Long term v8 260z project.

[Stock Car Mafia]

Which tire did you go with on those wheels?  I've been trying to order some new 275/40/17's in the new NT555 G2 series but they haven't released them yet.  I've heard good things about the G2 but is there a reason you purchased what you got?  

[bramagedained]

The higher treadwear and being better in the rain of the Extreme Contact DW was at the suggestion of my friends who compete.

 

There's not a lot of options for something in a 275 on a 17" wheel anymore. 

 

When I had my Evo I went for the extreme performance summer tires and went through a set every summer.  Hankook RS3s and Dunlop Star Specs left a lot to be desired in the wet, IMO.  The continentals are supposed to be better at it.

 

In the past from the Evo I tried Dunlop Star Specs, Hankook RS3s, Bridgestone RE-11s and RE-01R.  They all worked well, though I simply am not a good enough driver to tell the real difference between them at the limit.

[Stock Car Mafia]

I had some time to look in to this yesterday and I think you are on the spot with the DW's.  With using yours as a daily it seems to be a good fit.  Maybe there is a little more sidwall flex with these and therefor less corner "stability" but most don't push to this edge.  

 

I am not sure if I will wait for the G2's even though I'd like to try them.  You'll have to provide some feedback here next week when you take it out since the weather is going to be nice

[bramagedained]

lol. I dont work quite that fast.

 

I'd like to have it driving and be able to make the first C&C on April 2nd, though.

 

The only parts I still need to buy are the fuel cell/line/filter and get a driveshaft made.  There's a ton of labor to do yet, though.

[Stock Car Mafia]

Wow April 2nd is coming quick.  I kind of regret not doing much of anything the last month now!  

 

I think you should be sitting well to make that deadline.  If the weather is nice, I should be there!

[bramagedained]

Everything but the torque converter is on the way.  I can assume it still has the SB flexplate, but, I'd rather be sure.  Granted a lot of them have both bolt patterns and will work on either.

 

I ended up ordering a Victor Jr. intake, which should fit, otherwise I may have to mess with where the motor sits to keep things working.  It seems there are 2" drop bases for the air filter which hopefully work, otherwise I could have to get clever.  I will not modify the hood.

 

I have midterms this week(last one is Thursday morning) so I've not been in the garage at all.  I'm hoping to have the Wilwood master and prop valve in place on Thursday afternoon since I guess some modification needs to happen there.

 

Friday I'll slightly re-organize the garage and then the fun begins.   Everything is already drained and disconnected to pull the motor/trans.

 

Luckily it is supposed to warm back up Friday at least until the extended forecast ends.

 

I don't have the exhaust figured out.  I will put it back together with the cast iron ram horns just to run it in.  I want to be absolutely sure things don't need to change places before trying to figure the whole header mess out.  If I had a TIG here I'm probably dumb enough that I would try to make a set myself.

 

Since LS swaps are the new hotness, there's very little info about headers here(or anywhere for that matter), especially when the motor is up and forward like mine, which may or may not be the Scarab/Hooker position as I don't have another one to look at and compare to.

 

This makes me feel somewhat less bad if I have to bash something off the shelf to make it fit, though. 

https://youtu.be/azPKIjxmmdU

Edited March 2, 2016 by bramagedained

[Stock Car Mafia]

Are you going to have the car ready for Saturday?  Weather is looking ok'ish and I think I am going to meander over to the AutoMotorPlex.  

[bramagedained]

I've fallen behind on updates.

 

It's still weeks from being ready, even if it was, I'm pretty sick right now and wouldn't have made it out to C&C anyway.

[bramagedained]

I've had an engine apart before exactly one time, when I was 18 and in High school. Mostly, it was a family friend that did the work while I sort of tried to learn what was going on.

I have it written down somewhere, but, the iron heads that were on it were a 70cc chamber with small valves.

The Cam was a copy of one of the early performance cams that came from GM.

It was topped with an Edelbrock Streetmaster intake that I guess they only sold in the late 70's.

With help from a friend, it wasn't that bad to pull out and only took maybe an hour since I pretty much had everything already disconnected.



The Datsun has a surprising amount of room for the engine/trans. It's just too bad that the steering shaft is in a weird spot. It basically ensures that no long tube headers will fit, short of a custom set. There was once a specific set make by Hooker that is NLA.


Soaked with degreaser:

I ended up with a Comp XE284H, Victor Jr, and Promaxx heads.

The castings for the heads look nice.







Pile of Comp stuff with a bottle brush hone and new rings.




After running the bottle brush hone through it. There was no carbon ring at the top of the bores and there was still a very faint crosshatch from whenever this thing was apart before.

It was already .040 over.

After running the hone through:



The bearings looked ok, so I just put it back together with the same ones in it. Once I had it back together it sat at ~35psi of oil pressure at warm idle@900-1000rpm with 30wt break in oil.

I guess the Streetmaster was the first single plane designed by Edelbrock, so I took a picture of it next to the Vic Jr.



I copper spray'd steel shim gaskets for the heads when I put it back together. I didn't actually CC the pistons(flat tops w/valve reliefs) at TDC(.026 in the hole) or the chambers, but, by math it should be just 10.2:1. When I plugged in the cam, to a calculator it gave me just under 7.8:1 for DCR.



It ended up not being worth the wait time/cost of the tool, but, I did actually buy a pushrod length checker.  It's like a regular pushrod, but, you can adjust it's length.  You color the valve stem tips with sharpie and put on the rocker arm/lifter/pushrod and turn it over by hand, you want the witness mark to be in the middle 1/3 of the valve stem.




A 3500 stall converter went between the motor and trans when I put it back together.

It actually slid right back into place so easily that I had it bolted up alone before my Dad got home to help me.



Now, everything was fine and dandy and I was going to fire it up the next morning, which was a Sunday. Until I found this in the HEI. Noticed when I went to swap the 4/7 plug wires since the comp cam changes the firing order.






I put about 5000 miles on the car last summer, including driving it back to MN from VA. I never noticed an issue or any misfires.

I just bought the summit HEI rebuild kit.

It was so loud in the garage, my phone didn't like recording it. I threw the cast ram-horns back on, with some cheap ass glass packs shoved onto where I sawzall'd the old exhaust off. I figured it might help not piss off the neighbors too bad, since I live in a cul-de-sac.

It fired right up and per comp and the internet I kept it at 2000-2500 rpm for about 30 minutes to wear the lifters into the cam. I did get a pre-luber and used that first, before then throwing the HEI in and starting it.

The video is after that was finished with.

There were no rogue noises from the motor at all, which left me quite pleased with myself.  I still need to figure out what to do about headers.  The cast manifolds will not be staying.

I know I should have changed the oil right away, but, I didn't think that through to have oil or a new filter on hand. I intend to cut the filter that was on there apart to inspect it.

I don't have the fuel cell installed yet so I just ran some hose into a fuel jug.

Lastly for this round of stuff, I got the shifter mounted. It had some B&M thing in it before, that had no neutral lockout or gear indicator.

I had bought the cheap ratchet from Amazon and got shipped the Stealth, which they told me to just keep.



The console is honestly pretty fugly. I'm thinking about buying a small sheet of carbon fiber to use as a trim panel to cover up the hole to make it look better. But, that has nothing to do with the function of the car so it can wait. I still need to take the cover back off of it to hookup the neutral safety and reverse light switches.

The next project is probably mounting the fuel cell. Edited April 3, 2016 by bramagedained