One Week and Counting — Project SHART Transforms

by Scott VanderHeide

Its been a busy week and we’ve been putting in work!  Fontana Nissan’s Master Tech, Chris Heimburg has almost completed getting the heart of this project to running condition.  It fires right up…and lives true to its name…Mini-Godzilla!!!  Next up for the motor is a few couplers, a battery tie down, and a properly fitting radiator and it should be ready to go!  A trip down to Roger’s Exhaust shop resulted in a pretty mean looking and sounding side exit straight pipe exhaust.  A car this little should not sound this big!!!  Roger also fabbed up new seat brackets for the Buddy Club P1 Race Seats.

Thanks to our newest sponsor, APR Performance, we got our hands on their GTC200 Carbon Fiber Wing and Splitter.  There wasn’t too much to the install on the rear wing…with the exception of a small mishap with the drill, resulting in a nice scratch on the top of the trunk…whoops!!!

As no Splitter is a direct bolt on, we had to put some thought into this one.  Because the front bumper sits up so high, we had to fabricate an air damn, lowering the front bumper by four inches.  This brought the splitter down to the needed level in which to be effective and below the motor and cross member.  We are still not complete with this part as we need longer support rods as well as brackets to support the rear section of the splitter.

With support from the likes of Sparco and Buddy Club, we mounted the Buddy Club P1 Race Seats, which fit my tush quite perfectly may I say!  The Sparco 6 point  harnesses bolted right up, and were able to be adjusted precisely for the driver, providing safety and comfort.

Safety is a very important aspect of racing.  We installed a Halon Fire Extinguisher to the floor in front of the shifter in the reach of both the driver and the passenger just in case of an unexpected fire.  This is one of those things we hope to never have to use!

Fitting the JDM SR20DET Motor was a challenge.  In every attempt to reduce the amount of lag, we decided to forgoe a FMIC and stick with the OEM Top Mount Intercooler.  This poses a problem because the hood won’t close over it.  We were forced to cut a big gaping hole in the hood.  Due to the structure, it would not be wise to install a scoop to this hood.  With that in mind, we were exploring ways to feed air into the intercooler.  This solution sounded good in theory, but came out…how should I put this…Ugly as all get out!  We need to spend some more time with this one…and we’ll let you know when we get it figured out!

Stay tuned as we go down to the wire to finish this build in less than a week!