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HybridZ

Just another LS1/T56 Build


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Ya I thought about doing on of the legit dash caps, but I would rather try and fix the dash first, then if I can't go with a cap. I guess its kind of a workmanship thing for me, sure I could buy a cap, but being able to say man that dash looks good after it had 15 cracks in it is something I like being able to do. Plus if I ever need a job at an interior shop, I'll have my resume in the parking lot :D

 

-Will

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Thanks man, sometimes you just gotta make things work, its definitely a temporary thing though. Oh FYI to anyone else wanting to be a badass and have hood exhaust, I think the 98 vette manifolds are the only LSx manifolds you cant just flip upside down, the EGR tube they have run across the top hits the head bolts and covers the spark plug holes. I ended up having to cut the manifolds off at the flanges and weld them on upside down. I took 100 dollar manifolds and turned them into scrap metal pretty much. On a side note I made it back home today, car drove great although the headache I got on the ride home was probably from the exhaust, it gets annoying pretty quick when your going 70-80.

 

-Will

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well unfortunately I have something new to report, even though I have lots of stuff I need to put up here just need to get un-lazy and take pics of all the things that happened during the swap. Ill list the good news first :)

 

I fixed the brakes, apparently the coupler in the brake booster line is a one-way check valve...well guess what dummy put that check valve in the wrong way...ya this guy lol. Easy fix though and now they work much better. Another good note Kim sent me another wheel last week, should be at my house tomorrow I believe. Maybe he won't ask for the incorrect wheel back and I can have an almost full size spare hehe. I also made seat brackets for my firebird seat(Which I actually took some pictures of!), wasn't to hard although I just made the front brackets, didn't get around to the rears, but now my seat isn't flailing around. Also put the 4 point harness Mat had in the car back in, so now I feel like I'm driving a racecar around :D . I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

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Now for the bad news. I went cruising with a buddy of mine going towards a local state park about 20 miles away. I end up coming to a T stop sign from a local road onto a main highway that happened to be on a pretty steep hill. I stop before getting to the stop sign because we were trying to decide between left and right. Well long story short, I start to move after coming to a stop, and lay into it after the car starts to move a bit. No clutch dump, no drivetrain shock from shifting or slack, just straight off idle torque. I want to say it was just about to turn the tires over to do a burnout(Which was my goal, of course <_< ) and I hear the snap, clunk, clunk, clunk sound that is becoming all to familiar. Sheared 2 ears off the u-joint and fortunately didn't tear the yoke up this time so I will just be replacing the u-joints once autozone gets them in. I ordered the non-grease-able ones so hopefully those will be a little bit stronger. This was the u-joint off the shaft I pulled off the parts car, no idea if its factory or what. Pictures.

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My buddy with his jeep towed me this time, little bit more respectable than the V6 'rustang lol. Sure am glad I kept the tow strap I bummed from Mat last time I broke an axle.

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Soon as I'm out of school for the summer the exhaust will be taken care of, and I will probably try to go to the 280zxt CV axles because those appears to be much easier(read: cheaper) than the 300zxt axles. Really starting to feel like an import driver as I have a set of spare axles coming in the mail tomorrow, unfortunately they are back home, not up at school :( . They will remain in the trunk at all times along with a 14mm wrench lol. That is all I got for yal today, I got my poly trans mount in so hopefully I can remember to snap some pics of my tranny mount and RT style mount while I'm down there.

 

-Will

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Dreco, Glad my "interesting" exhaust could bring you out of your cave, it definitely turns the heads around town also.

 

RebekahsZ, So far its 2 U-joints down, and one tore up axle in the process. Managed to get a new u-joint installed yesterday...I hate u-joints. The flanges on these cars arent flat where the tool rests, so it kept going in crooked. Managed to get it in "good enough", probably won't last long anyways. I told the guy at the parts store that I would probably be brining the joint in Monday split in half hehe. He then asked what it was going in, and I told him that was classified(Gotta keep that warranty lol). The autozone "solid" joints do look much beefier however, so maybe I won't split this one quite as easy. Half shaft safety loops will be built next time I go home so I stop tearing up my undercarriage and my brake lines.

 

-Will

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I have a R180 CLSD from a subi with wolf creek cv axles (930 CVs). I been burning so much rubber that my clutch stinks. Ooops-I forgot to take off my e brake on one of them. So far no trouble. Axles were bolt in affair although tedious. I d sell you Mine but they are sized for R180. Got lots of rubber crumbs on 1/4 panels. Video today but my router is down so I can't post it.

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That is what they told me when I called. They said I could re-use the shorter one but on the opposite side. Then I would have to buy one shorter shaft for the other side. There is a lot to like about their axles but I personally don't like all the bolts that are employed. There are 20 fasteners per axle. That is 40 fasteners total vs 8 total for z31 axles. The cost of a z31 turbo axle conversion is about 100 for old axles, 395 for companion flanges then 500 for shortened shafts if you want them. The wolf creeks are $900 and you specify R180 or R200 when you buy. The only trouble I had installing the wolf creeks was that the threads in the adapters needed chasing with a tap - there were burs in them that bound two of the bolts up so I ruined two of the supplied Allen head bolts. Luckily their we're extra bolts in the kit. The safety wiring was tedious.

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  • 3 months later...

Well I finally decided I should stop being anti-social and update my thread. I've been busy with work and what not this summer and haven't been keeping up with hybridz very much lately. Not a whole lot has happened with the Z since I last updated it, like I said I've been busy and lazy lol. Some of the stuff I'm going to post will probably be out of order, but it may not be. But lets jump right into the cool stuff.

 

So I made it to Branson for Z Fest back in June, it was a good time, bunch of Z cars, etc. I was the only V8 Z there aside from a 350 TPI swapped S30 with a big procharger slapped on the front of it, but it wasn't tuned at all unfortunately because I bet it ate babies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But anyways, the place the event was at was apparently being shared with a group of stunt biker guys. They had a big section of the lot blocked off for stunts and what not. By saturday night the bikes were done and most of the car guys are just hanging out, drinking beers, etc. Then next thing ya know, a Z32 pulls out into the blocked off lot and proceeds to do what any car guy in an empty lot wants to do. So after that Mat(FlatBlack) and I are wondering if we can go down there. Well after another car goes down Mat decides to go. So I wait and keep telling myself I don't NEED to go down there(U-joints suck as yal have seen, and I'm 4-5 hours from home, and 2 hours from Mat's house). But of course I let the temptation get the best of me and I go fire the beast up and go wait in line. Let me tell you the hood exhaust knows how to get a crowd pumped up for a V8 smokeshow lol. But videos are worth a million words.

 

If you want to just watch me, you can skip to 11:40, but the other guys did pretty good as well. At 12:25 the car died on me, think I sloshed the fuel around to much because I only had a quarter tank or so. This was all in first gear, second gear would have been crazy. They also turned the lights off right before I went out because the people putting on the show didn't want us to do it I guess, but I didn't know that at the time, I just thought they wanted to see the flames. Which I was also disappointed you can't really see the flames. And I didn't break and axle!

 

So Z Fest I decided the Duralast Gold U-joint was pretty strong, so I proceeded to go test its strength at my local drag strip. The first time I went out I ended up running a best time of 10.6 in the 1000ft. Generally you add about 2-2.5 seconds to make that 1/4 mile time, so I would say it was good for 12s. That was still babying off the line and shifting kind of easy. I ran 4 or 5 times the first time I went out and somehow didn't break. So of course I go out the next weekend as well. Ran a 10.4 my second or third run, launched a little harder that time, pulled a 1.9x sixty foot still bogging off the line. Go out the next run, launch a little harder, didn't bog as bad but still had more in it. Got in the "drag racing" mode and wasn't paying attention to my shifting, popped the U-joint shifting to second :( . Same spot, drivers side outer. The Duralast Gold U-joint in its defense is pretty stout, but couldn't stand up against the almighty Monster Stage 3 clutch...that thing is brutal. But anyways, videos :) .

 

Here is my 10.4 run:

 

And here goes U-joint number 3:

Apparently you can't put more than 2 videos in a single post, so skip down to my next post to see the video. Watch for sparks hehe

 

The car has 9s in it in its current state, but needs axles to be able to do it. However the next time I go out, I will have headers and be tuned as well, so it should be a 9.5 car no problem. oh and all that racing was still with zero gauges. No Tach, speedo, oil, temp, nada. You know you know your motor to well when you can race it without a tach lol.

 

So right now my car is back under the knife. The interior is tore out, the exhaust is off, the only wiring left in the entire car is a couple of ground straps and the headlight/tailight pigtails. Its going to get all new wiring, headers built, floors with get painted then possibly covered with some sound deadner(sp?) or just carpet. The console is getting deleted and will get carpet over the tunnel. A/C is going bye bye, think I am going to go with universal Summit Racing heater so I don't have to try and keep the stock air controls. Just going to route it to defrost and the feet. I will probably build a front console like someone on here did out of MDF then cover it in vinyl like he did. Use that to store my radio, CB, switches, etc. The car will probably be getting a fuel cell as well since I am going to cut out the rest of the spare tire well which leaves the stock tank floating. The dash will be getting fixed via great stuff and bumper repair, and then getting stuffed with some speedhut gauges(Theres almost 2 weeks of work I'll never get back, but they sure do look nice). But here is my car in its current state:

 

Wireless harness!

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Got the air intake kit from JTR

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Headers!!! Not really, pool tubing from Home Depot to mock up my header tubes. I realized my motor mount design sucks, it goes right through the middle of where my headers need to go.

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Interior...not

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This tar based crap sucks. Dry ice helped some, but still...its terrible

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If someone wants to be as cool as me I will sell my "custom" exhaust manifolds for cheap lol

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Still got a lot of chiseling to do

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I also went out and bought another death trap on wheels, it just has a couple less than the Datsun. Its a 1985 Honda Nighthawk 650.

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Everyone always asks me why I never buy anything newer. I tell them because paying for registration each year is for chumps :)

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No room for exhaust :(

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Upper radiator hose setup, just cut a few inches out of the stock hose and spliced it together

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Lower hose took the same half of a stock LS1 bottom hose for both sides, so I had to buy another one, then spliced them together.

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My front accessory belt, nothing on it but the alternator and a couple of idlers.

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No keys, push to start.

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Speedhut gauges. They sent me the wiring for a volt gauge instead of a temp gauge, so I called them and they said they would send the temp stuff right out, no questions asked. Customer service gets a thumbs up so far, given my stuff shows up lol.

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Don't know why I went with the 200mph speedo, because I'm pretty sure the Datsun would fall apart, or take flight long before 200mph. But I think my days of pegging the needle are over.

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And my wiring harness workspace. Stripped out a lot of pins from the PCM, just needs some splices redone and then prettied up

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And that's all I got for yal today. If you managed to make it this far and actually read everything I thank you for caring about me(Or its probably just my car) that much. Look forward to more progess coming in the next few weeks, school starts back the 21st, and the Datsun will be up there(Hopefully lol).

 

-Will

Edited by wfritts911
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  • 3 weeks later...

And that's all I got for yal today. If you managed to make it this far and actually read everything I thank you for caring about me(Or its probably just my car) that much. Look forward to more progess coming in the next few weeks, school starts back the 21st, and the Datsun will be up there(Hopefully lol).

 

-Will

 

I have to come to HBZ to see what you've been up to :P

 

Bring the Honda. DO IT. Or bring the Datsun and I'll drive the Honda up.

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