L28 To L28ET Too (call me copycat :P )

[Gollum]

Ok, so I picked up a nice donor car today. From a member on this board actually (2 years and I've finally got something to show for all the time i've spent here).

 

I'm pleased with it and I feel it'll make a perfectly good drivetrain donor. Many new'ish' parts on it. Clutch is overzelous and i'll have to relearn how to drive a ZX. I guess I was just used to all the z trannys i've driven that are about as soft as free baked cookies.

 

So, the plan is to get it running real good before I start the swap, then just do the engine swap. I'll try to clean my engine bay the best that I can, and if I've got the time/money I'll do a quick paint job. Then once I've got the drivetrain in I need to get it working. I'll probly convert all the electronics over wich means pulling the dashes on both cars (yay... not. oh wel, it is what it is) then I'll be using a strang assorment of hybrid parts between the two cars. My dash, with the new turbo guage faces, with the new turbo plastic.

 

Once everything is sorted out and working I'll divide it all into weekend projects. Like the front end. Sanding/painting hood/fenders/bumpers and so forth.

 

The car has red interior, and the seats are in particularly good shape. I might convince myself to turn one into a video game racing seat unless someone wants to offer me a good price for them. It is obviouly a 2+2 and the rear seats seem primo to me, though I've only had my glances at it thus far. Real test will be once I pull them out and inspect them in detail.

 

So if there is anything you want, let me know and I'll let you know if I plan on keeping it. A very large portion of this car I plan on keeping, but i'm sure there are some odds and ends that I surely won't need. But in the end once i've got it stripped I'll offer the chassis and if there's no interest in a 2+2 I'll cut it into pieces and recycle it (sorry ray (previous owner) if you like we can hold a memorial BBQ in it's honor)

 

Although before I do anything rash like that I want to measure the rear extensively and figure out the weight distrobution of the bare chassis, to see if there is any realistic ability to turn it into a MR car (albit a bit extreme custom work to get it there)

 

So much like the similar thred that I patterned the title of this thred after, I'll be using this thred to catalog all the work done to the car.

 

First pic: Sitting at it's new home.

 

 

So that's it for now, it's been a long day and it's going to be an early morning.

[Gollum]

What might seem like an ordinary fence:

 

 

Might really only hide something else, as appearences can be deciving.

 

 

So I spent a good 3 hours today pulling fences and then putting them back up. At least I got a good work out.

 

Both cars fit with about 6 inches between each gap (fence to bumper, front bumpers, last bumper to shed). So that should be enough room to work once I get all the bumpers taken off of both cars and both of them backed up as far as they'll go.

 

Tomarrow the real fun beigns.

[AE2ZX]

lololol your not a copy cat lolololololol good find on the 2+2 .

go slow and keep everything in order and you shouldnt have any problems ..

you have any junk yard close by ? if i where you i would scout out one more z, that way you can pull parts from it just in case u need a extar part or two .

 

i want thAT white turbo hood you can ship it to me anytime lolololololol.

[Gollum]

Yea there's a local yard with a 2 seater turbo 280ZX with an auto tranny. But no car stays at that yard more than a month and it's been there about a week so far so it might be gone around the time i'm finishing up. So far my parts needed are:

 

Speed sensor sending unit

Driveshaft

 

Not too bad, and I think anything else I need is here (the car runs and drives).

[AE2ZX]

NICE not that much missing is always a good thing .

does that car have a turbo hood ? grab up everything you can off it ..

extar parts are extar parts nothing like never having go to the parts store

[BleachZee]

hahaha!

I just took the L28ET out of a 2-seater and slapped it in my 2+2!

 

if you lived closer I'd be asking for the 2+2 t-tops and door windows just as spares. probably too costly to ship up here...

 

good luck on that swap. It'll be easy.

[Gollum]

hahaha, that's great. We should have just swapped cars!

 

I've already got a spare set of t-tops. I plan on keeping as much as I can store for spare parts, but stuff like the interior (it's red) I just wanna sell off for cheep.

 

So one of the injectors was bad, and the previous owner thought it was #5, so I changed it out today for my NA injector (i'm gonna replace all of them once I finish the swap, but I figured the na injector would be close enough until then since I just wanted to get the thing running well before I swapped it out). Now a smart man would have tested all the injectors with the car running first... Now that i've changed the #5 #4 isn't working, so I'm thinking it was probly that one the entire time. Oh well.

 

So now i've got my project laid out for tomorrow. I'm glad to get inside today though, bitter wind out today.

 

I also got a change to check some other things, like the windshield wipers... wich suck. Motor must be near dead or something. That's ok becuase I didn't really need it. I want to swap it out for something else eventually anyways.

[BleachZee]

t-tops, doors, door glass, and rear hatch are different sizes on the 2+2 and coupe. FYI

[Gollum]

Interesting, didn't realise about the t-tops, i knew about the rest. Thanks bleach.

 

 

Well, The car is purring away now and here's what was involved in today's work.

So I went out there today and started it to double check the injectors. #4&6 weren't firing. Remove those plugs and no change of idle but unplug any other plug and the revs go down the way it sound. So maybe it's the connectors? So I sprayed them down with some electrical cleaner (non-flamable) and let it sit after a good scrubbing. Still nothing. So I test the voltage, it's perfect, identical to the other injectors. Well it couldn't be a clog since #4 is getting fuel apparently. #4 had been changed and #6 hadn't... So if it's not a fuel issue, then a spark issue? I check to see if it arcs, and it does. So I pull the plug and it's pretty black. Change over 2 plugs from my NA and voila it runs perfect. It was probly plugs the entire time I guess.

 

So now it starts great, revs quickly, runs smoother, and most of all sounds great (for a stock car). Maybe I'll even make a vid of it running before I start taking it apart. Tomarrow the real fun begines. Tear down. I'm gonna keep a digital camera handy and take lots of pictures.

[AE2ZX]

nice !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BleachZee]

so you're just going to drop the engine right in there without tearing it down or anything? that'll be a quick swap.

 

clean it while it is in the ZX. degrease, wash it, dry it, make sure it still runs good. (dry out the TPS)

wash off the bottom of the engine and tranny too. It'll be nice to pull it out all clean. You can wear white clothes while you work!

[Gollum]

Yea i'm trying to get this project finished in 3 weeks, and no later than weeks. I want to give myself lots of time to do all the wiring/guage conversions.

 

And the motor is fairly clean, it was even recently painted so degrease work will go quickly. My main thing will be getting my NA car's engine bay clean once I pull the motor.

 

I'm also thinking I'll keep the NA motor around so I can build up the bottom end so I can later pull the turbo motor and run the turbo head and up on the rebuilt block. Basically just keep it around to make a rebuild go smoother with less down time.

[Gollum]

Today was fairly productive. I got the rest of the front end body off and got all the efi off. So there's not much left to hold the engine in now other than mounts and the driveshaft.

 

But the real treat today was my uninvited guest...

 

 

I pull of the fender and yay! He's there saying "man, who turned the lights on?" In this confusement I had time to snap a shot and then sweep in for the kill. (no spider sympathy here)

 

If anyone knows what it is feel free to chime in.

 

Tomorrow will be getting the last bits i don't need out of the engine bay and possibly pull the motor. Well see how much time i've got since i'm busy in the morning and evening leaving just my afternoon free.

[Gollum]

Ok, so pulled the dash today once the weather cooled down. I'm starting to feel alot better about all this after pulling the dash was so easy. So here's the pics of the aftermath and notes to people pulling a S130 dash in the future.

 

 

Basic View behind the dash

 

Here's a view of the back of the removed dash

 

Here's what you want to remove from the left side of the dash. Green = Steering whele Blue = Speed sensor cable. If you remove the wheel you don't have to unmound the steering rod like I did (not thinking) and the speed sensor cable is probly the most difficult part of the process as there isn't much slack.

 

Then there's the right side. There's four plugs (two pair technically) that if unplugged will give you more slack after you remove the dash. There's also a connector that once unplugged will also free up some slack room. Blue = four connectors Green = Missing plug that's been disconnected

 

And here's the last of the connectors. Even with these on there's lots of room to move the dash around so they're not imparrative to take off unless you need the dash full out of the car.

 

Last note: If you pull out the passanger seat you can neatly lay the dash down on the floor. This is pretty convenient if you just need to work on the guages and such since you won't get your seat dirty and you can lay the dash in a position that's easy to work with.

 

And that's all folks. I'll be back on it tomorrow.

[BleachZee]

keep at it!

I'm going to remove my dash soon. Swap out the auto controls for manual temp controls (includes the whole heater core, housing, and fan unit) and also apply white face gauges.

[AE2ZX]

nice gollum your moving right along with it , dont give up .

[Gollum]

I got the engine out today, right as it started to rain. Oh well, I'll just continue tomorrow. But it sure felt good to get the motor out, that's for sure.

[Gollum]

Well, no pics of I got a little bit of work done today. Started pulling the entire steering assy and got the EFI harness out (along with everything else attached).

 

I still havn't started taking apart the new turbo car yet but I think it's going to have to start soon. I've been keeping it in a running state so that car guys I know can come by and check it out, but I guess the rest will have to wait till the swap is done.

 

I've got a few minutes tomorrow so I'm going to try and finish off the steering stuff and clean out the engine bay some. There's some rust in the battery tray area that I can't get to in order to sand out so I don't think I'll get to treat that area at all. But I do plan on sealing as much as I can get at.

[Gollum]

Ok, well things are still moving slower than I'd like. Not becuase of complications of working on the car, but complications of getting free time during the right time of day.

 

Here's the engine bay as it lies now:

 

Still need to pull some things out, and a little bit of wiring to remove yet. And for your viewing pleasure this isn't what you want your pistons to look like.

 

 

And here's a wider shot so you can see how clean I got my two outter pistons in a little over 60 seconds (build up was thick, and that grossed me out a bit, not what you want to dream is in your cumbustion chamber)

 

 

So, two weeks of REAL work and I should be wrapping things up I think. It's a goal I'm setting, but I won't be too dissapointed if things don't work out as planned again.

[AE2ZX]

NICE Work G .