Alf

March 18, 2009

Update # 21

3/18/09

Well it has officially been a year since my last update. I'm sure many of you think the car is either done or the project was abandoned, but neither are true. I'm still working on the hot rod and it's coming along nicely, but very slowly. I have a problem setting a certain goal, I constantly get side tracked and overwhelmed by the project. I have finally deceded that my goal is to make this car as close as pissible to early dry lakes racing roadsters of the late 30's and early 40's. The final product is visable and with any luck the car will be completed over the summer. This is my final semester of college so I will be finishing the car at home. I have also decided that the VG30 is just not going to work for my needs, so I have decided to use another engine and transmission. I'm on the look out for a carbureted 2.3 Ford and five speed, like what came stock in four cylinder Fox body Mustangs. I havn't had much luck yet. I decided to set a distinct goal so I could be more productive. I plan to finish the body before I leave school. This is not the most fun thing in the world, but it needs to be done. Anyway I'll let the pictures tell the story.

I fabbed up trunk lid framework from 1/2" tubing and covered it with a street sign. I used a couple of generic hinges from Tractor Supply and a handle from a swap meet.

I decided to run wire wheels since I like the look of them and they go with the project. In the front, since I'm using a Ford axle, I'm using Ford wire wheels. The rear is a Nissan Pathfinder unit and is six lug, luckily Chevy made six lug wire wheels in 1934. I had to open up the center hole slightly but they fit, these are 17" and I only spent $10 on them.

Like I said I want to finish the body so I finally broke down, I'm cheap as hell if you havn't noticed, and bought a 4'x8' sheet of sheet metal and started building the floor.

I decided to clean my shop out since it was closing in on me, plus I'll be leaving it behind in a couple months. I was able to snap a few pictures from farther back.

I got some headlights a few months ago.

The money shot. I broke down again and bought a pair of rear tires and tubes, cost me almost $500, but they look great. I sandblasted and painted the wheels. It's hard to believe I built this entire car.

Here's one with me in it.

Me at work.

That's it for now, hopefuly it won't be another year before I update this thing again.

March 16, 2008

Update #20 3/16/08

Hello everyone, it's time for another update. I decided that I was never going to get anything done if the car didn't look right first. So I decided to finish the body and change it a little bit to exactly what I wanted, I'm only building this thing once so it may as well be what I want. Pics below tell the story.

First I thought that if I'm going through all of this trouble I don't want to be uncomfortable when I drive the car. So I leaned the back back another 1.5" to give me some more room.

Then the more I looked at I noticed that the body line was off big time, it was pointing into the ground. So after considering my options I decided to cut the door, pull up the body line, and fill in the gap.

After I fixed the body line a ran 1/2 " tubing around the perimeter of the body to stiffin things up and finish it off. A few months ago I cut up one of the front fenders from my 300ZX doner car into the shape of a rear deck like what is found on a model A roadster. It took me a while to figure out how to go about making a rear deck from scratch and make it look right.

Then I decided that 1/2" tubing would work. So I set up my sliced up fender and used it as a template for my tubing.

I made two pieces for each side. I made the driver's side first off the template fender, then I copied the passenger side from the drivers side as closely as I could.

Here's the outside pieces.

And the insides.

After five hours of work I couldn't wait to see what they looked like. There's the insides.

And the outsides

Tackem them in and started adding bracing.

I got this far and then I ran out of tubing. Looks good to me.

Front view.

Then I clamped a piece of sheet metal on it to see what it will look like.

Thats it for now, I'm going to try and finish the body in the next month or so stay tuned. Thnaks for looking.

February 13, 2008

Update #19 2/12/08

Hello all,

It has been forever since I have posted an update. I guess alot has happened since last time. It looks more and more like a hot rod every day, and it keeps getting nicer than I thought it would be. I have done a little bit of everything over the last few months and redone alot also. Designs have been changed and better ones substituted. This process is taking way longer than I thought it would, but if all gos as planned this should be a real quality car. Well, on to the pictures.

Here you can see my qauges and mock up dash panel. You can also see the tape hood, I made this so I could get a measurment off the weird shape.

Front shot. The distributor sticks out above the hood line by two inches, I hate that, but its just too much work to lower the motor.

I made front shock mounts out of an old headlight bar and welded two small brackets right to the axle.

Alot is going on in this picture. Here is the finished firewall, it is now part of the body, I think it turned out good. I also removed the lower intake because my plan is to use an old Pathfiner intake with a throttle body to keep everything inder the hood line.

Here you can see my emblem I casted out of bronze in school. Its just my initials, it turned out ok, but I made another one out of aluminum that looks better.

I had to make a new pitman arm because it needed to point straight up so I had the same steering ratio from left to right. You can also see the steering column coming through the firewall.

Here is a better picture of it. I used the Comet stamped steel suround and it turned out nice.

I also had to lengthen my steering arm to correct the ratios and to clear the tire when turned to full left lock.

That's it for now, but stay tuned because I plan to do alot of wark on this in the near future. Thanks for looking.

Alf

November 26, 2007

Thanks for all of the responses. I know that NIssan did indeed make stand alone distributors for the VG30, but locating one is next to impossible. I also wondered why the ignition wouldn't work without the efi, but that's just what everyone says, and I know nothing about efi and computers so I just took it as fact. It would most likely work with the MAF sensor but that sticks out so far it looks so out of place. I also realized that the carburetor may not be any lower than the upper plenum of the efi, but it has so much less area. If I left the upper plenum on and tried to put a hood on, there would be a huge hole in it just so the intake could fit, with the carb all I will need is one small hole. I would like to get my hands on a Pathfinder intake and make an adapter for the carb and see how high it is. I have also thought about just building an intake form scratch but I would rather not.

November 16, 2007

Hey everyone, I have been thinking about the VG30 in my hot rod and the fuel injection is becoming a huge problem. The manifold is too tall, it doesn't vibe with the rest of the car, and its making my wiring a mess. So I am going to try my hardest to make the engine carbureted, simply to go with the look and style of the car. As far as the intake manifold and carburetor goes I can handle that no problem, but the distributor is another story. I have heard that the distributor will not work without the EFI, and it is impossible to find a self contained unit. I have had alot of experience with the SBC distributor so I know how one works and my plan is to retrofit another six cylinder internals so it does not require a computer to run. Has anyone ever tried this on any engine? If I can fit the necessary parts why won't this work? The firing order of the engine shouldn't matter because that is in the cap, all I need is the trigger. I could put points in it if I wanted but I don't, I was thinking more towards maybe a chevy 4.3 v6 HEI, and retrofit the module and pickup. I know its going to be much harder than that, but can you find any reason why this won't work? Thanks for reading.

Here is my project if you don't know about it http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=116127

October 18, 2007

I think that stand should work fine, as long as you don't go crazy with it. I used to start my engines, all SBCs, on the ground sitting on a set of crappy headers and a block of wood under the oil pan. It worked fine for break in or to see if a recently aquired engine was worth putting in a car, but if you hit the throttle too hard it would lift up fairly easily and flipping over could have been acheived. So after doing this for awhile and seeing no end to the need to run engines out of cars, I decided to make the propper contraption for such a deed. This is what I came up with...

mock up with busted block

The test engine

I made mine around the SBC, but it is adjustable to a certain extent. I built it so the mounts change out with one bolt, so if you wanted to put say a small block ford on it you would just need to fab up different mounts to pop in the stand. The rear mount can even be addapted. All the sliding peices have two pinch bolts to hold it steady. I added the wheels for ease of movement and because I wanted to be able to store it. I wondered if it was going to roll or move around with an engine running, but it didn't move at all. As it sits here it's not quite done, I plan on adding a radiator, and a control panel with guages. This only took me two days to design and build and it's only about $80 worth of materials. Just thought I would show you what can be done rather easilly and cheaply, it was fun too.

Here's a vid --- - - - - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEEeNS5VRbo

October 15, 2007

Update #18 10/14/07

Good day everyone,

I'm finally starting to get back into the groove of working on the rod. It's really starting to look like a real hot rod. In this issue I did some work on the fire wall and the grill and the grill mounting. There are a ton of pictures so be ready. Check bellow for pics...

I decided one night, why not try and use as much original sheet metal as possible? So I started drilling rivets untill I seperated the fire wall from the rest of the cowl.

Since my firewall is flat, and the original was not, I had to cut it up.

The original was also wider than my home made version, so more cutting was required.

After cutting out about three inches I welded it back together.

It's hard to see, but the flange edge of the firewall was rusted through, so I fabbed up this simple patch from some other original metal.

Patch done.

Here it is setting on the body, luckily the curves match which happened totally by coincidence since using this peice was never in my plan.

I tacked the partial firewall on and set the body back on the frame.

I then turned my atention to mounting the grill shell. I made four brackets that mount the shell to the radiator. Then, I used two Mercury Comet hood prop rods and made stabilizer bars.

Check it out, looks authentic. It helps give the car some shape.

Looking sharp.

Notice the radiator cap hole placement on my grill shell.

Now notice where the radiator fill hole is located on my Mustang radiator, I asume this was one of Ford's better ideas.

So it was chop chop time.

My plan was to just flip the removed peice, but because I was stupid and didn't measure correctly the hole didn't end up in the right place.

So more cutting ensued.

And then welding. This looks hella ugly.

This is after I was done welding, looks like I got some good penetration.

After some grindage. Not the most perfect job, but it's in one peice, I can open my radiator cap, and it still fits, what more can I ask for.

That's it for now. My next project is to finish the firewall so keep your eyes open for my next update. Have a good one. Thanks for checking in.

Alf

October 15, 2007

Looks good, the only thing I can see is that it may be a tad top heavy, but that shouldn't be a problem unless you really crank on it. Nice work.

October 10, 2007

Try calling some local realtors and ask if there are any local garages for rent. That's what l did last year when l came back to college. I used to have a storage space and then they said no more working on cars, so I found a real garage in town for only 20 more dollars a month and it's insulated and wired.

October 8, 2007

This is a good idea, it's nice to put faces to the names. Some of you probably already have seen pictures of me in my build thread but here's some more.

I had to get a picture with my new 27's

Me and my awesome girlfriend

Elvis lip

October 8, 2007

Update #17 10/8/07

Greetings all,

I'm back with another update, the truth is l wrote this about two weeks ago, hit submit, and poof it disapeard. Thats what you get when your school has crappy internet. So I finally finished welding the tubes on the body and I did some other stuff too, it's really starting to take shape. Pictures bellow tell the story.

I really was getting tired of seeing a chunk out of the drivers side door area, so I decided it was time to fix it. I clamped this aluminum up and ground it straight.

That looks much better.

Then I made my patch panel and clamped it in place.

This is it after many many tack welds, looks ugly as hell but it works.

Ground down and painted, looks much better.

I got real bored one day and I didn't have any cutting discs, so I turned to the lower radiator hose. I used the 300ZX pipe, which I shortened with a hacksaw, and part of the bracket. You can see the giant chain link I used to extend the bracket, use what you got.

Then I started to think how tight the shoulder area was so I decided to make a little more room. I moved the upper door bar out about an inch on each side and trimmed the door pillar.

Here you can see the before shot.

Before

After

This is what I cut out from that modification. Less and less of the original body is making it into the final product.

Then I got really bored and covered the cowl with cereal boxes to see how it would look. I'm pretty happy with it, it seems to flow.

Glamour shots

Looking good so far.

Well that's all folks. Right now I'm working on the firewall, I'm using the original just narrowed. I'll be posting more pics soon so stay tuned. Thanks for looking.

Alf

September 9, 2007

Update #16 9/8/07

Howdy,

Back again with yet another update to the saga that is the VG hot rod. Just lately I've been getting back to working on the rod regularly and it's been quite productive. Some friends and I took the ride up to KC last weekend to check out the Goodguys car show. I've never been to one and it was interesting to say the least, it gave me some motivation and most importantly ideas. Check out the progress below.

This was the most prominent idea I got from the show, a U bolt steering arm. I had been wondering how Iwas going to fab up an arm and my plan was to bend some round bar and weld some threaded studs to the end, but no matter how thick the bar was the weak ling would be the welded small diameter studs.

After I welded on some stop nuts, a plate gusset, and the tapered bung for the tie rod this is what it looked like. Should be plenty strong and it saved me some time, like they say; work smarter not harder.

I had to scower the ends of the earth to find a pair of matching 16" 6 lug steel wheels to fit the Pathfinder rear, as you can see by the tire, these are old as dirt. Me and my room mate took a trip to a nearby junk yard and found these, among other things.

This is one of the other things I bought from the junk yard, it's a 30's Chevy grill shell.

As soon as we got back I tried to pop my new grill shell over the Mustang radiator, but it was too narrow, so I broke out the cutting wheel and chopped it up.

After exploring my options I ended up with this configuration mainly because it was the easiest not to screw up. All I had to do to make this look right was fill in the pie shaped section and make some relief cuts and angle the sides down.

This is how it looked after I tacked it together after bending the sides straight.

After doing some trimming I threw it on there to check fit, looks good so far.

Cut myself a slice of steel pie to fill in the gaps and tacked it in place.

Once I was done welding, bending, trimming, hammering, and grinding it came out like this.

Stand back and appreciate. I still have to mount it but I saved that for another night.

That's all I got for now, but steering proggress should be coming up next, check back later for more updates. Till next time. Thanks for looking.

Alf

August 30, 2007

Update # 15 8/30/07

Hello everyone,

Talk about a drought in updates, it's been way too long. Alot has gone on since last spring. Over the past few months I have gotten a considerable amount of work done on the hot rod, though not as much as I would have liked. I've been spending alot of time working and working on other projects, but now that I'm back at school already progress should pick up once again.

We towed the hot rod home at the end of the school year. The truck pulled it like it wasn't even there.

As soon as I got home I started building this engine run stand so I could break my new engine in for my Camaro. Then we finally put that together after a year with a half built engine. Here's a video of the break in - - - - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEEeNS5VRbo

I spent at least a month and a half working with my dad and his heavy machinery service business.

I did alot of final welding on the bodie's frame since every tube was just tacked together, not very fun. I also mounted the computer in a hidden location.

Over the summer I swapped out the stock Model A spindles and hubs for 36 Ford pick up hubs and spindles because they have a steering arm attached. The new parts actually are a mate to the body, we found them about 50 feet apart both with green paint. I modified the hubs by cutting off the drum since I'll never use it anyway, then I used slightly modified Dodge truck wheel studs and transfered the bearings and races. Bam just like new.

I also did some work on the frame. Since I had an engine hoist handy I figured it was a good time to pull the motor and do some welding. I flipped her on her side and cut six holes for the body mount bolts. I also lowered the skid plate a quarter inch since it was rubbing and I welded in a new crossmember under the front of the engine. Its not done yet but its getting there.

Thats all for now, it will be a couple weeks untill I get back into the swing of things here and then I'll be getting some more work done so keep your eyes open for updates.

Alf

July 7, 2007

I'm still alive, update coming shortly.

May 14, 2007

If you have fabrication skills or know somebody that can help you that does, you shouldn't have that hard of a time doing the swap. Here are some links to help get you started.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=118962&highlight=z31+v8

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=116185&highlight=z31+v8

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=108065&highlight=z31+v8

May 10, 2007

I raced BMX for five years untill I bought my Camaro, I was 16 expert when I quit in 02. I accomplished alot during my run, I was number four in the nation and number one for the North East Region a couple times. I've really been looking to get back into it, I had a great time, but I sold my bike a few years back to buy a 12 bolt rear for the Camaro. One thing is for sure though, there's nothing like floating through a rythem section. I have a bunch of racing video, but it's on tape, anyone know how to get that onto a computer?

May 8, 2007

Have tissues handy...

http://www.carsinbarns.com/

May 7, 2007

Update # 14 5/7/07

Greetings,

Well, I have about one week untill I'm back on native soil in New Jersey, don't worry, the rod is coming home with me. I havn't been doing much lately due to the closing semester, gotta stay up with the school work. Even though I said the car wasn't going to the show at my school, it did. After a bunch of classmates asked me about if I was bringing it or not I decided to. A budy of mine let me use his truck and trailer which was a god sent, and the school let me store it in their shop over night so I could just push it out the morning of the show. The forecast was gloomey with forecasted chance of hail and thunderstorms, but the show turned out decent with almost 100 cars. The VG rod got some good publicity, some people loved it, some people had no clue what to think, and others didn't like it because it wasn't their style I guess. But I got some pictures so check em' out.

This is out side my shop, I pushed it out to get some more pictures with the new parts. I ended up talking to a guy that saw it from the street ,while driving by, for an hour.

There she is at the show, notice the beaten down grass around the car, it drew quite a crowd. Of course no one knew what the engine was. Sweet little Porsche across the way, and the vette convertable had a 427 with three two barrels.

This was also at the show. This car is very similar to mine by coincidence. It's running a quad four GM four cylinder with a model T body, nice car.

Thats all folks, my next update will most likely be from home, so keep your eyes open for more progress. I'd also like to thank everyone for the comments.

April 26, 2007

I still havn't got the engine running, so if you guys have any tidbits of info I should know about, don't hold back.

April 23, 2007

Update #13 4/23/07

Well, it's been a while. I guess you could say I've hit the "wall" on this project, I'm pretty burnt out, and things are slowing down. I'm never going to make the car show I mentioned earlier, but no worries, there's always next year, and she'll be finished by then. Inspite of my new found lack of enthusiasm, things are still getting accomplished and i've got some pictures bellow, check em out.

I decided what I wanted to do with my headers and there's the finished product, still got the D-side to do yet.

I had been dreading this job for months. I had to do some serious frame mods to make everything work. The biggest problem was that the center of the X happened to fall right under the mount on the tranny, no good.

My plan was to brace the frame with all the new pieces that were to be added, then cut the X out. As you can see it turned out to resemble a truss.

This is how she sits at the moment. Another problem with the prior frame design was the fact that I couldn't remove the drive shaft, so I modified the rear cross member to remedy that. I still have to put some cross braces between the rails, I plan to include a couple D-shaft loops as well.

I made my transmission crossmember now that I had the room. I just cut out the center of the original and added some mounting tabs, fits like a glove.

I went to a local truck junk yard a few weeks ago and scored some SW gauges, ignition switch, and a turn signal setup. All I need is a tack to complete the instrumentation.

As I was trying to finish the fabrication on the frame I got to the gas tank mounting brackets, then I realized I needed a tank to make brackets. So I started with a gear oil drum I got from a truck repair shop. I cut about ten inches out, then smashed it a little and called it good for now.

What I came up with for gas tank mounts.

I sacrificed my belt to test it out, looks good so far.

That's all for now folks. I'm going to try and build my drivshaft this week, and try to get some sheet metal for the body. Keep your eyes pealed.

So long

Alf

April 20, 2007

re-check the firing order.

Glowing headers or exhaust manifolds is a sign of a rich mixture and retarded ignition timing.

Exactly my thoughts, your mixture is burning in the exhaust instead of the chamber.

April 4, 2007

Can you hear/feel the injectors clicking when you try to start it?
OR

You can get an injector noid light to check if they are getting a pulse from the ECU.

Mario

I checked that tonight, I feel no click, I checked different ones, but none clicked. The relay isn't clicking either so I think that may be the problem.

Thanks for the help and compliments.

April 4, 2007

I run a Carter high volume pump on my Camaro, they're between $50 and $60 in Jegs or Summit. This pump has no return and the lower diaghram plate screws on so you can index it. It's on a 350 with a 750 Holley, I've run it clear up to 7k with no hickups.

If I was you, I would make certain that poor fuel flow was your problem. T a pressure guage into your line, get a passenger to watch the guage, and run through the gears, if you see a sudden drop in pressure then you know it's a fuel flow problem.

My guess, since you said it just started doing it after you added dual exhaust, is carb adjustment. Check the fuel level in the bowls. You may also be pushing the limits of your 670 carb.

April 3, 2007

Back again. I still havn't figured out the fuel problem, I tried a different regulator, but it still didn't work. I realized that the pump does not squirt any fuel through the return line even when the engine is cranking, is that normal?

Anyway, in the mean time I've been trimming down the Z31 harness for use on the hot rod and I have quite a pile going, but I have a few questions.

This car is only going to have the bare essentials when finished.

headlights

tail lights, brake, blinkers

licence plate light

electric fuel pump

ignition

and whatever the engine needs to run

So my question is, what is all of this stuff, and do I need it?

This box connects to the computer harness and lives under the battery tray in a Z31.

I have no idea what this is, I think it's usually in the engine compartment.

These things are in the wiring heading back to the tail lights and fuel pump, the one has some sort of circuit board in it.

This white plastic box is near the tail lights.

SO do I need any of this junk?

April 1, 2007

Well since I built my headers, I just couldn't wait any longer, so I decided to try and fire up the engine. After I assembled massive tentacles of wires from the 84 300ZX donor car, I got the motor to crank. It would not fire, so I checked for spark, spark is good and strong. I figured it must be fuel related, since the valve timing checked out okay and I never touched the ignition timing. I know the pump was working because I had it pumping from a gas can. So then, I squirted some gas into the throttle body and it burped a little. So I don't think I'm getting fuel because the injectors aren't working. I know I plugged everything in right, I marked it when I disasembled it all. The fuel injection harness is a little toasted so I'm kind of suspecting that. So what could cause no fuel? Wiring, computer, sensors? I'm lost, I'm not a fuel injection guy. Help if you can. Thanks.

Alf

Sign In

Profiles

Forums

Blogs

Events

Gallery

Downloads

Store

Posts posted by Alf