The car FINALLY went off for wiring today.

First time out of the garage. Showing off the ridiculous exhaust.  I think it’s like a giant wing, you need to have the aero to back it up, this exhaust just looks weird with a stock bumper. Bleh.

It’s been a very frustrating two months, that bit about it going in for wiring “next week” in my last post turned out to be far from the truth. Whatever, it should be running in a month or so.

When you buy a JDM SR20DET swap conversion, there are some maintenance items you should take care of before dropping the motor into its new home. The OEM coolant lines are a mess, especially the lines under the intake manifold, so this is my documentation along with some ideas to simplify the whole thing.

So this is what you’ll find from the factory. I’ve removed the intake manifold to get a more clear picture of what’s going on underneath.

What a mess. Let’s get to work.

From the factory, the SR20DET is set to have a coolant feed and return (located on the hot side for RHD cars), a coolant feed line for the turbo and various wiring harnesses all wrapping around the rear of the cylinder head.

When we swap these motors into LHD cars, most people loop the coolant lines back from the hot side of the motor over to the cold side, adding two additional hoses to all the other crap running behind the cylinder head. This makes working back there a serious bitch and looks nasty.

So here is a diagram of the OEM coolant line layout. Click to zoom.

This is what you’ve got right now, as far as hard lines go. I omitted one hardline at the back of the motor because it’s just one section of the split tube and can be removed no problem.

So, going through the list:

1. Coolant feed for turbo
2. Coolant feed / return for heater core (solid tube all the way to connector 8)
3. Coolant feed / return for heater core (split tube connects at the rear of intake manifold to the firewall)
4. IACV feed / return #1
5. IACV feed / return #2
6. TB feed / return #1
7. Water outlet for thermostat housing
8. Coolant feed for heater core
9. Coolant feed for heater core
10. Coolant feed for thermostat
11. TB feed/ return #2
12. Hose connection to radiator

OK, so first things first. Let’s get rid of that big tube from #2 – #8. In order to do that, you need to consider two things; how are you going to feed coolant to the turbo? and are you going to keep the coolant feed to the IACV? Do you need to keep IACV? I can’t answer that for you, you’ll have to do some of your own research and that’s out of the scope of this article.

The turbo feed is easy. If you purchase an S14 SR20 water neck, it has the fitting for the turbo feed line. That water neck makes the coolant feed line at the rear of the cylinder head unnecessary. You’ll need to purchase some stainless steel turbo lines for an S14 or S15. Don’t worry if you have an S13 turbo, the lines will work with S13 T25 or S14/S15 T28.

The IACV is more up to interpretation; some people say keep it, some say lose it. Depending on the climate and the type of driving you do, keeping the IACV may be your best option. If you want to keep IACV, then you’ll want to cut your #8 tube down to about even with the #3 – #9 tube. Either throw a ‘U’ hose on it to loop them or find lines that’ll connect to the heater core on the cold side (for LHD). One thing to note, if you cut down the #2 – #8 tube, you’re going to lose the bead-rolled end, so a hose clamp will have nothing to seat against. It would probably be best to cut the tube back an extra inch, then cut off the bead-rolled end and weld the two together.

OK, now if you’re ditching your IACV, you can remove the entire #2 – #8 tube, you’re going to replace it with a ‘J’ shaped hose. So that means that #1, #2 & #4 are all gone. Now you need to get rid of #5 (or cap it off). If you want to get rid of it, you can do what I did: shorten the tube to just before outlet #7. The problem here is that the tube in this section doesn’t have a bead in it for a hose clamp to seat to, and it’s hard to find a bead roller that will fit inside the diameter of this coolant tube.So what we did was cut about 1″ off the end of the tube, then cut out the center section of the tube (from about #5 – #6), then welded the bead rolled end to the #9 tube just after the #7 outlet. Doing that, you now no longer have outlet #5.

If you’ve gotten this far, you no longer have any hard lines around the back of the cylinder head, and you’re feeding coolant to the turbo from the water neck. OK, now the rest.

You’re either going to have the #8 tube cut even with the #3 outlet, or the #8 tube is replaced with a ‘J’ hose and connected to #3. Whether your IACV is hooked up doesn’t matter the rest of the way. So you’ll attach your hose to #8, get a very short coupler to attach tube #9 and you’ll need to go to an auto parts store to find a hose that’ll work to connect the #7 hose to #10 (it’s kinda shaped like a question mark). Outlet #12 goes to your radiator, which leaves outlets #6 & #11 to deal with.

Outlets #6 & #11 are coolant lines for the throttle body. Whether you keep them or not is up to you and you’ll have to do your own research there as well. Hook them up if you want, or cap / weld them shut if you’re not.

And with that, you’ll no longer have any hoses running around the back of the head. That’s how mine is and the only things back there now is my coilpack harness. I had so much room I could tuck the clutch line and brake booster line under the firewall lip, and I can still reach the transmission bolts from the top with no problem. To me that makes this work super worth it.

This is what I have now.

My IACV & TB coolant lines are cut out and my #3 – #9 hose is shortened. #2 – #8 has been replaced with a J-pipe and I put that flex section in just to add some strength.

EDIT 3/15/12;
Here is a better picture of how my coolant line has been modified. Any shop offering welding services should be able to do it for you.

Hope that helps, hit me if you have questions.

(Huge thanks to Baby on Ziptied for helping me with this).

Bolted up the last piece this week, the coolant reservoir. Filled it with distilled water and water wetter for max cooling. Can’t wait to see how it does.

Sending the car off for wiring next week. Getting a fresh, complete custom harness and switch panel from Jordan Innovations in Irwindale.

Hoping to have it running in the next month, probably not much to update in the meantime, we’ll see.

Finished plumbing everything this week and bolted the front end back together with the PBM intercooler.

So this is about all I can do on my own, making wiring and alignment plans right now. In the mean time there are a few other minor things I want to do that I’ve put off.

My to-do list:

• Double-check / tighten everything front to back
• Adjust rear camber
• Lower front, maybe raise rear slightly
• Make a steel mesh grille for PS cooler
• Add some extra hose clamps to exhaust wrap
• Replace a missing hose clamp on radiator hose
• Run vacuum line for BOV
• Run vacuum line from charge piping to boost controller

To-do list that I need to have done:

• Weld on BOV
• Tap a hole in hot pipe for boost signal
• Alignment
• Wiring
• Roll / pull fenders
• Custom lines for oil cooler

And that’s really it. Beers will be drank!

One of my friends does camo paint on assault rifles and I thought it would be cool to do it on the bezel for my gauge cluster. Finally got it back on Saturday and after a couple days to let the clear coat dry, I installed it all last night.

It’s really hard to get the colors right with my shitty camera, it just kinda looks like clouds but it looks a lot cooler in person. It’s otherwise a stock cluster with the JDM tach, 2x PBM EVDM’s, a Blitz turbo timer and an S-Gear boost gauge.

I wanted to install the radiator support but I wasn’t happy with the rate the paint was drying at, so I’ll wait another day or two before I try again.

Almost there.

I can count on one hand how many things remain. The PS lines are run, just need to cut them down to size and attach them to the cooler. Then mount the oil cooler and maybe get some shorter lines. Once they’re done, it’s off for wiring and alignment.

The radiator support is painted and drying right now, so I might mount it up tonight and get that out of the way.

I just think this pic looks cool.

Radiator support, headlights and Powered By Max intercooler unbolted as one piece. Time to paint the radiator support.

PBM intercooler is rad as hell.

It’s been a busy week. I’m waiting on some new tubing as well so progress has kind of stalled. Been doing other minor open items on the car and in the garage like removing some more sound deadening and making a tire storage rack.

This is really the only major progress I’ve made; cutting the radiator support to fit the Powered By Max intercooler, then mounting both with the radiator to test fitment.

It fits pretty well though I cut a little more out than I needed to.

So now I need to take it all apart, clean up the cuts and paint the whole thing. Then on to making a bracket for the headlights.

3/4 coolers mounted. Getting there.

EDIT: Here is one with the headlights mounted. I’m going to prepare another post on what I did to fit the PBM intercooler and pop-ups.

This S13 Parts Shop Max intercooler fits great and looks sweet as hell with the MAX couplers.

With all the thought and energy I’m putting into my car, writing about beer has taken a serious back seat. That isn’t changing really until the car is done, but I made an exception recently. I skipped the Super Bowl and went to Stone Winter Storm in San Marcos, CA this past Sunday. I detailed the afternoon in a guest post on my friends blog at IDrinkGoodBeer.Com.

My post is here: http://www.idrinkgoodbeer.com/events/stone-winter-storm/

Mounted up the exhaust last night, front to back.

Heat wrapped from the turbo elbow back to just before the muffler section. You can also see the Circuit Sports SR20DET transmission mount in the picture. The CS mount is a really nice unit – solid and fits perfectly for a good price.

This exhaust is just ridiculous.

And this is how it sits right now.

Still working on running hoses and gauge wiring on the car. Boring pics are boring, so this is all for now.