Bride RO Super Seat Rails - Part 1

The quality of the local made H Performance seat rails for the Recaro SR4s leaves a lot to be desired. Apart from the crappy weld quality and stiff sliding action of the slider rail, the seat belt buckles would occasionally "disappear" rotating backward and downward away from sight. This would often invite the occasional heavy metal music especially if the front passenger is my dear wifey.

Original Recaro Germany seat rails cost a bomb (2K upwards for a pair of seat rails) so I researched for lower cost but similar quality alternatives. Short of repeating myself to death, one knows that aftermarket seat rails for the Slowtra are not exactly in abundance and that such research typically ends up in a dead end. However for once the Gods of Car Mods were smiling on me and the research led me to conclude that a N16/B15/G10 uses the same seat rails as a JDM B15 Sunny and when it comes to Jap cars, Bride is the most popular and well known brand for seats and seat rails. And Bride does have a seat rail application for the B15. Part number of the Bride seat rail for JDM B15 Sunny.

As can be seen above, Bride has multiple seat rail models but these are meant for their varied range of seats or side (vs bottom mount) for full bucket single piece competition seats. Only the RO and MO models fit my Recaro SR4. I decided to bite the bullet and order the RO as this can later be upgraded to MO type by buying and installing the optional MO adapter plates on the RO seat rail. I was initially going to order from RHD Japan but pondered and procrastinated on this for ages. More than a year in fact as I was very concerned about the taxation costs. In the end Bro Eu Jin came to my rescue and sourced the RO seat rails for me. Bro Eu Jin is the boss of JDM Auto Link and he can get any JDM part you want so look the man up!

Price of a pair of seat rails came up to more than 1.5K MYR direct to your doorstep. Price will differ according to the exchange rate of the Japanese Yen vs Malaysian Ringgit so best to check with Eu Jin. Lead time between placement of order and deposit and arrival at one's doorstep is between 1 to 3 months depending on the shipment schedule between Japan to Bolehland. If you want fast you can always order from RHD Japan and airfreight to your house but good luck in between. Picture of the shipping packaging.

Part number and application. Looks like the Y11 Wingroad also use the same seat rail.

The seat rail. Also included is a detailed and idiot proof installation "manual" complete with drawings. No knowledge of Japanese is required to know what goes or fits where. Also included is a Bride seat rail specific anchor bolt for the seat belt buckle. Only one anchor bolt is supplied per seat rail so don't lose it.

One of several identification labels.

Be careful of fakes when it comes to Bride seats or seat rails. I have seen many. A seat and it's seat rail is a major critical safety component of any car so you decide if you wanna mess around with that. Original Bride seat rails uses slider rails sourced from Faurecia in France. Faurecia oems for PSA (Peugeot and Citroen), Nissan, GM and Volkswagen so they definitely know what they are doing. The upper rail metal thickness is 2mm while the lower rail is 2.3mm. Beefy!

I also decided to replace all the seat rail fasteners with titanium equivalents. You will need six M6 X 25mm bolts to secure each SR type seat to its seat rail meaning 12 total unless you only have one seat. Likewise four M10 X 30mm bolt secures each seat + seat rail to the car (8 total). Don't forget the washers.

Took me forever to find a M10 X 25mm diameter washer for the bolt securing seat rail to car. Standard diameter for a M10 titanium washer is 20mm. 20mm diameter might have insufficient surface clamp area as the bolt hole on the seat rail is way larger than 10mm to allow for some adjustment. In the end the closest I could find is a 30mm diameter washer from Allied Titanium in the US.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I install the seat rails.

Panasonic Maintenance Free Car Batteries

When one thinks of Panasonic, electronic/electrical home appliances comes to mind and not car batteries. Well Pana makes not one but two different grades of maintenance free car batteries for N16s and most other popular cars sold in Bolehland. In fact, the Panasonic is the recommended oem replacement battery for MYDM Hondas.

I first used the Standard Grade Pana in 2012 while Slowtra was being transformed into Sharkie. It has a white casing and black top. Picture below on Sharkie sometime in 2013. Just look at the size of the battery in comparison with the K&N air filter.

IMHO the battery size is the worse design on a N16 apart from the wheelbarrow rear suspension. Like most Jap cars, Nissan decided to put such a heavy component on the front corner mostly for convenience as having the batt in the boot/trunk takes up free space. Unfortunately, while most C segment cars of the same period use a NS60 sized batt, Nissan decided on a bigger and heavier NS70. So much for mass centralization and better weight distribution for better handling. Family oriented sedan mah! Picture below of a smaller Pana batt in my wife's Civic. Older gen Civics have the batt next to the firewall which is even better.

Weight below of the Pana Std Spec maintenance free battery. You didn't see wrong. That's 17 kilos (not pounds) of flab in a place where you would least want it to be :(

I recently decided to replace the Std Spec Pana I was using with a High Spec model. The whole batt is black in colour to differentiate it from the standard spec. Panasonic uses Silver Alloy technology to strengthen the battery against high temperature which is a plus as Sharkie's engine bay is way hotter than any regular N16. The reserve capacity of the High Spec is also longer @ 75Ah vs 65 Ah for the Standard Spec. Having said this the Standard Spec Pana lasted me a good two years or so and had not yet failed when I replaced it. Picture below of the High Spec in its packaging.

I did weight the High Spec but was totally demotivated to take a pix at this point as it weighs 1kg more than the Standard Spec (~18kg). Super Sigh!!! :( Cost is also more than the Std Spec @ MYR 350 for the High Spec vs 260 for the Std Spec. Picture below of the High Spec installed.

My long term upgrade plan is to relocated the batt to the boot and/or try a dry cell Lithium Ion Phosphate battery. The only problems are finding a suitable CE to undertake this (relocation) work and the massive cost of a lithium ion batt. RM3 to 6K+ anyone?

Whiteline Rear Anti-Roll Bar Discontinued

Whiteline has discontinued it's rear anti-roll (sway) bar, part number: BNR28 for the N16/B15/G10. The reason behind the discontinuation is a lack of demand :(

For Slowtra owners looking to upgrade your rear arb, your choices are from what I know, limited to Ultra Racing, Eibach and Progress Auto. Apart from Ultra Racing, non are available locally and both the Progress and Eibach ARBs require drilling your rear beam trailing arm. All rear arbs/sway bars are interchangeable between a N16, B15 and G10.

Progress Auto hails from the USA and uses a 22mm bar (Part number: 62.1511) similar to the Whiteline arb. The Eibach rear arb is only 19mm (Part number: 6362.312) but also has a front 25mm arb specification for the USDM Sentra B15. Part number for the rear arb is 6362.310. You can also buy both the front and rear as a complete kit (Part number: 6362.3200). Ultra Racing are from our very own Bolehland and has 2 rear arb specs for the Slowtra N16 - One is 16mm (Part Number: UR-AR16-039) and a bigger 19mm (Part Number: UR-AR19-043). They also have a front 22mm arb application (Part Number UR-AR22-343).

I could be wrong but I believe Ultra Racing still uses rubber bushes for its Sentra arbs while Eibach and Progress Auto uses polyurethane bushes. Long term reliability of the UR arb is also possibly a suspect but the upside is the UR arb cost significantly less than what you would pay for a Whiteline (when available), Eibach or Progress Auto. Your call..

New Gearbox Upgrade Project Part 2 - Disassembled

Tiong has fully disassembled my RS5F70A gearbox to it's individual components. Before showing you the actual porn pictures, here's a diagram from a USDM B15 Sentra's Technical Service Manual illustrating the 70A gear components. Please don't ask me if this is an auto or manual gearbox.

The shift control components.

The gear ratios on every 70A gearbox are not all the same and differ according to the market and engine the gearbox is mated to. A USDM RS5F70A gearbox mated to a SR20DE engine on a Sentra B15 has the following gear ratios per the technical service manual.

• 1st - 3.3333
• 2nd - 1.955
• 3rd - 1.286
• 4th - 0.926
• 5th - 0.7333
• Final drive - 4.176

A USDM 70A gearbox mated to a QG18DE has nearly the same gear ratios except 5th gear which is shorter (lower speed) @ 0.756. Apparently from what I read in the SR20-Forum, the pinion shaft from a QG18DE 70A will not mate correctly with the final drive from a SR20DE 70A gearbox. The gearbox I bought probably came from a JDM Nissan Primera P11 which has the following gear ratios when fitted with the QG18DE:

• 1st - 3.333
• 2nd - 1.955
• 3rd - 1.286
• 4th - 0.926
• 5th - 0.7333
• Final drive - 3.888

Disassembling the gearbox and counting the number of teeth of the final drive crown wheel/ ring gear showed that the crown wheel/ring gear had 70 teeth. All pictures courtesy of Bro Jacko. 

Pinion came up to 18 teeth.

70 divided by 18 gives you 3.888 final drive ratio. Didn't have a chance to count and confirm on the first to fifth gear ratios but I am hoping the above is correct. Will confirm when I have the chance to physically see the gearbox. Imagine getting to this point without even seeing the real thing :( 

Picture below of the input shaft, mainshaft and shifter rods with all the individual gears before further dis-assembly.

Another piccie of the mainshaft. Final drive ring gear is at the bottom right hand corner. 

Gears, synchros, etc are in excellent, like new condition. 5th gear and reverse actually shares a synchro. This is the first I've seen of a helical cut reverse gear with synchro. Most reverse I know are straight cut hence the gear whine when you reverse your car. Each and every individual part sealed and carefully labelled.

Nicely packed up. All packing and heavy lifting BST expended by Jack. Thanks Bro!

The biggest roadblock at this point is the shipping cost. As the package weights bout 40kg, the shipping cost one way to the US is via air freight is anything between 1K+ to 2K+ Gulp! Does anyone know or have contacts for a more economical shipping solution?

Dietary Supplements - Organization

Over the years I've accumulated quite a bit of spare lightweight fasteners as a result of a habit of always buying extras just in case. Till recently these (the spares) were all still in original packaging in a plastic bag. Which is a pain every time I want to find a particular bolt, etc. as I had to empty out the entire plastic bag unless I got lucky and find what I want on top of the pile.

As the plastic bag was getting more and more full over time I decided to get organized. Found this general purpose organization plastic box with convertible compartments over @ Ace Hardware and bought one. Cost was MYR 44.90. Below's the end result.

If you're wondering what's that funky yellow coloured thingy in the picture above, it's a very handy tool from Pro-Bolt to measure size of fastener including thread pitch. Tool comes foc with purchases over 20 or 30 GBP once upon a time. I'm not sure if the offer is still valid currently.

Pro-Bolt also sell similar organization boxes but cost will be higher when you add shipping. I might be tempted to go the Pro-Bolt route one day..

Nissan Bluebird Sylphy A-Pillar Garnish/Cover Confusion

6 different part numbers just for an A-pillar garnish (one side only)? What were Nissan thinking about? Picture below of the different part numbers.

In case you're wondering which part I am talking about it's the below in red rectangle top right hand corner.

Some keyboard surfing/research led me to the following. I am not sure how accurate as the information is from purely Googling.

Some of you might remember from my ICE days I had my stock pillar cover cut-up and rewrapped to accomodate the tweeter for my Focal K2P speakers. I am planning to totally de-ICE Sharkie hence looking for replacement a-pillar covers and some JDM ones would be nice. Problem is which part number is the closest to our MYDM Slowtra? Does anybody know? Am not partial to QG or TG10 covers with or without the tweeter cover so long as trim colour and shade is closest to Sharkie's stock pillar covers. Does anyone out there also know what is the trim colour for a MYDM N16 pillar cover/garnish?

J's Racing GT Wing Cover

J's Racing normally makes speed parts only for Hondas but in this case their GT Wing Cover would make a useful addition to protect the GTC-200 from the weather elements (UV from the sun, dust and of course rain). The cover is made from polyester with 3 layers of coating on the surface for waterproofing. A fleece like material is attached on the inner side of the cover to balance the durability and air permeability. The cover fits most wings up to 1600mm wide so is perfect for the GTC-200.

I  bought my cover from RHD Japan. Cost including shipping came up to 10,143 Japanese Yen. Picture below of the cover in its packaging. Part number is DGW-C2.

The inner side. The black plastic thingy helps secure the cover.

The J's Racing GT Wing Cover where it belongs covering the APR GTC-200 to protect it from the weather elements.

Functional Bling - APR GTC-200 Adjustable Wing Installed

Decided I was going to install the APR wing at the paint shop itself rather than drive home first then install just in case there were install issues which proved a sound decision (more on this below). Picture below of the monster @ the paint shop awaiting it's wing job.

Sharkie was gleaming so much I just had to take a second photo shot.

The painter (Ah Siang, Advancetech) did an excellent job. He even gave all of Sharkie a good polish. Here's how Sharkie's uplifted butt errr boot lid looks like.

Holes drilled on the inner frame. The holes are required to clear the socket wrenches used to tighten the nuts to the wing base studs. While the quality of the external paint work is top notch this (internal paint/drill job) is just passable to me. While the timeless adage "what you don't see doesn't matter that much" applies to many people it does to me. Feedback given to Ah Siang.

My APR GTC-200 sitting on one of the handy rubber lined stands Ah Siang has for installing and prepping bodywork parts. The stand is very handy for any work to be done on the wing and minimizes any risk of scratches/contact marks from clumsy people like me.

So now all that's left is to install the wing, badges/emblems and number plates. The badges are a no brainer. The wing install is where the problem starts. If you observe then measure the N16 FL1 and 2's boot lid really carefully you will notice that it is slightly curved in two orientations towards the rear and outer side edges. Because I specified for the wing base plates to be as close to the rear edge of the boot lid  to maximize aero effect and for the mounts wider apart (38" vs 29.5" for a std universal GTC-200) for personal aesthetic preference, the two rear pedestal bases on each side would not sit flush with the boot lid on the rear and outer edges. Using the carbon plates I had cut as the base actually worsen the effect as cf is stiff and not flexible/pliable. Big big bummer!!!!

After taking most of the morning and installing and removing the wing a couple times, me and Tao held up our hands and asked for help from Ah Siang. It took just a couple hits from the mallet of Ah Siang's panel beater for the pedestal bases to sit perfectly flush. The advice was to use the cf plates I had cut used as reinforcement on the bottom surface of the boot lid to help provide additional support by spreading the load on the boot lid. Next time, don't be a smart alec and ask the pros first.

Proceeded with the installation and all the pedestal mount bases sit flush with the boot lid now.

Close up on the carbon weave. Build quality is as good as it gets!

I set the wing @ 0 Angle of Attack (AOA) using the latest EAM (Eyeballing Aided Measurement) method. Need to get APR's wing angle indicator tool for a precise set up. Even @ 0 AOA the GTC-200 from APR's CFD data is expected to generate 78.5 lbs (35.7 kg) of downforce at the expense of only 8.4 lbs (3.8kg) of drag @ 80 mph (128 km/h). This rises to 123.4 lbs of downforce (56.1 kg) and 12.5 lbs (5.7kg) of drag @ 100 mp/h or 160 km/h. This is akin to having a slim adult woman sit on your boot at 160 km/h with much less drag of course so the effect is more than just aesthetics. Anyway here's how the wing looks like installed.

Aesthetically IMHO, the GTC-200 can look Beng or fierce depending on personal preference and which angle you look at it. Also, from the pictures the GTC-200 might actually look wider than the car but it isn't. Total span including side plates came up to 1550mm/155cm or 61.0236". Diagram below depicts the N16's dimensions including total width which is 169.5cm.

I might try the optional Gurney Flap for additional downforce later as per picture below. Picture courtesy of EAS. Might also try different shape sideplates if and when budget allows.

APR also sell a riser that will raise the installed height on the GTC-200 an additional 2.5" (63.5mm) as per picture above if the standard height is insufficient. I doubt I will be trying that unless Sharkie becomes a pro TA/track car like Mike Kojima's Dog 3. Pictures from the man himself below.

I will definitely need a proper front splitter and a rear diffuser to balance out the aero. The development never stops.