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73' Rust Bucket SR20 Swap


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I've been working on my build / swap / resto / resurrection whatever you want to call it for about a year now. Figured I wouldn't post anything until I was sure I would see it through - I think that bridge has been crossed. This is just about a year of work I've got into it so far. Be kind to my welding, most of the early stuff was cut out and redone after I figured out how it all worked.

 

The forum here has been a helpful resource so far, and the dozens of folks I've met for parts across NE have been great. I'm sure many people will recognize their parts here within. Thanks to those that have helped out.

 

** Things I'm still looking for**

Passenger door - car had a 280z door horribly aligned on. Restored the original latch style to pre-73 so I need that door

Front and rear brakes

Gunmetal group buy 17" Rotas

Stock SR20 oil pan

BRE style spoiler

Autopower roll bar

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If you see something I didn't use, ask about it. It's probably for sale, I have tons of S30 and SR20 parts.

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I'd been looking for a S30 chassis for a while, probaly 5-6 months and not having luck. I'd seen a number of nice shells, but at that point I was hoping to get something in decent condition and just drop an SR20 in, do a few mods, and drive it around. 

Not having any luck with the chassis and getting bored with my 350z, I picked up an SR20 in complete disassembly in cardboard boxes and what I honestly think were some kind of lobster crate? from a craigslist add. Turns out it was all there except for one rocker if you can believe that. Ended up not using any of the main components except the head and crank, but I got most of my money back from selling them off and the buy was useful for all the bolts and minor components.

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Spent a while cleaning what I had, at this point thinking I would be using everything. Lots of wire brushes and Simple Green.

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Probably spent a whole day online trying to figure out which bolts went where in the end.

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The mystery pile!

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Decided that stock SR20s are lame and decided to go for a 2871R .64 based build. Figuring I'd like to end up in the 375 HP range with decent response. Enjuku shopping spree ensued.

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Scored a deal on a already machined block that someone didn't need anymore. Later I would find out I had an S13 head and this was an S14 block - I found some material online about dealing with that and hopefully I did so appropriately. (the main difference is an extra oil channel in the S14 block for the VTC that needs to be plugged. Also had to get a new water pump, which wasn't a bad idea anyway). So I tapped that out with a small NPT that I can't recall and plugged it up.

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Shiny new block in hand, started putting things together follow the numerous guides online.

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I checked and rechecked but I couldn't find anywhere the crank seemed to be out of spec so I decided to go with it as is. Fingers crossed I suppose.

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Wiseco 86.5 over Eagle H Beams.

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In they go

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Since low-rush shells were too intimidating as a starting point, I was looking for a running vehicle of some sort. Eventually I settled on HLS30165828 - which in my inexperience I though things looked relatively square for the price. Turns out the car spent its entire life in upstate NY judging by a closer inspection of the paperwork. I've ended up using barely anything from the original car, but hey, its one more Z car still on the road in some fashion. Not everyone can start with Cali cars!

The day I picked it up, somewhere outside Hartford. 

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Couldnt' quite figure out what the deal with the flares on the rear was. Molded fiberglass I thought? Turns out it was chopped up galvanized under a pile of bondo but lets not jump ahead. More on that type of thing soon.

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Pulled the motor. Turned out to by an L28. Didn't know that - wonder what else I didn't notice.

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Started tearing things apart.

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Wtf is up with this frame rail that's not quite spare. Ah ok made of bondo no big deal.

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Hmm...

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Turns out the floors were sheets of galvanized riveted over the original, non-existant rusted out floors. The theme of riveted galv with bondo on top would become all too familiar.

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Both sides of course

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I got depressed at this point and went back to cleaning up the SR20, painting brackets and stuff.

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I was contemplating getting rid of the car and finding another shell. I've never done any welding, had no idea where to start. Ended up figuring the reason I bought it was for something to work on so what the hell.

Bad dog rails, bad dog seat brackets, MSA replacement floors, a whole ton of 18 and 16 ga sheet, bunch of square tube (not pictured). I think I ended up using 4 full 8ft by 4ft sheets of 18 and 16.

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Back to it - found some mices

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Fenders also come with sections of bondo over galv. Rivets included free of charge.

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WTS frame rail

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Drivers side floor area

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Passenger side. I have no idea how the L28 hadn't broken through. I almost gave up again when I saw this. Still didn't own a welder at this point.

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Yum

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Steering rack seemed to function fine at least

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Made some templates of the steering rack crossmember plates, made them out of stainless

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This ones actually from Cali, thanks someone on here. Mine was too rotted.

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Decided if I was serious about this I needed somewhere to work. Should have occurred to me sooner I suppose. Up goes the tent.

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It's really not that bad to be honest. Theres enough room to work anyway. Lights, music, fan, honestly garages are overrated.

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At this point I bought an AutoArc 140? 120v model. 

I started on the passenger side and had no idea what I was doing. I ended up having to cut out most what I did here because I was embarassed by the work later.

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Frustrating part was having to keep hitting everything with a coat of primer even when pausing for a few days, too much humidity in the NE.

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I think I kept most of what I did from this point on

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Bent these on the brake at work

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Didn't really know where to cut the floor at first. My rot went past where the replacement floor pan went in several cases.

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For the front

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Extended the bad dogs with the small rails that came with the MSA floors

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Totally warped the drivers side a bit building up too much heat. Was thicker than the 16ga stuff I'd been doing and I wasn't aware how easy it would warp the floor.

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I left it, it wasn't bad enough to matter to me, given everything else

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Scored new fenders locally in perfect shape

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Bad dog seat brackets

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I didn't know how to deal with this, fudged it up and had to cut off what I did. Ended up getting new rockers later

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Wasn't happy with a lot of it that I did early - ended up redoing everything forward of traction rod pickup I think. But this is where I was at 

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Passengers side is worse all around, but I had figured out the basics now.

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Went through 3 paint scrapers I think

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Edited by traininvain
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Cut the crap out, clean it up

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Turns out I made too much of a corner out of it and came too close to the tire position. Had to fix later. Was trying to make a larger flat area for the battery so I didn't need a seperate tray I think.

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Pass floor

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Again too much rot for the panel

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Similar to the other side

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Still itimidated by the rockers at this point so I left that area. I'd been circling around the main issue figuring out what to do

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Out that comes

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Tried to find a parts car to source a chunk of the passenger side from. Failed, so I went at it.

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While I'm at it, I couldn't figure out how the radiator would mount. Plus I read somewhere reinforcing the front core was a good idea so

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I shall call her patches.

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I bought an S13 radiator, turned out to be too wide.

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Made a little panel for the top mounts

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Idk seemed like a good idea after I boxed the front core.

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Score. 370z Nismo seats

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This crap though. I didn't think I could makea the shape of the outside easily and that wasn't rotted (relatively speaking.)

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Not much original left. Wish I'd found a donor car. Or had started with another car.

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Finally got my other seat brackets

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Made these to mount intercooler as I didnt like the positioning on the ebay mount

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Lipstick on pig

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Ended up taking it all off again because I kept scratching it up. Now its POR15'd, doesnt look as nice but it doesn't nick up either.

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Used some square tube to mount the seats so they would slide on my 240z seat brackets

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Had been cleaning and painting all the bits I would be using as I went

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Back to the motor - head assembly. Had it cleaned up at the machine shop.

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I had been vigilent when taking it apart to label everything. My rocker shims were all loose when I got it though, so I had to make a tool to measure valve heights to place them.

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BC springs / ti retainers

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BC264 cams

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On they go

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Two of my retainers had the incorrect center hole diameter if you believe it. I called BC and it seems it wasn't that uncommon - they overnighted me two new ones with no proof of purchase or anything. Very pleasant to deal with.

Bleeding hydraulic lifters

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Shimming

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Tool I made, with the hydraulic lifters I just made sure the shims were flat across the two contacts of the rocker arm. 

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Was missing something I needed for the motor to continue, started pulling struts apart for coil over fabrication

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Perch removal

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Me and one friend dragged the whole thing out of the car and into my basement down the storm door. 

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Had to cut the spindle pins. I spent a lot of time and effort trying to get these out, in the end I bought a new set of rears for pretty cheap and tossed these.

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According to my photo timeline I was apparnetly waiting on my headgasket. Tomei 1.5m, .4mm over stock as my block was decked.

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Going together 

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Found my turbo - 2871R

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Going to kill the open R180 while I save for a STi R180 LSD in the rear. Seemed to be in fine shape. New fluid, new gasket, done

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Edited by traininvain
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Enough motor fun, finally decided to tackle the rockers

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POR15 inside, weld through pimer on mating surfaces

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The good stuff arrived. Mckinney SR20 mount kit, driveshaft, throttle cable, TTT RLCA

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Stocking up parts for the big assembly push. New brake master, clutch master, all bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends, wheel bearings, you name it

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Brought the spindles to my fathers for coil over fabrication. 

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Threw my tranny on the spare block for lining up the mounts. Was a pain to get that in there with no hoist. Before you all say its too far forward, I put the shifter in the center of the hole in the chassis. That seemed like the right thing to do.

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Wiring harness for the SR20 really wasn't that bad but I wanted to sleeve it up

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Came out nice

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Took me a while to get a handle on the rest of the wiring

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Labels are essential

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Wheel bearings really aren't that bad when its all apart.

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How do you put 200ft lb on the stub axle when its not on the car? I mounted it to a wheel then set my toolbox on top of the tire. Win

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Coilover assembly finally

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Sweet. Cheap KYB shocks since I coudln't find Tokicos

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Put it all together in the basement to figure out what I was missing for bolts and such

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Frontend

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Frontend of car, now in POR15. Which I did in May so it's full of pollen but whatever.

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The massive hoist returns

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A day I thought I'd never see

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Making all the lines

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Brakes - I don't like the flaring tool I bought. I screwed up half of them

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Getting all the wiring in

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Couldn't figure out where to put the wilwood bias adjuster, so it went right in the middle.

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Made an aluminum mount to hold all the wiring jazz. Put some firewall material up - the space on the right holds the ECU. It's headed out to get flashed right now

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This part will be interesting - the dash wiring isn't even in there yet.

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Ditched the stock gauges, cleaned out the dash. Went with SpeedHut

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For all the ruin of the car, the dash only has one blemish on the far passenger side

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Put the Speedhuts in. I was going through making cool brakets and decided it wasn't worth it. Spray foam ftw.

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Needed to make something to hold radio / boost controller / etc

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Rear end turned out to be a nightmare. I didn't take a lot of pictures, suffice to say I bought MSA quarter panel inserts and I am going to have to use a lot of fill to make it look decent.

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Cleaning gas tank up - went with a bottom mount sump. Ended up mounting it too far back I think

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Was too long for the flat surface, had to cut it up a bit

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Tank straps were beyond usable

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Yeah that j bolt is welded back together lol

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Cut templates out of some stock, had a fried make them out of stainless for me at work

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Homemade tractor supply gas tank straps eh

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Well thats where I am now. Bodywork is looming over me, especially on the rear end, but I want to get it running first. Still need wheels and brakes as well. New ebrake assembly is on the way. 

Hoping for first start sometime later this summer if all goes as planned, interior and bodywork over the winter, and then have it sprayed in the spring. 

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I cannot believe you fixed all that. I made a thread earlier this week complaining about how my car was too rusty to fix... and then you go and post this. I almost feel bad about wanting to scrap my car. Most people would have done 2-3 patches on that car before giving up - way to see it through. You're in the "built not bought" club now.

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Finished my dash and started wiring. Center section of the dash is made of out steel with some brackets welded to the back, screws into the stock holes. 

 

 

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A work in progress, but I think I have all the right connections and everythings labeled so it should go together fairly well.

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  • 2 months later...

Well I have no video but she's running! All she needs now are wheels/tires, brakes, an exhaust and then all the interior and body work done....

 

- Dash went in - no problem there. Electrical is good. Mounted a PC680 in the tool area behind passenger seat.

 

-Tranny gasket was leaking into the bell housing and I found that the threads for the slave cylinder bolts were completely stripped. Pulled the tranny, new gasket, bell housing swap from another tranny (I picked up full longblock and spare tranny for parts a few weeks back. Spun bottom end). good and good.  Switched clutches from a used Exedy stage2 3 puck to a Nismo full face as well.

 

- The sump I welded to the old fuel tank was too close to the rear bumper for me, so I tosssed it, cut the spare tire well, fuel cell went in. The one pictured actually leaks, Summit put a new one in the mail already no questions asked. Their service is phenomenal.

 

-Cheap ABS plastic adapter for 3" air filter to Z32 MAF cracked. Made one from 16G steel in about 10 minutes with the MIG. Not sure what I didn't do that in the first place.

 

- Did from the rear wheel arches forward in dynamat material.

 

-Installed a water neck spacer so I had a 1/8 NPT fitting for my sheethut water temp sensor.

 

 

 

Got all the fuilds in, everything hooked up and went to start. No fuel, no spark. Great -

 

-I had wired my top feed injectors so that the common leg between them went to ground ( I assumed the common leg was ground and that the ECU fed 12V to open the injectors). Turns out its the other way - constant 12V and ground pulled low by ECU. I should have looked it up. Rewired those and got fuel.

 

-No spark came down to a bad ignition switch that came with the car. It has full contact in the RUN position but only intermittent in the start position - causing me to lose the signal to my ignition relay only when cranking it. Wired around it while I wait for the replacement. Got spark.

 

Started right up! Idles a bit rough, but stays running. All systems look good. BB garrett 2871R takes a good 10 seconds to spin down after fuel cut and sounds epic. Can't wait.

 

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