Base model 280zx project

[BluDestiny]

Yeah I love the headlight covers, but I hate the weight from the front bumper and I really don't like the look of the lip. Just gott wait and find something special

[BluDestiny]

OK I'm finally back and reunited with my car. Had a brief study abroad stint in France for the last 4 months. 

 

Basically got back to California on December 27th, and after like 6 days drove the thing back to Florida. It had a horrible exhaust leak that I should have taken care of before I left, but didn't. Because of the leak the car was running rich and it smelled horrible and made that stupid fluttering sound. Hit some snow in New Mexico/West texas which slowed me down a little, but my trusty old datsun made it. 

 

As soon as I got back to Daytona Beach I rinsed off the bottom of the car, did an oil change and changed out the intake/exhaust gasket. Ran a lot better. Now I'm almost ready to start my Turbo swap (although I've been saying that for like a year now)

 

[240zphilly]

What an adventure! If you're still wanting some stock turbo stuff in november, I'll be back in Miami and the car will be apart... Hit me up and remind me and we can work something out, maybe trade something if you got some cool parts.

[BluDestiny]

Big things happening. Ordered some rims and sticky tires, and car is currently in a very cheap couple day paint jail. Will see how everything turns out by this friday. 

 

Also Turbo swap may have a new meaning in the near future after much debate with my friend.
 

Teaser shots will probably be posted in about 3 days

[BluDestiny]

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

I definitely vote turbo swap. I'm having a blast converting mine.

 

And sweet Enkei rims. What's the color going to be on the car?

[240zphilly]

thats a very unrevealing teaser! kudos on the new wheels... 

[BluDestiny]

 

They are silver. Still waiting on one set of spacers before I can put them on. Running some Hankook Ventus RS-3's. I had RS-2's (I believe) a long time ago, so I'm excited to try these out.

 

Also got the car painted one solid color,flattish satin black. This is just a temp color while I do a bunch of work on it, just got really sick of seeing a multicolored car every day for the past 4 years. I found an add on CL for a guy who painted cars for $200. Thought it would take me about half that along with time down to do it myself (which I have done, did not enjoy the exp) so I figured I had nothing to lose. On top of that it was only $200 so I didn't really have high expectations.

 

Long story short I was quite impressed. Sure there is a tad of overspray, but that was expected.

 

 

Next update will be with the wheels on hopefully. I should be getting the rear spacers tomorrow.

Edited January 25, 2013 by BluDestiny

[BluDestiny]

well the spacers are giving me a little troule, but only becasue I walked right into it. The studs on my front set are 1/4 -20 thread and the rear are 12x1.5 thread. So I had the front set studs pressed out and new 12x1.5 thread studs pressed in. Also waiting on my lug nuts to show up. Should be in in a few days. Will update with pics of the rims on the car along with my new plan of action.

 

In the mean time:

 

Yes the secnd guy is my friend, Yes he sucked.

Edited February 5, 2013 by BluDestiny

[BluDestiny]

muahahahahah

 

 

 

This was achieved with this beast. 1.5in 4x114 to 5x114 spacer/adapter:

 

 

I did have to grind down my studs, and I bought a crappy harbor freight angle grinder that actaully broke, so I'm going to need to return it right after I get the fronts on. Only the rears for now, still waiting on some lug nuts for the front. which just got in, but I couldn't pick up since I'm in class.

Edited February 7, 2013 by BluDestiny

[BluDestiny]

Achievement unlocked: not crappy rims on all 4 corners

 

Tight fitment, just the way I like it;

Rear

Front

 

 

Before anyone asks me questions, The rears are 17x10 +18 with a 1.5in spacer (effectively -20). the fronts are 17x9 +22 with a 1.75in spacer and a 7mm slip on spacer (effectively -20) And I could probably do away with the extra 7 mm spacer.

 

Tires are Hankook RS-3's, 235/45/17 in the front and 255/40/17 in the rear.

Edited February 9, 2013 by BluDestiny

[240zphilly]

Sittin pretty.... how does it ride with all that weight down there.

[BluDestiny]

It feels super planted now, compared to the steelies I had with some all seasons. These rims saved me about 5lbs per corner on weight (wheel/tire combo is 10lbs lighter per corner, but the spacers add 5lbs per corner).

 

I'm actually thinking of heading to discount tire and asking how much I can get back if I trade in these hankooks and go with something stickier.

[ArchetypeDatsun]

Love your car man love your new enkei wheels they look great on the car, I got that same whale tail spoiler how much did you get yours for?

[BluDestiny]

I got it for $40. I went to the guys house to buy something else like a fender or something and the asked if I was looking for anything else, I said the only thing I'm looking for is a wing and Tada he had it hidden in the rafters. Asked him how much and since I was already buying other stuff he threw it in for $40 more. What a steal.

 

Edit: just remembered it was a wiperless hatch I was getting, the original on the car had rust issues and this guy had a hatch for $100

Edited February 23, 2013 by BluDestiny

[BluDestiny]

So it begins. Pulled the SR20 out of my parts car this weekend and stripped out almost everything else I need except the windshield. I bought this car pretty much just for the engine, saw the add and checked it out. It did run and idled fine, but he couldn't rev it past 3k, probably a fuel problem since the car had been sitting for like 5 months he said. On top of that the headgasket had been blown. Bought it for $2400 and to date I have sold about $1100 of parts from it so far with quite a few parts still left, I could probably get another $300 easy out of some parts, just need to get the shell out of my garage. $1300 isn't bad for a running, modded, 300whp sr20 even if it does have a blown hg.

 

 

The engine hoist was bleeding oil and wouldn't lift all the way, so I ended up cutting the front support off

 

Finally got it out and separated the tranny (came with a B&M short shifter = win)

 

It has an aftermarket spec clutch and some aftermarket flywheel (unknown if lightweight or not) which I will probably be getting rid of. Tranny has the short shifter, engine has rocker arm stoppers, came with a freddy intake and tomei tubular ex. headers, isis downpipe and it has a more than likely blown GT2871 on it. Will be scrapping the shell this week once my weather strip comes in and I can swap the windshield out to my s13. 

 

Basic plans are to completely rebuild it, eagle rods and wisco pistons, new clutch and flywheel, keeping the freddy intake and tomei exhaust and isis downpipe. I'm going to be replacing the turbo with a similar one that was rebuilt by my friend, but has a journal bearing center along with buying my friends side feed 550cc injectors. I'll be ditching the tuned ecu in favor of a haltech standalone complete with a full set of custom guages (not sure if I want speedhut or autometer yet). Since the dash will have to come out at some point I will be removing my AC core and some of my ducting since I only need it to defrost my windshield really (and because my heater has been stuck like that since I bought the car). There will be a lot of fab work, which I will be doing under my friend Brian's careful guidance, along with putting the engine back together. 

 

End goal: 400whp tuned on pump gas, along with the ability to say I put it together all by myself

Edited February 25, 2013 by BluDestiny

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

 

End goal: 400whp tuned on pump gas, along with the ability to say I put it together all by myself

 

 

That, I think, is the most satisfying part! Nothing beats saying "Thanks, I built it." when someone compliments you on the car.

 

Really excited for your SR swap!

[BluDestiny]

Well this weekend I decided to throw on my stock turbo stuff just to see how it'll feel. It was one of those "I've had the parts forever and if I didn't at least try to use them I'd never know".

 

Started with this, a nice healthy NA L28 that've I've put about 35k on since the rebuild, including several cross country trips. Runs fine, but is definitely starting to show wear and tear and some leaks. 

 

Had this on my shelf. I bought all these parts a little more than a year ago intending them to go on in summer. Well I got lazy and they I studied abroad in Europe last fall and spent a lot of money.

 

Removal is the first step: took me about 1.5 hours to move the car into the garage, jack it up and remove the manifolds and entire exhaust. Not bad. Took it around the block once with just open headers and I'm pretty sure I pissed off my neighbors.

 

Nice, clean, coated turbo mani, but I wanted more heat protection since I live in FL

 

First mock up for a little motivation:

 

Test fitting the N42 intake. As you all should know the PCV valve on the bottom of this intake is in the way of the turbo/jpipe coupling. So I did what a few memebrs here have done and fit a 90* bend and ran the PCV valve inline. Came out pretty good..

 

Then the most time consuming part, swapping the oil pan out. Literally took me about 4 hours to do including an hour to get the motor back in place. First step was to jack it up to get clearance. At the time I thought it would be a good idea to just unbolt the mount from the crossmember. Well this turned out to be impossible to get both the bolts back in properly and I gave up and unbolted one of the rubber insulators and set it back. 

Healthy looking engine.

 

Healthy application of hi temp silicone to hopefully beat the leaks. The old gasket on the NA oilpan had cracked and was letting oil through towards the front timing cover:

 

Final mockup:

 

at this point I was tired and just shoved the AFM to turbo boot on and wedged it between the front swaybar and rad, I just wanted to start the engine. Topped the oil off, connected the few electrical components and the fuel lines. One thing I didn't show if the turbo injectors on the manifold. I had them sent to RC engineering and cleaned, which turned out good since one of them was only pushing like 180cc/min. After the cleaning they were all right at 270 though. 

 

Basically I had gotten everything prepped, I took the Jpipe, oil pan and manifold to get sandblasted and painted and the headers coated. I had the injectors clean and had all the gaskets ready. There wasn't much else I could prep without actually taking parts off the car. There are still a few things to be worked out, like the AFM boot. But the biggest thing I have to fix right now is the Jpipe to TB gasket. my Jpipe didn't come with one, so there is a massive gap and air leaks into the TB. Somehow the engine managed to idle at around 600rpm after some coaxing though. 

 

 

In the end this happened:

 

I had to crank this thing like 15 times before it started because the oil pressure needed to build up and the fuel pressure had to build. My roommate was there watching with a fire extinguisher ready and when it started I just started yelling. It was a fantastic moment. As of now I'm using the NA ecu, dizzy and harness. Things I swapped in are the turbo injectors, oil pan and of course the turbo manifold, turbo and downpipe. This is a temporary setup which will last me about 3 months hopefully. Stock boost levels and hopefully nothing explodes. 

[BluDestiny]

Well messed with it today to actually properly sit the AFM and also found a piece of rubber I could cut down to fit around the throttle body for the Jpipe. First I cut out the bracket that hold the NA maf, Then sanded and painted over and it fits like a glove now. No vibration since the stock rubber boots absorb all of it. 

 

 

Don't know if you can tell, but in the last pic the afm is backwards. After I put it together it would idle, but just wouldn't rev up. As soon as I gassed it it would die. I spent about 2 hours trouble shooting, checking connections and adjusting the timing and idle. Finally when I was about to swap out my afm for my old one I noticed that mine was backwards. D'oh.

 

Well it runs now, stumbles a bit and I attribute that to the lack of fuelling going on under boost. Next couple of steps are to get a boost gauge and wideband A/F gauge. I'll be ordering those tomorrow, as well as getting my exhaust attached. Gonna stick with 2.5" since it's what I have. pics will come once my exhaust is back on, along with a video. 

 

I have to say though, it sounds pretty mean with just the downpipe on. 

[BluDestiny]

Few updates, First off got the downpipe made. Nothing that the muffler shop had fit, so they ended up slotting a regular 3" 3 bolt flange. It goes from 3" and reduces to 2.5" to match my exhaust system.

 

 

On top of that I did some heat protection. 

 

Also put a few strips on the underside of the intake and the runners, and around the PCV line. I just did a really bad job so I didn't take a picture.

 

Lastly I finally got my STI diff in. The axles came sometime last week, rand to the hardware store to get some bolts to put them together, and just let it sit there as I did the Turbo swap. after that I took a trip to Miami so I couldn't really do anything this weekend. So today I got out of class early and told myself I got this. Took me about 1 hour to drop the 4.11 in there with the axles, spent about 30min cleaning up the new one and swapping covers (the STI cover had a temp sensor in place of the fill up hole and was missing studs). Filler her up and spent about 1 hour putting it back in. All in all the job with breaks took about 3 and a half hours. 

 

Here you can sorta see the clutch packs. Its from an 05 STI so its a CLSD.

 

Both of them side by side

 

Adequate use of RTV to seal it.

 

Finally installed

 

The difference is insane. This car now hugs corners with ease, no more skipping. I only drove it for about 5 miles to make sure there were no clunking sounds and to make sure nothing was loose. If you're thinking about getting an LSD, do it. Aside from sticky tires this is the most notable handling difference I've felt.