Reliability mods for fast road/track

[SiH]

I plan on tracking my FD a fair bit, and want to do everything i can to keep it safe and as reliable as possible. I guess more power than stock always brings with it inherent risk, but i want to minimise this.

Spec of the car will be as follows:

Cat back
Tiger silenced mid pipe
PFC to be mapped
99 spec twins (TBC)
Stock rad
Stock IC
Apexi intake filters
Hardpipes to IC
Water and oil temp and oil pressure gauges
Catch tank
SQV

When the car lands i will be changing oil, fuel and oil filters, sparks, coolant, brake fluid, Replace rats nest with good quality lines, replace pressure caps. Anything else cheap/easyish i\'ve forgotten there?

Basically i want to get it to a level where it\'s comfortably running decent power. To me that is around the 300 mark :3gears-rh , but I\'m easy I don\'t mind it being limited by something, but i don\'t want that limiting factor to be introducing an element of danger, if you know what i mean! :Nono!

Now, as far as i can see from a good few hours/days searching, the following mods would be a good plan for reliability:

Uprated Rad
Uprated IC (remap needed?)
Alloy AST
Fuel pump - Bosch 044/Walbro

My question is really: How good are the stock rad, injectors, fuel pump, and IC? Would they be fine at that power level? I guess the limiting factors would be IC and injectors - but they would be the next stage, as i don\'t want to be remapping every 5 minutes! :p

I come from a 200sx background where the stock fuel pump and intercoolers are rubbish, and one of the first things to be replaced, but this doesn\'t seem the case with the FD? Are the stock IC\'s going to be too prone to heatsoak at that power level?

Cheers for reading, apologies for the long post, :Snoring it\'s just i\'ve got to do something to while away the months until my car lands!

Si

[J.j.]

leave the standard injectors, just get a regulator and a good pump you\'ll be ok.  Stock rad is actually quite good, people replace them with ally ones simplely because plastic ones usually split with the age, same goes to the AST.
Definitely change the IC, go for a v-mount kit if you can.

[shaunwil]

Is that 300 at the flywheel or the wheels ?? I\'ve still got the stock rad but a front mount. Uprated fuel pump and injectors and other goodies.

Make sure you use good quality oil in the gearbox and diff.

Change all the tyres for uk spec rubber, the jap stuff can be leathal in the wet on uk roads.

Check all the bushes are good too, swapping to polybushes makes the car feel like new. Sometimes the handling mods make for better track action than outmost power.

As said swap the AST, its the weak link in the coolant system.

Shaun

[peterwolds]

mines running 305 RWHP stock radiator,greddy smic,walbro pump,additional twin 550 injectors,apexi induction,boost controller.Dont know if you plan to get all mods done without running her if driving before you must get mapped for uk fuel. Whens the car landing ?

[Martiny]

Agree, swap the AST, but with a new Mazda one. Many aftermarket ones leak at the cap.

[SiH]

Cheers all, some food for thought there
300 is just a rough figure from seeing what people can go for with similar mods. I\'m a very cautious person, so i plan on not really driving the car until i get the PFC decat and Filters on, and then drive it to get it mapped (WGT is the plan)

OK, so Plastic AST sounds like a good idea - i\'ll sort that, and if the rad does a decent job then i\'ll check that over and go from there.

I\'ll run over the bushes too - car\'s on 67k KM so hopefully they should be in a rasonable state. I\'ve just done a massive rebush job on my old car so if i can avoid that i\'ll be happy!

For me the car is more about handling than power, that\'s why i changed from the SX (There\'s only so much you can do to a touring coupe before realising a better chassis may make the job a lot easier!)

Looks like the IC is really the thing i need to be looking at next. I\'m keen to get any reliability mods that may affect the mapping done before it goes to WGT, so i\'ll see what i can stretch to.

Everything else isn\'t really going to affect the map (Rad, AST etc) so i\'ll do that steadily after it\'s gone in. I\'ve got some spare tyres to go on hopefully as well

Car will probably land mid feb, so i\'ve got a fair bit of time to save!

Cheers very much for the advice, much appreciated
Si

[clive]

Hi Si,

Really pleased to see that you have radiator at the top of the list as so many people overlook that the fact that the more power you make, the more heat that radiates out into the water system.

So many people forget that a lot of these cars are now 15 years old and have silted up rads that are working at much less efficiency than when they were new.

[SiH]

Thanks all, much appreciated
Clive - i\'ve recently had a new arrival in the family from Japan that had a variety of cooling problems, all of them down to a gunked rad luckily (or unluckily!) we caught it before having to look at the semantics of fitting a 13b in an mx5 but had a near miss!
I\'m also very aware of how sensitive the FD is to cooling issues, so to me anything that can be uprated/.replaced for durability reason in the cooling system is of paramount importance.

I\'ll put a rad on the list then, as well as an AST. this is starting to get expensive!

[Warthog]

Welcome to the world of spending Beer Tokens on Power & Handling.
Oh, put the full Racing Beat Anti-roll bar front/rear & white brace on your list for handling, the system is the Dogs.
All the Best

[SiH]

I wanted to do the handling first, but compared to the SX it\'s a go kart out of the box!
But i wanted to get it mapped for uk fuel ASAP for safety rather than power reasons And i thought i might as well do the stuff i\'d end up doing anyways before taking it to get mapped

I\'ve been half introduced to the beer token loss world, but the Rex does seem to attract a bit more \'trax\' than the sx scene However, as i\'ve learnt before - buy cheap, buy twice

[meddy]

I wanted to do the handling first, but compared to the SX it\'s a go kart out of the box!

Not sure I agree on that one really. I owned a S15 and a 14 kouki before the Rex and to be honest I dont think the 7 is that far ahead in terms of handling. I think the power delivery is less savage than the Nissans but I really dont think the S bodies are bad handling cars.

[SiH]

Not sure I agree on that one really. I owned a S15 and a 14 kouki before the Rex and to be honest I dont think the 7 is that far ahead in terms of handling. I think the power delivery is less savage than the Nissans but I really dont think the S bodies are bad handling cars.

It\'s the run in that amazes me most to be honest - it\'s immeasurably sharper than my 14a could ever acheive, and no amount of polybushing, bracing, and coilover fitting managed to get rid of that. The \'7 just feels a lot more \'poised\'. This is, of course, from the 5 or so different cars i\'ve test driven, i can\'t really gice fair judgement until i have the chance to explore mine.
I\'m not saying the S14 is a bad car, it\'s just noticeable that it\'s more aimed at the touring market.
Did you by any chance own an S15 spec R? (Think i recognise the username ) I\'m lead to beleive they are a fair leap on from the 14 due to the extra bracing.

oh, and the above post was meant to read \'tax\', rather than \'trax\'! :o

[meddy]

Did you by any chance own an S15 spec R? (Think i recognise the username ) I\'m lead to beleive they are a fair leap on from the 14 due to the extra bracing.

Yep I used to own a Spec R. Infact I wish Id never sold it but never mind. In a month or so I should have all the bits fitted to the seven and it should be as powerfull as the S15 was. :chat