Daily driver.


Here's my '84 Nissan Bluebird TRX ser2.


  After seeing this neat ser2 TRX bluebird on the side of the road I couldn't resist taking a look. Then seeing the factory looking TURBO sticker on the back I rang the phone number to see what was in it! A standard L20B... No turbo... But still I couldn't fault the body work, no rust, immaculate interior ect. And when I couldn't get the idea of a turbo bluebird out of my head, SR20DET engine conversion came to mind! Bargaining down to the grand sum of $800 (w/o reg) that sealed it! After a few days, my brothers mate came and said the car used to belong to his wife’s parents from new, and that it had been serviced religiously with mobil 1 oil! It shows, the engine is in great condition, hasn't used a drop of oil with in the last 10 000, with 240 000 k's on the clock.
Anyone want a great L20B engine and 5 spd, cos it's for sale.

Now with the SR20DET in place I’m loving it!

 

  The donor parts are from an manual turbo s13 silvia front cut, showing 75000k's on the clock (if u trust that) and completely standard apart from a pod filter, it's exactly what I wanted.
Pulling the engines out, they are roughly the same dimensions, just a lot more shit hanging of the SR. And with the front cross members sitting side by side u can see they are same basic configuration. But the s13 is 70mm wider in track

The fun part! After measuring it all up and dummy fitting the s13 cross member I found I only needed to slot (about 2mm) the rear bolt holes in the rails and make new front holes, so I welded a piece of tube into the rails, easy.
Then fitting the castor bar brackets, the rear hole lined up! And only needing a new hole drilling in the bracket to line up with front hole, even easier! The S13 sway bar bolts straight on also.
The front of the brackets are longer and lower than the bluey 1's but sit directly under the bolt holes in the radiator support rail. Some new hole and some spacers fixed this. And that’s about all to make a perfect home for the SR.

 

  Now slotting the engine in and resting on the factory engine mounts, the engine sits very close, but just right, to the fire wall, giving me a problem with the inlet runner clashing with the clutch master cylinder. After a bit of head scratching the only solution was to recess the fire wall 20mm and fit the silvia clutch master cyl which is 10mm shorter. There is space to do this as the clutch pedal box has 20mm spacers to the firewall.

A VL commodore air box is just right to bolt the air flow meter to and fits nicely in the bird.

I made up a surge tank from a piece of 3" stainless tube and mounted a bosch fuel pump and filter on the bluebird bracket next to the fuel tank. The factory bluebird electric pump fills the surge tank! I also replaced the standard 1/4" fuel line with a 5/16" line, but the return line is still the std 1/4". No probs yet.

A few extra bonus's were the power steering carried over with the x-member, I only needed to mount the reservoir. And the silvia brakes too, that are a lot better than standard bluey but not fantastic.
Steering is connected by taking half of the bluebird's and half of the silvia's steering shafts, machining and tig welding together. It makes a single shaft with splines on both ends.

 

  Extra info, more pics to come.

On suspension, the track is 70mm wider which puts standard trx rims right out to the guards so much that they scrub with 195/60 tyres! A roll of the guards will fix that. I used the silvia strut tops and modified them to sit the top about 20mm wider on each side. Had far to much camber and no droop at std ride height with the bluey tops. Perfect for a circuit racer though. I cut the bluey spring seats off and fitted them to the silvia struts, so uses the std springs.

I also fitted the silvia instrument cluster into the bluebird dash. It's not finished but all working, speedo is spot on (same diff ratio), and everything else, lights ect, wired in. I much prefer it over the standard, I can actually tell what speed I’m doing! And I love the 7500rpm red line!!
For all the other wiring, I kept as much of the silvia loom together as possible, just removed all the unused wires, keeping the instrument and climate control wiring along with the ECU. I fitted the silvia's relay/fuse box, so the engine side of things is powered as it was. Only interconnections were made on the key and dash plugs (and extra wires for the fuel pump) .

An intercooler also now fitted into the nose. Its a generic 450x300x76mm bar and plate type that fits beautifully with only the center support modified! I made up 2.5" steel pipe work right from the turbo to butterfly.

Next on the things to do list are a full 2.5" exhaust, but before that I’m going to fit a silvia IRS same as I did in my VL. This will be much easier as the bluey has coil overs in the rear already. Main reasons are for an LSD as the H165 and H190 LSD's are very expensive if you can find one, but the R200's are more common. It will bring the rear track out to the same as the front, and of corse be much stronger! Oh and I love IRS...
I've measured it all up, to find the mounts line up very well to the rails. The biggest problem being a part of the frame clashes with a corner of the rails by about 30mm. Nothing that cant be changed!

Also planning on fitting the climate control and a/c.