seattlejester's 1971 240Z

[seattlejester]

I am coming to realize that the engine price is always just the start. You can buy a motor, put it in, hope for the best, sometimes it works out, sometimes it goes in the first 50 miles. Some even come with a warranty so you could get some money back or exchange for another one, but given that as of now space is my limitation I can't afford to put in a questionable motor nor can I try to make mounts for the motor safely.

 

Plan is probably to just rebuild the 7mgte for now. I have a painted door and some interior parts and rearrangements I have been wanting to do and having the car immobile is problematic. As long as I save the receipts the motor will always have value as long as I maintain it, not many people take this much effort when rebuilding these motors, so if time comes that I have a surplus of money, space, or time I can consider changing things up.

[Geno750]

I'm not sure you can adapt a cd009 to fit a 7mgte, hadn't really thought too much about that. That would also require a new drive shaft, and I literally have 40 miles on this drive shaft right now. 

 

I have the money, and I was planning on rebuilding the trans later this year, but the engine going out kind of took up that budget. I could swap it around I suppose, and just slow down the rebuild of the engine and have the trans rebuilt now and installed. That does mean I loose out on yet another beautiful summer, on the other hand, peace of mind would be nice.

 

You can now. The process seems to have evolved from machining the bell housing on the CD009 for the adapter plate, to not, to now you just cut the damn thing off and replace the front plate on the CD009 box with an adapter that lets you bolt on a R154 bellhousing (Or auto trans). suprastore.com has more information on it. While its mostly geared towards the 1JZ/2JZ crowd, 7M guys have done it successfully with a R154 to 7M bellhousing.

[seattlejester]

I was having weird problems with uploading photos, but managed to have a little time and work that out.

 

Back on track.

 

For those that do not visit the toyota section, I decided to go with a 2jz.

 

 

I'll keep this post in regards to the car as a whole, the specifics are going into a conglomerate post for someone looking to do the same.

 

After multiple sessions of pricing and such it seemed silly to put money into a motor that could at any time go on me and would not be unexpected. I called the machine shop after I decided it might be time to move on. I was worried that I would be fairly in the hole as they had already cleaned, inspected my block, possibly ordered a new crank, and pulled the rods from another set. To my surprise, the machine shop was very happy for me, told me that it would be a "much much much much better swap" to go with the 2jz, and that they would be much happier with me spending my money on that motor, he told me he had yet to get the parts shipped so the crank order would be canceled.

 

I went back to pickup my block in hopes of passing it off to someone who needed a rebuild. The employee helping me retrieve the block asked what I was going to do, and I told him about my 240z and the 2jz. He turned out to be the owner of the 240z I had seen earlier at the shop which had a V8, and told me that a friend of his had the full works done to his 7m and ended up regretting it in the long run. With further bolster I retrieved the block only to find out that it had some micro fractures along the water jacket near the deck. So even better news I would save on having to spend money on getting that welded. I ended up leaving the block with them for scrap, and the owner turned me away from paying anything, saying that he hopes I would come back for work on the 2jz. That is the second time a shop has refused my money in exchange for repeat business, and I can't wait to go back to them.

 

I found an ad on craigslist for a 2jz that seemed to fit my tastes, relatively low miles, new belts, new accessories, recent service, and it was recently running. Better start then a regular junkyard motor and the gentleman offered to deliver as well for gas money. 

 

I worked out another deal to swap pans for the ones we need for our car a rear sump, so after I got the motor, I quickly tore it apart to free the lower pan, upper pan, baffle, pickup, and dipstick to trade. With the new pan acquired I could take stock of what I had.

 

Something I noticed was quite a bit of silicone oozing out of some sealing surfaces, that was good in one way as that meant he did truly pull the parts in question at some point, but bad in others as the excess amount of silicone meant I really needed to dive in to see how it was.

 

What I found wasn't good, the excess silicone was enough that it was leaving long strips on the inside of the motor just waiting to break loose and block the pickup tube.

 

That prompted me to visit other places that had been mentioned in his post, such as the timing belt and such.

 

I pulled the timing cover off to find the area was quite filthy, but was pleased to find a new standard replacement belt. However I was dismayed when I found out that the idler pulley was pitted fairly badly, just waiting to chew up the belt over time. Also I was confused when looking at diagrams as it seemed I was also missing the timing belt guide washer that keeps the belt from moving forward and rubbing against the cover. Made me doubly glad I had taken the effort to look through things. So after discovery I placed a couple orders for replacement parts still trying to keep it on a budget. Eventually this will probably be rebuilt, but I would like to get a few miles out of it as is. From all reports these 2jz motors are very reliable and long lasting so replacing parts just because seems a bit wasteful.

 

Also on the list was to lower the compression. In NA spec the 2jz-ge non vvti has a healthy 10:1 compression ratio, while that is good in NA spec my thoughts of turbocharging the setup meant I would be best off lowering that to start. That meant a thicker headgasket and while I was in there would be a good time to replace the notoriously strippable head bolts to ARP head studs. The head came off and I was very pleased to find the cross hatching still in tact.

 

There was a fair amount of sooty looking deposit on the piston tops, but I found that was most likely introduced through the EGR route and a simple wipe of the tops and some very light brushing yielded a very clean surface.

 

 

Unbrushed piston in the middle, two cleaned pistons top and bottom.

 

Given I was waiting for parts I decided that I would use the big sink at my work to try and clean the pans.

 

It was absolutely filthy, I looked up a few products that people recommended, and even asked the parts store. The parts store guy suggested I just go to a self serve car wash and blast it with hot water, but I only know of one in the area and that one has cameras with signs that say strictly not to do that. He settled on recommending some products and I scooped them up to give them a shot. None of them really worked, I had a parts cleaning aerosol, a spray on degreaser and neither worked well and both smelled awful.

 

Given this was a work sink, I decided I should find another solution that would work while not smelling awful. I ended up finding a recommendation for mineral spirits, some videos online showed that it should work so I gave it a shot.

Wow that made a difference, it took a few cleaning sessions, but I imagine with a good pressure washer it would be cake walk. I found a spray bottle was really useful for applying to a wide area, I tried brushing it on first, but that seemed not to do as well. 

 

With the pan cleaned, I drilled the hole for the oil return and started wideining the holes to secure the flange for the drain fitting.

 

 

Most of my parts have arrived, so next is figuring out the exact lengths I want for the bell housing bolts and getting the block ready to be bolted into the car. 

[Zetsaz]

Nice progress! I've been leaning towards a 2JZ myself. Wouldn't be for another year or two, but your thread always gives me ideas and signs of what to be careful for.

 

User on the forums, Bean, had a huge post on GE vs GTE and it made me lean towards doing the NA, or NA-T like you're going. Huge cut in price compared to the GTE for people like us with more modest power goals. 

[seattlejester]

Thanks, more to come, I've just been dragging my feet. I think I could get the motor in in about 2 days, but I have just been dragging my feet. Still need to figure out if I am going to just clean up the head or just have the machine shop take care of it for me.

 

http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/57607-2jzgte-vs-2jzge/?p=529582

 

Lol, if you think that post is huge, you should check the toyota section. Mine is going to make your eyes bleed once it is finish.

 

Honestly I think if you have modest goals the GTE is a better option, don't have to spend money on turbo's/manifolds/injectors etc etc.

 

You have to lean on the little twins pretty hard once you start getting above 400hp from what it seems like so if you are above modest or think you will be in the area above modest a single setup starts looking like a good idea at that point since you have to buy a manifold/turbo/injectors anyway a GE could be a savings, although if you don't have the ignition setup and such I think the cost still favors a GTE.

 

I don't think the GE is better then the GTE like Bean seems to imply, it just has financial merits at certain points for dexter72 and I given our turbo motors that we had prior I think it was a good route. For someone coming in fresh I am not so sure it would be.

 

However I think in NA form a GE swap would be pretty great, my ideal orientation, relatively high compression, even higher with a VVTI setup, potential VVTI use. Stick a higher revving valve train, some ITB's, and a long tube header and I think that could also be a blast. Plus your transmission option is going to be absolutely dirt cheap with how many W58's people tend to throw away looking for power. I think I will stop in NA land for a little bit with my setup, it is going to have low compression and less then ideal intake and exhaust manifolds for NA, but I still imagine it will be a hoot.

[Zetsaz]

Hmmm, yeah. I've been reading more and more on the NA-T forums and there's a lot of debate about it. After some more reading last night I'm leaning towards saying the GE isn't as much of a savings as some people assume. Part of people's biggest assumptions in the calculations is the wiring harness, which doesn't need as much work if they go NA-T since a lot of them are just in SC300's or IS300's... We don't really have the option. 

 

Regardless, I'm pretty close in Mount Vernon and should head down there sometime and check out your work! PM me anytime you'd like an extra hand, I usually have loads of free time on weekends and wouldn't mind learning a bit more from someone more experienced either way. Would at least keep me entertained since I don't have much to work on with my own project being stored in Utah until it's moving comfortably. 

[seattlejester]

It is an interesting thing to dissect, hard to get rid of the motivation behind each party though. For the budget people a bandaided 2jz-ge with ebay parts could be done for less then the cost of a 2jzgte. For the power people throwing lots of money it almost makes no difference where you start. For people in the middle it really can shift either way based on a few small choices and I think for some people that is hard to say as that would mean their choice can be "wrong." It is interesting to look at.

 

Would love the help, but my situation now makes having people over difficult/awkward, pretty much sneaking in a bit of work when I can after work until gates are locked. Plan is to just get it running on its own and then maybe rent some real garage space somewhere to do an overhaul sometime. The big milestone will be getting the block sealed up and assembled and sitting in the bay. Really should plan on getting a real garage, but with thoughts of going back to school, moving just for that seems a bit extravagant.

 

Wouldn't mind talking shop sometime though .

[seattlejester]

Picture of the pitting on the idler pulley.

I ended up ordering a new belt as well as a new timing belt pulley assembly as the old belt looked a bit beaten on the back side where it had the pitting pushed up against it. 

 

After using razor blades for about two hours against the deck, I decided to try out a Roloc 3m nylon brush wheel. Since I gave away my compressor a while ago I ended up buying a cheap electric die grinder which was honestly too fast and annihilated the brush, but still managed some decent results. Definitely need some type of voltage controller for that die grinder, and like a brush hone this stuff makes a mess, but apparently is soft enough that you can even use it on the aluminum head.

 

 

I had a bit of a struggle getting the crank timing belt pulley back on, but a bit of cleaning with some steel wool and some very slight wiggling made it slide all the way on.

 

Plan was to throw the upper oil pan on at this point, but it turns out that my kit did not have an appropriate sized o-ring, so I had to end up ordering one from toyota, furthermore it turned out that the rear main seal retaining plate seals against part of the upper oil pan so replacing that would have to be first. Just picked up the o-ring today and the rear main seal is on hand. 

 

Hopefully get to put both those pieces on and then assemble the rest of the bottom end and be done with that for now.

 

1jz bell housing is also bolted onto the R154 and the clutch fork pivot was cleaned and transferred as well. Car is ready to receive the block, it will be a matter of lifting the block, pulling the stand, bolting on the flywheel/pressure plate/throwout bearing collar/clutch/pilot bearing, then mating it up with the trans mission. 

 

Joa says the mounts leave a lot of room between the steering rack and the bottom of the pan, so I may have to slot the CX mounts vertically once the lateral position is determined. 

[seattlejester]

Bought the CX mounts as I didn't feel I had the space or time to make new mounts this time around. I had heard a couple other people had bought it, and the pictures seemed adequate so I bit the bullet, and of the 3 available kits out there to mount a 2jz into a 240z, one is unavailable, one is way too complete for me (driveshaft, shifter extension trans mount etc etc), and the other was the CX kit.

 

 

First off with the test fit, the mounts were not even willing to sit flat. Looks like they added these ears on the side of the mount so that they could in theory be drilled into the side of the cross member to keep the mount from rotating or moving. Mine was bent way out of spec, the ears were keeping the mount from actually sitting flat. I had to bash them flatter so that the mounts wouldn't sit all crooked and stress the one main bolt that holds it to the stock cross member.

 

 

With the mounts installed I noticed a really high offset to the passenger side. On going back over all the material and a couple other users looks like this is the norm for this kit. Personally I really dislike the engine from sitting crooked in the bay, especially if there is no reason for it to do so. Their does not seem to be any interference on either side from the mount sitting in the middle, in fact if anything this makes it more difficult to route the exhaust and any single turbo manifold as space is already a premium near the shock tower. 

 

 

So pretty unhappy at the moment. Right now the engine is dangling in the engine bay about where I want it. I think I'll make some careful measurements and make my own down the road and swap them in, but for now I am stuck with this mount until I can put my car together and dig out my welder and my fabrication tools. At that point my hope is it will just be a matter of lifting the engine up and swapping out the mounts and then tweaking the exhaust and intake path.

 

On the point of lifting the engine. With the head off to the ship I went out to look for some bolts to hold the engine block up. Turns out they jumped up to an M11 size head bolt which is pretty hard to find commercially. Instead of using my ARP studs for just lifting the block I decided to reuse some of the old head bolts.

 

Other then that things seemed to go well. I'm guessing this engine was from an auto as it did not have a clutch pilot bearing or it was removed with whatever transmission the previous owner had installed in his 240sx. I pounded a new one in and put on the 1jz flywheel. 

 

 

After quite a bit of searching I ended up going with loctite 243 for the ARP crank bolts. the ARP literature calls for blue loctite, but as these are through holes in the crank that can see oil other people say to use FIPG on the bolts instead. Looks like 243 is a thread sealing/locking compound with oil tolerance. The stuff came out of the tube much thicker and seemed less runny then the 242 stuff I had been using elsewhere.

 

 

I was curious how to keep the flywheel from moving, easy to do with a friend holding the crank, but I didn't want to bother anyone with something so small, but a little trick using a piece of chain and an extension through a non threaded hole in the engine and a used pressure plate bolt let me torque the bolts to 70lbs with ease. 

 

 

With the flywheel on I decided I wanted to put the clutch on the engine instead of putting it on the transmission as suggested. It requires quite a bit of effort to crank down on this clutch as it is a pull type clutch and in rest state is regularly engaged so I wanted to make sure it was seated before torquing the bolts down as compared to having to rotate the crank slowly while tightening the bolts through the inspection cover in the bell housing. 

 

 

With the parts assembled I put a jack under the transmission to raise it up, and used the load leveler to match the angle and slid them together. I had a bit of frustration when the two pieces didn't want to slide together, but that was just trickery as basically trying to push them together at height at an angle was lifting the transmission up as it tried to close the distance with the engine. With the engine lowered and the jack lowered I was able to slide them togehter enough to start threading in the bell housing bolts. 

 

 

One reason for the delay was waiting for some JIS spec bolts I decided to order. When I put my 7m in I had the benefit of smaller bolts and the ability to use an extension as the drivetrain was out of the car, but with it in the car I had to make it as convenient as possible. Definitely want to get JIS spec bolts here as a 17mm socket barely fit over the space, a regular M12 size bolt bought here in the states would use a 19mm head which would mean micro turns with an open headed box wrench.

 

So engine sits in the engine bay. Head should be ready this week and I can start putting things back together and start measuring for some other bits.

 

 

Still have to find an aluminum welder to help me modify the intake and to figure out my fuel situation, but with the head back and the engine hanging in the engine I can go ahead and start with some more of the plumbing and definitely start clearing out some really needed space.

Edited January 2, 2017 by seattlejester

[seattlejester]

Well what I found out was that the driver side mount was hard up against the plate without the poly bushing tab in. So putting in the tab would push the engine even further away and it was already being held up by the tabs and already very off center. Maybe in the end displacing the engine 2-3 inches to the passenger side? Given that I measured my drive shaft angle and made my trans mount before I bought this kit that was really going to play havoc with my setup.

 

I decided I would fix these now and that way I can just take measurements and make bespoke ones at a later date.

 

Given that these were stainless I had to alter my welding setup. The welding shop was kind and let me borrow the tank over the weekend for just the cost of gas.

 

I cut the rear ear off, carefully ground down the middle until I could bend it over then made a spacer for the location and tacked it in place.

With that done, I could cut the front ear off and line it up with the back and weld everything together.

Keep in mind this is 3/16 to 1/4 inch I think, with a triple pass it definitely wasn't going anywhere, but it just looked like a stress fracture was waiting to happen, so I bought some more material and welded in reinforcements.

And bolted it all in.

The passenger side needed no modification other then needing a spacer to push the block towards the middle. I planned on using aluminum (unless anyone has other recommendations) to make the spacer, but couldn't decide how thick to go without actually loading the engine in the bay so right now it is spaced out with quite a few large washers. I'll have to go back and make a solid spacer at a later date, but for now the engine is supported without the crane.

Engine is clocked a bit with the head tilting towards the passenger side, but at least the crank and all that is centered. Just a matter of loosening all the bolts and jacking up the passenger side when the time comes to make all the hard connections.

 

Pretty darn excited! Head is sitting in my trunk rebuilt from the machine shop, once that is bolted on I can measure the clearances I have and decide where I want to add a vacuum block to the intake manifold and probably where I will be moving the throttle body flange to. I have to place the order for my turbo soon as well so I can mock up where my turbo will sit. Then finally figure out how to mount the trigger wheel and sensor, dexter72 pretty much blazed the trail there so will most likely be copying his arrangement as I did with quite a few things on this build.

[seattlejester]

I played around with how the engine was sitting probably 4 times or so, lifting up one side, loosening the bolts, dropping it. Loosening all the bolts and trying again. Basically for it to be perfect would mean modifying the driverside mount again, really not too concerned with a little bit of lean.

 

Decided to swap out the water pump, because no matter how many times I looked at it, it definitely looked wrong and old.

Not wanting to mess around with getting the wrong back half, I ordered a complete non vvti water pump.

You can see that this pump is held in by 4 bolts not just one and that the bolt holes line up. One thing I didn't realize was that the water pump pulley bolt spacing is different. By my guess and what background I remember, the PO having done a few JZ's probably had a spare VVTI pump that was in decent condition and decided to swap it onto the motor. So I tracked down a water pump pulley on eBay and bought it.

 

I did some other bits like clean up the oil filter adapter, I was tempted to run just a union bolt, but really the adapter wasn't what failed, it was the adapter to the adapter to the remote oil filter line that worked its way loose that failed. So stock it stays for now.

 

With some the accessory bits done, I started moving onto the big pieces. I put the ARP studs in hand tight, then put on the cometic 2.4mm gasket. I'm reading more and more about people having them leak, so there is a bit of concern, but I am ever hopeful especially since the 2jz-ge non VVTI runs a 0.2mm gasket which is ever so tiny and basically means a uniform starting surface and I had my head machined flat so I am hoping the seal is good. I read some reports of people installing gaskets upside down, but the 2jz has an oil port on the near the firewall on the passenger side, not sure how you can install a gasket upside down when there is an offset hole.

 

Then came the head.

I really should have waited for someone to give me a hand, but I just couldn't wait or be bothered to try and bother someone. The loaded head was probably 40lbs or so. Not too bad, but being long made the balance hard to hold. Glad to say I didn't drop it, although I did have to rest it on the studs, I made sure to not scrape across the surface. Once lined up the head basically dropped into place guided by the studs.

 

On the 2jz and I think 7m as well you have to remove the cams to tighten the head bolts. Turns out in addition to removing the cams and towers, you have to remove the stud to put on the ARP washer. I backed them out one at a time and placed the washer then reinstalled the stud. I think it was probably better to do it the way I did so that you know 100% the gasket is aligned, but at the same time with the indexing guides on the head and block probably could have saved myself some grief. 

 

I threw some valve covers on for the time being. I have to go back and tighten everything, but was dead beat having leaned over the engine all day.

Looks like it lines up better then I thought. 

 

I'm working on the attachments while I wait for some important parts to come in to finish the water system, timing belt, and accessory belt. 

 

Ordered my turbo and that apparently has a 3-4 week back order so I have time to mess with the turbo manifold later. Currently working on the FFIM and the lower intake runner. Going through craigslist to find an aluminum welder that can weld in my vacuum/boost reference block and my throttle body adapter once I figure out which one I want to use. If anyone has any recommendations would love to hear them.

[Exposed]

great progress, keep at. looking forward to the next couple of update

[seattlejester]

You and me both. Or at least I was (foreshadow...)

 

Well some more work.

 

I finished out the head stuff. 

 

Tightened the head studs to 80lbs as suggested and installed the 2.4mm cometic gasket dry as cometic suggested.

 

Then tightened all the cam towers to 15lbs in multiple steps in multiple passes, then undid caps as you rotate the cam to make sure the caps are not tightened under load. Pretty impressive how much detail they go into to make sure you don't tighten the caps loosely.

 

Threw in the greased cam seals and tightened down the first cam cap with FIPG. 

 

Then put on the cam pulley backing plate and the cam gears and tightened those to spec.

 

 

Cleaned up some small parts

 

 

Installed new o-rings for the water pipe, the head mating surface, and ordered a new thermostat.

 

And bought the adapters to fit my oil feed and oil pressure sending unit. I have had this intellitronix gauge sitting in my glove box all wired up for the last 2 years ready to replace my mechanical gauge. I decided I had waited long enough for them to get off their butt and ship me the sending unit promised repeatedly over the last 2 years and badgered them until I finally got my sending unit. It isn't lost on my that it would have been much easier to spot the lack of oil pressure on the 7m had I had a nicely back lit LED gauge in the bright sun, but alas.

 

 

Rant over.

 

I ordered the intake manifold based off of Dexter72's build. 

 

Turns out I didn't account for my 15/16th master to have the bleed nipples on the opposite side.

 

 

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.......

 

The space is about 11.5 inches from the head to the shock tower and the brake master and the manifold ends up being about 11 inches. The 0.5 inches would be enough except the casting for the bleed nipples and the nipples themselves take about an inch more. 

 

The manifold was about two inches too high from even lining up. 

 

I contemplated my options. Go with a different master cylinder, delete the brake booster, go with a different intake manifold.

 

More or less the fact I didn't want to down grade, loose the booster, rebleed all my brakes, spend 600+ on a new manifold, or loose money on my manifold now, I decided to at least cut it up to mockup. 

 

Worst case scenario I have another set of runners so I can go to the cross over manifold or cut the runners and build my own down the road. 

 

So a couple key cuts and I could at least line up the manifold. Since the plan for this manifold was to go visit a welder to make it a bit shorter and tilt the throttle body flange in addition to changing the flange it won't end up costing me too much more. The only concern is that the divot will cause problems with the air flow, but given that this is a 5 inch tube and the input is 2.5 inch intercooler piping coming from a 2 inch turbine outlet, I think it should have more then enough room. 

 

Right now I'm working on making a throttle body flange. I decided to reuse my 7m throttle body. It is 2.5 ID which is the same size as my intercooler OD, Way shorter then the 2jz-ge throttle body, and I won't need to neck down as drastically compared to using the 80mm LS400 throttle body. Not sure if this is one of those things I'm building myself in to regretting down the road, but if so I'm doing it purposefully since I really want to revisit this manifold situation at some point.

 

Also got most of my turbo goodies today. I held off on ordering the feed and drain kit hoping to get something pretty close to idea so I'll have to mock that stuff up this weekend hopefully. 

Edited February 21, 2017 by seattlejester

[Chickenman]

Why don't you just cut the hose nipple off the end of the bleeder that is touching the header? . Cut it flush ( Dremel ) with the end of the bleeder nut. Bleeder still works and you gain 1/4" of clearance.

 

I've done that before to gain clearance to Mikuni air horns. 

[seattlejester]

That's not a bad idea if someone needed just a smidgeon of room, but the picture looks a bit misleading the barbs are keeping the manifold tilted up, so it would need more clearance then cutting off the nipple would provide.

[Zetsaz]

Question I just thought of, have you considered the AR-5 transmission as an option? 

[seattlejester]

The conversion parts required didn't appeal to me. 

 

I think if the transmission goes it is going to get a driftmotion rebuild, that should pretty much make it problem free for any thing I would sanely throw at it.

 

If I was thinking of going through the effort of converting a transmission, I would just go with a CD009, get a 6th gear out of the effort.

[Zetsaz]

Mostly asking because supposedly it's a very easy swap. Every time I look into the possibility of a 2JZ swap, the transmission is what concerns me the most. Worthwhile options for it are just so expensive. 

[seattlejester]

Regarding the transmission: I think out of the alternative swap options (not toyota) it is indeed easier, and pretty cheap compared to others. I'm curious about the S10 since everyone does the saturn/pontiac I imagine it would be cheaper/easier to find an S10.  If you add up the conversion parts though I don't know if it would be cheaper then a good deal on a R154. You would have to ask joa for his total on that one. It would have the fix for the thrust washer which would be a bonus and better syncros if I'm not mistaken.

 

Honestly there are more options then there have ever been now. They even have a new one where you use the bell housing off of the automatic transmission that comes on most 2jzgte you get from an importer and use an adapter plate just for the transmission so you don't have to buy a 1jz bell housing to adapt a CD009. They have a BMW one as well which could be viable too and BMW transmissions are very affordable. Or if you are at all realistic you can just run a W58 for quite a while. Just keep the power under 350hp/tq and try not to launch it, or run a relatively light pressure plate. 

 

I really don't think the transmission should hold you back. Chances are you are going to have to spend about the same regardless of engine choice, given the JZ is pretty much used in all aspects you cam even run other transmissions pretty easily using conversion/bellhousing parts (T56 etc)

 

Regarding the swap: JZ swap makes sense to me, the layout, the parts availability, the aftermarket. To others the RB makes more sense, same brand, heritage, equally strong aftermarket, and a more common swap so easier in some regards. To others a V8 makes more sense, even better aftermarket, parts availability, low cost, high power, etc etc etc. Then there are those who like the L-series, and make awesome numbers with those. I think an L-series with Derek's head and a CD009 using Hoke's adapter going to wifrit's 8.8 rear end swap running EFI through ITB's would probably be my dream swap.

 

Then there's the future, that inline 6 from the 335i is pretty potent, has a big after market, the only thing holding it back is it still is pretty pricey.

[seattlejester]

We're having pretty atypical weather here. Plan was to button up the block, but only made limited progress as I really didn't want to roll around on the ground in the cold.

 

Put on the gates racing timing belt.

 

With the timing belt on I installed the timing belt tensioner pulley tensioner.

 

Waiting to pull the pin until I am 100% sure I don't need to come back to this.

 

Also installed the missing timing belt guide. 

I ordered and received a NOS lower timing belt cover. Mine had a crack and the paint on the lettering was gone.

Also ordered a clear cam gear cover so I can spot any imminent failure of the belt.

Couldn't help myself and opened the turbo.

The efficiency thing is crazy. My upgraded 57 trim CT26 looks almost bigger and maxes out at 65% efficiency at ~49CFM at a pressure ratio of 2.5, but the borg warner flows something like 53CFM at 65% at a pressure ratio of 2.5, but the crazy thing is that it continues to be efficient at the 65% mark all the way up to a pressure ratio of 4 flowing over 58CFM. That means while the upgraded CT will max out say 22psi flowing 49CFM (compared to the stock one which maxed out at 35CFM at 16psi or so) the BW will still be efficient at 45psi. Given the small impellar size it won't make much power as the boost climbs, but as long as your system can handle the increase in boost that should mean this turbo should be able to do about 480whp without breaking a sweat, maybe 550 at a bit of a stretch, where as the 57 trim CT turbo would be sweating bullets just to stay above 400whp. 

 

I have one more hole to tap on my intake manifold before I drop it off at the welders. I drilled out the valve covers and tapped them to a 1/2 inch NPT to fit some barbs for the positive crank case vent. Turbo manifold needs a bit of work cleaning up some burs left behind after the PO opened up the holes to make it better mount the engine. Haven't heard back from the tuner about mounting the trigger wheel, so I may just do the same that Dexter72 did to get the car up and running.