christoc

Today Nick and I ran around town, getting some metal for his 240Z, then around to find a few other supplies that he needed. When I got home I was half motivated to work on the car! So I went out to the garage, after sitting on the couch for 30 minutes, and got to working. It's still cold here in St. Louis so I had the garage door closed and decided to plug the space heater in to warm it up a little bit. I put together a little rolling stool that I purchased from Sears a few weeks back (please don't visit www.slickdeals.net, that site will make you spend more money at Sears than you ever have before). After putting the stool together I decided I should get to work on the motor. What motor? This motor is out of a 78 280Z 2+2. The parts car, it ran when I got it, so the plan right now is to transfer the turbo/intake/fuel system from the blown 83 motor to this motor. So I started on the motor, working on taking the fuel rail off the motor, along with the injectors and such (all this will be for sale later this week). I had most everything removed so that I could pull the fuel rail and injectors when I found one hose that was still hooked up to the intake manifold. Being that the motor is 30 years old some of the hoses and clamps are a little hard to remove, easy enough fix, I got a pair of dykes and started cutting. Out pours some gasoline, which I found odd that there was still any fuel in the system. A few moments later when more fuel poured out I realized that the space heater was sitting less than 2 feet from where the fuel was hitting the floor. Talk about getting your heart rate going, I jumped, grabbed the space heater and lifted it off the ground, quickly unplugging it and removing it from the area. Thankfully nothing caught fire! That would of sucked! More work tomorrow, I'm going to try and get the motor up on an engine stand so I can replace the rear main seal which leaks, and try to check everything over before I put it all back together. I could "possibly" have this motor running by the end of the month in the car. But I know how lazy and busy I am, so I have no doubts that there is no way I'll get all that done More info and pictures tomorrow, possibly even a new 240Z video! More info at www.project240z.com

And a quick update with a link to tonight's video! http://www.project240z.com/tabid/54/itemid/55/In-search-of-a-piston.aspx

What? Chris actually worked on the 240Z? Impossible! It tis true, it really is. Tonight I got home and decided it was time to tear into the motor, so I did just that. I even recorded the whole process, so hopefully I'll have video up soon. For now you can check out the photos of what I found, be warned, it's not pretty! Here's the first one, this is NOT ALL of the parts, there are still parts in the motor that may never come out. At first I thought I found a nut, and that was the culprit of the whole mess. I don't believe that to be the case, I believe the nuts/bolts connecting the rod to the crankshaft came free, though, perhaps that was the problem, maybe they were lose? I'm going to save this piece, and perhaps attach it to my office door at work. Plenty more pictures in the Project240Z Set on Flickr

Well, if anyone is keeping track I haven't made any progress on my checklist. I'm hoping to get out into the garage this weekend or next weekend and see if I can't get some wrenching done. Before the wrenching though I really need to do some cleaning up/organizing out there.

Well, I'm back! (Was for a short time considering selling the car as I picked up another ride www.corvettez06.org) This just in, there may still be life in the Project240z.... It might get saved from the grasps of Ebay and become just a toy/project/wrench on me when you can car. Not a daily driver, not a race car, just something to play with, work on, add to, without worry of "will it make it faster or slower" More information coming sometime, who knows when! I've created a ToDo list

No dice for me, they sold the motor this morning

I'm going to day to look at it....

Damnit clive, now I think I have to buy an LS1 tonight. I was already thinking of it as a replacement for my motor that I lost this month, but now that I read this post.....

I went out to the garage tonight with the hopes of trying to figure out what went wrong on Sunday. I was going to take the valve cover off and see if I saw anything out of the ordinary, then pull the head if I could get to that. Before doing those two things though I figured I should drain the oil out of the motor. Much to my suprise when I drained the oil it wasn't oil that came out first, it was coolant, then oil followed. Once I discovered that I began to lose hope that I would be able to salvage anything in this motor. Thoughts of a cracked block filled my head. Nevertheless I proceeded forward with removing the valve cover and whatever else I could get to. When I pulled the cover off I started looking around and immediately found something that looked out of place. Ends up I found two things out of place, two of the rocket arm guides were laying on the cylinder, with a little Matlock work I found that both the guides from the #2 cylinder were not in the correct place. From there I didn't get too far, I did get the timing sprocket and chain removed, and ended up getting the camshaft remove as well, but I was unable to see anything out of the ordinary. I even tried sticking a magnet into the spark plug hole on the #2 cylinder with hopes of pulling some bits of metal out of there, hoping to find something awry. No dice, so I'll have to wait until this weekend to get further on the investigation. I'm going to have to pull the motor out of the car in order to take the manifolds off so that I can remove the cylinder head and see what happened on Sunday. Here's a link to the video of me working in the garage tonight. Notice the music!

I went out to the garage tonight with the hopes of trying to figure out what went wrong on Sunday. I was going to take the valve cover off and see if I saw anything out of the ordinary, then pull the head if I could get to that. Before doing those two things though I figured I should drain the oil out of the motor. Much to my suprise when I drained the oil it wasn't oil that came out first, it was coolant, then oil followed. Once I discovered that I began to lose hope that I would be able to salvage anything in this motor. Thoughts of a cracked block filled my head. Nevertheless I proceeded forward with removing the valve cover and whatever else I could get to. When I pulled the cover off I started looking around and immediately found something that looked out of place. Ends up I found two things out of place, two of the rocket arm guides were laying on the cylinder, with a little Matlock work I found that both the guides from the #2 cylinder were not in the correct place. From there I didn't get too far, I did get the timing sprocket and chain removed, and ended up getting the camshaft remove as well, but I was unable to see anything out of the ordinary. I even tried sticking a magnet into the spark plug hole on the #2 cylinder with hopes of pulling some bits of metal out of there, hoping to find something awry. No dice, so I'll have to wait until this weekend to get further on the investigation. I'm going to have to pull the motor out of the car in order to take the manifolds off so that I can remove the cylinder head and see what happened on Sunday. Here's a link to the video of me working in the garage tonight. Notice the music!

That's funny, I have the exact same relationship with my wife! No matter what I spend on cars it'll never come close to the horses! Sorry to hear about your LS1 troubles, I've been looking into options now that I had troubles of my own. Maybe I'll pull the 5.3 out of my Tahoe and put it in the Z! Okay maybe not, but I need to find something.

I have a few extra EDIS6 modules. I'm hoping to get all the spare parts I have up on ebay later this week. I know I paid $15 for one of them on ebay when I originally was purchasing, before I pulled a few from a yard. I could sell you one for that with a harness for it as well if I can find that. Plus whatever the shipping ends up being

Well, that whole process was fun. The motor no longer runs, and is probably a loss. I'll pull it out sometime later this summer/fall and take it apart and see what exactly happened. But long story short at the first autocross yesterday, first run, something appears to have dropped into the #2 cylinder and done some damage. http://www.project240z.com/Blog/tabid/53/EntryID/94/Default.aspx Now, I guess this Winter's project will be to locate a LS1!

I'm a couple posts behind here, but here's a quick update. I think the motor is done. As in, I think it's time to pull it and see if it's at all salvagable what broke! more updates later this week!

Tonight I told myself I wouldn't start the car, I would get ready for my trip to Chicago tomorrow (going up there to give two days of DotNetNuke training classes). But I couldn't help myself, I had to get the camera and record the new exhaust! It's not quiet, but oh it sounds so sweet! Here's a 2mb WAV file of the car running Here's a large WMV video of the same thing

I'm looking at this http://www.himni-racing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=13_30&products_id=406

Can anyone confirm the ID of the Z31 downpipe? Is it 2.5" or 3" If 3" I think I've found a source!

Well, I did some rough measuring tonight and it looks like the bolts are 3.75" center to center, so I don't think the one I linked to in my first post will work

Wow this isn't looking very promising!

I posted over in the Turbo forum hoping to get some help but so far no luck. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=124447 Anyone know what I need to do to get a flange for my Z31 downpipe?

Here's a link to the video page of the first time driving the car! http://www.project240z.com/tabid/54/itemid/31/The-first-drive.aspx

Originally posted here http://www.project240z.com/Blog/tabid/53/EntryID/89/Default.aspx Thanks to everyone who helped on the car I was able to tow it out to Gateway yesterday for the SCCA Autocross. I didn't plan to compete the car, but I brought everything with me that I needed to get it put together enough to try driving it for the first time. After I installed the driver's seat with the help of Phil Cline, Whittle and I bled the brakes on the car. From there it was a matter of hooking everything up and getting her off the trailer. Below is the link to the video page, thanks to Dave for filming the first drive. First Drive Video I can't thank everyone who has helped me get this far enough. I'm far from done with the project, but the biggest hurdle in my mind has been cleared. My biggest fear was that once together the car just wouldn't run, and now it runs! Thanks to the following, in no particular order: Russ Melton Dave Whitworth Eric MacKenzie Terec Wilson Andy Whittle Andy Hohl Bill Hammond (my dad) Ronnie Baker Henry Kenuam Everyone of those guys' wives! And of course my wife Natalie for letting me spend the past few months dirty and greasy! This will most definitely not be the end of the project, just the beginning of a running car! Edit: I knew i'd forget someone! Thanks to Mark and John Huebbe for the use of the welder, and inspiration of the RallyBug!

Anyone got a clue?

I have Z31 downpipe/elbow on my 83 L28ET motor, that's all I have right now, I went to a muffler shop today and asked about getting some pipes put up there, the owner said I need to bring them a downpipe flange and they can build something from there. I've been searching for 30 minutes but haven't found a source yet other than possibly this page but I'm not sure of the exact specs. http://www.jgstools.com/turbo/trbflg.html Can anyone suggest where I might look for a flange? C

Yes it's an L28, my friend had already retapped them for NPT instead of BSPT before I figured out that everything was in BSPT.