ryant67

Love the look of those - the style reminds me of the probax seats found in newer lotus cars.

Wow, just wow!! Great build, you've really transformed your car into something special. I was pretty astonished how much you got the weight down to, even with all of the rollcage you added. Impressive, thanks for taking the time to post!

Oh, it's a mess... comes out at the stock location, runs up through the Holley regulator, through the system 1 fuel filter, then back along the frame rail to the fire wall, and up over the transmission to the carbs. One big old tour of the engine bay... That's a project for another day though, just happy to have the car back on the road after three months of no engine.

Time to update, new engine in!

Impressive hoarding skills!

Egads, how time flies! Engine is in, and running. Just a few odds and ends to zip tie and secure, and some clutch adjustments to be done. Looking pretty good though! I was pretty bummed out that my AN fitting fuel lines sit too high for the Cusco strut bar, and the T3 triangulation rods to clear. Reckon I can solve that be adding an extra 90 (or 45) degree bend so they angle down again. I'll also be switching to a throttle cable for the carbs, as there really isn't sufficient clearance for the rod by the firewall. Lokar seems to be the way most people do this, so I just need to DIY up a bracket.

The P90 would be fine for compression ratio if you run flat top 89mm pistons, an LD28 crank, and L24 rods Of the two, on the bottom end you have, it's a no brainer for me - N47. Use a Nissan head gasket (1.25mm) and you will be hopefully be bang on 10:1 compression after you skim the head to remove the warping. Run a big enough cam, and detonation shouldn't be a problem at full timing. From what I have gleaned from hundreds of hours of reading on here, 10:1 would only be a problem on a mild cam, or with crappy gas. You shouldn't have any problems. As for the carbs, I'd just refresh and run your 40's for now. You can then rebuild your 44's at your leisure, then decide what to do with them later down the road. I doubt 44's are too big for an L28 though, unless the L28 is bone stock. If you are running a big cam, have done some head work, and have a decent header, then you should be able to take advantage of the extra capacity of the 44's...

I'd probably make a mold of the dome in plasticine or something. Measure the volume of the dome by capping the mold with perspex sheet with a small hole, then filling the mold with distilled water from a burette. That will give you the volume of the dome, then you just need to do the calculations to know what compression you will get with that figure. Basically the same procedure as for CC'ing a cylinder head, but on a mold of your piston dome.

Local guy has a 95 Soarer - great looking car, and it has a 1JZ turbo motor in it, which is decent. Heavy car, but nice lines. Never seen the earlier models, but they do look nice in an 80's boxy kind-of-way. Yours looks vaguely like a R31 Skyline.

Good stuff! It's always a massive headache when something catastrophic happens under the hood, but sometimes the car ends up coming out of it better than ever. Looks like this is one of those times! I'm drooling over that dash wiring job you did, so well done. Love the fuel and brake line routing on the firewall too, tidy, looks great, and accessible.

Getting close now, just a couple of small odds and ends to finish up, then the engine can be dropped in. I'll need to fab up a bracket for the bussmann fuse/relay box, mount the bus bar for power connections, and run the wiring for the power and ground wires to the battery behind the passenger seat. Chomping at the bit to drive this thing again!

Added a fuse/relay box to the harness. Normally I will DIY, but a shop called Goat Built had a ready made set-up that used the bussman box I was planning to use. Very well made! http://goatbuilt.com/shop/misc-products/10-circuit-universal-wire-harness/

Reworked my engine bay harness today. Modifications done: - Removed stock alternator wiring as I am running an internally regulated Ford 3G alternator. - Removed distributor wiring as I am running crank fired ignition. - Added fused power wire for fan controller. - Added wires for ignition and accessory relay triggers. - Added lines for Electromotive HPV-1, cd player, and fuel pump. - Sleeved wiring in braided nylon (techflex F6) and heat shrinked ends. All in all, pretty pleased with how it turned out. I just need to sleeve the relayed headlight harness and water temperature gauge line now.

Kind of fluff given my earlier post, but here are some before/after pics.

Jon: Thanks for the info - I've read of your 11:1 experiences in a few threads while searching, must have been such a headache having to mix in race fuel! I do have a cam in my E31 right now that is .520 lift, oddly enough, but I haven't a clue as to the duration, and it has no stampings on it other than the factory "K". Might be worth grabbing a dial indicator and printing off a degree wheel to check the duration, as what I have might be good enough for my purposes. I suspect a small duration number though, given the excellent idle quality I had with it... The E31 was on my 3.0 stroker, which ran some form of flat top pistons, L24 rods, and the V07 crank. Triple 44's for induction. It also ran a pretty thick headgasket though, so perhaps the PO had issues... That engine is toast for now anyway, spun a bearing in a pretty bad way. I never had any ping issues with it though, even running 40 advance all in on Shell 91 octane. Steve: Saw your build thread, the chamber of the MN47 looks just about perfect from the get go, it will be interesting to see how it works out for you. Either way, should be a blast to drive once it's all done!

Back from the paint shop, boy did they ever do a great job matching the paint! So good a job that I'm now getting them to repair the cracks in my fiberglass front air dam and repaint it as well. 23 unused holes were welded up. Battery tray was removed, and I'll be putting a battery box behind the passenger seat. Happy. Now to get the harness sorted out and install it in a couple of days time, then the engine.

Cheers folks! Z-ya - Thanks for chiming in - your E31 looks similar to what I was thinking I could make mine look like with some extra work, albeit not quite so perfect as yours. Interesting that the pad on the spark plug side of the chamber has been blended in. Great pictures in your thread, and wow, WHAT A BUILD! Right now I am in the process of throwing a N42/F54 engine into my 240Z. This engine is running 9.5:1 compression on a Kameari 1.5mm head gasket. All good and well, but I have no idea what the N42 head work looks like or what it flows. Furthermore, I was told by it's previous owner that it was pinging quite a bit at 10:1 with a 1mm gasket, which was solved with the thicker gasket. As a result of the above, I am thinking I would like to throw my E31 on the same F54, which will run me up to 10.4:1 compression with a 1mm head gasket. If I run a reasonably aggressive street cam like an Isky Stage III (290 duration .490 lift), then between that and the quench of the E31, I should hopefully be good for full timing without detonation on Ultra 94. Seem doable? Just looking to use the best of what I have laying around and maximize what I can get out of the car.

^ Very nice, it fits! Did you get the longer bars? I still haven't gotten around to test-fitting the replacements T3 sent me.

Some pics... Took it upon myself to improve the aesthetics of my Mikunis. Tried the old sodablast technique and it didn't really do enough for me, so I got ballsy and bead blasted the carb bodies. Following the blasting, I blew them out with compressed air, rinsed the insides out with carb cleaner, then blasted the hell out of them with the high powered water gun at a coin-op car wash before once again blowing them out with compressed air. Pretty sure there are no beads left in these suckers now. Finished them off with some of POR-15's "Glisten PC" to keep the clean finish protected - I wish I was a little less heavy handed with the coatings though, got a couple of minor runs, but on the whole I am pretty satisfied. DSC04460 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04461 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04463 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04459 by ryant67, on Flickr Tore down the old stroker engine and now I have 2 V07 cranks in my living room. DSC04466 by ryant67, on Flickr Pulled these L24 rods and unknown pistons from the engine too. Dual valve reliefs, hmm... DSC04470 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04469 by ryant67, on Flickr Some pics of the custom 9qt oil pan from the stroker motor. Quite like it actually, and it's bottom sits perfectly level with the crossmember. DSC04473 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04475 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04471 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04472 by ryant67, on Flickr My little hoard of rods and pistons. DSC04467 by ryant67, on Flickr Spent a couple of hours trying to straighten up the fins on my Griffin radiator, not a fun job. Tweezers and lots of patience. DSC04465 by ryant67, on Flickr

Not a whole lot of major progress to report. The car is 100% going in for the engine bay repaint on Monday, and I picked up the new engine last weekend. Right now I am just stuck in decision mode as the new engine had a lot of nice parts that are duplicates of aftermarket goodies my old stroker motor had. New: Kameari-style cast aluminum oil pan 5.5qt Old: Custom high capacity baffled oil pan 9qt [x] New: 123 Ignition programmable distributor Old: Electromotive HPV-1 crankfired ignition New: Clifford Research 6-2-1 header w/ 1.5" primaries into 2" exhaust line Old: MSA 6-1 header with 1.5" primaries into 3" exhaust line New: SK Racing 40's on a cannon-style manifold Old: Mikuni 44's on a Mikuni manifold New: Crane .450 lift 262/272 duration camshaft Old: Unknown .520ish lift with unknown duration And duplicates of the same 83 ZX gearboxes, centerforce clutches, and fidanza flywheels - reckon I will just inspect, pick the best condition ones, and sell the spares. It's a nice problem to have so many good choices when it comes to parts though, and once I sell off the spares I will just about break even on the new engine I bought, huzzah!!!

The way I figured it was that it certainly can't HURT to use it, and given that the triangulation bars weigh about 2lbs in total, the weight gain is pretty minimal. It's cheap too, given how well it appears to have been made. I did select to use the Cusco bar over T3's for a couple of reasons though - namely that the Cusco bar gives better clearance over the valve cover, and that it doesn't use the dreaded spherical bearing, so it should in theory work better since it has less range of movement.

The parts should be in this week, but I might not have a car to check them on - it's in at the shop to get the engine bay painted. Will be sure to report back once I get a chance to check for fit!