Since I'm about halfway through the project, now is as good a time as any to start the build thread.

December 2011, I found myself with a nearly empty garage, a slight surplus of cash, and a low-mile, nicely ported S5 engine. Visions of a 13B swapped 240Z danced in my head, but in the end, I decided I wanted something that could potentially be finished before the winter let up and I was forced to landscaping and other chores involved with a house. My FC was nice, but honestly the FC crowd is a little...special, and I wanted something different. An FB it was. I began trolling for one, prioritizing GSL-SEs and SA22s. I found a nice GSL-SE first.

Oh look, here it is:


Cheap, solid, it came filled with spares, a good engine (for sale), and a bad engine (collecting dust in my garage).

Now the other player:

Aggressive streetport, maybe 10k on the rebuild, it has been sitting for two years, waiting for me to have a garage.

Like every new love, things moved quickly in the beginning...

The engine was stripped:



All the casting marks were removed from the manifolds:



And they were painted (Dupicolor engine paint, which I can no longer recommend as it didn't even survive installation without flaking off):


The extra injector ports were blocked off, as were unneeded vacuum ports:



The throttle body was cleaned:


And modified:


The front cover was removed (don't forget about that bearing!):


And cleaned:

(I'm going to guess oil starvation played a part in the old engine's death).

 

The -SE front cover and oil pan was mounted to the S5 block, and the S5 waterpump was installed:


The S5 waterpump doesn't fit at first. No biggie, Mr. Dremel sorted things out...


The GSL-SE solenoids were mounted, and the intake manifold installed to test fit everything, good thing too:

No that simply will not do...


Ah yes, that works better.
The transmission was mounted to the engine, injectors were cleaned (728cc, baby!), pulleys and engine mount were painted, pulsation damper removed (it interfered with the manifold, I wasn't a huge fan of removing it but it was quick and cheap... and for fun I mounted up the beautiful headers (Defined Autoworks, good stuff):



Oh hey look, it fits. Who'da thought?

Vacuum lines were assembled, fuel lines run (you can't use the hardlines from the -SE or the S5) and protected.


Sensors were swapped out:

(The -SE one is the bullet-connector)

(The -SE one is longer) Still fits though:


Manifolds were installed, intake elbow and piping cleaned and painted (more on this at a later date):



And that is as far as I got until the beautiful weather started and I was forced to do things like lay down mulch, mow the yard, and plant things.

 

Wow. Very professional job on the swap man, i applaud you sir. What made you choose the S5 motor instead of the S4? She looks good, I look forward to seeing the finished project. Sooner or later im going to have to replace the engine in my GSL-SE and i might do something of the sort like this.

 

So by swapping all the GSL-SE connections over to the s5 engine you were able to reuse the stock engine harness and ecu? Will that end up functioning the same? ...Feels like a stupid question since they're both 13b's but are still produced 5 years apart.

 

Wow! What a clean swap! Can't wait to see updates!

 

wooowwwww Yes are there any updates on this would love to see

 

My FC was nice, but honestly the FC crowd is a little...special

 

S5 gets a better intake, lighter, higher compression rotors, and, most importantly, I had one laying around.

That's the plan. I'll temporarily lose 6-port and VDI function, but I'm scheming up some plans for that

Project has been moved to the back burner because thanks to our short winter I didn't get as many months of work in as I thought. Now that it's spring, the house has needed post-winter upkeep, and my other toy has needed some TLC (and the bigger limiting factor: my money) to get it out of hibernation.


I'm sure you can see why with it being 65* and sunny, that has priority.

 

looks like a sweet project! any progress is better than none. hope you can keep plugging away at it!

 

very nice swap.enjoy

 

The transmission was mounted to the engine, injectors were cleaned (728cc, baby!), pulleys and engine mount were painted, pulsation damper removed (it interfered with the manifold, I wasn't a huge fan of removing it but it was quick and cheap... and for fun I mounted up the beautiful headers (Defined Autoworks, good stuff):



nice to see the headers going to good use. thanks again.

 

any updates on the SE??

 

those headers.....I need them haha. look forward to seeing how this turns out!

 

nice !!! i recently score a s5 engine im thinking of doing the swap too.

 

soooo.. i has a question... why is it that you have an s5 upper and lower intake plenum, but at the start of the intake tube, you have an s4 AFM instead of the s5 MAF? I thought the s5 MAF would be a better choice since you have an aggressive porting..

very curious to know. thanks!!

 

Because he's re-using the GSL-SE's ECU, the stock (GSL-SE) AFM is being used. If he were to switch over to the S5 ECU, which can handle a signal from the MAF, then he could switch that out.

Agreed that is probably the most restrictive thing on that setup.

NICE Defined Headers! I only wish he wasnt 2,200 miles away so i could have him make some for mine... *sigh*

What color of Duplicolor did you use on that intake? Looks almost like bronze - which is what I was thinking of using for many engine parts

 

Hey man - was wondering if you could post some more pics detailing the engine setup.

For instance:

6port actuation - do you have this hooked up yet? You can use the GSL-SE LIM and use the old school exhaust backpressure method to get those working at least.

VDI - Do you just have the valve wired open/closed? Have you played around with both to see what responds the best for your driving conditions?

Ignition - Are you using the factory vacuum advance with check valve system?

In fact - how much of the factory systems are you using and what did you take out for this? Looks very clean, you've at least re-routed a lot of that stuff.

I've been scheming on a 10psi regulated CO2 system, actuating 2x check valves via 2x rpm switches. Benefit to this system is you can dial in the actuation points for 6port and VDI systems independently. Will be great on a dyno for tuning full power band