AkumaNoZeta

I've never built a car before, this would be my first car build, so I love input from other's opinions. From what I learned in school I can get into the generals of what I want, but the lack of experience makes it harder for me. So far I love the idea of a high reving CA, and if I'm not happy with that then I could just go ahead and do a VH/VQ V8 swap.

A lot of things I say are me making fun of myself, I'm one of those that like to laugh at myself. The slowest thing I've drove is my dad's 1991 (somewhere around there) automatic Corolla, second slowest being my first car which was a 2001 Toyota Celica GT that I traded in to get the 1990 Mustang 5.0. I want the high reving engine because I love the sounds of the high revs. I know I'll have to run a bigger gear to get suitable torque multiplication to be more standable on the streets. I'm not gonna run any giant tires or anything where I'll need a lot of torque for. Which reminds me, FWD burnouts arent really that fun and I'm not really a fan of burnouts at all (to Roger280ZX). I'm getting a R200 for free from a classmate of mine, don't know if its a long or short nose, but it's an open diff so I figure I can get a bigger gear for it along with an aftermarket LSD, haven't looked for bigger gears for them yet so if I cant get any I may look into another IRS diff where I can get one or comes with a good one. I also have to start looking into what ratios may suite me too...Lots of things to still think about, right now I'm preoccupied with suspension and chassis than the drivetrain. I just come in and out of different drivetrain ideas.

I have a 5.0 Mustang so I know and do like torque. The CA is supposed to be a little torquey for what it is, but for my car I don't mind if I have only like 60 lbft of torque and 80 horsepower below 4000 RPM and getting into traffic is slower than a Geo Metro driven by an elephant, I want the car to pull more in the upper end because...mainly I want the watch the tach to very slowly go up at first and then when it gets 3500, 4000, 4200 and then it just flies to redline, lol. May make me sound kinda ricerish but I don't care. It's not like I want it a race car, gonna have lots of chassis/suspension work so it will handle like a dream and thats what I really care about. I'm going for the F1 approach: Great suspension, light as ****, big revs, and no torque. lol. Also on the RB20 thing, the way I always saw it is that since its the same displacement as the SR just get an SR because its lighter and in the Z gives great weight distribution...but straight sixes do sound magical

I'm in Chassis Fab right now. I would have been in it the same time as him if my Z didn't stop running while in Missouri on the way there. I was trying to get it running again before I headed back up here but ended up just throwing a new T-5 in the Mustang and driving that. From what I know, he's done welding before so he probably was able to get the comps out of the way in the beginning. Almost everybody is on live work in my class right now and we haven't even got into the shop for second phase yet. But I've never welded before this and actually still on the first comp sheet because I cant get the Tig butt-weld right, I spent 3 days with Dan Bracken trying to get it. They look a lot better now but I still dont have it. When I came to the school I had absolutely no experience with cars so I had to start from the bottom, I didn't even know what a header was before coming up here lol.

It may make only 10 horsepower more but it's also one liter smaller and that was only running 9psi. Build it to run like 20 pounds and it would be more fun. It wont be as torquey because, let's face it there's no replacement for displacement. To me thats like saying the LS1 (5.7 litres, correct?) is 350 horsepower stock and the 2.2 litre from the S2k is 250 horsepower stock. Sure the bigger engine makes more power but the effiencency of the smaller engine is what impresses me. I hear people bragging about 2000 horsepower 572 BBCs and stuff but it doesn't impress me because if you're gonna have all those cubes you better have all that horsepower, but hearing about 1000 horsepower ecotecs, SR20s, and 1500 horsepower 2JZs/RBs impressed me because those are blown/boosted V8 numbers from engines almost half the size

Here's another benefit towards the CA18DET http://www.flashoptions.com/product.asp?prodID=70 A front clip for only $1000, not sure on the reliability of the site because I've never heard of them before, but the initial price of the CA tends to be a lot cheaper everywhere I look

Today a classmate of mine got me into looking into the CA18DET and I liked it. It's pretty much like a miniture RB engine, it revs like 9000 from the factory. I searched on here and I saw nothing but bad comments about them. Preferably I think I may even go with this engine because I never actually looked into them before because they weren't common around me at all. As may be evident from my previous posts I love high revs and this quote from wikipedia really wowed me "Bore is 83 mm (3.3 in), and stroke is 83.6 mm (3.29 in). This near square design, coupled with the head design, allows CA18DETs to spin well beyond 8,000 rpms, even in stock trim" I know some of you may flame me for using Wikipedia as a source because, well...high schools wont allow it for an essay source, but everything I ever read on wikipedia was true so I kinda trust it. I'm not really having problems finding parts for it when I started looking, everybody says the aftermarket for them is quite low. And it's not like I'm going for a 1500hp build, I just want a really high reving engine with at least 400, preferably 500 horsepower. I know that it will be years before I get to an engine swap so thats why I'm being open minded about other options. I tend to be getting smaller in my wants too. First I wanted to put a 302 SBF, then an RB26, then an SR20, and now I like the CA18. Whats next? The 1.3 Wankel, or maybe a 1000cc bike engine, lol. Sorry, I ramble

I found this great build of a 240SX done by a guy that I was in WyoTech with. He's graduated now and I'm still in the school, but I looked up his car after I heard from my teachers of the great work he did. I'm really impressed http://forums.nicoclub.com/zerothread?id=377262#4490870

lol, I've never thought about the fumes getting into the car when I was planning for it. Too bad you dont have interior, I love the interior in my car. If it wasn't for the interior I would build it as a 800 horsepower V8 race car instead of a 500 horsepower SR20 daily driver. I still keep on straying my ideas towards the race-car side until I catch myself...I think I'm gonna have to build a race purpose Z in the future at some time, lol

I had a similar idea for the exhaust whenever I get to the SR20 swap I want to do but lately I've been thinking about just having it run under the driver side on the outside of the frame for clearance of the full belly pan and so I can have a muffler on it and then just have a turndown at the end pointing down and away right in front of the rear tire. I'm also not too big of a fan of bolt-in roll cages, I rather have it welded in. I'm gonna try to stiffen mine up as much as possible so I wont need a roll cage but I think I'll still need an at least 6-point. I want it to be cageless because mine has great interior and wanted to keep the stock appearance inside.

I had to completely rethink my car plans again...I keep on adding things that cross over from daily driver to race car. I'm gonna keep the SR plan going, and change my plans from a Corvette styled leaf spring suspension to a double wishbone so I don't have to set the engine back further no more and still have the camber gain. And I don't need to go so far into the aerodynamics, just keeping with the basic air-dam and ducting...I should make a race car one day, lol

The exhaust wouldn't be a problem for me because whenever I get to the swap, who knows when that will be lol, I just want it to come straight out the fender so I can have the room to make a completely flat underbelly. Lately I've had a thought though. I was gonna make a custom intake and exhaust manifold whenever I build it and have the whole thing completely rebuilt before putting it in, so pretty much I would be paying the $2500 just for a block, crank, and head. Not to mention have a whole pile of parts to have to find a buyer for or just use as desk ornaments. So I was beginning to think of just getting a KA instead since its cheaper, the extra torque would satisfy me more, and have less excess parts left over after the build. But looking at stats I saw that the the KA is over-sqaured which means it wont rev as quick, but that doesn't mean I can't make it rev as high (with proper head mods) right? I could still make 9000RPMs, but it would just reach it a little slower...right? I'm an American so the more displacement and higher torque makes me want it....How much lighter is a SR20DET compared to a KA24DET? Are all KA24DEs the same? I know the SRs from the Sentras wont bolt up to the 180SXs transmission so is it a similar case with the KAs? One more thing, mods feel free to retitle this thread...I always tend to change the subject of my posts

Ok, I'm gonna add a change in topic here so mods feel free to change the title. In an average SR20 swap in a S30, does the shifter come through the Z's shifter hole (don't know exactly what to call it) perfectly? For the suspension I wanna do, I'm starting to think that I'll need to move the engine back a few more inches and wondering if the shifter will still be going through the hole or if I'll have to cut it out more.

The car in here seems to have a wast-spark...I prefer coil on plug so I want to know which ones have them http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=110566

Well, waste-spark is still distributorless. I just remember seeing pictures of some SR swaps where there seemed to be coil packs mounted on the firewall and then spark plug wires going from there to the spark plugs, its been a while since I saw the picture. Maybe they just took the coils off the plug and decided to run wires or something, I don't know.

Ok, I cant seem to find this anywhere. What kind of ignition systems are on the various SR20DETs? I thought they were all coil-on-plug but I've seen some photos of ones that seem to have a distributor or a waste-spark like coil packs mounted on the firewall or something. Its been a while since seeing the pictures so I cant remember for sure.

I have input. I just learned a little about the C4-C5 Corvette front suspension. It has the double A-arms that give the camber gain desired but instead of having a normal spring and shock combo, it uses a single leaf spring (a one piece composite type) spread between the two lower control arms. It reduces overall front end weight and its also less unsprung weight. Half of the A-arms, half of the shock, half of the outer tie rod, and half of the spring all are considered to be unprung weight. With the Corvette's front suspension there's only one quarter of the already light leaf spring (thinking for individual side) instead of the heavier coil springs. In fact I want to do a custom suspension on my Z whenever I get around to that part and I was still comtemplating what to do for it and this is what I want to do. I now know how to design the proper geometry and anti-dive, and stuff and the leaf spring with the Corvette styled suspension will need a special crossmember and since I'll be having an SR20 in it I'll have plenty of room for to fabricate it in. In fact I wanted to ask people if they have photos of the suspension (on the Corvette, not the Z) so I can have a better idea of whats going on in it and to see what GM did so they didn't have to add shackles to the LCAs. So I replied here instead of making a new thread, bring on the photos...I've searched yahoo and google images but haven't came up with anything good yet.

Mine's sitting at my aunt's house in Clarkridge until I can get back. I've never seen an S30 for sale around there except for the one I bought. Any info about it? Oh wait, there was a garage around there trying to sell a 383 SBC FC and they were working on putting a SBC in an S30, maybe they finally got that done and trying to sell it.

Im in Mountain Home, pretty much top dead center, about half an hour from the Missouri Border

The curve was right after a downhill and while I barely tapped the brake to try to slow down enough it would lose traction, I was going very slow because I'm deafly afriad of driving on snow. My roommate was with me and said I may have been better off punching the gas and drifting the corner (jokingly of course) but thinking about that I'm glad I didn't because the rear would have hit the guard rail and then maybe I wouldn't have a rear sub frame at all then, lol

And here's why I don't consider it much more than a beater and why I like the idea of Tube Framing it if I ever get around to modding it.

The only Mustang forum I went to is foxbodyforum.com and I haven't been there for a LONGGGGG time, lol. Name on there is BigDreamer (I was losing creativity) in fact I put the name Grim on here because I was watching The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy while signing up. I got pictures now. Ones a general veiw, close up of the front, close up of the back, and the one of the tire might be a big reason why I lost traction so easily.

On the insurance note, I just have liabilty but the Mustang is more like a beater to me anyways. I wanna tube-frame it and turn it into a race car, but that may never happen because I wanna get the Z done and I'll be caught up in that. Maybe if I can get another beater I can have 2 project cars, lol. The Mustang, I love it, but I'm not "in" love with it...and I am IN love with the Z

Ok, I've talked to my teacher about it and decided to just keep it the car the way it is, fab up the missing part of my front sub-frame and eventually tie it into a subframe connecter (when I have more time to do work on it) and eventually do a 6-point. But I would still like to see a discussion on this topic because I love to learn.

I'll get pics when the sun comes out if you really want them. The car isn't that bad, I need to fix it because I still need the car to get me back to Arkansas from Pennsulvania on down week so I can get the Z running. It's running now, just alittle luggish, might have just messed up something with the intake since it's on that side (EFI) and restricted the airflow. I'm not worried about the car really, so far all I see that I need to buy is new headlights. If the body is really that bad, may be able to fix it in my Chassis Fabrication class I'm in now or ask the teachers in the Collision and Refinishing if they have some students wanting some live work points. Im surprised that it didn't bust open the crappy welds on the passenger side rear subframe (friend welded it...badly) and that started popping again...I need to take out the seat and look at that actually now that I think about it. But right now I'm just waiting for the sun to get out. It didn't seem to pull no more than normal since it did need an alignment pretty bad so I dont thing too much damage is there.