I’m a fan of 240 front(tucked as close as possible) with a big air dam and no rear.
This is where i’m at with iron block/aluminum head ls swap and fiberglass fenders/hood, battery in back right corner. When i put my butt in the seat the car goes to 50/50 front to rear. So keep driver weight in mind when balancing things.
krautastic said:Can't wait to see the Z come together. It's very pretty even as it sits now. I'm jealous of the shop, but can't for the life of me figure out what you could possibly have to fill all those drawers and standing cabinets. The thing I seem to run out of room the most is work table space. You should consider a nice roll up cart that you can push right up to the car and collect all the nuts and bolts and parts as they come off. And then some nice secure work benches and some rollaway tables for when you have to do some oversized projects, or stuff that you know is going to be nasty (like fiberglass, or any kind of intense sanding or painting). I sure wish properties with shops like that were anywhere near where the lady and I work, but its just not in the cards, so I am relegated to a 2 car garage.
I'm jealous of the shop, too! I am lucky to get to work in it, though, which takes the edge off :)
As far as what is in all the cabinets and toolboxes, I have discovered over the last 10 years to not question Nik's (super)power of collecting physical items. For example, one cabinet has 5 scrapped IndyCar V8 heads from Foyt's (relatively) local racing operation. Almost all of them say "over-rev" on them.
I agree that table-space is a precious commodity. There is a very large awesome stainless table that will be moving over from the fab side to the Datsun area. It will require a non-trivial excavation operation, but it should happen soon I hope.
I'm in a similar boat re: shops like that near my house. I live right in the middle of Houston and thanks to the sturdy economy and growing diversity, property values have practically doubled in the last few years. If I had to buy the land and build a shop like that in my neighborhood, it'd be at least $500k. Out of my league by a considerable amount, I'm afraid.
damen
In reply to PseudoSport :
Good grief, you're not kidding! I thought L28's were like $300.
Spoiler alert: they're not. There's an L28 + 3spd auto combo listed for $2,500.
Still looks like the bumpers are scrap :)
damen
In reply to Patrick :
Wow! Is there a thread for your build? I'm very interested- is that a 280 or a 240? I'm afraid I'm still learning here. If that's a 280, that weight seems pretty great-
Where did you get the fiberglass hood and fenders?
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you continue to check in- I need all the help I can get!
damen
Unfortunately i can not find my first thread, my second one is here.
Most pics broken because photobutt until page 6. It started life as a 280. Fenders were on car when I bought it and are quite old. Hood is a one off piece made off a mold of a steel hood made by wheels777 using parts of factory fenders to make the scoop so the lines would flow with the car.
The rear bumper recesses on the quarter panels are filled and there is no rear bumper, just a parachute mount under the license plate. Fuel filler welded and filled as well, have fuel cell in hatch in an enclosure.
Could lose a little more weight up front, running iron exhaust manifolds. Going to do the z31 vented rotor/toyota 4 piston caliper this summer. Rear has adapted ford fox body rear disc brakes. Just mounted hoosier sm7 tires...for the street
In reply to Patrick :
Wow, seems like that car has some solid GRM history- very cool!
Pretty aggressive rear spoiler on there- how did you come up with the shape/size/angle?
damen
Holy shop jealousy Batman! That's an awesome space to have available! And the car is super cool too!
In reply to badwaytolive :
Worked off old 70’s pictures of the bob sharp cars.
badwaytolive said:In reply to PseudoSport :
Good grief, you're not kidding! I thought L28's were like $300.
Spoiler alert: they're not. There's an L28 + 3spd auto combo listed for $2,500.
Still looks like the bumpers are scrap :)
damen
Wow those prices are terrible. Used l24-l28 even with 4 speeds trade hands for $500 bucks still in GA. People yanked them for v8 swaps and they are just sitting all over.
One of the local pick-a-part lots (LKQ) had a 40% off sale over Easter weekend. I checked the yard inventory for '04 - '06 Titans/Armadas and lo, they had 3. The engine I've chosen for the 280 is a VK56DE, pre-2007. In 2007, they added variable timing to the intake valves, which I don't want to mess with.
The options for an engine to start the build are $1,300 - $1,800 for 80k - 180k mile removals with some sort of guarantee-for-6-months, $2,800 - $3,500 (including the core charge) for a remanufactured motor from one of many companies, or $250 for a mystery-junkyard version. I really only need the block/crank/rods/heads. Everything else will be non-stock, so it feels like a bit of a waste to pay for them. And everything will be going to an engine-machine shop for work anyhow, so it's not clear how much benefit a reman would be.
I went out Thursday afternoon to do some recon at the LKQ to see if the motors were even still in the 3 Titan trucks.
Someone had already visited truck #1:
Truck #2 had been visited as well. Some parts had been pulled that made me pass on this one.
I found the third truck in the very back. It's missing the throttle body, but the rest of the engine seems to be there. Honestly, the idea of pulling this motor in this setting seems pretty scary. The truck rocks back and forth by hand on the "pedestals" on which it sits, and ground is pretty much just layers of screws and shattered glass. Then you're supposed to set the engine in some sort of wheelbarrow (!) and take it to your vehicle?
The truck didn't have any super obvious damage other than evidence of massive amounts of mileage. I certainly didn't get the warm fuzzies, but I'm not sure how one is supposed to feel at a junkyard.
Truck #3:
Surely some people here have pulled motors at places like this? Do you have any feedback that might help me? Run away? Drink a case of Natty and git r done?
If it wasn't so much cheaper, I would probably not consider it. This is going to be a pretty expensive engine build, so I hesitate a little to start with something like this. Guidance appreciated here.
damen
My local LKQ has a small fleet of hand-powered, rubber-tired cherry pickers that you're supposed to use to pull the motor and then get it down to the end of the row, flag down the dude in the yard forklift and he will grab it from there and take it up to the loading area. So it's slightly less sketchy than the wheelbarrow but would still require you bring a wingman to help.
And on the only motor I have pulled at an LKQ - I did it "wrong" (not intentionally) as my donor car was at the end of the row anyway - so I just got everything ready, had the motor prepped for a yank and called the forklift over to the car. He almost made me go get the cherry picker but took pity on me and just stuck a fork in my field rigged safetybelt strap and up and out went the motor.
In reply to badwaytolive :
I'm sitting here looking at picture number 2 and trying to figure out exactly what is so special under the timing and valve covers that they would need to be removed and the the timing chain loosened (it appears anyway) yet the heads, including the cams, are still in place.
Was there some mystery about how the coil packs come out?
The fuel rail?
Did they need only the cam sprocket?
Okay I need to stop because it's bothering me now.
I don't know much about those those engines but I'm interested to see what you do with it as it's a non standard, thus cool, choice of a V8.
In reply to The0retical :
The exhaust cam is gone from that motor. The intake cam is still there.
In reply to badwaytolive :
Ah so it is. Well that clears up that mystery.
It wouldn't even occur to me to do that. The local yard charges 75 bucks for a head with the cam and 25 for the cam by itself. Why go through all that effort in the yard?
Workday: 10, Days since delivery: 98
I walked in to find the mill decidedly not where it was last time.
Nik was busy with some other stuff, but I figured he could use another set of hands getting that sorted out when he returned. So I turned back to the Datsun.
Here's how I left it last time:
It was pretty close to ready to have the motor come out, so I just started tracing things that were keeping it tied in. Not particularly interesting work, but straightforward nonetheless.
One of the things I was wondering about was what these plastic covers were hiding:
Drumroll.....
Huh? It seems like these add literally zero functionality beyond just a wire. Anybody know what the purpose of this setup is?
Nik returned at some point and I dropped the Datsun work to help with the mill. It is not easy to move around. We hooked a chain around it from the overhead shop crane to add some safety support, but not knowing how much the mill weighed or the exact rating of the crane, we didn't pick it all the way up.
We mostly used a jack and the small skateboards to push it around and into place.
Move 3 inches, check skateboards. Reposition if necessary. Move 3 inches, check skateboards...
It took a pretty long time, but we got it into place:
It was pretty late by the time we finished that, so even though I didn't get much done on the car, value was added.
If I can get to the shop early enough next time, I think we should be able to pull the engine and transmission out.
Maybe.
damen
^ the wires are fusible links; think of a slow-blow fuse. The color indicates the amperage.
A popular upgrade is MaxiFuses:
In reply to mikeatrpi :
GRM ftw! Thanks for the education!
On the wiring side, especially since your putting a modern motor in it, I'd pull the whole harness and replace the factory setup with a bussman RTMR or RFRM depending on the amount of relays/circuits you need. Much cleaner
In reply to Gaunt596 :
Good call.
I will definitely be pulling all the old wiring out and replacing with new. Thanks for the Bussmann lead; those look nice!
damen
Workday: 11, Days since delivery: 112
Nik and I casually discussed the possibility that we could get the motor out, but I'm not sure I really believed it. I hadn't gotten as far as I needed to on the previous visit, but I dug in anyway to see where we'd end up. Keep in mind we don't get these workdays started until around 5 p.m.
Here's where I left it last time:
The biggest items left were the exhaust and the driveshaft, then transmission leads and other assorted connections.
The exhaust hardware was pretty rusted together, so it took some time with the Freeze-Off and giant impact gun. I'm deaf now from that thing, but the exhaust eventually came off.
At some point it had a supersprint cat-back installed. I don't think I ever drove this car, so I can't really say how it sounds. If anybody wants any of this, let me know.
The driveshaft is bolted at the back, and the fasteners were extremely difficult to move. In fact, I couldn't get them to budge and really didn't want to strip anything; it would be super obnoxious to do extraction up in that space.
It seemed like as good a time as any to take a break and think on it over some Mexican food, so we broke for dinner.
Afterwards, I found a video suggesting a wrench on the nuts, then using a prybar in the driveshaft-u-joint to apply force. I sprayed a bunch a of freeze-off, put a line wrench on the nut, wedged it against the body, then applied some serious force via the prybar. It worked! Thank you internet-hive-mind. I doubt I would've thought of that. I was able to get all four off. I'm pretty sure they haven't been touched in 40 years.
The front of the driveshaft just slid out which let 20 gallons of old ATF out of the transmission and onto the floor. Joy.
This is obviously before I got the driveshaft out, but after the protector plate removal.
After some clean up and the unplugging of anything left holding the engine and transmission to the car, we hooked up the gantry/hoist and started pulling.
We had to move the connection on the front of the engine mid-way through to get enough angle to get over the radiator support, but other than that, it was pretty drama-free.
The ATF found one of the gaps in the flooring, so cleanup was a huge PITA.
I didn't get out of there until nearly midnight, but I'm so glad to have the driveline out. Feels like real progress.
Now I have to get serious about finding a new motor for this thing!
damen
Workday: 12, Days Since Delivery: 120
Not a huge amount done today, but I arrived pretty late, so not too surprising. I started by cleaning up the remainder of the huge mess from the engine removal.
The parts pile became officially unacceptable, so I organized. Some items tossed, some stored on shelves. Hopefully I chose correctly on what went where.
I want to get the engine bay totally stripped for drivetrain fitting, so I just started on the driver's side.
I've never seen these spot-welded wiring retainers before. They work pretty well, just bending little arms to hold stuff. As my dad likes to say, "...designed as a single-use piece of machinery." Gonna be annoying to drill all these out; there are a ton of them.
I found out why the brakes didn't work. The fluid turned to some sort of jelly.
Nik came out at some point, so I helped him with a couple items.
The Lotus was supposed to be back by now with its fancy new engine and was going to be taken to a weekend at COTA in Austin with Chin Motorsports. But it wasn't done, so plan B.
The Saabmarine.
Which wasn't quite ready to drive. So I spent a couple minutes helping him get it assembled enough to start. Dash support, ECU, stuff like that.
I didn't do that much, but Nik got it started. So there's hope for the track day.
The last thing we did was get a giant stainless table moved from the fab side to the car side.
It fit perfectly in the corner and will be a nice addition to the work space.
We also dug up a tool cart as vociferously advocated by others on this thread. I look forward to it changing my life :)
Not a huge amount done, but I go the driver's side cleared off. Passenger side next time.
Nik is getting married, so there will probably be a brief pause in the admittedly-already-quite-slow action.
damen
Ohhh, that stainless table is nice. I continue to be jealous of the space you have!
In reply to AWSX1686 :
Thanks, Andrew! Well, it's not my space either, but I'll be accolade-accepter-by-proxy (sp?). I think we might add a lift soon, which would be not so much icing on the cake, but another cake on the cake :)
damen
Judging by the toolbox acquisition rate, this project is not budget limited to any great extent.
Pete
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