Boben

I purchased a Hella unit. The provided PNs for the unit are OE 17112227281 / BMW OE 2227281 / BMW It will fit the following vehicle models: BMW Z3 (E36) M 3.2 236kW 03.1997 - 06.2001 BMW Z3 (E36) M 3.2 239kW 06.2001 - 01.2003 BMW Z3 Coupe (E36) M 236kW 02.1998 - 06.2001 BMW Z3 Coupe (E36) M 239kW 06.2001 - 06.2003 DATSUN 240Z EgoBoost 4.4 350kW

For a long time I've been searching for a suitable radiator for my car. There seems to be an amp offering of aftermarket aluminum radiators for the 240Z on Ebay, but the problem with these units is their pressure holding capability. The BMW V8 cooling system is a pressurized system designed for normal opeartion upto around 200kPa while the V8 swap radiators I found for the 240Z are only rated upto 100kPa. I finally settled for a Z3 M Coupe radiator which has the correct width and height. Also has a pressure release pressure of 250kPa on the cap. The fitment is surprisingly good.

After redoing my engine mounts, I noticed that my transmission was sitting a little low, well actually quite alot. The lowest part of the bell housing was sitting 50mm below the longitudinal frame rails. Unfortunately the transmission can only be lifted up 30mm without needing to cut through the transmission tunnel, so this is what I was aming for. I might need to fabricate an aluminum base plate for the oilpan and bell housing just to be safe. The minimum legal ground clearance in Finland is 80mm so I am still good for adjusting the ride height to 100mm measured from the longitudinal frame rails. I hope the car won't seem too high with those numbers. The whole assembly seems quite rigid. I have to admit it was quite daunting to flip the car sideways on the rotisserie.

I decided to redo my engine mounts since the passenger side bushing was standing in the way of the AC-compressor. I was able to make full use of the original aluminum engine mounts without any modification. The bushing are from an E34 5-series BMW. The newer E39 model bushing was too big in diameter so this will do. Now there is nice clearance for the compressor all around.

Your car has definitely come a long way. Impressive work with the body customization. The car looks familiar, it might have been this car that initially made me ditch the idea of ZG flares and going full custom.

I kind of climbed ass first to the three with my topics here at hybridZ, didn't I? The information of my build is quite scattered since I first started documenting my body widening project here: http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/117948-my-widened-240z/ Then I started this engine fitment topic that you are currently reading and only after this I decided I want to start a members build project since I am doing all kinds of other mods to my car as well. The build project where I plan to update my progress from now on can be found here: http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/120290-240z-egoboost-by-boben/ Turning now to your question. I propably would have installed the whole drivetrain from the BMW family, but ended up installing a Skyline GT-R32 rear subframe with all the stuff coming with it. Sorry for not documenting that in my project topic. Maybe I should make a post or two of that. It was a big task to fit it and I guess the E39 subframe could be fitted "as easy". In turns of width, I would probably look for something like a Z4 subframe of the like. I am using Megasquirt as the engine management. If you are wondering how to climb a tree ass first. Here is how it is done... at least they tried: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD5YBIKGeNU

That rust repair requires some mad fabrication skills but luckily you seem to have just what it takes! Very interesting reading and footage. Good luck with the build. How is the transmission tunnel height altered by this mod? When I did mine (definitely not finished yet!) I was also thinking of cutting into the transmission tunnel and raising it, but then finally opted for mounting the powertrain as low as possible without sacrificing the ground clearance too much.

This is definitely something else. Thanks for describing your progress in such detail. Keep up the good work!

@74_5.0L_Z, your exhaust pipe work looks fantastic. It does look tight also. I've measured the engine bay and the engine up to the point where my head hurts, but I have yet to check the clearance for the collector. Based on your photo, it definitely needs to be double checked.

I cannot believe it has been over a year since my last update! Well, I have been too occupied with other stuff and the Z has gotten way too little attention. I did however make some progress. I guess I could start by introducing my exhaust design, which unfortunately only exists as a 3D model for the moment. The idea is to make 180 degree exhaust headers where the cylinders with opposite phase are routed to a common collector. Actually my design is a 4-1 collector so I guess it could be called 90 degree headers since an exhaust pulse is introduced to a single collector once every 90 degrees of the engine cycle. Two primaries have to be routed to the other side from each side and brought to the collector to realize the headers and the lenghts of the primaries have to be of certain length to tune for a resonance at a certain RPM. Equal lenght is quite hard and in my opinion not even the smartest move for a street car. I tuned the lenght of the primaries to get the best performance at the vicinity of the maximum torque point of the engine which is going to be around 4500 RPM. All of the primaries are within 7 inches in lenght. The slight difference in lenght will smooth the torque curve of the engine. Getting the primaries from one side to the other is obviously not trivial but luckily in the original placement of the engine in an E39 500-series BMW, the x-member is in the middle of the oil pan. In the Z, the engine is located behind the X-member so I can route the primaries in the "valley" underneath the oil pan - Lucky me! (I still need to make some modification to the oil pan, but it all should be doable. Here are some shots from the 3D:

Nice work with the VGT controller! I also had a similar setup in my previous car: The engine was a 4-cyl BMW M42B18 hooked up with an Eaton M45 supercharger in series with a BIG VGT out from a Mercedes diesel. The control strategy was the following: There was an electrically controlled bypass for the M45 made out of a Prius electronic throttle body. When going lightly on the throttle, the bypass remained open and the car behaved like an NA. Once you stepped on the gas a bit more, the bypass was closed progressively and the M45 started making boost. With the added air flow, the seriously over sized VGT was able to start making boost. For boost control I made a separate boost controller out of an Atmel microprocessor. This controller took the boost control output from Megasquirt as the control input and regulated the boost by means of two parallel PID loops controlling the M45 bypass and the VGT wings. Initially I did not have a waste gate, but I soon found out that at high RPM, the bypass and VGT wing control just was not enough and I had to include a VAG three way valve to open the waste gate under over boost conditions at high RPM. The waste gate was also controlled electronically by a PWM output from my DIY controller. Looking forward to your progress on this one!

It's been awhile since my last update so here goes... I ended up modifying the longitudinal frame rails to make room for the alternator and the AC compressor. It seemed like rising the transmission tunnel would not help anyways, because the next problem would be the intake hitting the hood. The original x-member will have to be lowered a bit to make way for the steering arm so my plan is to reinforce the longitudinals while a spacer has to be added anyway. I acquired some poly bushings for the engine mounts and the transmission mounts and fabricated the mounts. The chassis mounts holding the bushings are sitting on what is left of the longitudinals. The forks connecting to the original engine mounts will probably still undergo so mods, but that remains to be seen. The original transmission mount location of the 240Z sits too much to the front for the original Getrag fixing points so I made use of the transmission case connection bolts. The case is constructed of separate cases attached to each other and so I made brackets attaching to three case connection bolts on each side of the transmission. The mounts connect to the original 240Z transmission mounting locations. The oil pan will need some customization but at least the oil pump will clear the x-member. The engine sits quite close to the firewall and the hood lock console prevents the installation of the stock intake manifold of the V8. I may need to make the console removable, but as the engine will be supercharged I will leave it for now. It might even work as is with the custom supercharger intake. Here are some pictures of the progress:

The distance to the ceiling is 92 cm with the seat at the lowest position. As you might gather, the ceiling trim is missing from my measurement. Can anybody tell me what the stock distance might be?

Looks like some engineering went in to that diff mount. Nice work!

I really wouldn't know since the PO removed the original seat rail fixtures from the floor. I do have the original Z seats with rails, but the original mounting height information is missing. If somebody could make a measurement from the center of the seat to the ceiling we would have something to compare. The BMW seats are height adjustable, but I have them at the very lowest position in the pictures. I will measure the distance to the ceiling next time I go work on the car. At least for me the head clearance is adequate and I am not even hitting my head to the door frame when tilting my head and I am just shy of 6 feet.

I hate to disappoint you, but paint will have to wait. The widening of the rear needed to be done because of the GTR sub frame. The sub frame was changed to get something beefier to the rear to cope with the added power provided by the BMW V8. As the whole car is undergoing some serious "hybridization" all around and it is conveniently taken down to bare metal, I plan to do all the fabrication work before coating. The progress of the work can be followed on the member project section.

While I am waiting on my engine mount bushings to arrive, I decided to start installing the BMW seats. The seats are from an E46 3-series. They are sport seats with adequate side support for my application (Mostly street driving with occasional tracing), but boy are they heavy! I need to weight them so I can keep track of the total vehicle mass with all these modifications. Anyway, luckily the V8 will provide some decent power to move these seats. The PO had already removed the stock seat mounts which would have been useless anyway. The BMW seats require to be mounted as low as possible to allow for adequate head clearance. In fact I needed to cut the floor a bit to get the seat leveled as the BMW original seat rails are bolted directly to the floor (with some reinforcements obviously). As of now, the floor is modified to get the seat in position. I still need to make the actual fixing points for the rails.

I built my mock-up a little bit further. I think cutting the frame rails to make some room is the way to go. I installed the steering rack, steering axle, brake booster, engine with heads and intake manifold. The exhaust is divided in two pieces per side and surprisingly on the driver side, even the front half of the stock exhaust manifold will fit and clear the steering axle. The rear part of the manifold will require some modification. On the passenger side the situation is not that good. The stock exhaust runs much further away from the engine because of the clearance to the starter and is hitting the longitudinal frame rail. On the top side, the valve cover is leaning on the brake booster, which needs to be moved closer to the clutch master cylinder. Luckily there is just enough room for the mod. I started designing the motor mounting structure which will make use of the BMW engine stock aluminum motor mounting arms. I am not a mechanics designer by trade so go easy on me.