240Z EgoBoost by Boben

[Boben]

For a long time I've been searching for a suitable radiator for my car. There seems to be an amp offering of aftermarket aluminum radiators for the 240Z on Ebay, but the problem with these units is their pressure holding capability. The BMW V8 cooling system is a pressurized system designed for normal opeartion upto around 200kPa while the V8 swap radiators I found for the 240Z are only rated upto 100kPa. I finally settled for a Z3 M Coupe radiator which has the correct width and height. Also has a pressure release pressure of 250kPa on the cap. The fitment is surprisingly good.

 

 

[Ryan Merrill]

That is really good. You have a link or year and vehicle info?

[Boben]

That is really good. You have a link or year and vehicle info?

I purchased a Hella unit. The provided PNs for the unit are 

• OE 17112227281 / BMW
• OE 2227281 / BMW

It will fit the following vehicle models:

BMW Z3 (E36) M 3.2                 236kW     03.1997 - 06.2001

BMW Z3 (E36) M 3.2                 239kW     06.2001 - 01.2003

BMW Z3 Coupe (E36) M           236kW     02.1998 - 06.2001

BMW Z3 Coupe (E36) M           239kW     06.2001 - 06.2003

DATSUN 240Z EgoBoost 4.4    350kW    

[Boben]

Awhile back I started modifying the floor pans around the outer longitudinal rails in order to fit the BMW E46 sport seats. To be more specific, the outer fixing rail of the BMW seat was hitting the curved shape of the floor and for this reason the seat was at an angle. To make the seats fit, I previously cut the curved shape of as necessary and just drilled the rail fixing holes to the floor pan. I finally got a round to finnish up the seat fixings. I made some reinforcement plates, which I welded on the bottom . I also asembled the parking brake lever to check clearance to the seat. The fitment is tight, but there is no collision in any position of the seat. Measuring from the surface of the seat to the ceiling at the up most position of the seat, the distance is 870mm and at the lowest setting the corresponding distance is 930mm. TeemuM measured 890mm with the stock seat, so I have to say I am quite happy with the outcome. I tried to position the seat as low as possible. For some reason there was an odd profile at the bottom of the other rail of the seat. This had to be cut off to allow the seat to sit level on the floor pan.

 

 

 

Here you can see the profile that had to come off.

After removal with an angle grinder, I applied some fresh paint on the rail.

The bolts I used are fine thread and made for the purpose.

 

 

This is the upmost position of the seat. The seat has all kinds of adjustments.

This is where I measured the distance to the ceiling.

 

[Ryan Merrill]

Are the seats powered?

[Boben]

Are the seats powered?

These are not powered. Your question got me thinking, where did you get that idea. Then I checked the pictures more thoroughly...

The wiring underneath the seat is for the side airbag most probably this is also a heated seat so the associated wiring is also there.

What is more interesting, is that these seats actually came from an E90 3-series as it reads on one of the labels attached to the seat bottom and not the E46. This means they are much newer.

Sorry for giving false information.

 

[Boben]

Time to update on some of the latest progress. With the handle of the parking brake in place, I decided to clean up the rest of the original parts associated and check out what was required to mate the GTR-32 parking brake cables to the mechanics of the 240Z parking brake. And to the photos:

 

Here are the super dirty parts before cleaning

Turned out quite nice after some cleaning and brushing. I used turpentine as the cleaning agent.

I noticed that the inner diameter before the thread of a thread insert/sleeve was just right for the knob of the GTR-32 cable so I fabbed the cable puller from those.

 

I cut out an opening where the cable will slip into the seat. The welds will prevent the seat from opening and allowing the cable to slip through.

This is the fixing plate for the GTR-32 cables.

 

 

The original cable fixings had to come off.

 

 

New cable fixing plate welded in place and cables slipped into the seats.

The puller is now closer to the lever axle. I replaced the original long bolt with a short hexagonal socket-head bolt and drilled a hole into the puller to allow for adjustment as depicted.

 

[Boben]

My most recent agenda with the car was to retrofit the BMW gear lever to the 240Z.

 

Here is the BMW assembly.

 

I took it apart, cleaned the bits and meadia blasted.

 

As the engine sits quite near the firewall, the gear box goes well into the transmission tunnel. In order to get the shifter to stick out from original position, I cut the support arm into lenght and went at it with a TIG welder. Is this what they call a short shifter or am I missing something here?

 

The back end of the support arm goes into a bushing in the transmission tunnel. I went and cut out the bracket and the bushing from a wrecked up E39.

 

I cut the excess stuff out and drilled some fixing holes to the bracket. Then I bolted two M6 distance nuts on the bracket Which are welded into the tunnel.

 

Distance nuts welded in.

 

The support arm in place with the bracket bolted on the distance nut.

 

The shifter lines up nice and center. I will still have to cut a piece of sheet metal in there which will be welded into the original hole and which will have a round smaller diameter hole to take the rubber seal depicted in the first picture of this post. Also the actual axle changing the gears will have to be cut to lenght and bolted on.

 

[Boben]

I need some help figuring out the feasibility of my prop shaft concept. The distance between the transmission output shaft flange and the differential input shaft flange is 826 mm so no point in including a center bearing like the GTR shaft incorporates. There are two identical CV-joints and a single U-joint to work with. The CV-joints allow some movement along the axle where as the U-joint is obviously fixed in length. The natural way to go about this would be to put the U-joint in the transmission end and one of the CVs in the diff end as it fits right in. The problem with this approach is that the adapter flange to the transmission end will have intercepting screw location when using the U-joint. Another approach would be to use the second CV-joint at the transmission end because the holes to the adapter flange happen to align perfectly without any interceptions. The problem with this approach is that both ends of the prop shaft will allow longitudinal movement, meaning that the shaft will float in between the joints. My question is, will this floating create a problem? I did some research and found that atleast Honda S2000 AP1 has CV-joints on both ends of the prop shaft and the joints seem to be identical. Also based on some youtube videos of the shaft, they both seem to allow longitudinal movement.

 

Here is a picture of the S2000 prop shaft. Mine would look exactly the same.

[Boben]

Did some sheet metal work on the rear compartment floor. I made a custom dimple die to use with a hydraulic press to get some stiffness to the new floor panel. Here is the proof of concept test piece:

 

 

I made the new floor pan from three pieces. The reasons are many: It would have been inpossible to fit the whole piece between the poles of my hydraulic press, I did not have a big enough piece handy and also it was quite convenient to section the pieces along the fuel cell frame rails and weld them on the rails. Work in progress:

 

All three pieces tack welded in place:

 

Here's the finished floor with fully welded outer edges and some long stiches along the fuel cell frame rails (Also a sneak peak at my new fuel filler neck location):

[ditto64]

Impressive fabrication work.  I'll keep my eyes on your build!

[Boben]

Thanks ditto64! It is nice to get an interception on the monologue for a change.

 

I was not too so happy with the original wiring harness fixings and a lot of them had cracked loose so I decided to replace them with something new. I am using some Audi fixings.

I made these little brackets which are tack welded in place and the cable fixing is going to be slipped on the bracket.

 

 

Also continued on the BMW shifter retrofitting. The shifter has a nice rubber boot to seal the hole and prevent any dust from entering the cabin. I cut the hole on the tunnel a little bigger and cut a suitable sheet metal piece with a right diameter hole on it for the boot.

 

Ready to be welded:

 

With the new piece tack welded in place, I checked the alignment with the stick. Nice and center:

 

Here is the finished assembly:

[TUME]

So you´re going to hide gas filler under licence plate? I thought that too, but not decided yet. What kind of hinge you have in mind for licence plate?

[Boben]

So you´re going to hide gas filler under licence plate? I thought that too, but not decided yet. What kind of hinge you have in mind for licence plate?

Yes, that's the plan. I ordered a license plate fuel door such as this from ebay:

But I doubt I am going to use that for it requires some modification. The height of our license plates here in Finland is smaller than the US plates so it would look goofy without modification. Also, the plate does not sit flush on the surface with the door I got.

I am probably going to make my own custom bracket/door. One idea is to make the plate slide to the side and uncover the fuel filler cap. If I remember correctly, there is just enough space to slide the plate aside.

The fuel filler neck I got is a maritime item ment to be mounted on the deck. It has an O-ring seal on the cap, which I think is a must in this installation.

 

 

[Boben]

While trying to prep all the small details and fixing points to the body to get this thing finally undercoated, I am aiming to tackle some upcoming challenges of the build.

I am planning to install an AC-system to the car and I think all other stuff is going to be straight forward, but the evaporator core is giving me a headache.

Here you can see the heater box of the 240z:

I believe there is room under the dash to bring the air routing scoop (the part in front which is bolted on the rest of the unit) outwards. The plan is to make a spacer and locate the evaporator core in between the scoop and the rest of the unit. While doing this, the scoop attached to this part which routes the air to the midlle air vent on the dash needs to be cut into suitable lenght, but that seems to be doable.

The problem is to find a small enough evaporator core. The ideal dimension would be 120mm x 200mm with which, the original fixing points for the scoop could be retained.

Does anybody have an idea where I could find a core this small?

[1969honda]

Something like this? http://m.ebay.com.au/itm/221129871659?_mwBanner=1

Edited July 8, 2016 by 1969honda

[Boben]

I believe that is a heater core for a "no A/C" model. The pressure of an A/C system is considerably higher, so using a heater core as an evaporator might be risky.

[1969honda]

Agreed, guess I should have read the sales a little closer. I had just thrown the measurements a search and started looking around.

[Boben]

I've been thinking about integrating a rear diffuser from a newer car. One of the obvious reasons for this is that the area below the bumper in my car is totally f#%ked up. Its got huge dents and bents and as a finishing touch, somebody has totally rape the area of the original exhaust tail pipe location with a hacksaw!

An old picture where all this is visible:

 

I wanted something subtle with dual exhaust and after several hours of searching on the internet and constantly looking at rear diffusers on parking lots etc. I finally decided to go with an Audi A4 B6 unit. The curvature of the part is definitely not the perfect match off the shelf since the rear of the 240Z has only a slight curvature, but after some minor modification, the fitment was surprisingly good. The OEM Audi part is a made of plastic and this is a key point to notice. There are good looking carbon fiber tuning parts for Audi, but they simply wont fit the 240Z. The plastic part can be forced to follow the shape of the 240Z rear.

This is the diffuser I used:

In the Audi, this part is attached to a plastic bumper. The orignal retaining scheme needed to be modified. Also some reinforcement plastic needed to be removed so the part will bend more easy.

 

 

I made these rectangular shaped cuts to the rear valance where the diffuser is to be attached. The diffuser is fixed in place with metal clips from the back side (I forgot to take a picture of those clips).

 

 

The fitment is already quite good although I did not fix the part with the retaining clips yet in these next photos. I still need to fabricate some sheet metal to the sides. There is also a screw hole on the side of the diffuser so I need to make a bracket for that inside rear quarter panel. I plan to weld a small-diameter metal bar along the top seam of the diffuser to create a sort of lip above the diffuser which is going to sit flush with the surface of the diffuser. The metal bar is then bondoed to the sheet metal so that everything integrates together nicely. My new fuel inlet location is also visible in these pictures.

 

 

 

 

[Boben]

I started fabricating the 180 degree exhaust manifolds so time to get you guys up to speed with my engine rebuild first. I am working on the 240Z at a big shared garage from which I rented a space. While I can only work on the car ever so often, I have been building the engine on the side at my home garage. The rebuild of the engine included a complete disassembly, thorough cleanup, checking the flatness of the head gasget surfaces, all new seals, bearings, head gasgets, head bolts and powder coating the valve covers and front covers.