badjuju's 7MGTZ

[badjuju]

This project started with this:


My 280zx turbo. Poik (turbobricks and ls1tech) and I drove from Edmonds, Washington, to Grant's Pass, Oregon, to get a Turbocharged 280zx with T Tops, because there were like two in Washington for sale, both of them being rust buckets.




Note: long. f*cking. Drive.

Next, I purchased a fuel rail from Pallnet (Great guy, hell of a product), along with a set of 311 ccmin NA Supra Injectors. I did not do any tuning. I simply bumped my boost up.

After deciding my car was considerably slower than before I did my "upgrade", I decided to embark on a journey towards Megasquirt. A journey which would make my family question my sanity, and eventually hold me as brilliant for "Boeing-ing out" my car, rather than pimping it out.


Turns out the '81 l28et is the only one of the L series motors which can not simply be modified to trigger megasquirt. Believe me. It was a bitch. It has an optical crank angle sensor, which sucks. I ended up just pulling the crank pulley off, drilling three holes in it, gluing magnets into it, and running a hall effect sensor. AMAZING how simple it was to get running. It took like six months to finally just do this simple, $60 triggering system.

Here are a couple pics of the first iteration of my megasquirt harness:

 

The men in my family are all electricians.  This wiring job was shameful.

So, I decided a year after installing MS (and two years after buying the car), that I'd like to buy a 240z. I like the lines better, it's lighter, has about the same space in the engine bay, and the interior is WAY cooler looking. More round instead of boxy edges. From now On I'll be referring to the 240z as the S30 and the 280zx as the S130.


And here's one which fully encapsulates the condition of the interior:




The dash, is frickin perfect. I saw the dash, and knew this was the car for me. I've never seen an interior in as good of shape (without restoration) as this car. I decided that was a good indicator and bought it.

Shortly after, I realized that the Holley 4 Barrel carb on the L24 (inline 2.4 liter) was a piece of crap. It only ran nice about 4k+ rpm wise, and a buddy of mine who knows about things such as carbs (knows a 4 bbl up and down), could not help me tune it at all.


^setup that came with the car


I bought a brand new Holley 390, as well as the 4 barrel intake from http://www.arizonazcar.com. I powdercoated the manifold black:




I did not get a pic when it was all done (like having the carb installed), but you've seen what it looks like. Imagine the first pic without carbon buildup.

Edited April 30, 2013 by badjuju

[badjuju]

So, After the new carb was installed, and everything was all gravy, I drove the car. Whee. That little sucker hauled ass.

For about a week and a half.

Now, when I buy a car, I change the oil, spark plugs, etc. I check the oil every time I drive it for a week or so, to make sure it doesn't leak. The car didn't leak oil, it didn't burn oil. The friday following the carb install, I checked the oil, perfect. I drove up to my parents' place, and parked the car. I drove my dad's pickup for the weekend (hauling dump runs and such). On a side note, here's a pic of the truck a year or so prior, after racing and beating an 11 second mustang at the track in Bremerton, Wa:




Note: Poik and I won the race. This happened on the way home, doing 50 mph, steadily down the freeway. This is a thread for another day, however.

So, Monday morning, I get in my car (didn't check the oil this time), and got on the road. I got from Monroe to Kenmore:




Before I noticed a rattling sound. I immediately pulled over, checked my oil. Bone dry. I walked to shell, bought 5 quarts of oil, dropped it in the motor, and checked the oil. The motor was hot, so all the oil heated up and dropped to the pan, and the oil came up to the "okay" mark on the dipstick. I drove to work, and worked. After work, I checked my oil, it was full. The motor, was not leaking any oil. I drove home. On the way home, however, the L24 went tits up. There was no oil sitting at home on the driveway where it was parked for the weekend, and there was no burning oil smell to the exhaust. CERTAINLY NOT 5 QTS IN 20 MINUTES OF DRIVING worth of burning oil smell.

So, at this point I have a car with no motor, and a turbocharged motor with the same mounts and all that, in a car with a 3 speed auto tranny, and inferior looks and aesthetics.

I swapped the turbo motor into my s30. Whee! I also rewired my MS Harness. It sort of looked like this:



Yeah, I don't have a pic of the harness in the s30, but it didn't look any better than the original.

Anyhow, I drove my car a lot, and it was fun.

Next up in the list of fun stuff which has been a pain in my ass: Replacing the passenger side frame rail. Suddenly the car started veering right really hard when I hit the brakes. Turns out the subframe rail was rusted through and needed to be replaced. I replaced it with a piece from http://www.baddogparts.com/. It was an awesome piece, and I'd recommend it to anyone who needs to replace their frame rail.

Luckily, my neighbors build cars. Their work is ******* amazing. They restore Jensen Interceptors. I'd never heard of a Jensen before I met Doug and Keri, but they seem to be really great cars. Anyhow, Doug allowed me to use his shop to replace my frame rail, and when it became apparent to him that I didn't know what the hell I was doing, he helped me out by essentially doing the whole job for me. Essentially, I'm in debt as far as work time goes. Whenever I'm at my parents place and I have a spare minute, I ask him if he needs any help. He really bailed me out, and didn't ask for anything in return.

Anyhow, here are the pics!

Before any work:








So, Doug told me to start cutting shit away. Here is that:






He asked me to pull this in one piece, so we could use it to fabricate other pieces:

Edited April 30, 2013 by badjuju

[badjuju]

So... After measuring all that we had to fab, we started bending:

 

 

 

Then we bent some more:

 

 

 

From another angle:

 

 

 

How's it fit?

 

 

 

A little floorboard repair while we're at it, Poik helped out here:

 

 

 

Building an end piece for the new frame rail:

 

 

 

 

 

Ripped the old frame rail out:

 

 

 

Welded the new wheel well in:

 

 

 

 

Fitting the new rail:

 

 

 

Didn't take any after pics... damnit, lol

 

I'll take some the next time it's on a lift.

Edited April 30, 2013 by badjuju

[badjuju]

My sister and I painted the car with Herculiner from Schuck's. It'll be stripped off at some point (peels off in big patches, if you ever want to remove it, works great.)

 

I'll post pics of that someday.

Edited April 26, 2013 by badjuju

[badjuju]

The motor:




The Mounts Clifton Designed, which I, shamefully, will be copying:








I plan to cut the exhaust at the first bend and just rotate it 180*. I hope to.




And just for the hell of it, we dropped the motor in with a crane to see how badass this thing will really look.
Once the motor is swapped in, we're planning on putting a small jacuzzi or spa in between the pulleys and the electric fans. Maybe a batting cage, I really have to think of my options, I don't want to let all that space go to waste.

Edited April 26, 2013 by badjuju

[badjuju]

Motor is still not in, I promised my parents I'd quit working on my car during the school year.

 

HOWEVER, I did just pick up a VEMS setup for $600, complete with a wiring harness.

 

Life is good.

 

Just thought I'd update you guys!

[badjuju]

No new pics damnit, but my girlfriend wired up the low beams, high beams, front turning signals and running lights and horn for me.

 

I ran the grounds for the left tail light assembly, and I pulled the new harness through its channel in the right side of the body.

Edited April 30, 2013 by badjuju

[badjuju]

Started working on the wiring harness, but on a sweeter note, I found ANOTHER 7mgte, with the starter, alt, turbo (zero shaft play), condenser, power steering pump, and intercooler, with what the guy tells me is 65k miles. He's asking $500, which is about what I would pay after buying a starter, alt, and turbo, PLUS the motor I have now is pushing about 120k miles.

 

I'm super excited.

[badjuju]

The rear end is all wired up, and I have started my dashboard project.

 

It's called, project dashboard, and you'll all see why once I make some headway.

 

Also I need to setup Photobucket again, since it suspended my account

[badjuju]

Project Dashboard:
The goal was originally to have a monitor mounted behind the wheel so I could use megatune as my gauges.
I then added a little micro-atx desktop to the dash, and mounted an Apple docking station.  I'll be hiding two earth magnets under the final finish (black tanned buffalo hide), so I can just mount magnets on whatever new docking station I get for whatever new phone I get (I've had 3 new phones since my gf and I started the dash)
I also decided that rather than running more wires into my VEMS box, I'd just get a couple of gauges and run THEM behind the steering wheel (Speedhut speedo, fuel level and oil pressure gauge), and mount a 15" monitor in the center of the dash for the rest of the gauges.


Pics in the next post.

Edited April 30, 2013 by badjuju

[badjuju]

Cut some cardboard to fit up to the window

joined the cardboard together

Fiber glassed one side of the cardboard and scraped the cardboard off once the fiber cured:

Repeat the last couple steps til you have a couple pieces to join together:

Cut a hole for the steering wheel and fit up to make sure you're going to be able to fit the sucker into your car:

Cut monitor hole and mount monitor

Cut hole for Computer case and fiber case in:

 

And those are all the pics I have for now. Right now, the USB Hub, iPod docking station, and mounting brackets are curing, once they're done, I'll up some more pics!

[badjuju]

Edited September 22, 2010 by badjuju

[aplyedmind]

Very nice , You got a full PC in there? Your 7m running? I gotta stick around for this build looks like its gonna be a fun one.

[badjuju]

Yo, sorry for the lack of updates, I've been totally ignoring everything but my senior project at UW for the last six months or so.

 

BUUUUT, My friend Poik from over on TurboBricks came over yesterday and mentioned he saw a 2jz-GE in a Lexus SC300 at the junk yard. We rallied, and with the help of a sledge hammer, a sawzall, a crowbar, and a #14 on a ratchet, I walked out of the yard with a front clipped 2jz-GE with 97k miles on it for $180.

 

So... this project may be changing around quite a bit. lol

[RB26powered74zcar]

Nice news for a update! I'm sure the 2jz will be a nice upgrade. Get er done, and take some pics...

[mario_82_ZXT]

How did you know the mileage?

I just got one out of the u-pull-it for $150 from a very clean car that seems like it had trans issues (rebuilt trans and torque converter on it), but didn't know how to check the mileage.

 

What are you doing for an oil pan?

[badjuju]

I wasn't aware the oil pan would need fixin, I figured since they were both rear sump it wouldn't be an issue. Guess I need to research some more, lol

 

The guys that worked at the pull a part were all PISSED when we rolled the motor up, like three of them told us individually that they were going to stay late after work and take it home.

 

As for the mileage, the serial numbers the yard uses to mark cars has 6 digits (stupid idea). The serial number on this one was like 156xxx. We thought maybe it was the mileage, they said "no. it had 97k on it." totally straight faced and pissed off, lol

 

What's the problem with the pan?

[badjuju]

Looks like the 2jz-GE from the Lexuses (Lexii?) have rear sump, the 2js out of the supras had front sump. Booyaw?

[mario_82_ZXT]

I miss read, I thought you said GS not SC.

GS's have front sump =(

[cockerstar]

Awesome score man!

What yard did you find it in?