Gollum

Serious lack of updates: I moved. Long story but I'm now in New Hampshire. Took about a year and a half to find/buy a house out here, car was in a storage unit during that time. Just got a welding machine and some welding gear. Will be starting back up on this shortly.

Yeah, I found some examples of S197's running 15's all around specifically for drag racing, with slicks in the back and skinnies up front, and those 15's where even clearing the larger GT brakes, but using spacers. Lots of talk of mild grinding of the caliper to fit. I'm still not sure that it's not the less expensive way to go, even with expensive aftermarket brakes to fit 15" wheels, because the alternatives are just as expensive for fancy brakes, and you still end up with many aspects that are proprietary to Z cars. If you convert to the S197 spindle at least then you're using "mustang market" parts which get volume discount. All that said, when I went looking for "compact" brake packages from willwood and others, the only compact stuff I found are specifically "drag pack" brakes which are far less braking potential than OEM for usage like road racing. They're designed for one hard stop at the end of a straight, not a 30 minute heat on a road course. I'll keep looking though. Realistically I'm probably another year out. Rough order of operations before we get to front spindles: 1. Finish engine mounts 2. Fabricate trans mount 3. Fabricate exhaust manifolds 4. Purchase flywheel 5. Attempt to find a clutch combo that works with said flywheel 6. Find driveline shop that can make me a custom shaft with the sliding section required (bolted on both sides) ( Then the fun begins ) 7. Determine if I want to move forward with the R200 just to have the car back on the road, or reach out to Vlad and start a super 8.8 swap and only have the driveshaft made once, instead of twice.... Also, in the midst of all those very mechanical/logistical aspects of the swap I'll be wiring an engine loom, potentially switching from MS3x to something else, we'll see. Then there's the triage of either route. If 1-6 take a full calendar year from now, expect to get a DM from me around April 2024 @Invincibleextremes

I've been digging around and can't seem to find good info, probably because everyone is doing the opposite, but what's the smallest brake package you can fit on these S197 spindles? Trying to figure out how to plan to keep to a 15" wheel if I'm converting to 5x114.3 all around. I'm attempting to keep wet curb weight relatively low (sub 2300lbs is the goal, with V8 and 6 speed), and would rather not escalate to the taller/larger wheels. There's still a few good options for 15's left that the market hasn't completely dried up on.

DOM tube is .120 wall, and the plate I'm using is 1/8th". So as long as I engineer the gussets to support the tube properly it should be okay. I'm also going to engineer the chassis side of the shackle bushing receiver to be a box u-shape so that in a bushing failure mode the chassis will catch the engine mount preventing it from falling more than a quarter inch.

Should be fixed now. Seems like hybridz is having some issues with copy/pasting images directly into posts. Now they're just links to google photos urls that seem to render properly. This size bushing is about the same size turbo yoda uses on the cars he makes mounts for (skid factory youtube) and is on the larger end of what shackle bushings are readily available. It might feel like solid mounts, and I'm okay with that. I was actually pretty close to just fabbing solid mounts... You gotta remember, this car doesn't have glass, interior, a dash, etc. It's perfectly fine if it's a bit rough on the NVH, but I'll be sure to report back. Regarding durability, these bushings are intended to hold the weight of a jeep across four of them, with constant change in angular deflection on where the internal pin is pushing as the suspension moves up and down. If four of these can handle holding up the rear half of a jeep, I think four of them can handle my engine and transmission. And the nice thing, is that it's a "standard" part that's now easily replaceable, and I can carry a set of spares that would work for either the transmission or engine.

Since I couldn't find information I needed, I figured I'd post here once I'd answered my question. "How much clearance or interference should you run on polyurethane bushings?" Well, it's quite difficult to figure out from looking at the cross reference chart on energy suspension's website what size tube is expected to be used. Well, my first guess turned out perfect, so it's at least one data point. I bought an energy suspension 2.2120(R) which has an OD of 1.265". I bought DOM tube that's 1.5" OD and .120 wall, so 1.260 ID. So 0.005 interference. At first attempt the bushing seemed just a touch tight to get in but I went ahead and cut my length (about 2.5" for this bushing) and cleaned up the cuts. Added some grease, and it all assembled with minimal effort but nice and solid (light tapping with the dead blow to get the pin in). So there you have it. Data. By my guess, for 1-2" bushing diameters, you probably want at least .001 interference, and probably not more than .008. I'm sure if it were 0.010 I'd have had a hell of a time ever pulling it apart once assembled. Caption: I just had to know as soon as it all arrived Assembled: Using a 2.5" cut I've got about 1/16th of an inch or less of a gap between the two halves. And about 1/32 of poke out you can see in the picture on each side. Some might feel the need to "compress" the bushings and make the tube a touch longer so that when the bolt is tightened it puts some compression force on the bushing. While that's likely not a bad idea, this will be for engine and transmission mounts, already way overkill, and that would just cause faster wear in my mind. I figure let it run a touch loose so that any violent engine movements don't just want to sheer my mounts off the chassis. Or maybe I'm wrong. We'll see.

Looks like I was talking about engine coupling ideas about 9 years ago. Go figure. I've REALLY been wanting to build a multi-bike engine thing for a while now. No reason it can't be done. Multi-engine options abound, but most automotive engines are quite heavy once adding two or three, and offer minimal performance impact over other options. Example: Why run two V6's when good V12's exist with similar displacement? Why run two engines for more power when cheap force induction is attainable? The benefit of multiple bike engines is that bike engines have an extremely high power to package weight and size ratio, so they fit anywhere and don't weigh much. But their clutch package and transmission don't like pushing more than 1,000lbs around, especially with boost. So add more to increase capacity. And two GSXR motors still weigh less than most automotive engines. And if you look at the definitive engine weights thread, you quickly reailze that an iron V8 with an auto weights about three or four bike engines/trans packages worth....

A 350whp L28ET is a sub $5k endevor, and most of that is spent making it perform nicely versus just getting to the number. You can get to the number with an ebay turbo and a junkyard engine. Getting to 600whp is probably a $20k endeavor realistically. JeffP has thrown away more blocks because of not meeting his specs/needs than I've probably owned datsuns... You need a good block, it needs heavy cooling mods, careful attention to detail when building, good headwork by someone familiar with the platform, and then all the right supporting mods on the turbo and induction system. That said, I bet I could do about 700whp for pretty cheap if it was just a drag racing motor. Concrete and nitro does wonders...

I promise I've making progress. Not a whole lot going on that's worth noting imo, just typical engine fitting stuff. I did finally come up against something worth sharing though... If you're using the MT82, unless you can get the motor REALLY LOW, you're almost certainly going to have to massage or cut the transmission tunnel just forward of the factory opening. The MT82 top shift linkage mounting point fouls. Otherwise, I cut the factory ears out, the MIGHT clear but it's tight enough I decided just to ditch them. If you can get the engine block basically up against the firewall (would have to remake and reroute brake lines, ditch the vacuum booster, etc) then you MIGHT be able to get that part into the factory opening, but you'll also then have issues fitting an over the counter shifter in front of the back of the opening. So it's a problem to be dealt with. Now, for the record, I'm at 2.9 degrees transmission tail down (compared to the rocker being "level") and the diff is 3.3 degrees nose up (compared to rocker being "level). Technically, I need to bring the transmission "down" a touch, but I'm already in the ballpark of workable dimensions. The struggle I'm facing right now, is that my pan is LOW, and I still have some space in the front of the engine to come down a little (about an inch). As it is, I'm likely going to need to make a skidplate, and it'll need to land about .75-1.00 inch lower than the OEM "frame rails" on the floor to bring it lower than the oil pan. The pan can likely be chopped and welded, but I'd rather not do that right this moment ,especially as the pan will be relatively easy to remove down the road with how little of it sits over the cross member. At any rate, it's getting really close to fitting in order for me to start welding mounts. And hey, the hood fits, right? Technically.... Yeah... If the front drops down that inch, that will get me close... but then I'll likely need to drop the rear at least another quarter inch. In theory if I welded it as-is there might be enough sag to be "safe" but then any motor rock will bump the hood. So better to get it just a touch lower.

Update: So I got the radiator "good enough" to make it to cars and coffee. The next weekend was spent tearing into the donor car and bringing parts home. It's a 2003 Crown Vic PI motor. Heads were ported and polished by the venerable Modular Head Shop (MHS). This is their stage 2 package, so it should be good for 320+whp with appropriate supporting mods. As far as mods, that's not the factory intake or TB/Elbow. I'll be running OEM manifolds for fitment, so I'll be giving up 10-20hp there from what I could make, but I think 310-320whp might still be achievable without much drama. Along with just the motor I've got the harness, throttle cable (and pedal), full exhaust from the car (never ran), and engine cradle (that sadly doesn't fit very well, will have to cut and reweld some of it), fuel pump module driver, marauder MAF (will run SD+MAF), and other various bots and doohickies. So in what "spare" time I have before Christmas break starts at work, I'm going to see if I can get this thing at least close to ready to drop in, which means getting the wiring harness roughed out enough for me to be ready to pin the ECU side, along with handing the plumbing. I might delete the EGR just to save the output and reduce complexity, and I'm not going to have a heater so I need to reroute those lines. I also need to order the appropriate idler wheel and belt to delete the AC and PS accessories. Summary of justifications: Most of you know or can see I've been on hybridz a long while. You can dig through all my posts, and you can see I've long supported the L28ET swap for it's budget and potential. I still have a warm spot in my heart for the L engine. But they're not nearly as widely available as they used to be. I want to race this car. Maybe not super competitively, but I don't want to miss half or all of a season because of blowing a motor and struggling to find another combo to put back into the car. The more you modify your L engine, the more difficult it will become to replicate it. By swapping to the modular V8, and specifically using the MT82, I've future proofed myself for a long time to come. Sure this one is ported and camm'ed, and thus difficult to replace 1:1, but a 260whp mill is available all day every day right now. In the long run, the 5.0 will be just as available (nearly already is as easy to get a hold of) and the prices will not be outrageous. The 5.0 has the same mounts, so the main hurdles to swap to the coyote platform will be new mid pipes for the exhaust, and converting to e-throttle. All in all, I don't even WANT huge power numbers for the NASA class I plan to run in long term, so having a readily available factory mill I can just plop in has huge value for me. Someone at cars and coffee suggested the SR instead. I think that really shows how much some people won't get it. The weight savings if a turbo 4 is of interest, sure, but reliability and availability are king in budget independent racing. The SR might live a long while at 250-300whp, but I'd have to always keep a spare motor on hand, and I'd rather not dedicate garage space to spare engines.

A bare chassis is less than 500lbs iirc. Start adding require parts weight from there. Sub 2k WITH all the body panels is possible, but requires diligence.

More parts for upcoming powertrain swap: If you're on facebook you might know what this is and what's going in front of it. Also, bottom radiator mount is made, and upper support replacement welded in (and likely to be redone at a later date). Need to fab some upper hold downs and finish off the hoses before cars and coffee this next weekend.

It should be noted that the aluminum housings use different LSD carriers and axles and need to be swapped together if moved to an iron housing or vice versa. The aluminum diffs also have a unique flange on the input, but that's meaningless if you're converting it to a u joint or having a custom shaft made anyway. Just keep in mind that they're not all the same. Even the 3.15 ratio can be used in any housing, you just have to swap all the accompanying parts along with it. To making it easy I'd just suggest people source an iron diff. That's what all the go-fast bits will be guaranteed to work with anyway. Even some of the big HP auto guys are already breaking the aluminum diff ears. So unless you're doing road racing were shock loads are lower and you care about the 24 pounds of weight, stay away from the aluminum housings.

Buildthread! Buildthread! Buildthread!

Made a touch of headway on this today. I had some time, and decided to hack away to see how rough this would be with my existing knowledge of awk and the like. Here's my v0.1-0 data transformer: https://github.com/nshobe/megalog It works, at least for my logs. Uploading that to splunk I get 100% proper data ingestion with no post extraction required. And of course all the fields populate automagically: So yeah, just tossed the server instance up today, so no public user access yet. But that's not beyond possible. I'd like to have a proper log file uploader configured first though, so people can send their logs with the proper metadata.