Long story short, I've decided to resurrect the currently orange S13 hatch I've had forever now. It's been down for nearly 10 years. Wild how time flies. The coupe will be getting a silvia front and a stockish RB20 swap, but the fastback is getting the RB20 with an EFR 6758, Futurefab manifold, CD009 conversion, and all my suspension parts from the red hatch. I'm really excited to have a hatch again. Pushing to get both running and driving this year, so we'll see!
I've cut out the transmission tunnel, as I'm mounting the RB a bit higher and farther back than most mount setups, and the CD009 fits pretty poorly with the RB, normally hanging really low. This is actually a huge PITA, and I respect anyone who's done it. Next time I'm definitely just buying the Alaria Tech pieces.
I'm also reinforcing the front strut towers to a kind of obscene level, but the goal with this car is to have a chassis that's kind of invincible between the front and rear strut towers, so the chassis lasts forever and I get maximum seat time. I'm also aiming to keep it very street style, with a stock gas tank and low ride height. You'll never catch me running a rear radiator or anything like that anyway, but I'm trying to keep this car *relatively* simple.
Immediately chopped the rest of the front end off, as nothing fits with the RB anyway, and I need this car to have a good cooling system. Front end will be tubular, but with complete wheel wells and such, I don't want shit all over the engine bay when it rains.
I thought I was going to get away with a relatively small cut and extend kinda deal with the trans tunnel, but such was not the case when I get the drivetrain angles correct...
I'm using the "wire frame" method, which seems to work okay.
