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

[christoc]

So I woke up this morning, earlier than yesterday, but still not as early as one would have liked. First things first I ran to Radio Shack to get an AC power source for my Chase Cam so that I could use it to record video today.

 

I then started working around the garage, I didn’t shoot too much video today because I wasn’t doing too much interesting when I wasn’t working on the motor. I took the oil pan off to make sure I drained any water from the block due to my impromptu cleaning yesterday. I also put two items on the motor, the thermo stat and one of the inlet/outlets for the coolant. I would have done more but I ran into a problem today.

 

I can’t seem to locate the baggy of all the manifold parts from when I removed the intake/exhaust from the other motor. I found pretty much every other part I could need for the motor except for this bag. I spent much of the day tearing through things trying to locate the bag, I’ll have to keep looking this week to find the missing parts so I can get to the assembly next weekend.

 

Now for the video.

[christoc]

Not much progress has been made on the car lately. Since I lasted work on the car I've been pretty much working on work and school stuff non stop, no car work. I was in Vegas at a conference for a week, I started working on my book (work related) and then I've been finishing up a econ paper that I was supposed to do this past summer, and am just now getting finished up.

 

I'm off to California next week, so it's not looking like I'll get anything done on the car until the week of Christmas, hopefully with my dad here in town that week he can get me motivated, perhaps we can even get the motor in the car! lofty goals

 

I did order some Bushings last week off of Ebay when they were having the 30% cashback special from live.com

 

 

Hopefully I'll have more updates in two weeks if we get started while my parents are in town for the holidays.

[christoc]

So at this point my project is still in limbo. I've been going back and forth trying to figure out what to do. I was going to sell it, and now I think I might not sell it just yet. I have the desire to work on the car in the coming weeks, I hope to have some free time now that I am about done with the book I am writing (a programming book).

 

Today I was walking through the garage and happened upon the manifold bolts I've been missing. I was trying to put it all back together a few months ago and couldn't find these bolts. Well they were in a plastic bag just as I had remembered, but I had them underneath my rolling chair, which apparently is the only place I didn't look in the garage when I tore it apart trying to find these bolts!

 

So hopefully in the next week or two I'll make some progress. I honestly believe with a few solid days of work I can have the new motor in the car and attempt to start it...

 

The key is getting a few solid days in, I haven't spent a single solid day working on the car since the motor blew in August 07....

[christoc]

So I had "lost" some bolts for the intake, I found them last week. Today I think I figured out I hadn't lost them, I just didn't realize they were in a bag they were in. Today I spent a little while in the garage getting ready to reassemble the intake and exhaust manifolds on the motor. This video is of that brief work. I'm headed to Orlando Thur/Fri this week, I'll be back late on Friday and hope to spend Saturday and Sunday next weekend putting the motor back together, with the goal of putting the motor in the car the following weekend.

New youtube video on the full blog post as well

http://www.project240z.com/Blog/itemId/408/Prepping-for-reassembly.aspx

[christoc]

Spent an hour or two yesterday, working in the garage. Cleaned off the hood of the car, which was buried. After that I spent some time cleaning off the workbench, which was also buried. Lots of junk thrown away, and other junk organized.

 

I even got working on car parts, taking apart the intake manifold and trying to get it cleaned up. It was full of chunks of metal from the explosion back in the summer of 2007. I think I finally got it cleaned up, and I hope to put the intake back together this week, and maybe even get started on putting it on the motor.

 

Here's a page with the YouTube video

http://www.project240z.com/Blog/itemId/410/Cleaning-off-the-car-and-workbench-working-on-thr.aspx

[christoc]

After class tonight I spent 30 minutes working on the Datsun. I removed the taillights, which I'd not done before. I was pleasantly surprised as I didn't find any rust.Here are the before and after photos.

I also took some video and uploaded it to YouTube

[christoc]

So I spent most of the day today in the garage, the first time I've done that in probably 20 months, it was nice! Thanks to Dave for coming over and helping me out for a bit, if he hadn't come over I wouldn't have gotten all that I did, done.

Here's what all was accomplished today.

• Alternator completely mounted
  
• Coolant line run and gasket created
  
• Rear main seal replaced
  
• Clutch installed
  
• Transmission installed
  
• EDIS pulley mounted
  
• Turbo mounted
  

The motor is pretty much ready to go into the car now, I just need to finish prepping the transmission cross member by putting in the new bushings, put the motor mounts on, and slide it in the engine bay!

 

, though we missed the lowering of the motor off the engine stand, the battery died on the camera and I didn't realize.

 

And a few pictures at the end of the day

[christoc]

So I had hoped to get the engine installed into the car today but got sidetracked trying to get a final few items finished up before doing so.

 

First things first I wanted to try and get some of the new bushings I purchased off Ebay back in December into the car, so I attempted to get the old bushings out of the rear motor mount, not having much luck I went to Carquest. They also didn’t have any luck but sent me on to Terry’s Machine Shop in Bridgeton. 25 minutes or so later (which was 20 minutes after they closed) the old bushings were free and room for the new urethane bushings available. I then ran back to Carquest and picked up some lithium grease and headed home.

 

I painted the rear motor mount one last time, as playing around with the bushings had removed some paint, and then I started on other items. I changed the bushing in the steering coupler to use the new urethane bushing, I also spent some time cleaning up some of the dust, and crap in the engine back from 2yrs ago when the car last ran. After doing this I drained the transmission and checked to see if I had any fluid to put back in it before installing it in the car tomorrow, I didn’t so I picked some up tonight.

 

I assembled the new bushings in the rear mount and then test fitted it under the car to make sure it would work, success, so hopefully it goes in smoothly tomorrow.

So I didn’t get a whole lot of progress made today, but I hope to tomorrow as Terec will be coming over in the morning and helping me with the big task, getting the motor up and into the car, 6 bolts should be all it takes! Then it’ll probably take me all week to hook up all the wires and lines to it, hopefully I’ll be able to try and crank it over next week.

 

Here's the full blog post with a video as well

http://www.project240z.com/Videos/itemId/414/Final-Prep-for-Engine-Installation.aspx

[christoc]

A HUGE thanks to Terec for coming over today and helping me with the car. We spent a couple hours this morning and were able to get the engine and transmission into the car, it all worked out pretty well with the only hitch being that all the transmission fluid I put in, came back out

 

After that we hooked up the drive shaft, clutch line, and the speedo cable (which last time the car ran didn’t work anyways). We took a break to go get a rental car for my trip to Indianapolis in the morning. After returning home I drained the fuel cell of the gas that unfortunately has been in there since August 2007 when the car last ran. I barely had enough gas cans to drain it fully, though I did have to put some of the cans into the rental car… I figured out how to safely burn off old fuel though

 

Here are some pictures

 

and of course the full blog post with video

 

http://www.project240z.com/Videos/itemId/415/Ahhhh-the-engine-is-in-place-again.aspx

[christoc]

I can’t say I’ve really put any effort into the Datsun on a weeknight in probably the past 20-22 months, tonight I spent a couple of hours in the garage working on a few things to get the motor ready to attempt to start it this weekend. I didn’t get a lot done, but the things I did will save the time I would have had to spend on Saturday doing them. I’ve mostly got the fan in place now, with 4 more bolts to put it onto the clutch. I put the single belt in place, and also hooked up the EDIS trigger on the 36-1 wheel for the megasquirt setup.

I also put the throttlebody and the intake to the turbo back on the car. I put the battery onto the charger so that it’ll be ready to go Saturday. The more I mess with that thing the more I realize I need to get that moved to the back of the car soon after the car runs again, rather than having it sitting up in the engine bay taking up valuable room.

 

I’ll probably do a few more of these minor buttoning up items tomorrow and Thursday night, leaving for tasks like the radiator and coolant, along with other minor things, for Saturday when Dave and possibly Terec are over to assist.

 

Link to blog and tonight's video

http://www.project240z.com/Videos/itemId/416/Working-on-the-240Z-on-a-weeknight.aspx

[christoc]

I spent the morning with Dave and Terec helping to finish buttoning up items on the 240Z so we could attempt to start it today. We were successful in getting to the point of attempting to start it, though we weren't successful in actually getting it started, there's an issue or two that I need to track down. Likely issues with timing and firing for the Megasquirt. Because the last time I had the car running was back in August 2007 I've now got a new laptop and don't have it configured for the Megasquirt. I'm hoping to get it setup tonight and try to hook it up tomorrow to see what I find.

 

Here's the full blog post and video

http://www.project240z.com/Blog/itemId/417/Wiring-up-the-engine-and-attempting-to-start.aspx

[christoc]

So I got the megasquirt hooked up to the laptop Sunday night, no luck tracking down the problems though. When the squirt is powered on, but car hasn't been cranked I'm getting a weird RPM signal, 0-305-0-305 etc. I'm going to have to check grounds I guess and see what's up. That'll have to wait till this weekend though, the final few weeks of school and I have some papers I need to get done during the week, along with the normal 50-60 hours of work

[christoc]

So I spoke with my Megasquirt Guru last week a few times, and again this weekend, and even had him show up in my driveway to help wrench on the car today!

 

So yesterday I got up and checked to see if the 36-1 wheel for the Megasquirt (using Ford EDIS) was correctly mounted, meaning, should the mounting have changed due to moving from the 1983 motor, to the 1978 motor. I removed the radiator in order to get to the front of the motor, draining it out was probably a good idea. We had put water in last weekend when getting things ready to start, well the water was pretty darn rusty and dirty when I took it out yesterday, probably need to do that a few more times just to make sure everything gets flushed from the radiator (sitting for 2 years) and the block, which has been sitting for 6 or more years (2+ since it last ran, longer since it actually was used much).

 

After getting the radiator out of the way I was able to confirm that TDC on the 78 motor is the same as the 83 motor, which makes things easier, I don’t have to have the pulley and 36-1 wheel modified, but it didn’t get me any closer to figuring out why I can’t get the car started.

 

I ended up bring in the Megasquirt inside so I could hook it up to my Stim and the laptop to figure out if I could see why I was getting a weird RPM signal from it when the computer was hooked up. I wasn’t able to do much there either, but Andy Whittle told me to bring the squirt and the Laptop over to his house on Sunday and he would help me out. Natalie and I went to the gun range, and afterward I had a voicemail from Andy, he was on the way up to my house, talk about service! Andy and I spent a few hours in the garage working on things.

 

We ended up figuring out that the squirt/stim worked fine on his laptop, which meant that it was a software or hardware issue on my laptop, not the megasquirt. From there he adjusted the fuel map quite a bit, we seemed to be flooding the motor so we dropped a lot of fuel, took all the plugs out and cranked it, trying to get fuel out if it was truly flooded, not much came out.

 

All in all we weren’t too successful, but we did get it to almost fire up a few times. A few times we got some nice big backfires, once enough that pressure came up through one of the cutouts in the driver’s side floorboard, enough to make my foot jump off the floor. I ended up removing the VR sensor from the 36-1 wheel at Andy’s suggestion and installed a new one, though the plug is backwards on it, so later this week I’ll try it out again, as well as try rewiring the sensor. These sensors are very picky, so we’re not sure if that’s the problem, or something else, but hopefully rewiring it will correct it and the car will start up! Hopefully right?

 

Huge thanks to Whittle for the help today.

[christoc]

It runs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! news at 11

[christoc]

Well it did run for about 10 seconds, then I redid the wire for the VR sensor and created some problems. So I redid the wiring tonight, and went to start it.

 

Then the starter did this....

 

 

It quit engaging so I pulled it out and it fell apart as I was lifting it out of the car. Off to see if I can get it replaced under warranty.

[christoc]

http://www.project240z.com/Blog/itemId/422/Another-night-with-not-much-success.aspx

 

So tonight I came home from work and decided it was time to work on the Datsun a bit, after over a week of barely even looking at it when walking in and out of the garage to and fro. Terec came over and helped me out for a bit as well.

The first thing I checked was to see what the starter looked like, I was worried based on the noises that I’ve been hearing that the newly installed starter was bad. Well I pulled it out, it looked fine, as did the flywheel itself, so there went that theory. I put the started back on the car and connected the wires. From there I attempted to start the car again. The grinding happened a bit, but I swear it doesn’t last, and even got less frequent as the night wore on.

Terec showed up as i was attempting to start the car. We spent most of the evening trying multiple things, rewiring the VR sensor for the megasquirt was the main thing. I attempted it multiple ways, running some new wires for the sensor, and trying different combinations of connections on the wires. At the end of the night we really didn’t seem to get anywhere. Throwing the timing light on the car it does appear to be close to the correct timing, though I need to find TDC again tomorrow night and check to make sure that the VR sensor is 60 degrees from the missing tooth on the wheel.

The last attempt at starting the car seemed to only get 100rpm from the starter, so we assume that the battery was drained a bit too much. Because of that we threw it on the charger and called it a night.

Another thing that just struck me, I need to check the compression on the motor tomorrow, that hasn’t been done

[christoc]

original blog post with video-> http://www.project240z.com/Videos/itemId/423/A-little-success-found-1-of-3-missing-screws-AND.aspx

So last night after work I came home with the intention of trying to figure out why the car wouldn’t start. My intentions were to check the positioning of the 36-1 wheel for the VR sensor that drives the Megasquirt/EDIS setup. After checking the positioning of the sensor I was going to do a compression check on the motor. Well I threw those intentions out of the window, I wanted to see if after charging the battery the night before things would be better as the changes from the night before were not completely tested due to the drained battery.

Well wouldn’t you know, the car started! And not just once, but twice! It actually even ran for a bit, assuming I had my foot on the pedal, otherwise it would die, but that didn’t concern me, not yet. So it ran, and I have megasquirt log files to prove it! I went to try to start it again, and got nothing, but this time it wasn’t timing, it wasn’t motor, it was the starter. The starter wouldn’t turn over, it would only click, which made things really weird because I hadn’t had that problem before. Rather than trying to make it work I simply decided to pull the starter out of the car and check it out, it looked okay.

I decided I would take a picture of the flywheel, and as soon as I took a picture I noticed something shining off the flash.

As soon as I took a second look at it I knew exactly what it was. Here’s a photo of it after I pulled it from the flywheel.

Want to know what that is? That is one of the three missing screws from the starter when it fell apart a few weeks ago

So with that revelation I decided that I would call it a night from trying to make the car run. I worked on cleaning up some things in the garage, I need to get it up on jack stands and find the remaining 2 screws which I believe are also still in the bell housing. Perhaps this weekend, or early next week I’ll get it up and find them.

I also started disassembling the old block, crank and pistons as I need to get rid of those here soon, especially if we find out about our home offer soon (http://www.going2colorado.com)

Here’s a brief video of today’s work, nothing too fascinating, next time I have it running I’ll get audio!

[christoc]

Tonight was successful! Here's the blog post with embedded video

http://www.project240z.com/Blog/itemId/424/It-runs-twice-and-therersquos-audiovideo-proof.aspx

 

So tonight after work I came home to get the starter out of the car and took it back to Autozone, fortunately the lifetime warranty was honored! Though I did have to run off to the Autozone Hub to get the replacement starter. The guy at the hub was kind of lost, but he eventually got everything worked out and I headed home with the new (remanufactured) starter.

 

So the last starter started off working, but after a few days just started spinning without engaging the flywheel, no grinding either. This one, once all wired up worked like a champ. I even got the car started up for a minute or so. I did all this without hooking up the computer, so I didn’t want to spend too much time keeping it running.

 

So now was the time, time to hookup the laptop and get the video camera out and record the car actually running! Well I am proud to say it was successful, here’s the video below.

[christoc]

With the success last night I decided I had to work on the car this evening a bit. The first thing I did was get it up on all four jack stands so that they were under the frame and not under control arms of the car. This would allow me to begin working on the suspension pieces.

 

When I got the car from Jeff, uhhh over three years ago now, it came with a second suspension that had been pulled off another car. This other suspension has springs (yellow), new(er) struts, a larger front sway bar, and also the addition of a rear sway bar. It also is a lot cleaner then the current suspension. So tonight I started pulling off the front suspension, starting with the sway bar, and moving on to removing the rest, at least what I could, of the right front.

 

I got stuck at the tie rod, but I did manage to get most of the other bolts removed. I came to a conclusion though, I’m going to likely just drop the whole front suspension out, including the cross member as the second suspension has one as well. In order to do that though I am going to have to dismount the motor. I will attempt to do that by lifting the motor up off the mounts with the cherry picker, hopefully without having to disconnect the transmission and not removing the whole thing from the car.

Before I do that though I will likely fully disassemble the other suspension and take it to a friend’s house to sandblast everything. I’m heading to Tampa for a conference tomorrow, so that will have to wait until the evenings next week. I’ll try to get everything disassembled during the week, both front and rear suspensions, and then probably go down to his place Saturday if he’ll be around.

[christoc]

So today was spent packing the garage (read about that over here). While getting things packed up made it a productive day, the real joy was with the car. I drove it today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It has been over 23 months since the car last moved under it’s own power, so getting it out of the driveway (harder than it sounds) and driving it around the circle made for a great day.

 

The car is still hard to start, but once it starts up the first time it generally starts up easier (as you will see in the video). I then had trouble trying to get into gear, keep the car running, and letting off the brake as the ebrake isn’t strong enough to keep it at the top of our driveway. I finally just let the car roll down the driveway and started it at the bottom before driving it around. If you want to see it running and driving skip ahead in the video to around 6 minutes. Commentary provided by my beautiful wife Natalie.

 

The video is in HD, so watch it that way

 

After driving it around I even got more of the front end put together, with a grill and air dam installed, I’ll get a picture of that configuration tomorrow.