Project240z.com 73 240Z + 83 L28ET + MegaSquirt = SM2 autocross car

[christoc]

Originally posted here

 

 

Here's a quick update on the 240. I got up this morning and finished up modifications to the bracket I built for the VR sensor, you can see what it ended up looking like in the photo below. It's not all that pretty, but not too bad considering I made it out of a drill press, vertical sander, and a jig saw.

I then ran out and spent a few more hours shopping. I went to autozone and purchased lots of random bits that I needed, another fuel filter (that didn't fit), wires, splices, antifreeze, radiator hose, oil, gear lube, and a ton of other random stuff. I also took the battery I had purchased for the parts car back to get tested, it wouldn't charge so they gave me a credit (it was out of the year's free replacement), so I got a new battery for $9.95.

 

 

Whittle came over and assisted with a few more wiring questions. From there I tried to get started on wiring. I began by looking where exactly I was going to run the wires, in order to find an existing hole to run them through I got up under the dash and started removing things on the passenger side. The first thing I removed ended up being part of the AC system, which I wasn't actually sure the car had! That opened up two holes, with grommets to boot, that allowed me to start running wires.

 

 

Terec came over and started assisting with a few things, first thing we did when he got there was make a list of all the tasks left to do on the car. We used a sharpie on the windshield. After that he was visibly more productive today than I was. He actually mounted the sensor up to the motor and made sure that it was within specs to the 36-1 wheel. After that he was able to get the radiator mounted and the hoses attached to the proper locations. He then got the Oil Cooler mounted and the hoses finished up from what Eric started doing yesterday. You can see the oil cooler and radiator mounted in this photo.

 

 

I was able to get some of the EDIS wiring started, as well as power wires ran for both injector banks, as well as the Megasquirt harness wired into the engine bay, though the MS harness doesn't actually connect to anything yet. I have a LOT more wiring to do this week, hopefully getting most of it done Monday and Tuesday night with a goal of trying to start the car on Wednesday. We'll see if that happens, if I don't at least attempt to start it before Sunday I've vowed to shave my head....

 

 

Here are more photos from today.

[christoc]

Fuel leaks, coolant leaks and blown fuses. That about sums up the evening...

 

First off, a HUGE thanks to everyone who came over tonight. Henry, Ronnie, Terec, Ian, Eric, Scott and Andy, without you guys helping out I wouldn't have gotten anything done tonight!

 

Here's a basic summary of how things went tonight. Henry and Ronnie showed up first and got to work on finishing the wiring in the engine bay. They by far did the most, if not all of the work on the wiring on the car, I had put together three wires, but they as a team crank though some things, far faster that I could ever hope to.

 

While they spent time working on the wiring in the engine bay I did a little work in the passenger compartment trying to get some wires run, finding parts for them, and trying to close up some ports on the intake before the turbo but after the MAF.

 

Before heading to the interior to do wiring Henry, Ronnie and I attempted to crank the starter, to see if it would fire. Because this car is now a manual, but originally was an auto Ronnie wired up a relay to bypass the neutral safety switch that keeps the starter from firing if the car isn't in park. We were unable to locate the stock relay but found some of the wiring so we just ended up bypassing the whole thing.

 

When they were working on the interior wiring I finished up some of the engine mount bolts that needed tightening and started cleaning up the Ford plug wires that I had picked up from the junk yard a while back.

The rest of the guys started showing up, when Whittle called me I told him we were about half an hour from trying to start the car, he's the megasquirt Guru so I asked him to come over and assist us with things while we tried. By the time he arrived we weren't quite ready, but we thought we were close.

 

Once the Whittle's showed up we ran some fuel through the fuel system into a jug (rather than the fuel rail) to try and clean out the hoses and pump, to keep any buildup from getting into the rail and injectors. That testing went fine, but as soon as we hooked the fuel lines back up and sent some pressure through the system we found a few leaks. The fittings at the fuel filter in the engine bay had been put together without teflon, lesson learned, 10 minutes later it was all back together again and pressure testing started up. Then we found a bigger issue, but one that didn't dump near as much fuel out. We can't seem to get the injector for the number 1 cylinder sealed into the fuel rail, it looks like the 2 and 3 injectors are also leaking a bit. So, tomorrow, the fuel rail will come off and we'll try to make adjustments.

 

On the electrical side of things: At first we couldn't get the MS to fire up at all with the power from the car. After about 15 minutes, and Whittle about to give up I started looking for wires and remembered, we ran the TPS and TPS Signal wires, but don't currently have a TPS to hook up to, well sure enough, they were sitting right on the intake manifold. As soon as I removed them the Squirt fired up in Megatune. Then there were a few other gremlins. The MS seemed to be getting power spikes, though not completely resetting itself and firing the fuel pump again.

 

At first we thought this was a grounding issue, but I believe I've now tracked it down just to be a source issue. While trying to track that down we started blowing fuses in the stock wiring. We couldn't figure out what that was happening until I looked at what we had wired into for the switched power line. I found that we were jumped into a line for the AC, well two days ago I pulled the AC system from under the dash and the wiring was still there, half hanging out of the car, which of course was touching the chassis, and causing out problem. Once I figured that out I removed the AC wire from the equation. That corrected the fuse issue, but we're still getting the power fluctuations, so I'll be tracking those down by checking grounds tomorrow, and then by running a new switched line from the battery if the ground search doesn't prove fruitful.

As Terec and I were putting things away in the garage and rolling the car back in I noticed some antifreeze that was pooled up on the steering rack bracket. At first I thought this was related to a loose plug that Terec had found earlier in the night, so we soaked up the pool and hoped that would be all we had to think of that. I got under the car though and started looking around with a paper towel, I swear I though I found a place where more coolant was collecting, which isn't a good sign. So we gave it all a good wiping down to try and dry it off, I'll look at it again tomorrow and see if there's more coolant, and if so try to track down that leak.

 

So as of right now, in order to get this car running I need to:

a) figure out the wiring issue

figure out the fuel leak in the rail

c) see if the coolant is still leaking and then fix the leak.

 

Of those items right now, C scares me the most, I'm hoping I don't have to replace a head gasket or anything of the like.

 

I'll have video up from tonight, both my usual format, and some HD video as well.

[christoc]

Well, Wednesday night was an eventful night. When I got home from work I jumped under the car and tried to track down my coolant leak. I found small traces of coolant here and there, but I didn't find any big problems. While under the car I found a few other things. I noticed that the oil return line off the bottom of the turbo wasn't hooked up. Thankfully I found that, had I tried to start the car with that disconnected we would of had a real mess on our hands.

 

 

I found the coolant leak I was looking for, it, like the first coolant leak we found on Tuesday night, was in the thermostat housing. There was a plug in the housing that hadn't been covered in teflon and hadn't been tightened down enough either. After that I started to hookup the vacuum lines for the wastegate to the turbo.

 

 

Once I had finished under the car I decided it was time to track down the fuel leak in the rail. We initially though that the first 3 injectors were leaking on the rail, so I spent an hour notching the fuel rail brackets so that I could lower the rail close to the intake manifold more, adjusting the angle of the injectors. This ended up not being the cause of the leak, but I do believe that the angle of the injectors is now much better than before as they sit in the rail and intake much better now.

 

 

The cause of the fuel leak ended up being the 45 degree fitting we had on the inlet end of the rail. When removing the fitting on the rail I found that both the threads on the fitting and the rail were bunged up really good. There was no reusing the fitting so I would have to get another one and retap the rail.

 

 

Here's the video I took of the work tonight.

[christoc]

First off, let me say that today was a good day! It didn't start off that way however. After last night's fuel rail issues I needed to get the rail tapped and get myself a new fitting. At lunch I headed over to SoloPerformance World Headquarters to have Dave assist with tapping the rail. He didn't have a 3/8 NPT tap so I had to head over to Grainger down the street from the SPS offices and pick up a tap. $33 later I was in business and heading back to Dave's. He assisted with tapping the rail again and then I headed south.

 

 

I needed to go to SCPRacingparts.com to pickup another fitting, they had just what I needed and then I was headed back to the office. When I got home this evening the first thing I did was check to see if the new fitting would be what I needed. I put the fitting into the rail with some teflon and hooked everything up. I pressurized the fuel system, and sure enough, it was leaking fuel again! Not a happy camper was I. With a leaking fuel rail I couldn't do much else so I called up Speed Sports to see if they could help me out by tapping the rail and selling me a new fitting.

 

 

They were running a little late and not open yet so I decided to work on the power issue we were having with the Megasquirt. On Tuesday we had problems because the MS signal to the laptop was highly unsteady. We weren't sure if it was a power problem, or if it was related to a bad ground. Tonight I replaced the wire we were running to the main relay with a direct line from the battery. Once I did this the relay kicks in immediately when plugged to the battery, powering up the megasquirt without the ignition being on.

 

 

This corrected the fluctuation issue, which was great news! Now that the gauges and sensors seem to work fuel was the last major hurdle before I could attempt to start the car. I headed up to Speed Sports and had Lou tap the rail and install a new fitting for me. He showed me that I wasn't using enough teflon on the fitting, and he also managed to run the fitting nearly all the way in, where we were only able to get it in a few threads before.

 

 

Once I had the new fitting installed I was starting to get excited, perhaps it would hold and I'd be able to see what happens when I cranked the car. Installation of the rail was easy, I've installed and removed it so much in the past two nights that it is easy to do now. Eric showed up and we pressurized the fuel system a few times. All tests appeared good, no fuel leaking out anywhere!

 

 

Now it was time, the power was good, the fuel was good, it was time to try and start the car. Eric and I tied up a few last minute things, hooked up the battery, computer to the Megasquirt and watched all the gauges on the PC light up. Eric stood by the front of the car with a fire extinguisher and I reached into the driver's door to turn the key.

 

 

I turned the key, she cranked over, a beautiful sound I must say. After a few cranks I realized the fuel pump wasn't running, which meant that the squirt wasn't getting an RPM signal as it should be. I looked over at the display and sure enough, no RPMs registering on the PC. Without RPMs the Megasquirt won't allow the fuel pump to run for more than 2 seconds, that was my giveaway.

 

 

I called Whittle up and he suggested a few things. First thing was to pull a spark plug and see if we were getting any spark. Nothing. Then I checked to make sure the EDIS was getting power, it was.

 

 

So that's where I'm at right now. I've got a bit to do tomorrow, I need to diagnose why I'm not getting spark. I'll check a few things first, see if perhaps the VR sensor is wired backwards, which would cause this. I'll also check to make sure I have the VR sensor in the correct location. I'm taking off from work tomorrow to try and finish things up on the car this weekend so I can race on Sunday. We'll see if I reach my goal!

 

 

Overall I was very pleased with the progress tonight, even if the car didn't start I gave it a shot, turned it over and everything seems to work minus the spark issue. We'll see how things go tomorrow and I'll post video from tonight's attempt and hopefully tomorrow's success.

[christoc]

This morning I woke up with a little hope in my eye, hope that I would make some good progress today.

 

After doing some reading online about the Megasquirt and Edis I headed out to the garage. The first thing I noticed was that the coil pack wasn't plugged into the Edis module. I'm not sure if I had unplugged it last night when trying to figure out why we didn't have any spark, or if I hadn't plugged it in at all last night.

 

I then hooked up the laptop and tried to start the car, to see if anything changed. At first nothing was different than last night, no spark and no RPM signal on the squirt. But a few tries later I noticed the RPM on the laptop jumped up. Sporadically I was able to get RPM but nothing consistant or worth a darn from a starting perspective.

 

I decided from there I would need to mount the coil pack and the edis module as I hadn't mounted them yet, they were just laying in the car. To do that I needed to pick up some metal as I didn't have enough to fabricate much.

 

I headed out around noon to the DMV, it was time to get the trailer registered, and then head to Illinois to pickup the trailer, fix the wiring on the trailer, and then hit Home Depot on the way home to pick up the metal. The trailer pickup took far longer than I expected, but with the help of Andy and Chris Hohl I was able to get the wiring on the trailer fixed!

When I got home I backed the trailer into the driveway and got to work on the car again. Before I went ahead and started building brackets for the EDIS setup I decided to try and rewire the VR sensor on the car, to see if that might fix my problems. I checked a few things I had lying around. I had a VR sensor for a V6 Ford Explorer, but I was using the VR sensor that matched the 36-1 wheel off a 4Cylinder Escort that I had mounted to the car. I checked the wiring on both sensors and noticed that the colors were opposite on the Explorer plug.

 

After swapping out the VR sensor wires I went to fire the car up, sure enough I had a full RPM signal on the laptop! Score! I then started checking to see if I had any spark. Eric showed up and we weren't getting any spark. To try something out we plugged in the other coil pack and hooked up one wire/plug sitting on top of the valve cover. Once we did this we immediately noticed spark! Score again! Just to see if we had something else wrong we plugged back into the original coil pack, and sure enough this one also sparked. One thing we did to the original coil pack was to run a wire from one of the mounting points to the shock tower on the passenger side.

 

I'm not exactly sure what changed to cause us to start getting a spark, but I think it most likely related to this ground, perhaps, I'll test it out again tomorrow without the ground and see what happens.

Once we had spark we hooked the fuel pump back up and tried to get her to fire. First thing we started getting was a few pops and then lots of smoke! Score again! After a few attempted we decided we'd tried enough for the time being. Eric headed out and I decided I needed to try something else. I remembered reading today that the EDIS coil pack should run 132, and we had plugged in the wires for 123, so I swapped this around.

 

As soon as I attempted to start it was a totally different sound, it was beautiful! I've not yet gotten it to start, but it sure sounds like it's trying to. I had Andy Whittle on the phone throughout the night and I sent him a few log files from the data I recorded while trying to start the motor.

Around 10pm I figured it was probably a little too late to try to keep starting the car with all the noise it was creating. I got under the car and hooked up the speedometer cable, put the missing bushings into the transmission crossmember and tightened that up as well as the clutch slave cylinder.

 

I've got a few things to try in the morning before I head off to the muffler shop to see if I can't get an exhaust put on the car.

 

Here's some video from tonight, trying to start the car.

[christoc]

Originally posted here

http://www.project240z.com/Blog/tabid/53/EntryID/89/Default.aspx

 

Thanks to everyone who helped on the car I was able to tow it out to Gateway yesterday for the SCCA Autocross. I didn't plan to compete the car, but I brought everything with me that I needed to get it put together enough to try driving it for the first time.

 

After I installed the driver's seat with the help of Phil Cline, Whittle and I bled the brakes on the car. From there it was a matter of hooking everything up and getting her off the trailer. Below is the link to the video page, thanks to Dave for filming the first drive.

 

First Drive Video

 

I can't thank everyone who has helped me get this far enough. I'm far from done with the project, but the biggest hurdle in my mind has been cleared. My biggest fear was that once together the car just wouldn't run, and now it runs!

 

Thanks to the following, in no particular order:

Russ Melton

Dave Whitworth

Eric MacKenzie

Terec Wilson

Andy Whittle

Andy Hohl

Bill Hammond (my dad)

Ronnie Baker

Henry Kenuam

Everyone of those guys' wives!

 

And of course my wife Natalie for letting me spend the past few months dirty and greasy!

 

This will most definitely not be the end of the project, just the beginning of a running car!

 

Edit: I knew i'd forget someone! Thanks to Mark and John Huebbe for the use of the welder, and inspiration of the RallyBug!

[christoc]

I'm a couple posts behind here, but here's a quick update.

I think the motor is done. As in, I think it's time to pull it and see if it's at all salvagable what broke! more updates later this week!

[christoc]

I went out to the garage tonight with the hopes of trying to figure out what went wrong on Sunday.

 

I was going to take the valve cover off and see if I saw anything out of the ordinary, then pull the head if I could get to that. Before doing those two things though I figured I should drain the oil out of the motor. Much to my suprise when I drained the oil it wasn't oil that came out first, it was coolant, then oil followed.

 

 

Once I discovered that I began to lose hope that I would be able to salvage anything in this motor. Thoughts of a cracked block filled my head. Nevertheless I proceeded forward with removing the valve cover and whatever else I could get to.

 

When I pulled the cover off I started looking around and immediately found something that looked out of place. Ends up I found two things out of place, two of the rocket arm guides were laying on the cylinder, with a little Matlock work I found that both the guides from the #2 cylinder were not in the correct place.

 

 

From there I didn't get too far, I did get the timing sprocket and chain removed, and ended up getting the camshaft remove as well, but I was unable to see anything out of the ordinary. I even tried sticking a magnet into the spark plug hole on the #2 cylinder with hopes of pulling some bits of metal out of there, hoping to find something awry.

 

No dice, so I'll have to wait until this weekend to get further on the investigation. I'm going to have to pull the motor out of the car in order to take the manifolds off so that I can remove the cylinder head and see what happened on Sunday.

 

Here's a link to the video of me working in the garage tonight. Notice the music!

[christoc]

Well, I'm back! (Was for a short time considering selling the car as I picked up another ride www.corvettez06.org)

 

This just in, there may still be life in the Project240z.... It might get saved from the grasps of Ebay and become just a toy/project/wrench on me when you can car. Not a daily driver, not a race car, just something to play with, work on, add to, without worry of "will it make it faster or slower"

 

More information coming sometime, who knows when!

 

I've created a ToDo list

[christoc]

Well, if anyone is keeping track I haven't made any progress on my checklist. I'm hoping to get out into the garage this weekend or next weekend and see if I can't get some wrenching done. Before the wrenching though I really need to do some cleaning up/organizing out there.

[christoc]

What? Chris actually worked on the 240Z? Impossible! It tis true, it really is. Tonight I got home and decided it was time to tear into the motor, so I did just that. I even recorded the whole process, so hopefully I'll have video up soon. For now you can check out the photos of what I found, be warned, it's not pretty!

 

Here's the first one, this is NOT ALL of the parts, there are still parts in the motor that may never come out.

 

At first I thought I found a nut, and that was the culprit of the whole mess. I don't believe that to be the case, I believe the nuts/bolts connecting the rod to the crankshaft came free, though, perhaps that was the problem, maybe they were lose?

 

I'm going to save this piece, and perhaps attach it to my office door at work.

 

Plenty more pictures in the Project240Z Set on Flickr

[christoc]

And a quick update with a link to tonight's video!

http://www.project240z.com/tabid/54/itemid/55/In-search-of-a-piston.aspx

[christoc]

Today Nick and I ran around town, getting some metal for his 240Z, then around to find a few other supplies that he needed.

 

When I got home I was half motivated to work on the car! So I went out to the garage, after sitting on the couch for 30 minutes, and got to working. It's still cold here in St. Louis so I had the garage door closed and decided to plug the space heater in to warm it up a little bit.

 

I put together a little rolling stool that I purchased from Sears a few weeks back (please don't visit www.slickdeals.net, that site will make you spend more money at Sears than you ever have before). After putting the stool together I decided I should get to work on the motor.

 

What motor? This motor is out of a 78 280Z 2+2. The parts car, it ran when I got it, so the plan right now is to transfer the turbo/intake/fuel system from the blown 83 motor to this motor.

 

So I started on the motor, working on taking the fuel rail off the motor, along with the injectors and such (all this will be for sale later this week). I had most everything removed so that I could pull the fuel rail and injectors when I found one hose that was still hooked up to the intake manifold. Being that the motor is 30 years old some of the hoses and clamps are a little hard to remove, easy enough fix, I got a pair of dykes and started cutting.

 

Out pours some gasoline, which I found odd that there was still any fuel in the system. A few moments later when more fuel poured out I realized that the space heater was sitting less than 2 feet from where the fuel was hitting the floor.

 

Talk about getting your heart rate going, I jumped, grabbed the space heater and lifted it off the ground, quickly unplugging it and removing it from the area.

 

Thankfully nothing caught fire! That would of sucked! More work tomorrow, I'm going to try and get the motor up on an engine stand so I can replace the rear main seal which leaks, and try to check everything over before I put it all back together.

 

I could "possibly" have this motor running by the end of the month in the car. But I know how lazy and busy I am, so I have no doubts that there is no way I'll get all that done More info and pictures tomorrow, possibly even a new 240Z video!

 

More info at www.project240z.com

[christoc]

So Nick came over this morning and helped me get the motor off the ground and onto the engine stand so I could begin tearing it apart. After breaking a bolt off in the head trying to get one of the mounts setup for the cherry picker we managed to get the motor up and off the ground, though it took a couple of tries because we tried to get by with "the wrong" parts, meaning bolts in the chain that were too small for what we were doing.

 

Lesson learned, again, use the right damn tools, instead of trying to make the wrong tools work. You'll save time rather than trying to take short cuts.

 

Once we had the motor up on the stand he headed home to work on this car and I started trying to get the motor cleaned up a bit. Here are two before shots, of the front of the motor just caked in dirt and crap.

 

After spraying it down with degreaser and scrubbing with a wire brush I decided to finish what I started yesterday and remove the manfolds from the side of the motor. That actually went fairly easily, I'm not sure why, perhaps loading up the bolts with WD-40 yesterday before I finished helped, some of them almost seemed loose before I even cranked on them, perhaps Eric or I started to remove them last year when working on the other motor?

 

After getting the manifolds off I took off the last remaining attached item to the side of the motor, but honestly, I'm not sure what it was? At first I assumed it was a power steering pump, but the more I think about it the more I think it might have been the AC compressor?

 

After that I tried to spend some time organizing the garage a bit. I managed to get a few things hung up on the wall and made more room in there for the Corvette. I've still yet to make enough room to bring the 240Z home from storage. I don't think I'll be able to park both cars in the garage until I have the motor in the 240, otherwise I'll never have room in there for both cars and the motor, plus transmissions.

 

Speaking of transmissions, I need to sell the 2 extra ones I have, if anyone is looking for an automatic transmission out of a 73 240Z, or a 5 speed out of a 280Z let me know. I was told the 5 speed needs rebuilding, I have no clue about it other than that.

 

My goal/plan right now is to tear down the L28E and check things over, replace the rear main seal, make sure to clean it out, then try and put it all back together. I don't imagine I'll get that done before May, but I would like to spend time on it over the next few weeks if I can.

[christoc]

So I took some time this evening to put parts up on Ebay. You can see them all by looking at my items for sale page!

The current parts include

• 1978 Datsun 280Z L28E Distributor and Wires
  
• 1978 Datsun 280Z L28E Exhaust Manifold
  
• 1978 Datsun 280Z L28E Intake Manifold
  
• 1978 Datsun 280Z 2+2 Interior Parts

I'm hoping to tear into the motor this week when my dad get's here for a short visit.

[christoc]

So my parents are in town for a few days. Dad and I spent some time working on the motor for the 240Z today. I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow.

 

We pulled the valve cover off, as well as the oil pan, to look things over on the motor. So far things look good, though we could see quite a bit of crap sitting above the valves, mostly dead bugs and such. I tried to get them out with a combination of the air compressor and a shop vac, tomorrow I'll know if it worked. We also removed the oil pan and made sure things down there were alright. We'll check the torque on bolts tomorrow and then put the oil pan from the Turbo motor back on.

 

One thing I noticed, the 78 L28E has round exhaust ports while the 83 L28ET that died had square, so I'll have to do some research and see if the intake/exhaust manifolds should work on that 78 head or not. My plan was to take the turbo/exhaust setup from the 83 and put it onto the 78, hopefully tomorrow.

 

Other than that, we tried replacing the rear main seal, though I think the one we put in will probably leak more than the one we took out so I've ordered another one. We did all this with the motor on the engine stand which limited our access to the seal, when I have the motor back up on the cherry picker we'll replace the seal before attaching the flywheel and transmission.

 

If all goes well I might be able to bring the car home and try to put the motor in next weekend....

[christoc]

Last week Dad and I worked on the motor a bit, then I got sick and work pretty much halted. Today I started on what I had hoped to do last Sunday, cleaning up and reassembling motor bits.

 

Here's a list of the things I did today, or attempted to do

 

Painted the oil pan. Last week dad and I took the Oil pan from the L28ET motor to the car washed and tried to clean it up, it had a lot of left over motor parts in it from the destruction, and I also noticed that the pan itself had taken a beating during the desctruction, though it only put a few dents in the bottom, no punctures.I cleaned up some of the inside of the pan today and then painted the bottom with some 1200 degree flat black. After painting it I cleaned up and installed a new gasket and attached the pan to the block. I did figure out that I had to change the oil pickup from the L28ET to the L28E, so that the turbo pan would attach properly. Not a big deal but I hadn't expected that so I spent some time cleaning up the pickup.

 

Painted exhaust manifold and turbo downpipe. I don't figure the paint will last very long on these as I imagine the turbo will get pretty hot, but I figured I'd at least pretty them up a bit before putting them back on the car.

 

Painted the valve cover. The turbo valve cover had a few places where the paint was chipped off, so I hit it with the flat black. I'm not sure it's pretty, but it is better than it was before. It really needs to be powder coated sometime.

 

Beyond the above, I also took a few pictures of the bottom of the motor. I'm not exactly sure why, but the coloring of the internals of this motor is far more orange or red than the other motor was. I'm assuming one of the following scenarios. 1. The motor has a lot more miles on it and the coloring is due to this use. 2. The motor is 5 years older than the other motor and the metal is just different between the two. Anyone have any thoughts? Here's what I'm talking about

 

Photos from Today

 

 

Photos of the old motor, taken over a year ago.

 

It looks like I won't get much done over the next three weeks on the car. The next three weekends I have out of town races (in the Corvette) and quite a bit of home work for school, not to mention a lot going on at the office.

[christoc]

It has most definitely been a while since I've posted an update. I'm hoping to get the garage cleaned up this week so I can bring the car home from storage on Saturday. I'll take videos and pictures if that happens

[christoc]

Well I finally did it, I brought the car home from storage. The car is finally back home, within reach of me actually working on it and hopefully getting it running in the next few weeks.

I've posted two videos, you can find them on this page

I've also posted some photos to flickr

 

 

 

[christoc]

Well it's been a busy year since the car last ran. I actually just got back from two weeks out of the country. This coming weekend is only the second free weekend I've had since Mid June, so I hope to spend some quality time on the car.

 

I'll be recording whatever I work on with a cool remote camera which I hope makes for some entertaining video, it'll be posted this weekend!