Ivan280zt

Great now you can stop asking me how everything is coming along every time we talk lol. Got the car back on the ground and rolling around! Shiny parts! DEAR BABY JESUS CAN'T WAIT FOR THE BODY WORK!!! Got my fuel rail from FSmoto great quality and great service from top notch guys! Also got the 11mm top hats for my ID1000's from my local shop TopDeadCenter (TDC). Fuel rail looks all fancy in there. Q45 throttle body all cleaned up and primed looks nice and simple. I think thats all I have for now no more updates until after holidays.

It will be week or two at least I changed jobs and waiting for new fuel rail and injector hats...

Yes that was the plan from day one. I just tought that big turbo sticking out through the hood would look pretty wicked rolling in the traffic lol.

Here are some really sweet pics of the never ending project from today! Lokar firewall mount transimission dipstick... lol I was not going to drill any damn holes on my firewall after all the work that was put into it so I just cut the bracket apart bent it and mounted it to the head. Finding M10x1.25 1.5" long studs locally NOT FUN!!! Now thats what I call true blow through turbo!!! Exhaust housing was rusted so bad from sitting that I had it bead blasted and lightly coated with wd40. Got my cover back from local polisher talk about BLING. Nice row of the coolers. Tial BOV. Going to work on intake manifold stuff tomorrow every time I see less of that blue tape I feel so much better! Before Now Hot pipe powdercoated in wrinkle black. Thats about all I got for this week. Few more things so take care off then its time for the fuel system carnage.

Mike, I remember when you took me for a ride in your 2jz 240z years ago well I have been motivated since that day!!!

Got some more stuff done this week. Water pump pulley and belt tensioner came back from powedercoating and they look great. Cleaned and repainted crank pulley and installed S2000 ribbed belt idler on belt tensioner. B&M transmission oil cooler installed. -6 lines and AN fittings. I was going to use straight black -6 fittings but in the end they would not clear trans tunnel so I had to run to the local speed shop and get 45deg fittings but all they had were red/blue... My down pipe is in the same area as these two lines so I got some fire sleve on there just in case. I left enough slack in the lines so that I can get them closer to the frame rail in the case that downpipe comes too close to it. I am still waiting on the compressor cover to come back from polisher and few small things here and there so thats it for now.

You are thinking about different guy with Ka-T... I worked with Ivan at Ams his first name is my middle name I belive that's where the confusion comes from. I am pretty sure that R-200 will be good to start with if it blows up I will go with solid rear end.

I have been running hand full or errands over the last two weeks but I finally got the chance to post some pictures of the updates. I took the compressor cover and fuel rail to get polished and I should have it back sometime next week. Got the water neck back from the powdercoater. Exhaust manifold installed with all new oem studs and bolts. Belive it or not it took me over an hour to get all the studs in without cutting them down... Bracket from head to the manifold is on but I think that I will have some clearance issues with the quick spool valve so I will have to see how that goes next week. Cam gears were faded from sitting so I had them powdercoated in gloss black and I installed the Titan cam gear bolts. Radiator all cleaned up. All new timing gear parts. Fan shroud welded to the radiator. New lower cover. Twin turbo valve covers painted same color as the engine bay, intake manifold powdercoated in wrinkle black, brand new igniton coils with brackets, and one super sweet TRD oil cap. New coil cover that I wanted to get repainted but it looks so good with the factory color that I am going to leave it alone. Water neck installed. Upper radiator hose done. Lower radiator hose done (looks twisted but its not). Sepertine belt tensioner and water pump ready for the powdercaoting. I should have some more stuff done by end of the next week then I will update on the progess.

To be honest I am not sure what flow difference between two pumps are I only went with TT oil pump because it has provision for crank sensor. I do know however that when you go with TT pump and you use 2jzge block with no piston oil squirters they tend to push front main seal out from high pressure. Most companies just put few screws around the front main seal and that seems to work just fine. I am leaving mine alone until I notice oil coming from the front of the engine (if it happens). I wanted to stay with high compression plain because of all the benefits that it will provide and I am mostly going to run the car on race gas so it just made sense to me.

Got my head back from Competiton Head and it looks really promising. Guy that did the work on it is the owner of the shop (in his 60's). He used to grind Toyota cams and build 22r race heads so I know he is good at what he does. His shop also does all of our Lexus/Toyota heads and we have had good luck with his work. This is what all he did: ported intake/exhaust ports, competition valve job, knife edged intake ports, polished combustion chambers, decked head surface, installed GSC beehive springs,installed Ferrea stock size valves, and shimmed my GSC cams to spec. Valves look like they are scratched but its just crap from shop rag that I used to wipe off that blue paint residue that machine shop had left behind. Hole above the two of the intake ports is for my cam hall sensor. No more Egr for me... Nice exhaust ports and distributor block off contraption. Paper thin GE headgasket... Arp headstuds installed. Now just need to get valve covers powdercoated and cam gears then I can get timing gear buttoned up.

I figured that it was going to take me about two nights to get my transmission installed man was I wrong... First two nights were spent trying to modify/shave the bellhousing since there were clearance issues when I tried to install trans with ALL the pieces of trans adapter in the place. Long story short almost two weeks later trans is in the car for good (I hope). First issue dual bolt pattern bellhousing. Had to notch three spots for the bolt heads to clear bellhousing. For some reason new Th350 bellhousing had some extra castings around two of the holes (around 10 and 2 o'clock) so I had to take care of those as well because they kept touching trans tunnel. My original Th400 bellhousing did not have much material around same area which is weird I tought that JW used same bellhousing for both to begin with?! ATI built Th350 ready to go in. Finally got the trans in the place so that I could find out that my crossmember will not work anymore. I mocked everything up with Th400 and later on got great deal on Th350. I figured that they used same crossmember location and once again I was wrong lol. Here is how crossmember was for Th400. Now with the Th350 in the place whole damn thing was sitting back about 6-8"...poop... That thing pushed me another few days back. I ended up spending whole night redoing original crossmember and this is final product. I made it, JT welded it, and then Mike powdercoated it. Tight fit but everything clears just fine. Why in the world does $2000 trans come with stock oil pan?!?! I will have to orded nice cast aluminum one to replace that hunk of junk. Weird how crossmember looks crooked in this picture when its not. Neil Chance convertor with Booswerx adapter installed. Driveshaft I had made by Clutch and Drivetrain Products with all Spicer u-joints and flanges. Good clearance all the way around (that blue tape is almost 1/16" thick in tight spots). Rivnuts nutserts installed for the shifter. Old center console that I am using for mockup. I will have to get new console later on since this one is complete crap.

Here is small update. Short block installed with solid engine mounts (man that will vibrate like SOB!). Cleaned and painted steering linkage installed too. Waterjet cut block off plate for factory oil temp sensor (I think). Steering shaft now clears engine mounts since they are slimmer than stock ones. Toyota remanufactured starter that only costed me $10 more than reman from AutoZone. Boostwerx trans adapter (been sitting for the past 3 years...) OEM flywheel bolts for 2jzge (stronger/longer than automatic flexplate bolts according to DaveH of Boostwerx). These damn things were $45 at my employee cost! More updates coming up next week.

I hope so man his build is top notch!

Front five lug brakes are on. Sooo shiny! Polyurethane bushings for swaybar. Front end all together(minus locking nuts for outer tierods}

Just dont let her look at my checking account! lol I dropped off my head at the machine shop to get refreshed with all the goodies that I got for it and first thing that machine shop owner tells me is to go and buy new valves right away because stock stuff just does not flow well... I figured screw it I have spent so much money so far few more bills won't be end of the world. My new Ferrea "Competition Plus" super alloy valves and keepers from Sean at Titanmotorsports who always gets me best price! Installed AZC rear brakes with five lug conversion all new bearings and seals (diff is dusty from bondo work) Modern Motorsports billet 300zx(z31)CV adapters with good used oem 300zx axles. I had to flip outer bearing races around to shorten the lenght of the axle. Also had the adapters powdercoated black since they were rusting. Whole rear subframe is complete now just have to fill up the differential. Front suspension ready to go together. I had the top hat for the coil machined down so that strut bearing can fit it. Reman steering rack with polyurethane bushings. Front five lug brakes are getting installed next. I was going to do it today but I forgot front spindle nuts at home so I will get to it in day or two.

Thanks man I agree 100%.

Engine bay painted two base coats of white and two coats of clear coat. For the garage style paint job I am more than happy with it!

Yeah he knows... He managed to forget the mask only thing we could do is turn on 3 industrial fans around the car and keep the bay doors up.

Richard spraying first coat of the white. Color is based of Alpine white. This was after first coat. Richard spraying first coat of clear right afther he finished second coat of base color. This is where we ran into slight problem. Half way through spraying clear coat spray gun just went to crap and it started BLOWING out clear! So much of clear came out that it formed three large puddles of runoff. We found alot of small imprefections in engine bay that we could not see with the primer on there they showed up afther the paint had dried off. There was no other than sand the most of the engine bay down and fix all the small imperfections. Here you can see what all had to be addressed (marked with green higlighter and seam sealer) but after this everything was as perfect as it could be! Silly me I tought that I was building race car...lol Primed again with 2K primer. Final paint on next update!

2K primer sanded down and started on smoothing out all the edges and gaps with seam seeler. First coat of paint going on next.

No sir your truck bumper is my hero!

Here is Richard mixing up same base primer. First coat of primer going on. YAY more sanding! 2K primer going on. More sanding,sanding,sanding,and priming coming up...

For the better part of the past month my buddy Richard has been working on my engine bay. From start to the finish of the whole engine bay shave job there is easily 100-120 hours of labor between two of us. Richard really outdid himself guy is just pure perfectionist! Here are pictures of his work. Starting to bondo and sand down whole engine bay. Here is everything with light coat of etching primer so that surface would not rust. Then some more sanding... Z wrapped up to prevent overspray. Thats it for tonight I will post part two in day or so.

It should be good enough for a while. Since engine bay is not done yet I have some pics of short block coming together just to keep this thread going to keep myself motivated... This is short block after about 2-3 hours worth of cleaning with paint stripper, wire brush, brake clean, and map gas torch lol then 3 coats of high temp semi gloss black paint. Block looks much better in person picture just came out like poop because of the flash. Got these parts powdercaoted in wrinkle black and cast aluminum and they are soooo clean in person. Arp rod bolts ready to go in. Rod bearings and crank jorunals all look great. Arp rod bolts all in. All brand new oem parts: water pump, TT oil pump,timing belt tensioner/pulley, TT crank pulley with trigger wheel, all new bolts and nuts, TRD 160deg thermostat. Eagle electric 200amp alternator. Wrapped up until engine bay gets done.

If you are looking into 2j then its in your best interest to register on SF. If you register you will get access to members build threads, drag racing forum, dyno # forum and so on.