Day 20, 21 and a Junkyard Sweep

Ok, so I havent been keeping up with my blog so I figured I should update it.
Sorry I havent been on top of things but it has been slow progress because I dont have any time to get anything done.

 I feel like Im in a rutt with the car. I dread having to do body work everytime I see the frame so I have been doing everything else that needs to be done instead. The engine was priority number 1. It was starting to get surface rust so I decided to put her back together. It took about two days of slow work but it is together more or less. I just need to bolt the intake and exhaust manifold on and finish the brackets for the fuel rail. I will just run it and break it in using the stock distributor setup and switch to wasted spark later.

In the mean time I can make a suitable bracket for the EDIS coil and some kind of blank off cap for the turbo dizzy. Just so nobody is confused, Im not running the EDIS setup, just using the coil. I was going to run it until DiyAutoTune.com came out with the dual trigger wheel for the turbo dizzy!

Enough rambling, time for the update.

I got the engine put back together after trial fitting everything and installing the ARP main cap, rod, and head studs. It looks good. I also mocked up the turbo so I could weld the drain line fitting to the oil pan. I didnt put it in any special area, just a good high spot that worked good for the type of fittings I am using.

After the oil drain line was finished, I mocked up the fuel rail with my injectors and RRFPR on the intake manifold to make some brackets to hold her down. I found a suitable piece of stainless steel. It took some time but I have the rough shape and I will finish it tomorrow at work as well as drill the holes in the brackets.

After I finished up all the above things, I fitted the oil sending unit hole with a three way adapter to run the oil supply line and install the oil pressure sending unit. I will probably take the sending unit off for the startup and install a mechanical line just to be on the safe side and properly monitor the pressure but after that I will reinstall the electric unit and gauge. I havent even decided what to do about gauges. Probably just a pillar pod with oil and boost pressure and run the laptop for the other gauges. I might do shadowlogger too with a nook or something. It hasnt had enough development for me to decide yet. I finished up the last day by painting everything. The exhaust and intake manifold got the high temp flat black as well as the timing chain cover. Everything else got crinkle black. It turned out well. I need to touch up the block though.

I finished up my week by installing the PWM IAC mod on my ms2 ecu and going to the junkyard for a scouting expedition. My list included a dodge caravan coil which there were so many there I didnt even buy one. I figured I had the EDIS coil and if I decided I wanted one later, I know where I could get one easily. I was actually looking for LS2 coils but I didnt think I would find them so I searched half heartedly. Then I went to look for a Z31/32  transmission in anticipation for the future tranny upgrade. I already put a deposit on 240hokes trans adapter (same type as big phil uses, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4NyTIHjr-Q ).
I was about done playing around when I came across a kickass dash that I could definitely fix back up. It was so good that even if I messed up the repairs I could throw a cap on it and pass it off as new! On top of that someone was nice enough to remove almost all of the brackets holding it in! It was destiny. I will pick up some repair goodies and go to town tomorrow. I already cut the tapers in the cracks to make the repairs flush.

Thats all the updates I have until Wednesday.

Day 19

For some reason I got the hot idea to digg all the rest of the rust areas out into sunlit exposure. BAD IDEA!!! It wasnt too bad but I did find a really bad spot on the drivers side by the rear fenderwell area. That whole area is swiss cheese and it looks like some minor wreck damage was covered up too. Im gonna try to repair it and make a patch panel with my new sheetmetal skills but I might just end up bailing out and buying a ready made one from MSA. I already bitched out an bought a dogleg for the passenger side after I found more damage over there. Gotta do what makes the car look good and go fast!

 Heres the worst of it.

 The passenger dogleg area that I bought a panel for.

Another shot of the drivers side rear end area.

Day 18

Today I learned how to make a proper patch panel. The guy in the booth next to me building a GTO showed me. Not too much happened besides that. It feels like a significant breakthrough on the build though. I wish he would have showed me before I did the front of the car but oh well. the ulgy parts will be under the fender anyways and I can just grind down the welds pretty easily on the few visible patches up front.

My first patch panel!

 Here it is all fitted up on the passenger side dogleg area. (bottom rear door area)

 Heres the drivers side.

Upgrades after hours

While Im not working on the car at the hobby shop when it is closed, I try to do things that I can to help speed up the completion of the project. For my fuel rail I was torn on what to do for injectors. The barbed 185cc stock injectors bareley cut it for the N/A build. Lucky for me when I helped my buddy install the kenny belle blower on his 6.1 hemi, he let me have his old injectors. They are rated at 34.5 lbs/hour at 59 PSI. The standard 14mm domestic injector. unfortunately for me they wont fit in the intake without modifying it. I didnt know if I should modify the intake or use the barbed mercedes injectors. In the end I bought the RMR 14mm fuel injector drill bit and modified the intake and the pallnet fuel rail I also had. Being the dummy I am, I got excited and Drilled the holes out. I wasnt paying attention and drilled out the spot that Peter left for fitting the stock cold start injector to the rail. I ended up having 7 spots on the rail for injectors! I fixed it by tapping it out for 3/8'' 18 npt and using a plug and some jb weld. Im still very anxious to see if my newly modded fuel system will leak or not. I also got my trigger wheel from the diy guys. Again I wasnt thinking ahead and ordered it without getting the bip373 transistors needed to run wasted spark on my project. I think after I get settled into my build
Ill got ms3 w/ms3x card to do sequential spark/fuel.

Heres the newly developed trigger wheel for the L28ET engine and VG30 single cam engine. Its amazing that there is still development going on with such old engines. Crazy!

Heres another closer shot.

My mistake fixed. I dont know why but I was alittle worried on how to fix it. Luckily I work in the same area as the machine shop.

My boost referencing FPR

Heres the fuel rail setup I plan on running. Dash 6 baby!

Showin the baby the datsun life. JCCA 2011.

Day 17

I finally got my rotisserie back from the guy I lent it to. A pain in the neck but oh well. The biggest thing I am happy about is that I broke down and bought some gas and a bottle for my welder. Too bad they dont make .023'' diameter fluxcore wire or I would have used that. All I can say is that it is ALOT easier to weld the sheet metal now that I have smaller wire and shielding gas. My welds still look like ass but it is easier to control burn through. I was only able to lay down 3 patches before I got busted for welding outside of the welding booth. Now the new guy that told on me gets to help me push it in and out every day till I'm done!

Battery tray from the engine bay side. I plan to smooth it out with either JB weld or some type of caulking. I couldnt weld the patch all the way across on the firewall side because it is too thin there. In retrospect I probably should have cut that area out on the firewall because it is so thin from rust but oh well. I dont feel like it now.

View from the fender well side after a quick prime.

 Two more spot right under the battery tray area under the wheel well that were very bad.

Passenger side right in front of the rocker panel area. I tried to shape it the best I could but its not the shape that it was from the factory. The front fender will cover it though.

Day 16

I lent out my rotisserie to the guy in the stall next to me cuz he says he needs it to paint his frame for his 69 gto. I say ok but im gonnna need it back by the end of the week. Hw says yeah man no problem. That was almost 3 effing weeks ago. Im kind of pissed that he dirty dicked me like that because all I need to do is sand blast the bottom of the frame and I can bolt the suspension back on it (which I have been dying to do btw). Never again will I lend a tool that is crucial to my build progress.

So now I figure I can at least finish up the only major thing left that I havent completed yet, the motor. So I install the bearings, all the clearances are good except crank end play. I take the caps off and sand the thrust bearing multiple times and finnaly get it good. Then I start to measure ring gap only to find out that they are effing huge. I measured them at .023''. The box they came in says .010" a far cry from what I actually measured. The service manual was closer at .017 but that leaves me with .006'' too big. I call the guy who bored and honed the block and gave me the rings and he says to bring it down. Now I have to load the block in my car with a cherry Picker and drive it up to clairmont only for him to tell me its the best he can do for rings and I can have a refund. He didnt even look at the block. He could have told me that on the phone. what ever. He says they will be ok so we will see.

I plan to try and get the rings installed and the pistons in tomorrow. After that the rest of the motor will go together quite quickly as the head is already assembled.

Day 15

So today felt like a great success to me.
First I started off with some light prep work for shaving the rear bumper. There was some old hangars and such and I never removed the tail lights so I removed the lights and grinded off the hangars and made everything flush. I will need to fill in all the tiny holes from the spot welds I removed and make patches for some of the bigger holes like the bumper shock holes and a weird oval shaped hole that I dont know what was for. Ill fill in the rest with bondo and make it smooth.

Then I removed all of the outer bushing casings from the rear and front control arms. It was one of the few things I was dreading to do. I attemped to do one a few days ago and it didnt go too well. Thats why when I started today following some very useful tips on removing them on hybridz I was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were to remove. What I did was use a sawzall to cut two identical grooves all the way down the length of the casings about a screwdrivers tip width and used a screwdriver to remove the piece from between the cuts. What that did was unspring the casing and I was able to remove it with relative ease. I now have a newfound respectwhen I see a person who puts poly bushing upgrade on their mods list. This is a very tedious task if done right.

After finishing the bushings I finished installing the OBX lsd in the carrier. Im very happy about it. Shimmed and lashed correctly and breakaway torque seems close enough with my elbo torque wrenches.

When I was about to leave a guy towed in a white 240z with a trashed front fender and deep offset wheels. So I start talking to the guy and hes says that he threw a rod on his l24 and says hes going to do an LS1 swap. Cool. Then he says that hes gutting the interior. BTW its cherry inside. I ask what hes going to do with it and he says hes gonna get rid of it. I told him Ill buy what I need off of him. SWEET!