etc.

I'll let ya know if I need any parts but I'm hoping I'll be ok. I really appreciate the help and concern man.

The way I'm lookin at it is that once this is done I'll have the car back to as good as the day it came out of the factory and possibly a little more bhp at wheels without tuning for any huge power gains as such. Which is as much of a victory as I want for now. But I dont expect to have it back for another two weeks or so :down:
 
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Snikty

Snikty

Site Supporter
It's Alive!!

When last I left off my fuel tank was rotting. The fuel was filthy...and I mean really filthy with both dirt and rust. eg.


So the fuel tank was removed, cleaned up, rust proofed and sealed then popped back in with a cleaned up sender unit. Replaced the fuel pump, fuel lines and filter. Clean and recondition fuel rail and all injectors. Cleaned out throttle body and inlet manifold. Filled with fresh fuel.

Then I had a boost problem. Initially we thought it was just the bypass control valve but after replacing that and getting the same probs it became a bit more of a problem. So every boost valve and solenoid was cleaned and reconditioned and every boost line/wire checked and clamped/zip tied. I am very lucky to have a mechanic who appreciates my car and spent in excess of 30hrs on the car that he didnt charge me for.

I had to take a photo coz the engine looks so nice with all fresh black bits :grinning:


So now I have everything mechanical fixed up. It's still not running 100% as it hasn't been remapped properly yet. I just need to run in the new fuel system a bit. I will probably get that done in the next few weeks, depending on how many kms I rack up over the weekends. But regardless of it not being at its full potential, the ride is amazingly improved. All the steering and gearbox is nice and firm, suspension is great for the road and the acceleration is much smoother now, the transition between s/c and turbo is seamless.

While the car has been getting worked on I've been doing some cleaning up of the spare engine. I recently got a decent set of heavy duty shelves, so I'm not tripping over bits and pieces all the time.



Since I want to enjoy the car for a while I am going to get some of the spare bits improved on ie, flow exhaust manifold, flow the head, and possibly custom head gasket, cam and valves. Which should allow me to make some respectable gains and keep everything looking stock. I won't go pushing up the boost until I get the ecu done but it will be nice to have it all nicely flowed for when I do come to that, the free flowing exhaust will naturally give me a coule of extra psi anyway.

Thanks for reading,
Steve
 
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