The S130 Pheonix Project

[whyfeel]

In high school I bought my first '79 280zx for $600. Master cylinder went out and my inexperienced ass went into a blackberry bush. $250 dollars later I have another '79. My grandpa also found a '81 2x2 that I cannibalized for spare parts. I built the brown $250 dollar car the best I could, went to college and drove the hell out of it. Words cannot express how many times this unfinished project pulled me through situations I should have never put myself in.

 

 

And then last weekend (June 6th) I bought another one. $500 dollars, a steal in Sacramento, CA. Good all around car, poor interior, good project. That's the engine from it in front of my old car, I had it out yesterday. Some minor dings, small crack in the windshield and crushed fraimrails, but the good body, intact t-tops and working electrical sold me. 180,000 miles.

 

The new. Sitting in the driveway I bought it from. Was owned by the same family since new.

The kid in these pics is my little brother. You can barely see his new 240z on the trailer in the background. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=149454

 

The old car has an N42 block and N47 head and was rebuilt for me five years ago. It is mostly stock but has some fun stuff like an Aluminum flywheel, centerforce 2 clutch, high-cap oil pump and such. This engine is going into the blue s130.

 

The workplace.

 

The place that you put engines...

 

As you might be able to see there is some minor rust on/around the battery try leaking down to the frame rail on the passenger side. I have already started dealing with this and will post pics on my method in a few days when I finish that bit up.

 

I have a good amount of parts and I am going to put on the new car from the old. I have a manual rack and pinion set, 1 1/8th front 7/8th inch swaybars, tokico springs and tokico blue struts, all around poly bushing set, offset drilled front control arm bushings for camber correction, crossdrilled/slotted brake rotors all around, steel braided brake and clutch lines, and some other minor stuff. It's a good start though.

 

There is a lot left to do. I need to take the N42/N47 combo out of the brown s130 and get it ready to go into the blue one. I am using the intake manifold from the blue Z and rebuilding it with the injectors from my brown z because I bought them new. Then put the whole mess down into the blue Z.

 

I will update the thread as the build goes along. Hopefully all this juicy content will help when I run up against a wall and need some advice.

[steeto_burrito]

Looks like you've got a good start to your project. Are those old phone books the guy was using by the rear wheels?

[whyfeel]

No, just multiple pieces of MDF.

[whyfeel]

I also have a cam with a .460 lift and 270 duration or so I was thinking of putting in. That with some new lash pads and performance valve springs I think would help things along. How well would a midrange cam like that work with the stock fuel system? I am thinking about a rising rate Fuel Pressure regulator to go with it. I have stock fuel injectors in good shape and am not planning on any major power upgrades soon beyond this and an exhaust.

 

I don't want to worry about detonation but I don't think it's much of a problem with the stock 8.3 CR or so. I would worry about running lean in the higher RPM range. What are the stock fuel maps good for?

[Stationwagonguy]

Very nice! What are you doing with your old car now?

[plexus]

nice prodject whyfeel. what part of CA. are you in?

[whyfeel]

Near Clear Lake, in Northern Ca.

 

There are some amazing roads through the hills around here. Nothing like a Datsun Z to fly through them.

[frank280zx]

well you could put in the cam.. but i have no clue if you will pas smog with it.. (no expert on that by any means as in europe the datsun dont even have a cat)

Mostly a cam gets better use if you bump the compression a bit! but yeah naturally it would help.

You would need to fiddle with the AFM a bit to get enough fuel though.

It does allow for a little play

[whyfeel]

-frank, I'm putting the cam in after I pass smog. Not worth trying to pass smog with a performance cam.

 

So, it's long past due for an update.

 

 

 

I promised battery tray rust. Here it is after some light wire brushing. I wire brushed and sanded, then cut out the battery tray and did some more of it. I am not the best fabricator in the world and I hacked the tray back together. Not bad for teaching yourself how to weld, IMHO. The exposed metal was sprayed with several coats of rust stop and finally with some underbody spray to prevent future rust.

 

 

The rust really was not deep and I was glad to get to it now and get it out of the way so I don't have to worry about it 5-15 yrs down the road.

 

 

 

Taped off and painted a little bit. I welded tabs under the tray still sitting in the car and then welded the removed tray to the tabs. I wanted an easy fix, and who cares about aesthetics when a battery sits on top of it.

 

 

 

There we have the tray welded in w/o paint on the fresh welds.

 

 

Close up on some welds. I had the welder on the lowest setting and it was all I could to to not burn through.

 

 

The protective rust-stop spray paint was a little too blue. Not too big of a deal, but kinda funny.

 

Done with rust. More fun stuff.

Pulling the engine out of my old car.

 

I pulled apart the clutch/flywheel to put it all on the engine stand. The flywheel looked a little toasted in the sun. I took it to a mechanic to have it resurfaced and he said he didn't want to take my money because the factory surfacing marks were still in it. I used the setup very hard for a couple years. Centerforce 2 clutch and MSA aluminum flywheel, 13.5 pounds. I'm very good with a clutch but abused this on purpose. This has seen full throttle clutch dumps 3 or 4 times and hard road course use.

 

Engine on the stand. N42 block, N47 head. I just cleaned up the head and did the valve lashings.

 

I had a valve cover bolt sheer off a while ago and never fixed it. I got it to seal w/o that bolt before. Figured I would take care of it with the engine out. Ground it with the dremel, made a center mark with a punch and drilled out the sucker with a 1/8th inch left hand turn drill bit that my uncle was kind enough to let me use. Got lucky getting it out w/the first drill bit I tried.

 

 

 

 

So, I got sidetracked. Found my little sister's old bunny.

 

I also found the acetylene/oxygen torch.

 

 

 

Anyway, /derail of thread.

 

Intake manifold off the '82 stripped down.

 

Fuel injectors I bought new for my '79 a couple years ago.

 

These injectors were put onto the '82 intake manifold, cleaned and new hoses and put onto my rebuilt motor.

 

 

 

So, enough engine stand pictures. The engine in the car:

 

 

Still working out kinks. It runs, need to adjust idle mixture and some stuff.

[Edz280zx]

Looks good! Keep it up!

[steeto_burrito]

You're making some awesome progress man.

[Magnum380Z]

looking pretty good man !

[whyfeel]

Internet has been going out and have been busy with 13 hour days. Update soon if I have the energy.

[luvemfast]

AAwwwwwww, poor bunny!

[djz]

Is that head missing the exhaust port liner on cylinder 3 or is just dirty?

[whyfeel]

It has been a while since I updated this and I have put a lot of work into this project. Some of you can understand it is annoying taking pictures while you are trying to get something done. I did the stuff in these next pictures months ago.

 

The carpet was nasty. PO was a heavy smoker. (bonus shot of my toes)

 

 

I have black carpet I bought a few years ago, here it is in the back.

 

 

I have 3 layers of foam insulation under the carpet in front. I like insulation from sound. I also filled the speaker panel behind the seats with speaker box stuffing, especially around the wheel well area.

 

 

This is the CAI from MSA. I added an aluminum support on the bottom which is really necessary to keep it from jiggling around.

 

 

Front springs; Stock spring vs. tokico.

 

 

Front struts ready to put back in.

 

I got all the suspension put back together. This is really bad perspective but here is my ricer wheel gap pic in front. It's about right for the bad mountain roads this car is going to deal with.

 

And I'm out of pictures.

 

So I have Tokico Hp struts in back, Illuminas in front and the Tokico lowering springs installed. I have poly bushings on my tc rods (1 poly and 1 rubber per side) and offset aluminum control arm bushings for camber. I put new ball joints in as well. The steering rack is from another '79 that I had that had manual rack and pinion which is awesome. I have swaybars that I found on a parts car. They are 1 1/16in in front and 1in in back installed with poly bushings. The car feels like a go cart.

 

I resurfaced the front brake rotors and installed stainless braided brake lines on front. The rear has newly purchased rotors and new calipers. The back left was absolutely frozen and I couldn't get new pads in. I have the semi-metallic brake pads from MSA installed on all 4. I just put in a new brake master cylinder because that was shot as well. Also the clutch has a new master cylinder, a stainless braided line and a new slave cylinder. That matches up to the Centerforce 2 clutch (I don't know if I mentioned that earlier) and a 13lb aluminum flywheel.

 

Those are the fun bits. I have the suspension and brakes sorted. This doesn't help me a bit if I can't pass smog.

[whyfeel]

When I got it running when I first put in the engine, well... You could barely call it running. I would grind the starter until it misfired and coughed its way to life, shooting more and more smoke until it would get so rich it would die.

 

The fuel pressure regulator was rotten and fuel was leaking through it. I replaced this with another one I had that was good. It still ran like crap because number 4 fuel injector was shooting out fuel. (I had purchased these stock injectors for my last car and hoped they were still good, oh well.)

 

Through this I took it a couple times to a shoddy local mechanic to try and troubleshoot through this. The fuel pressure was checked ok and the fuel return line is clear. The EGR valve was replaced and cleaned ( I cleaned it). MAF meter was checked by voltage. I removed and cleaned the throttle body and MAF. Vacuum pressure was checked ok after a loose hose near the heater core was found. He tested my ECU and it was OK. He also later messed with the throttle valve switch to try and get it running better. I set the valve lash and he checked it.

 

I also bought Caigs Deoxit and protective electrical spray and cleaned and coated all the FI cables, sensors and anything electrical on top of the engine. I reground the battery with a chassis/engine line and added a 10gauge grounding wire from the driver side firewall to the intake next to the fuel injectors.

 

So I got 6 new injectors and o-rings and installed them. It got much better. I tried using stock ignition and thought my other setup might work better. So installed my old distributor with optical trigger, crane hi6s and lx91 coil. Didn't make a difference so I put the stock 82 dizzy back in (less shaft play on it). New cap/rotor/plugs gapped to spec. Then some new taylor hi-pro plug wires because I had a split boot. When I would set the timing with the stock 82 dizzy the timing would jump 30 degrees or so from where I set it every few seconds. It was weird. The distributor was rubbing the magnets and destroying itself. SO I bought a new distributor.

 

Previously mentioned "mechanic" also checked my catalytic converter after I elicited concern about not wanting to buy a new one. It was melted through and was blocking exhaust flow. Engine ran better with it disconnected. So I bought a new cat. For those of you not familiar with how silly California can be you are lucky. A law was just passed which only allows a certain kind of cat to be purchased within the state. So there are plenty of cats that would fit, 49 state legal, for 130 dollars. I had to pay more than 250 dollars though.

 

So the car was running alright, but it had come to my attention with the valve cover off that the timing chain had almost an inch and a half of free play. So I got to pull the whole mess apart again to get to the timing cover and take it off. I had apparently sheared off the timing chain tensioner. I replaced it and adjusted the lash pad for the chain. It took me three tries to get the timing back in range because when I was putting in the oil pump I didn't realize it had a timing mark. Then when I realized its timing mark I still messed it up and had to pull off the swaybar to line it up right. I got it fixed though.

 

At this point I thought I had gone through enough grief. I figured I had a chance to pass smog. I burned up a new O2 sensor in the process, it was running so poorly I'm on my second. Went through 3 sets of plugs, a couple dizzy caps and rotors. It was running so rich the exhaust started to melt the foam in the back hatch. I did around 3 oil changes because the oil kept smelling like gas.

 

I took it to a local shop and asked them to do a smog check. In Ca for this car the idle test requires 1.5% carbon monoxide. 3% is a gross polluter. I tested at 12%. This was very disheartening. I realized that I had never had the idle mixture set though. This was because that "mechanic" didn't have a CO sensor. So I took it to another local dealer shop (best shop in the county) and asked them to set the idle mixture and test it. It went down to 10%. I bought a new mass AFM and it went down to 8%.

 

I guess the AFM I bought isn't adjustable though, so I might take it back. As it stands I have a water temp sender I need to put in. The only other thing that could be contributing is my lack of cylinder head temp hookup. The original P79 head has a temp between 5 and 6 cylinder, but my N47 from '79 does not. I'm going to talk to the mechanic about the best way to hook up this directly. If this doesn't get it closer I don't know what will.

 

If anyone has any suggestions or questions let me know. As you can see from the post dates this project has been going on for too long. I just want title to my car so I can use it on the road.

[PhilbertZ]

Wow - that's terrible about smog troubles - I know what you mean, I had to go three times this summer and am also labled "gross pollutor" as a result. I also had to pay a fine because I took so long to fix it, I missed the registration deadline!

 

In my quest to fix, I think I did things you already did:

- New O2 sensor

- New plugs

- New Wires

- New Cap/rotor

- Valve adjustment

- Timing

- Tested injectors using ohmmeter

- replaced eletrcical connectors on pretty much entire EFI system

- New Air Filter

- Did every FSM EFI/ECU test in the book with Ohmmeter

- Replaced CAT ($260 CARB legal) - that did it at the end - passed with flying colors

 

 

So, it looks like you've done way more than I did and are stlll having issues. The only thing I can think of now is maybe your timing chain slipped and wasn't aligned correctly and is leading to a rich mixture (the ECU may think it's right but the mixture is off due to the chain being off?).

 

That's all I can honestly think of - sorry I can't help more.

 

Did you actually remove the cover AND chain, and align to factory spec?

 

Good luck - hope it gets sorted soon!

[whyfeel]

I took off the timing cover only. I didn't take off the timing chain, I only tightened the chain guide and put on the new chain tensioner before I put it back together. It could have slipped a notch. My limited understanding tells me that if it slipped then I wouldn't be able to get the distributor to turn enough to get the proper 8deg BTDC timing, but I could be wrong.

 

Also in a compression test a couple weeks ago all cylinders were within 5psi of each other just below 170psi.

 

EDIT: Good news, the cylinder head temp input got it to pass smog. I had been reading so much about Megasquirt and spark which only needs trigger, o2, water temp and air temp that I neglected to look at the FSM that shows an input from the cylinder head temp as well.

[whyfeel]

Long time, no post. I moved into an apt a couple hours from my parents where I work on my stuff. Apartment complex rules suck. I don't have a camera but I'll try and post pics soon. In any case the car is running great and has been for months, with "routine" maintenance of course. Routine for a daily driver Z. Most of this work was done before June this year but I will give you a quick breakdown.

 

So after I got it passed smog I worked on the brakes. Back left caliper was frozen. I bought 2 new rear calipers, a new master cylinder. I got these in along with stainless braided cables in front, semi- metallic brake pads and four new rotors. It brakes like crazy, my anti-lock brakes are my right foot and my ears are my indicator (just like all classic Z's). Also have sumitomo htr200 tires in 205/60 r14. Not the best tires in the world but they hold heat decently and are cheap. Also redid both front wheel bearings.

 

As far as appearance goes I haven't done much to the exterior. I installed headlight covers and some cheap 100w halogens that are white light with an upgraded wiring harness. I also swapped the trim panels next to the quarter windows from the stock black ones to the earlier '79-80 chrome slatted ones seen on the brown ZX at the top of the page.

 

I added an accessory relay for the stereo, electric fan, headlights and left a few extra slots. I have a Radioshack relay running off the key acc switch and a fuse block for it all. I wired up an indicator light to let me know when the electric fan is running. I have a Derale fan with a variable thermostat so the light is nice to get it set perfectly for the season. I also wired up a Stewart Warner water temperature gauge mounted next to the stereo. I got a fitting from jegs with a sensor bung so I could put the sensor in the middle of the top radiator hose where the hottest water from the engine comes out.

 

I got a new clutch slave cylinder for the clutch. I already had a stainless braided cable but I must have over torqued it too many times because it ended up leaking, got another one. Also very recently adjusted the clutch pedal to the master cylinder because the clutch was dragging (Centerforce II). Clutch is working perfectly.

 

The original '82 transmission didn't last too long. Maybe a few months. I was on my way home to change it with a '79 trans that I had in the brown ZX and it blew a front seal in the mountains on my way. I pulled over and inspected the damage, oil on ground. I didn't have cell coverage so I decided to run it as long as I could without oil. It made it 46 miles without further problems and got the swap done in around 5 hours by myself. I was hauling ass getting that done. I put a new throwout bearing in at this point as well. Also forgot to mention at the beginning of the thread that I ditched the power steering for the '79 manual rack and pinion setup, swapped the whole front crossmember.

 

I've been pretty busy working lately and haven't had any extra time or money to invest in this. I have a new heater core I got last winter that I need to put in and also my Hi6s crane ignition set I need to put in. I need to find a new driver's seat to try and fit better (i'm 6'5"). Otherwise no big plans. If I come into some extra cash I will put an exhaust on it. 3-2 headers, 2.5inch back to Borla muffler.

 

The car is awesome. One of those things that makes you happy every time you sit in it. It handles great, brakes great, and has more than enough power to get me into shenanigans. I put it on the scale running without me in it and made 2840 with less than a half tank of gas and it was within 30 lbs of being 50:50 weight distribution. My little brothers '72 Z had much more front end weight, I forget his numbers. He weighed in at 2360 lbs running without him in it though.

Edited November 7, 2010 by whyfeel