richracing

Ive been working on the transmission crossmember for a couple days and finally finished it today. I used a flux core welder , but hopefully will be able to afford a TIG welder after income taxes... I know the welds dont look the best, but its flux core so pretty much impossible to make them look awesome. The welds do have good penetration so im not worried about them failing.

a friend of mine is going to be swapping my old L28 into his '65 falcon, that should be pretty interesting.

Who needs brakes anyway lol

Haha, I know. Will be mounting it up this weekend

thanks for the suggestion, any specific year or model bmw? there are a few bmw's at the local junk yard. there's a 5 series and a couple 3 series, all in the 1990's era.

yea im putting the 4.6l in a 280zx, check out my thread in the ford v8 section (project 460zx). i dont know the differences in the v8 vs. v6 measurements, but ive found out that driver side motor mount wont work because the steering shaft is in the way. you can keep the pass. side though. you will have to get creative on how it bolts to the chassis however. try to get the motor to sit as far back as possible for better weight distribution and better clearance from the steering shaft. I hope your 3.8 is an easier fit than my 4.6l is lol.

A friend of mine has a fox body with a beast of a 4 cylinder, custom turbo kit and using a turbo off some diesel truck. Anyways, back on topic. My 4.6L fits in the trans tunnel so im sure you wont have to cut yours out, especially since it will sitting a little forward of the firewall. Motor mounts will be tricky but anything is possible. good luck with it.

thanks, the exhaust manifolds were off, im pretty sure they wont clear anyway. im gonna have some custom ones made, i just need to save up for a tig welder. the steering shaft is just barely out of the way in the zx. however, it is in the way of the factory vic motor mounts so im going to have to make some custom ones. the engine strap was kinda trick, but i just basically looped it around the engine two time, one loop on the back of the engine and one towards the front to keep it balanced. i wish i could have bolted a chain to the top somewhere but i couldnt find a good spot for that.

Wow, thanks a lot braap for schooling me on brake boosters. Sad to admit, but I honestly didn't understand completely how they functioned. I will definately weigh my options before putting it on the road. If I use the booster I have now, worst case is that it will feel like manual brakes, right? I'm going to look into the hydrobooster idea, but for right now my main concern is getting the motor mounted this weekend. Thanks again for the info

lol, yea the diaphram is still there, just trimmed it back a bit lol. it should still hold vacuum as long as its sealed. right? anyways, if it doesnt work, ill just try something different. like i said, im not at all scared to cut my car haha.

modified booster...

Daniel, your ZX looks amazing! Makes me want to paint mine white lol, I like my charcoal paint too much to repaint it though.

hmmm, ill have to check that out.

yea, i dont see why it wouldnt work with the modification ive made. the vic booster looks slightly smaller in diameter, but it sticks way out there. ill just stick with my modified booster as long as the brakes work fine, which they should.

ive searched for custom brake boosters and came up with nothing. do you know if the 240sx booster will fit on Z cars? if so, ChaseBays makes a manual brake kit for the S chasis. As for a quick fix, I cut a section off of the zx booster, and welded a flat piece of steel of the same thickness in its place. Im not sure how this will, if at all, affect my brakes. we'll just have to see once i get it drivable again. Ill post pics of it when i get a chance.

im not sure, i thought the s30's and s130's were close to the same. maybe the dohc heads arent much bigger than the sohc ones? how did you get around the brake booster?

in case anyone was wondering, the orange specs all over the engine is from a rattle can explosion lol. i have no idea how it happened, good thing i wasnt around though.

First test fit... definitely fits between the strut towers, but i was not expecting to have issues with the brake booster... I can either figure a way to modify the brake booster so i can have the engine sit close to the firewall like i want, or I can leave the booster alone and have the engine sit about 4 inches from the firewall. What do you guys think? do i have any options to use a smaller brake booster or could i cut, notch, weld the factory one to make it work?

haha, yeah the wife was at the right place and time for that pic. I love it!

I got a little bit of work done over the weekend but not as much as i wanted to since i was helping a friend put new bushings in his s14. anyways, on with the pictures... im using the vic crossmember as a template to make my own later. just measure frame rail to frame rail on the s130, matched that measurement to the vic subframe and cut the top half off. again, this is just a template. ill be making my own later. about time to clean my work space and prepare to pull in the s130 pulled the L28 out and removed all wiring and misc. stuff in the bay next on the agenda is to patch the rust around the battery tray I just wanted to let everyone know that this is purely a "back yard" build. im using a 30 gallon air compressor with randaom air tools, power tools, and a 110 fluxcore welder. and im working on a limited budget, however, a couple things will have to be out sourced such as custom drive shaft and having the custom headers tig welded. also, i picked up the 280zx for $900 so im not afraid to cut it

got some parts from summit, oil relocation kit and trans cooler...

I got a 4.6L engine and auto trans out of a 2000 Crown Vic PI from a friend for pretty much free, so I couldnt pass up the opportunity to be one of very few to put the ford mod v8 into a ZX. Ive searched and searched, and searched some more and couldnt find any complete documented builds including this engine, so i plan to take plenty of pictures and "how to's" during this process. success or fail, ill document it to the end, and hopefully someone can gain knowledge from my trial and error. anyway, here it goes... last pic of the zx with the L28e in it little man helping me pull the driveshaft out 2000 crown vic with front end pulled off and wires disconected, pretty easy stuff until you get to the motor mounts which i found easiest to remove bolts from underneath. i had to take the lower control arms off to get to the bolts. finally got the 4.6 out

I actually have a SOHC crown vic P.I. engine and auto transmission. I actually want to keep the auto trans because ill be boosting later on and drag racing it. luckily, i have the whole car so i can pull all of the electronics and anything else i need. however, im trying to keep the wiring, vacuum, emissions, etc. to a minimum. a haynes or chiltons would help alot with understanding what i need and what not, also im sure some wires will have to be spliced into the ZX chassis harness... so yeeeaaa. lots of fun ahead. as for the mounting of it, the width from strut tower to strut tower is 3" more than the width of the engine. itll be tight, but it will fit. i plan to use 2"x4", 1/4" rectangle steel tubing to make a subframe/ motor mounts, but i wont know for sure until i actually place the engine and trans into place. What do you plan to use for driveshaft, diff, shafts?

yea, i was unaware that the vics had the sohc till i took a second look at it. i also found out that its a PI car. ive already got my l28 out and starting to pull the 4.6 out. looks like a wiring nightmare. ive got to get a couple haynes manuals and figure out what all can be deleted. ill start a build thread as soon as i make a little more progress.

im glad i found this thread, i just got a hell of a deal on a 4.6l dohc crown vic engine and trans and im thinking about putting it into my '82 ZX. Looks like it will be a tight fit though. keep us updated on the build