Sirpents 260Z / C32 AMG Powered RS30 - Australia

[Sirpent]

As you all would have noticed earlier on, I disected the original front tension rod mounts from the body which impeded any chance of the new chassis being able to be removed from the car complete with drivetrain and visa versa.

 

Today's effort was adding the final 2 fish plates on the inner chassis rails which required it to be removed from the body and welded on externally.

 

These plates also act as mounts for the new incorporated tension rod mounts and the following pics show the process.

 

Before I removed the originals, I made a plywood template so as to line up the new mounts later on, took me a while to find where I had hidden it but then it was a simple job of aligning the templates to the marked points I has left on the old rails and adding in an additional gusset on each side.

 

I have a few gussets still to add to the new chassis but all in all there isnt really any additional heavy metal sections left, I will do a weight check tomorrow on the new chassis, any guesses out there as to what it may be?

 

Cheers

 

John

[calZ]

I hadn't realized you were going for basically a full body-on-frame conversion. Japanese Corvette?

[Sirpent]

I hadn't realized you were going for basically a full body-on-frame conversion. Japanese Corvette?

 

Not sure if that's sarcasm, but guess it would be an apt description.

[calZ]

Not sure if that's sarcasm, but guess it would be an apt description.

 

Haha not at all! The work you're doing is amazing. I just hadn't realized that you were going for fully separating the drivetrain and body. It reminded me of a Vette.

[Sirpent]

Haha not at all! The work you're doing is amazing. I just hadn't realized that you were going for fully separating the drivetrain and body. It reminded me of a Vette.

Thanks CalZ

 

And today I built the skeleton of the trolley the chassis will sit on while I position the motor and drivetrain on, and eventually what the car will sit on when I re finish the undercarriage and its ready to come off the rotisserie.

 

 

Building this to the chassis with mounting points while the chassis is still taunt on the body will mean that when I release it I can secure the chassis to the trolley, finish up any welding and then do all the other engine mount fabrications sure in the fact that it has all held its positioning and will bolt back to the body.

 

Still have to do a lot of welding and add 8 wheels to it, but motor mounting time will be around the corner pretty soon.

 

Cheers

 

John

[Sirpent]

One Small Step, One Giant Leap!

 

 

So today I finished off the trolley, added the 8 castor wheels and completed the welding around the trolley frame and uprights.

 

 

Took it off the car after it all came back to normal temperature and then dismounted the chassis and laid it down on the ground on the trolley for the first time bolting it all up to the uprights with no major issues.

 

 

I looked at the motor sitting their and it was begging to be mounted, I couldn’t help myself and decided to do a trial fit of the motor trans and diff just to see how it all sits, and although it’s just sitting in place and the alignments are correct, the height of the motor trans and diff are not correct for a few reasons as per the following. 

 

 

#1, The air conditioning compressor won’t be able to be mounted in the original Mercedes position as it hits smack bang on the new chassis rail, once removed this will allow me to drop the motor almost another 10 cm's down. you can see the gap between the sump and cross member and in the other pictures how the compressor is basically on the rail, this will be removed tomorrow and I will get the entire arrangement sitting lower.

 

 

#2 The engine mount arms are too long meaning they also jut out over the chassis rails, these will be removed and I will fabricate a new set.

 

 

#3 The exhaust manifolds are totally wrong for this set up, speaking to Peter Mc today I will have him make up new 3 into 1 sets that take advantage of the additional 30cm's of room back to the firewall. This is not a big drama as i will have acres of room further back to have them swing down below the car.

 

 

#4 The alternator may need some repositioning but will only know once the compressor is negated and the motor dropped down.

 

 

The steering rod to the rack should have no issues, once again I will have a better idea tomorrow.

 

 

The trans will need to come up 2 odd cm's at the mount point, I just need to fabricate a new riser from the base to the rubber mount which I knew about when I positioned the alloy  cradle, at that point I couldn't raise it as the mounting points would have been inside the car !

 

 

The diff is aligned in both horizontal planes but sitting at the wrong height, once again this was just for the photo shot, it need to come down between the two LCA mount pipes which means dropping it some 10 cm's.

 

 

Initial tail shaft measurement is 82 cm's

 

 

As far as the rest, I have 28 cm's clearance from the back of the motor at the supercharger inlet to the firewall which I will need for the dual "Y' shaped inlets.

 

 

Harmonic balancer to rad support will also be around 28cm's

 

 

Gear lever comes up in exactly the same position as the original Zed's 

 

 

And as far as space around the rest, no issues so far with ample room for exhaust system etc.

 

 

It was a great day and a realisation of what’s been in my head for 4 years now.

 

 

Don’t hesitate posting questions if I have missed something.

 

 

Cheers

 

 

John

[Sirpent]

OK so today’s efforts..............

 

#1 Relieved the motor of the Headers, Air Con Compressor and the Alternator, 

 

#2 Good news SH*T loads of room to have 3 into 1 headers fabricated and fitted

 

#3 Alternator will need a simple extension bracket made up that fits into the original engine mount points and is replicated 20mm away and 40 mm upward so as to miss the original "Z" RH chassis rail

 

#4 AC compressor cannot in any way go back to where it sat, and won’t be, instead I will be putting in an electric AC compressor I came across some time ago, you will all have to wait and see.

 

#5 I thought there was no way I could use the OEM Benz engine mounts I purchased, but after a coffee, a few cigs and much pondering, I got stuck into it and looks like I have cracked it and started to fabricate some new mounts as per the pics below.

 

So, having removed all the issue items, the engine dropped down to a point about 20mm above the E46 power steering rack and about 25mm clearance between the front face of the sump and the new cross member.

 

I can’t see any issues with the motor rotating under acceleration and hitting anywhere.

 

clearance for the steering cuppler to the rack won’t be an issue either.

 

I propped up the rear of the gear box to a maximum height that would mean it wasn’t up against the tunnel and then checked the crank face and rear gearbox output shaft angles which both came in at 3.4 degrees.

 

So the motor will have a 3.4 degree slant downward, If I wanted to zero it out, it would mean ripping into the tunnel and fabricating new sheet metal, and that’s not on the cards. 

 

Being a forced induction injected set up, I can see any reason this will affect performance but I’m happy to hear opinions from anyone reading this to the contrary.

 

A quick calculation based on the tail shaft angle should be somewhere in the 1.5 to 2.0 degree range.

 

Okay so that's about it, mother and child doing well and I will have pics of the mounts and final engine positioning in the coming days.

 

Thanks for putting up with this long winded pictorial thread.

 

Cheers

 

John

[calZ]

Going with some type of transformer to get higher voltage or running one at 12V? I looked into electric AC compressors awhile back and couldn't find anything that gave much performance at 12V. I guess Melbourne doesn't get very hot, so you probably don't need much.

[Sirpent]

Going with some type of transformer to get higher voltage or running one at 12V? I looked into electric AC compressors awhile back and couldn't find anything that gave much performance at 12V. I guess Melbourne doesn't get very hot, so you probably don't need much.

 Our average summer temps in fahrenheit in peak summer range from 90 -120 and its not uncommon to see 5 day heat waves in 120's

[calZ]

In Melbourne? Must be further inland then. Cooling is even more important then I guess. I'm sure you have a handle on it, but I haven't heard of many 12V compressors that could keep up with that. I guess I'll wait and see like you said.

[Sirpent]

There are a variety of 12V DC Ac compressors coming onto the market as these types of units start to become standard in many conventional vehicles.

 

This is an example

 

 

[Sirpent]

Mocked up both engine mounts and perches today, still have some finishing welding and additional gussets to add but the motor is actually nesting and sitting on both mounts now for the first time.

 

Cheers

 

John

[Sirpent]

Completion of the engine mount today, outer edges still need fine TIG welding beads done and top securing bolt holes need to be drilled.

 

Next onto the final gear Box plate followed by the diff mounts.

 

 

[Sirpent]

So today I finished the gear box mount setting the box at its final height and position, the box is at the correct angle going by the secondary shiftercover plate which I was told is a true plane and is within .1 degree off to the engine and chassis which are both set at 90 degrees.

 

However this box came out of an SS commodore and the rear gearbox extension housing is slightly set at an angle to the driver’s position and therefore so are the mounts.

 

I was worried at first and then checked the original tiny Holden bracket and it confirmed that the right hand side of the bracket was set slightly lower than the passenger side.

 

I then set about fabricating two brackets and these were welded to a base plate which the transmission flexible mount bolted to and then to the alloy cradle.

 

It still needs finishing and 2 small reinforcement gussets added but its sitting spot on and the entire engine and trans are now supporting themselves on the chassis.

 

It was time for a kind of proof of concept, so I rolled the chassis under the car and then rotated the body on the rotisserie over the entire assembly.

 

385mm now separates the body from the chassis, but it now gives me a great indication that all the measurements and calculations I have done are on the mark.

 

Getting closer

 

Cheers

 

John

[disepyon]

Looking good. You going with a/c on this or leaving it out? I havent really looked into it for mine, just know the stock a/c location on the ls wont fit with this car, at least for me. One thing about these z's, so much room front to back in the engine bay, but to narrow side to side.

 

Hehe nvm, just read your post above...

Edited April 20, 2016 by disepyon

[Sirpent]

Small update today.

 

I have now moved to the back of the chassis build to commence the differential alignment and mounting. Previously the 2 LCA bars which also act as the forward diff mounting points were only tacked in place, so today I set them both in their correct and final positions and welded them in place on the 4 bolt hanger plates after building a jig out of scraps to make sure they didn't move in any way.

 

This was followed by positioning the diff once again using scraps as supports so as to work out (A) the differential alignment and angle to the box and ( what dimensions the new forward mounts would be.

 

The first part was difficult, but luckily Tremec have a downloadable app specifically designed to check the box angle, tails shaft angle and diffeerntial angle all relative to each other then calculates if these are within tolerance for the universal joints, as you can see by the screen shot, I'm in  

 

Last after having positioned and aligned the diff, I started to make 2 forward diff mounts, one of the set is shown in the attached pic, The tube set in between the 2 gussets will carry the poly bushes, the other end will slide over the LCA and be welded in place, from the diff side mount plate 2 brackets will extend out to meet and be bolted to the bush mount.

 

Cheers

 

John

[Sirpent]

Sorry Peter

 

Try this

 

[Sirpent]

So more progress today

 

Completed both diff bushing mounts ready for positioning, the outrigger brackets from the diff side plates come next once I have a final position and can produce some CAD (Cardboard Assisted Design) mock ups.

 

The pic shows the LH side mount more or less where it will eventually sit however the ends still need to be curved to better match the bush assy's, and the 2 forward LCA mounts nesting approximately where they will sit.

 

A good day   

Edited April 22, 2016 by Sirpent

[Sirpent]

This weekends effort

[Sirpent]

So the rear diff cradle is now in version 3.

 

Today I started the final mount which will allow the diff to pivot based on the diff crown position relative to the axle outputs where the Ford diff previously relied on a mount located totally off position on the alloy diff cap.

 

I have a few options on how to complete the rear mount now from dual bush set ups which would mean sectioning the pipe in the pic 50mm inward of both brackets on either side, to a singular set up mid point, at this stage I am still tossing up which path to go down although the latter is becoming the prefered option the more I ponder about it.

 

Stay tuned, the old rectangular RHS mustache bar is now on the scrap heap and a totally new set up is on its way, there is a hint as to what it will be in the pics, lets see who can pick up on it.

 

Cheers

 

John