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73 240Z VQ37VHR Swap Build Log


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On 10/9/2020 at 10:14 AM, Sanchez said:

@AydinZ71

The go to people for electronics on the VQ swap is ZFever/Fever Racing in Tampa. They do a whole rewire of the stock harness from a 370Z/G37 making it plug and play into essentially any vehicle, but they specialize in Z’s new and old. The price is around $2200 which is definitely high, but when you consider that it includes a license for the ECU ROM and software (I believe they use ECUtek, $700 by itself) used for tuning that is necessary for the swap it makes a bit more sense as to why the price is what it is. There are a few other companies who offer a similar service at cheaper price but I have never heard of anybody using them in a build for a Z or if they even tune the ECU so those may be a gamble but could save a good chunk of money if somebody makes it work.


this is really helpful! Thank you :) 

$2200 is not cheap, but when the motor is only $2500, it’s not too bad all-in! 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Progress has been slow, only get a few hours each Sunday to work on the Z because works for me going 6 days a week due to staffing issues the past month. Anyway the passenger floor pan is tacked in with a few butt welds around it. Hopefully the driver side should go a bit quicker using what I learned from this process. You will notice some crap welds in the photos if you look close enough, it’s what happens when you forget to turn on the shielding gas for a few tacks lol. I’m doing plug welds along the rocker and butt welds across the rest of the floor. I think I will end up fabricating my own seat mounts for the stock seats.

 

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Got in touch with my cousin who been doing body work for 20+ years and he’s gonna be lending me some tools and a hand for the body work coming up so hopefully it will speed up the progress. I’ll get the floor pan fully welded in and get some progress going on the firewall/battery tray area this Sunday.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So the passenger floor pan is almost completely finished. I’m having some issues with blow through even with adjusting the settings on the welder in some areas so I’ll need to get some copper plates and try to fill those in soon. Today I’m going to start tackling the kick panel/firewall and where my battery metal connects to the firewall, looks like I might need to purchase a shrinker/stretcher for that. Since I plan on doing a whole custom wire harness myself I will be deleting the factory harness hole (and A/C holes) for the time being since I would like to use bulkheads for everything on the firewall to separate all the harnesses and coolant hoses into engine side and cabin side.

I recently purchased a set of Marugen Shoukai Fender Flares the member @boostfed. Decided against the Ztrix Subtle Z rear fenders because I’m worried with VQ power and the horrible STL roads that it will eventually rattle cracks in a large fiberglass over fender like that, which I love the look of the Z without fender flares but i do need room for some more meat on the rear tires.

For suspension I have settled on doing all of my dealings with Apex Engineered. I’ll be using their Ford 8.8 rear conversion subframe, front suspension and BC Coilovers. They also let me in on the information that they are too developing their tubular front crossmember replacement to hold VQ engine mounts and it should be available in a few weeks. So I’ll try and get in on the first purchase of that and give it a review.

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Looking good @Sanchez! I did my floor pans with a Miller 140 MIG using .024 wire on the thin stuff.  The smaller wire made it easier to prevent blow-thru. Get yourself one of those magnetic backing plates - it will pay for itself many times over. Also, check out Fitzees Fabrications on YouTube.  He has some great DIY metal fabrication videos using simple tools.

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Got the damaged part of the firewall cut out today. I need to get some sheets of 18ga metal this week so I can get to fabricating. The main engine bay rail didn’t shift nearly as much as I expected when I loosened it so it should be pretty simple to get lined up again.

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I'm going to not be putting in a hole for the wire harness just yet because I plan on rewiring the car with modern electronics, and I am a big fan of using bulkheads for wiring. I’ve seen them last the abuse of offshore fishing boats I’ve worked on, so I'm sure they handle the minuscule abuse they would suffer at the hands of a weekend cruiser.

Edited by Sanchez
Grammar and syntax corrections
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@rossman

That's the plan. Our garage has an old 70-90gal (not sure on the actual capacity but it is functionally larger than my 55gal aquarium at home) air compressor that we got up and running recently, but unfortunately haven't been able to hook up to the individual bay outlets yet because hardware stores aren't able to cut and thread a pipe for us at the short lengths we need to connect the plumbing. I'll probably just run the air hose directly from the air output though once I stop by Harbor Freight to get a portable sand blasting setup. I have looked inside both my frame rails and they really are only bad in the front half towards the radiator support which I am cutting out and replacing anyway, and the visible rust from that photo. I'm gonna clean them up and purchased 2 cans of the Eastwood Internal Frame Coating to spray in there when I'm done along with a few other hard to reach channels. 

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Did some more cutting in firewall are before shaping any metal, also going to go to the local Harbor Freight and grab a 30” metal brake and a shrinker stretcher so I can actually get some of these bends looking nicer than my previous ones.

I was always under the impression that the elongated trapezoid piece of metal that was on the frame rails behind the tension rod buckets was there to cover up an inspection/access port, but it would appear not. They must just be there for some added strengthening.

Anyway, I’m hoping to get these pieces welded in this weekend.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Spoke with Apex Engineered yesterday about the progress of their VQ swap front crossmember, looks like they are making progress and this should be a huge jump in progress towards making VQ swaps even more simple in the long run. 26FC07C4-2BAE-41E4-84C2-84AC6DE7D5E6.jpeg.13c7d63751f700e0dcf93d600097e63d.jpeg

 

As you can see they are sticking to their regular crossmember be sign and have the supporting tube running what looks to be maybe 1 1/2” inches more forward. Looks quality to me so far for a prototype so I’ll be probably one of the first buyers to test it out and write about it here.

Also for wiring I’ve been speaking with Matt over at Hexa Garage about his VQ stand-alone harness and ECU tuning, from my discussions it sounds like it should work just as well as ZFever while being 1/2 the price. Another huge step forward in making the VQ swap a more viable option. They don’t have a test engine to check there harnesses on like ZFever does but I think at the price it’s a worthy opponent to the ZFever harness and I think I’ll take the step towards being the first here on Hybridz that I know of to try out and write about using that wiring option unless @Gumiho3 beats me to it.

As for my progress in the past weeks I took a break from the frame stuff as it was getting to my head and got mostly done with installing a bottom door skin panel. It’s really not as daunting as it seems.

Edited by Sanchez
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@Rpm260z

The ZeddFindings floor pans are great but they will require a lot of shaping to work and don’t include any of the kick panel leading up to the firewall so if yours are shot like mine it will take a bit of extra work. I would suggest not trying to take the easy route or use butt welds unless you are very experienced. When I go to my driver side I am going to cut the seat mounts out first, then do some test fitting and tracing of the replacement to get everything ready to go and lap weld it.

 

@Sadeem28

This VQ motor fell into lap because I have a junkyard that parts out cars near me and I happened to call them as they just finished pulling a very low mileage engine out of a rear end totaled G37. Ended up paying less than most people were asking for a bare engine with 3x the miles on most websites. If you are still doing work to the car don’t rush on getting the engine now and paying too much for it to get sooner, keep looking around and eventually a good one will pop up.

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Thanks man for the reply, I am actually in the assembly phase. Well technically paint phase and once that completes this weekend I can actually start assembly. But I am also mid way through rebuilding my l28 engine. I know I decided way too late to go with the vq37vhr. Thanks for the tips I am in no hurry to buy an engine anyways. If you are on insta let me know I would love to follow and see the progress.

 

Great work by the way!!

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@Sadeem28

My buddies and I have a YouTube channel and Instagram for the garage we work in. Haven’t updated much on Z because they’re moving along with their own projects and do all the editing and filming. I posted a YouTube link to the sandblasting video on the first page and our Instagram is:

https://www.instagram.com/thecherrygarage_/

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