Ziel Motorsports 1992 Nissan 240SX - Drift Car

The very wicked S15 parked on the cover in our May 2003 issue is the big gun JIC Magic Suspension Project pulls out for D1 duty in Japan. For the company's assault on the American drift scene, Ziel Motorsports, which is the U.S. importer of JIC Magic, has put together this incredible U.S.-market S13. Piloted by American Brian Norris, so far this year the car has placed as high as second in drift competition and most importantly, qualified to do battle with the pros in the first-ever U.S. D1 Grand Prix, which is covered on page 80.

Ziel has experience prepping cars as diverse as wild street Skylines and Supras to Porsche 911s for the 24 Hours of Daytona, so relatively little time was needed to turn a sleepy 1992 240SX into a serious contender.

The duty of any self-respecting 240SX owner, the potentially potent but portly KA24 was ditched for an SR20DET from a Japanese Silvia of the same vintage. Ziel stripped the DET down to the block and added Eagle forged steel connecting rods fitted with Ross forged 8.5:1 compression pistons made to Ziel Motorsports' specs.

Despite being pretty good stock, the DET's head was ported and polished in-house. Healthy consideration was given to reshaping the quench portion of the combustion chamber. Once massaged, the head was packed with a complement of Tomei goods, including 256-degree intake and exhaust Spec-A cams, valve springs and a rocker arm stopper kit, which can save an engine in the 7000-plus rev range a drift car sees regularly.

Big power, of course, comes from imposing super-atmospheric amounts of air on the combustion chamber. Ziel Motorsports regularly forces 1.4 bar, or about 20 psi, through the SR20DET. Big horsepower from sane boost levels is accomplished with a honkin' turbo and trick gear. Ziel manufactured its own 3-inch intake system that draws sacrificial air through a Blitz stainless-steel air filter. Ziel chose a big front-mount intercooler of its manufacture to feed pressurized air through a stock intake manifold.

The exhaust energy to compress that air slips through a JIC tubular stainless exhaust manifold before spinning the exhaust wheel of a T04E turbo. Ziel uses a .56 A/R exhaust housing to encourage a more quickly spooling turbo with better response, as successful throttle modulation is critical to successful car control. A divorced Tial 42mm wastegate with a heavy spring keeps ultimate boost in check, and a Tial blow-off valve reduces potentially harmful compressor surge. Still expanding, exhaust gas pours through a 3-inch stainless Ziel-fabbed downpipe into a 3-inch stainless exhaust, before spouting obscenities through a JIC titanium canister.

A whole lot of hydrocarbons need to be burned to make all that boost into go-power, and Ziel over-invested to ensure enough fuel arrives. Three Bosch racing fuel pumps move high-octane drink through a Bosch stainless racing filter. DTA engine management, which Ziel uses exclusively, commands the Nismo 740cc injectors with sequential fuel and spark control.

Apart from hard vertical surfaces and overzealous drivers, the main enemy of turbocharged drift machines is heat. Drift cars can build an amazing amount of heat soak in short periods as they stay under load, hovering near the rev limiter or bouncing off it, for minutes at a time.

Ziel manages engine temperature with a Koyo aluminum racing radiator and Ziel oil cooler. Both good products, no doubt, but even they couldn't prevent the engine from scoring the cylinder walls and breaking a couple of rings, as we ripped off a scorching 4.4-second, zero-to-60-mph run and awesome 12.2-second quarter mile at 119 mph. It could have been the hot, manure-saturated air at our Fontana, Calif. test facility, or the tester just forgetting to look at the temperature gauges, but whatever the reason, Ziel quickly built another DET to the same specs, which consequently made 377 hp and 342 lb-ft of torque on our dyno.

To fling your ride towards a wall at 90 miles per hour with full confidence takes the predictability of a good suspension setup. The bulk of Ziel's business is selling the JIC Magic suspension line, so the product war chest was thrown at the S13. Fifteen-way adjustable FLT-A2 coil-overs have had helper springs (an optional catalog item) added to help keep the unweighted tires as close to the ground as possible at all times. Ziel chose 12 kg/mm, or 1040 lb/in., springs in the front and 10kg/mm, or 870 lb/in., springs in the rear. Suspension Techniques anti-roll bars, 27mm in the front and 22mm in the rear, help keep the car settled during transitions, as the car's heft moves laterally from one pair of tires to the other.

All manner of alignment adjustability and crispness is achieved via conversion to spherical bearings mounted in a host of rods and arms. In the front, pillow-ball tension rods allow caster and toe adjustment. A tubular adjustable upper link allows for camber adjustment along with larger wheels and tires, while fat tie rods replace less-robust stock units. Ziel deemed the stock S13 front control arms not up to drifting duty, and reinforced the stock units by welding in pieces of triangulated steel. In the rear, a tubular, adjustable rear upper arm allows camber adjustment, rear toe control arms allows adjustment of that value, and traction rods with spherical bearings remove any vagueness associated with rubber bushings.

Embarrassed by the fact that the 240SX shares its bolt pattern with a Festiva, Ziel Motorsports swapped out the four-lug hubs for five-lug units from the Z32 Nissan 300ZX. This enabled the use of a big brake kit from StopTech. StopTech four-pot calipers with differential bore 34mm and 36mm pistons squeeze huge 13-inch, two-piece rotors. Stock Z brakes are used in the rear.

Eliminating any loss of engine response due to movement, Ziel welded steel plates over the rubber in the stock mounts, making them effectively solid. This is helpful with 377 hp. Every pony connects to the stock five-speed transmission via a not horribly streetable Exedy three-puck clutch bolted to an Exedy forged chrome-moly steel flywheel.

One-wheel wonders are no fun in drifting, so a KAAZ two-way clutch-type limited slip was installed to keep both massive 285/40-17 Yokohama AVS rear tires boiling. This huge rubber is mounted on 17x10-inch Volk Racing GT-N two-piece wheels. In the front, considerably smaller 225/40-17 Yokohama AVSs ride on wide 17x9-inch versions.

And no professional drift car is complete without the bling, provided here by a JIC fiberglass body kit and one-off Ziel Motorsports carbon-fiber wing. In an effort to keep weight down, JIC Japan sourced a fiberglass hatch of unknown origin. The interior is painted gleaming white to match the exterior, and is all business. Ziel Motorsports fabricated an eight-point cage to maximize chassis rigidity and driver safety. JIC's own Cross fiberglass bucket seat provides the niche for driver Norris to be cinched into with a five-point Sabelt harness. To supplement the stock instrument cluster, Omori boost, EGT and water and oil temperature gauges were installed.

Ziel Motorsports has proven that its S13 has the chutzpah and composure to keep it making clouds from here to Cairo. And with the exception of a couple of pieces, its S13 is a car realistically repeatable by an enthusiast, not a big-money one-off wonder. Driver talent, mechanical integrity and fortune are all that's left to make this impressive drift car into a drifting champion.