marcg

The reason I had to resort to such a control arm design is due to the fact that the stock VH45DE exhaust manifolds wanted to be in the same location as the tension rod box. By removing this I now had more room to later put in a proper tuned header system as well. The draw back is that unlike the adjustable tension rods, making suspension adjustments for the castor is more difficult. It was allot of work but I had little other options. The Mitsu ball joint has the same taper as the stock Z steering knuckle. Due to it's design it was easy to machine an arm to adapt it to the RX7 control arm. The front pivot mounted into the stock subframe without too much trouble.

Allot of the sound was the from the triple 45mm DCOEs. The exhaust was a 2.5" with a dyno max muffler. Yeah, my old 240Z sure would go! I was running shortened struts all around with Koni D in the front and Tokico Illuminas in the rear. In the end I ended with 225 lbs/in springs in the front and 250 lbs/in in the rear. It ran really well with the 15"x8" wheels with the Kumho Victoracer tires. I ran it in the Ontario regional solso2 series for a couple of years and set FTD at every event I went to. Not bad considering I drove it to every event. It's not a trailer queen either, but rather a great example of how tough the 240Z are.

I'm willing to help anyone who wants to take this project on. I guess I should up load some new pics in my gallery instead of my Car Domain website. The paint will have to wait until this winter. I'm having too much fun driving it.

Guys, I hope you don't get the wrong impression, but this site is by far the best site for technical info from some of whom I believe to be the best expert Z owners and car fabricators anywhere. I just haven't found that I could contribute much info on any of the topics as they are already full of great technical details. I am here allot, just observing and picking up bits of info for my project. Now that the car is running I can actually get into some discussions on tuning the car. Yes it's a blast to drive!! After 2 years of work I am finally getting some fun back. It is significantly quicker then my old orange 3.0lt 240Z ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDHx0UmPSco ) and also quicker then my previous stage IV 300ZXTT. I had a chat with Steve Millen at the 03 Z convention at NHIS, and he felt that my car was probably putting out about 430HP at the flywheel. I loved the creature comforts and straight line speed of the TT but hated the fact that I could not throttle steer the car like my old 240Z due to the turbo lag. Now I can power drift the car coming out of a corner at 80 mph if I want while still being able to control the angle of the car relative to the track, and that's on 255/40-17 Kumho race tires. My plan is to go back and compete in the Car and Driver 1 Lap of America race again, but this time with a 240Z. With so many unknown tracks, you need a car that is forgiving and can be easily handled at the limits. I believe that my 450Z is almost there. Thanks for the feed back and support on my project.

BTW VERY NICE work on your Z!! Wish I could do body work like that. Great work.

I am not sure what would be involved in installing the Q45 front suspension in the S30 shell. I have seen several guys convert the rear to a 240SX suspension, but bear in mind that they are a narrower car then the Q. If you need the wiring diagrams of what I did to get the stock ecu to run the engine let me know and I'll send you a larger format pic of it. Or do you have Smartdraw?

Now that I have the 450Z running, I find that it's "one wheeling" around most of the corners. If you look at the first vid here you'll see what I mean: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/563982 Has anybody had any luck rebuilding one of these diffs? Or should I be looking for a used lower mileage unit to replace mine? I've had good luck with the R230V LSD holding up in the past in my Z32TT, so assumed the R200V viscous LSD would also hold up to the abuse. I prefer the 3.5:1 as opposed to the 3.7:1 ratio, it makes 1st gear very useful and great highway cruising RPM. If anybody has done this before let me know as I need to get all of this new found power to hook up.

Now that I have the 450Z running, I find that it's "one wheeling" around most of the corners. If you look at the first vid here you'll see what I mean: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/563982 Has anybody had any luck rebuilding one of these diffs? Or should I be looking for a lower mileage unit to replace mine? Let me know as I need to get all of this new found power to hook up.

Do you mean, the Q45 struts and springs going into the 240Z shell? PM if you want, it's not a problem. Tough part of the engine was steering shaft, wiring and transmission. The wiring works. I still need more seat time in the car to assess if the tranny adapter works fine or not. At present there is a fair bit of throw out bearing noise, but the T56 design is meant to let the bearing ride on the surface of the pressure plate at all times.

I also considered this suspension swap as it is a sweet setup that works very well. I had a Z32TT before and it proved it to me. The reason I stayed away from it was because of all of the weight I would be adding to the 240Z. I felt that I would loose too much performance by adding another 200 lbs of spindles, control arms and body reinforcements to make worth while.

A few years ago I rebuilt my VG30DETT and it totaly floored the machine shop operator when he got the short block to rebore it. He said that the empty block weighted as much as a complete GM 2.8lt V6 short block! No weight scales, just gut experience. so it's not that accurate, but answers why this engine weights so much. We concluded that the block was probably made of some high density nodular iron for strenght. Lets not forget that the VG30DETT exhaust manifolds and turbos add a significant amount of weight as well.

Sorry to jump in so late on this thread, but I have accurately weight both of these engines prior to starting my 450Z project. I used a precise calibrated lifting scale which was hooked up between the engine and the hoist. Hare are the numbers I got: 300ZXTT engine was weight as a complete engine, including a/c comp, stock flwheel/clutch, turbos, intake etc but w/o alt, wiring harness and ps = 625lbs VH45DE complete with harness and auto bell housing but w/o alt, ps, a/c and torque converter = 460 lbs 240Z engine w/o alt, air pump, dist = 350lbs

The stock exhaust manifolds are not that big. In other words if you were to make headers they would take the same amount of space as the stock exh manifolds.

Yes the auto transmission had speed sensor no cable. If you put the engine in properly it will fit btween the firewall and the steering rack, but you will have to modifiy the cross member and rack mounts. I had problems getting the steering shaft that leads from the firewall to the rack to join up. After allot of looking around a solution was found. Another issue was the fact that the exhaust manifolds/header need to be in the same location as the frame rails. I had to remove them and build a seperate subframe to tie things back together. This swap in an S30 requires allot of fabrication. See my site for some details on my conversion: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/563982

Great to see some of you guys out. I can relate to not having a car, I've been working on mine for over 2 yrs! I hope to have it out to the lapping day, not painted but mechanically functional. If you plan on running, make sure that you fill in the form and send in your money soon, as the event is filling up quite quickly. http://www.tizcc.ca/images/2007lap.pdf

Wow, cool to see so many CDNs as members of HybridZ. We should almost have a CDN HybridZ meet this summer to talk about our projects. How about May 25th at Shannonville Motorsport Park? It's our annual lapping day. Just a thought. You would not have to run, just show up and talk Zs. http://www.tizcc.ca/images/2007lap.pdf

I agree with Gollum. Turbines have too narrow a power band to be of any use in a car. But that does work in a race boat because they do not have to cruise through town to get to the track

It looks like an Allison 250 (or mil spec T63) from a helicopter. Hp ranges start at 275hp at 51000 rpm. The gear box reduces output rpm to about 5000 rpm. There real popular in race boats as well.

Great thread on what can be a very controversial subject. The Z is one of those magical cars that can be seriously modified to perform with the best of the best and yet can still be a very "civilized" street car. But spring rates and shocks are key to this balance. I ran cut Chevy Chevette springs (~180 - 220 lbs/in) for many years with the Ilumina shocks. With the bigger wheels and tires I went to a full coil over with 225/275 lb/in springs with cut struts tubes and ran Koni D iin the front and the Ilumina fronts cartridges in the rear. This combo proved to be very competitive (several solo1 and 2 championships) yet the car was still better riding then my old Mustang GT and F41 suspension Firebirds on the street. You can see my car (orange240Z) VS a freinds car with the same setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDHx0UmPSco So any decent setup in the right hands can work for most aplications. This is still the best technical website anywhere. Thanks.

Yeah, I just picked up the engine with both arms and walked onto 2 bathroom scales I just grabed our lift scales from work it was allot easier.

I weight the vh45de after I got it out of the car and here is what I got: It came in at about 460lbs! That's without the starter, A/C, P/S,alt, otherwise the complete engine. We weighted one of the 240Z engines I had around and it came in at 350lbs without the alt, dist. and smog pump.

I guess in the rush of responding to your message I didn't make myself clear. Do you want me to go confirm if the mounts are similar? I have Z31, Z32 and Q45 mounts somewhere in my pile of parts. I know the Z32 and Q45 are very similar if not indentical (I'd have to measure to confirm). As for my 450Z signature, I'm working on a conversion as well. The conversion is aboout 80% done, but the car still needs alot of work. Check out the progress at http://www.cardomain.com/ride/563982 My son and I looked at putting the VH45DE in his Z31AE. Initial measurements indicated that the brake booster was too big to let the engine sit back against the firewall.

They are the type with a stud on either end. They reminded me of the ones from my Z32TT. I should be able to get my hands on a pair of Z31 mounts. Do you want to look for them and confirm?

Hi guys, as GD71240z said I'm working out the wiring of the engine harness to my a custom fuse panel. It's allot of work and not very neat to look at so I have not posted any pics as it would be boring for most. The RX7 LCA are from the early 2nd gen because they have a removalable ball joint unit. I went to this set up to allow room for the exhaust to drop between the frame rail and engine. The stock T/C unit encroached too far back. And it also allowed me to make my own adatper to be able to adjust the track width of the front. Having to cut out the stock frame rails out to get the exh manifolds to sit down low enough for everything to line up properly, I had to make a new subframe to mount the engine to, I was easy to adapt this LCA as well. I'd like to see how the other 450Z guys dealt with the exh system? Anyways, I just need to sort out the oil lines and I can start the engine! I also post better res pics here: http://album.hybridz.org/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=11544

I was also wondering about the lack positve drive for the oil pump. The fact that is seems to only be a fricton drive is rather unusual. But in reality the amount of torque required to get that sporcket to spin after you tighten up the crank pulley would be more then adequete to drive an oil pump. never heard of oil pump drive failures on the NICO site.