Beau M

Today is a sad, sad day. I have sold the Datsun. I bought another car that I have been pestering the owner about for 6 years or so. I wanted to keep both of them, bu I don't have the space or the funds to support two projects. I gave the guy who bought it a good deal, mostly because he wants to fix it up for his kids. I had a lot of time and effort tied up in this car, and never thought I would sell it. But, things happen, and now I have this to play with: I just want to say thanks to everyone here who has helped me out with the Z. You all make this one of the best automotive forums I have been a part of. Now, I need to start researching how to put the 302 that was meant for the Z in this thing.

I used 2" angle steel, 12" long to sit on the frame rails. I then cut little 2" x 4" pieces to drop down from the angle iron into the windows I cut, which the x-member ends could connect to. Hopefully the pictures can explain it better than I. But like I said, this is probably not the best way to get this done. Here it it with the engine bolted up. The next step is to figure out a way to bolt this thing to the frame, clearance things, and re-run all the brake and fuel lines I had to cut out during the engine mock-up. Stay tuned!

Here's a couple headder pics: Now for motor mounts. Ugh. My inexperience and impatience are going to show in the following pictures, but if I did something wrong and my engine falls out on the freeway its all my fault. First, I cut my new x-member in half. I got a small length of pipe with an inner diameter the same as the x-members outer diameter. This allowed me to take the x-member out in pieces. This was VERY helpful during mock-up. But, I found I had a problem. With the engine in the proper place, the points where the x-member were supposed to attach to the frame were pointing directly at the TC rod buckets. It was about 2 inches too low. Here is where not enough experience and a few too many beers comes in. I decided to cut windows in the TC buckets:

And she's in! There is not nearly as much room to play with as I thought there would be. Its tucked down behind the front crossover, and the balancer is about an inch above the steering rack. I see that there will be some clearance issues in a few places, such as the firewall and the tranny tunnel. The headers fit great though, and that is wonderful news.

Ok, its about time for an update. The transmission ears had to go. Its about time I made an appearance in this thread. Here I am with the sawzall sitting where the engine should be. Here we go, back on the picker.

Small update, I just want to put this nugget out there for anyone that searches the site for info on the speedway motors universal 302 mount. You can make it work, but when the engine is at installed height, the tubes that would idealy go to the frame rails are pointed directly at the TC rod buckets. I don't reccomend doing what I did, because I'm a newb and ignorant, but I cut "windows" out of my buckets so I could use some 1/8" plate to extend my frame rail down to meet the tube. I will post pics soon, but it's not pretty. It is solid though.

I saw that a few years ago. I was thinking of doing something simmilar for turn signals.

Just a little update. I put the new clutch in and the tranny on. This was my first clutch job ever, it was easier than I thought it would be and gave me a good idea of how a clutch works. Here is the flywheel bolted on with new bolts. Yes I cleaned it real good before putting the clutch disk in: I forgot to take a picture with the pressure plate on. I had to make a run to ACE for some new bolts, turns out the flywheel is metric. Anyway, here is the tranny mounted to the engine. My next steps are to cut off the transmission mount "ears" under the Z. I also have to move some hoses and lines, but then I can trial fit the engine. Things are moving along nicely lately. I really hope this thing runs

I think you just have to make one. I am trying a different route, with a mount from Speedway Motors. I should be test fitting it in the next month or two. I just put pics of it up today, check it out: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?p=1103278#post1103278

I got a universal 302 cross member and some rubber engine mounts from Speedway Motors. In theory, I should be able to cut the member the width of the frame rails, slip it in and weld it up. I have a feeling the steering shaft and headers are going to complicate things. I bought a new harmonic dampener and threw that on, along with another blue pulley. Here are a bunch of pics of the mount mocked up to the engine with the headers on: So, I think I almost have everything I need to try and stab this thing into the car. It won't be hooked up or anything, but having the engine in the car will be a huge step and morale boost.

Santa came to my house a little early this year. I got a lot of new parts, I'm pretty excited. OK, here is the first batch: A new clutch from e-bay, tranny mount from JTR, and re-surfaced flywheel fresh from the machine shop: Because I have a ford drive train and the tranny mount is for a chevy, I had to enlarge the hole in the mount. Not terribly difficult, and should give me an inch or two play with side to side. Also painted it red, so its faster. I also got some headers from Speedway Motors. I really hope they fit, they are block huggers and work with my GT40p heads, which is kind of hard to find. Here they are raw: I cleaned them up with a wire wheel and some acetone, then shot some silver VHT high temp paint on them. I hope it does what it's supposed to and hold up to the heat, but I am skeptical.

I got some shiny parts in last night. I took these pictures at night, but you get the idea. I was leery of getting the ones with the Summit logo, but I like them now.

I got a new water pump and made it all fancy. Not much to say about it, but I think its looking good.

Progress! First, I got a new timing chain: Next I got some gaskets and slapped the heads back on: Then I masked it off, and painted the block: I took my intake and timing cover to the machinist to get cleaned, then painted them with the same paint I used on the transmission. I guess its alright. I am going for a red-white-blue theme with the engine, so being a little more shiny works. The oil pan got a coat of Ford blue. All new gaskets and bolts all around. Next step is some valve covers and a harmonic dampener.

Just a little update. I got the valve springs I needed to upgrade my Explorer heads. Apparently with the stock springs the heads will get valve float around 5K RPM. These Trick Flow springs will fix that. One old, one new: New Hotness:

I don't want to buy it, but got any pictures of your motor mounts? Or even if you just told me what you used that would help.

Threw some paint in the engine bay. I was going to do it red, but I figured there would be no way I could match the exterior color. So I said F it and went with semi-gloss black.

I made a little more progress today. I borrowed a pressure washer and went to town on the front end of the car. After a few sessions it cleaned up pretty good. I then sprayed the wheel wells with rubberized undercoating, and will be painting the engine bay in the next few days I hope.

I decided to paint my tranny today, for no particular reason. Like the previous pictures show, it had been painted black in the past, and looked like crap. I picked up some paint I thought was gray and started cleaning. Doesn't the cap of this look gray to you? Well, I started spraying and whoa. BLING BLING. Its very shiny, almost chrome-like. Not what I intended, but it will do. I asked the wife how she thought it looked. She says it looks like a spaceship. Works for me.

Its been a while, but ripping apart engines takes time, especially when its mostly new territory. After I took out the pistons and stuff, I taped it all up and cleaned it as best I could. I decided I could not handle having the crappiest pistons and heads ever thrown on a 302. I picked some pistons up for free from a awesome dude over on corral.net. They are forged units from a 90 mustang, and most importantly they have valve reliefs. I dropped my old and new pistons off at the machinist and had the new (ish) ones cleaned and pressed on my rods. After ordering the wrong rings the first time around, I then go the correct metric sized rings. So I rented this cheapo band ring compressor. That, coupled with my inexperience, resulted in me busting a ring. DON'T DO THIS. A new ring kit for one cylinder runs about 30 bucks, the whole set of 8 rings were 65 bucks. WTF. Anyway, here is what I did: But, the other pistons went in OK after I got my system down. The new rings should be here any day for the other piston. Now that I had decent pistons, I needed new heads. I just happened to find a set in the JY on a 1999 explorer. They are the GT40p heads, some of the best stock 5.0 heads you can get. Not bad going from the worst to the best. They will need new valve springs and a check-up at the machinist, which is the next step.

It just doesn't look like it was cut, it looks like a chunk was knocked out. Thanks for the reply.

Please tell me this hole is supposed to be there. It's a 86 302 block. The hole goes through to where the distributor shaft is.

Pulled the pistons out today. I then used a digital micrometer, the bores are the stock 4", and in pretty good shape. I may have a lead on some replacement pistons. Labeled bags of parts. Old pistons. And, boy I hope the hole above the lifter holes is supposed to be there. This is not what I had expected. I thought I would buy an engine and drop it in. Now, the whole project has been set back quite a bit. I don't see myself doing bodywork for a while, but maybe that's for the best. I was getting a little burnt out.

No kidding, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. Hours of enjoyment you can replay many times.

I popped in my season 1 DVD the other day. In the first episode, whey Ryan gets introduced to Dwight, Dwight tells him he has a "78 280z with new suspension, worth around 3 grand". Later on in other episodes his car is a trans am or something. Anyone else notice that?