Picked up a 2013 6MT sedan a few months ago as a new daily. Not interested in going too crazy with this one as I'd like to keep it relatively comfortable for the street, but its too much fun to leave completely stock.

Car came with a Takeda intake (poorly) installed, so as soon as I got it back home I swapped the OEM intake and grille back in which were thankfully in the trunk:






It also had a custom exhaust made from Vibrant parts (piping, mufflers, and resonators), with an ISR y-pipe.




It also had some questionable sparkle paint under the hood, Z34 Sport wheels by Rays, an RJM clutch pedal, some diff brace, whiteline diff bushing, and a Megan strut tower bar. Other than that it was (thankfully) completely stock. It had the timing chain and gallery gaskets done ~30k miles ago, as well as a fresh 6-puck clutch (wouldn't have been my choice) and HD CSC. It appears whomever owned it before me was well on their way to ruining the car, but the person who had it before them did quite a bit of the annoying maintenance. I'm hopeful I can get most the goofy stuff sorted while also continuing to make the car a bit more exciting. At the end of the day though, its meant to be a comfortable car to drive everyday.

After picking it up, I couldn't resist the opportunity to take a neat photo before the 10+ hour drive home:


My first real "mod" other than putting the front end back to stock was installing a cheap Amazon roof wing (generally not a fan of cheap parts but no decent companies seem to make a roof wing for the V36). Fitment was fine, but I made the mistake of using the supplied double sided tape instead of going to buy some 3M. I doubled up to be safe, but I still have a tiny bit of lift now on the passenger side. One day I'll pull it off and retape it (probably).



After that I mostly just drove and enjoyed the car for about a month, but then after a carwash I was unable to start the car for over an hour and eventually had to get it towed home. The next day it fired up no problem on the first attempt, but after that I began to experience intermittent starting issues. I'd sometimes need to press the button 3-4 times before it would actually trigger the starter, and after 10-14 days of that it just refused to start at all. Every electronic in the car worked as intended, but nothing would trigger the starter. Assumed it to be a BCM issue, but decided to tackle some of the smaller potential causes before going that route.

Looked at fuses/relays without anything looking blown, swapped out the clutch switch since mine was crusty, tested/charged my battery (its fine, less than six months old), and swapped out the positive battery terminal/fusible link. After all this I decided to take it to a V-chassis specialist near my home, and in less than 3 hours he diagnosed it was due to a blown aftermarket relay that was for some reason tapped into the clutch switch. He rewired it and tossed a waterproof relay in its place while also moving it to a location that wouldn't see runoff from the cowl. Here it is at that carwash, and then when I picked it up from being fixed:





At this point I was excited to have my car back in working order, but also was getting kind of sick of the canister style exhaust, so I went ahead and purchased the Z1 Touring catback with resonated y-pipe as it was on sale and is (IMO) one of the best exhausts for these cars. Took it to be installed and couldn't be happier with the quality and fitment, its very tucked up to the chassis. The sound is also quite nice as it sounds nearly stock at idle and under 3k RPM, but once you get up in the rev range its a very throaty noise. No rasp or trumpets here, though I do still have stock cats as well. I also threw in some new P2M floormats to replace the rubber all-weathers that came in the car.





This essentially bring us up to now. The car did come with some brand new Tein Flex coilovers and SPC FUCAs, rear camber arms, and toe bolts in the trunk. I'd planned to go ahead and install these soon, however after digging a bit into that FUCA design they appear to interfere with the body on lowered cars and SPC's "fix" is to bend part of the metal bracket they mount to. This seems substandard to me which got me looking for new arms, and during this search it was mentioned to me that true rear coilovers would be a better option if I plan to ever lower the car for than a couple inches, as the toe can become an issue even with aftermarket toe bolts.

Ended up ordering a set of Stance XR1s, NISMO FUCAs, and some Voodoo13 toe/camber arms. I'm hopeful they'll arrive this week and I can get them on before next weekend, I'll be sure to update once they get here. After that, probably not much more to come. I'll likely get a quick release and hub to install one of my steering wheels, possibly a Bride Gias III for the driver seat, and definitely a 2-way diff of some kind. Outside of that, I'll probably be leaving most of everything else alone and just buying cool sets of wheels to swap out from time to time.

 

Small update: My car came with this Mishimoto shift ****, and I honestly liked the height matched with the short throw of the stock shifter. I don't, however, like Mishimoto parts so I knew I'd need to swap it out ASAP when I purchased the car. Tried installing this Top Secret ****, but the threads are too far up for the rod to connect without the bottom of the **** hitting the beauty ring of the shift boot.

Ended up purchasing a 2" shift rod extension on Amazon and now the Top Secret **** fits great and is nearly the same height as the Misihimoto **** I removed. If you were looking to install a **** of this shape you can likely get by with a 1 1/2" extension instead of the 2" I purchased, and it would sit nearly flush with the shift boot.

 

A couple more "mods" while I continue waiting for my backordered suspension arms to arrive. Decided I needed a bit more excitement under the hood, so grabbed this HKS radiator cap and Project Mu sweatband for my PS reservoir. Hope to have a better update soon if I ever get shipping info for my other parts, coilovers are getting pretty lonely sitting by the door.

 

Still waiting for shipping info on my suspension arms, but was able to get my trans fluid flushed and a diff brace installed today. Went with the Z1 brace and MT-90 to fill the trans, bonus photo of a less cool Skyline parked next to mine lol. I'd say the brace made a noticable difference as far as throttle response and the feeling during shifts. I'd get the occasional bit of drivetrain noise during fast shifts, but that seems to have been replaced by wheelspin which is an upgrade IMO.

 

Hey @KC240SR that relay tied to the clutch switch might be part of a Two-Step or Line-Lock (or both). Just installed one in my sons 5th Gen GTO and your relay installation sounds exactly like his.

 

All my suspension bits showed up over the past couple months. Ended up going with Stance XR1 true coilovers (kind of sad I didn't go with the Swift spring option), NISMO FUCAs, SPL rear camber and toe arms, and then (unpictured) the GKTech bolt on angle kit. Decided to knock out an oil change as well, trying out Motul 8100 5w40 and a NISMO filter. Below are a couple pics from the install (don't mind the surface rust):






After cruising around a bit the past couple days, I noticed I'm rubbing my right wheel a bit at full lock, so I'll need to get the front fenders rolled flat to match the rears and hope that'll resolve the issue. I'm hearing a faint bit of rubbing between the rotor and dust shield as well, so I'll bend that around while doing the fenders.




Pretty happy with how it sits now, wish I could go a bit lower but this is all I can really do within reason at the moment (lots of speedbumps and steep entrances near me). I have some 22mm spacers up front and think I'd like to add another 3mm up there, and then probably put a 5mm out back to get the fitment somewhat decent. The car feels fantastic and super planted now, the additional angle is honestly more than I expected, and these coils ride nicer than many others I've owned in the past. Soaks up bumps with no issue, but rides on rails when you want it to. Only real plans for the future now are some more interior tune bits (quick release and Nardi wheel going in this weekend), an OEM front lip, and then just buy sets of wheels to keep things interesting. I'll be going down to 18s once I can lower the car a bit more, and depending on how the VLSD holds up I may ended up buying a 2-way sooner than later.

 

I bought the same GK Tech angle kit, and I'm happy to hear you're enjoying it. Great build you got going on.

 

Thanks! The angle kit is pretty nice and helps a bit with roll center correction, though at this height my tie rods still sit at a slightly upward angle. Also, if you haven't already you'll want to unplug or run a switch to the YAW sensor, it gets mad about the extra angle.

 

I have a YAW switch and usually drive with it disabled.
The light only comes on during full lock right?

I currently have SPL outer tie rods and have the angle good where it reduced my bumpsteer. I hope the GKTech kit can have me in a good angle with my height to not induce more bumpsteer

 

Yeah, that's when it triggered. I pulled a wheelspeed sensor as a stopgap, but grabbed everything for a yaw switch over the weekend. Going to bang that out after the CSC delete is finished tomorrow.

 

Got hit with the dreaded (and expected) CSC failure a couple weeks ago. Luckily I caught it before losing all pedal pressure, but decided to just go all out and get a CSC delete so I don't need to drop the trans in the event of an additional failure in the future. Went with the CZP delete and couldn't be happier with the result, luckily the shop that did the install had one hanging around. Pedal feels more consistent and only a touch stiffer than with the OEM CSC, definitely a modification I recommend to anyone who has a failed/failing CSC because it will break again.

 

Haven't done much with the car other than driving it the past couple months, but finally got around to installing my Nardi wheel and Z1 quick release. Woodgrain felt like the right choice for a black sedan, and as much as I liked the OEM wheel this one feels great in the hand.

I ordered an oil cooler and PS cooler last week as well, hoping those show up this week so I can get them installed sooner than later.

 

love the woodgrain look. it would be so perfect if the trim was also.

 

Had some issues with my clutch and realized my master cylinder was leaking. I figured since the car would be down to replace that I may as well add a couple new coolers (oil and power steering, didn't grab a pic of the PS cooler unfortunately). Clutch feels great now with the new OEM master and I'm hoping the coolers will help on track this summer. Ordering tires next week and then test fitting my new PF07s, I'm really excited to go down to 18s.

Thanks man, I really wish the "S" sedans had woodgrain instead of this brushed aluminum that peels...

 

Finally went down to 18s and got some fresh tires for the new wheels. Decided on Valino 08Cs for the front and Kenda KR20As in the rear (235/40 all around), front wheels are 18x9 +30 (have a 15mm spacer for effective +15) and 18x9.5 +25 in the rear. I'd like to go ~1" lower all around to close up the wheel gap, but at the moment I'm just living with this height. While the car was at the shop for tires I also had them take care of welding my diff, I'd planned on a 2-way but the shipping time didn't line up with the event last weekend. I will likely still be ordering the Cusco unit I was looking at but I'm in less of a rush now, the welded is surprisingly livable on a daily driver.

Took the car out to its first real event and it honestly drives better than some of the cars I put together years ago even though its quite heavy. Once you get used to the weight and wheelbase it becomes very easy to drive and I'm excited to get into some tandem later this year. The oil and power steering coolers I installed also worked well, never had steering issues and even with my OEM radiator the temps barely went above the typical reading on the gauge. I am adding a Defi Advance FD unit soon to more accurately monitor coolant temps and oil pressure, but other than that I think the last piece of this puzzle is a Bride seat (my helmet hits the A pillar pretty regularly with the stock one) and then just tons of pairs/sets of wheels.