Team Alavanche Datsun challenge build

That shifter is super pimpin.

If it would help with your budget, the cheapest , used and not nesicarily working old Android phone you can find could replace that tablet for that purpose.

Shifter picture helps. I was trying to visualize the shifter, not the handle out of acrylic.. And concerned it might break.

Realizing it looks more like the acrylic beer tap handle I had on my GTI as a dumbass college student, I'm no longer concerned.

so after trial, error, more trial, more error, a few new holes in the car, no more new holes in me, and cursing the challenge gods, the car now has a beefy belltech front sway bar made for a nissan 720 pickup. it had what appears to be an original 18mm front bar(finger diameter little thing) and was having issues because it has a rear bar that was bigger than the front and when aussie steve drove the car he recommended disconnecting the rear to get it to rotate easier. i was getting quite a bit of body roll, so i figured upping the front was a better alternative to removing the rear.

new bar was marked from $179 down to $25 at summit racing, presumably because it had no bushings with it, so a set of energy suspension bushings came today(love amazon prime sunday delivery) and i made that crap work together with the car.

getting ready to make dinner, kids are getting hungry. then the plan is to grease every zerk i can find, put air in the tires, and get it off the stands. curious to see what the aluminum heads and plastic intake do to the ride height in the front versus the old iron heads and heavy aluminum intake/carb.

I can't get to the u joint zerks with the large tip on my gun

I'll have to wait a day to let it down, and if its nice and the trans shifts i'll try and get it to the cruise night spot Wednesday to blow some minds. Oreilly has a needle tip for the grease gun, but I'm too tired to go to the store after barely sleeping last night

greased chassis! also found missing bolt for LH steering arm/ball joint mount deal at bottom of strut housing. that was kinda scary to find knowing that the car has been close to 100mph.

i put it down and immediately found something i overlooked in my haste to get it going for the challenge last year and the presumable cause for it being squirrely at speed. there was about 3/4" toe out on the front wheels. now it's set 1/8-3/16 in.

going to the gas station for some fresh fuel, i have a bog if it's hammered from idle and not sure if it's old gas, too cold plugs(i'm 2 heat ranges colder than stock currently), or in the computer. i've written 3 different tune files to see if i can make that go away if fresh fuel does not. gas is about 50% from last october and 50% from may, smells old but not horrible. currently running fine with no check engine light being set, but that tip in bog will be annoying for dragstrip launching. i don't intend to bog like last year when i had a crap engine with too much carb.

no burnouts yet, getting closer. did squeak the tires on the garage floor for a second. so far first and reverse work, and i can tell i'm in first. i believe if something is screwed up in the wiring the trans defaults to 2-3 only, at least that's my experience with other gm electronic autos.

In reply to patgizz:

Does it bog if you load up the torque converter or just from idle?

Holy berkeley i just hit reload and lost my update

ok

the stumbling was happening off idle in park or gear.

however, looks like those programs i made are not needed, as it looks like the issue was just the "slightly aged" gas. ran it down until the tank was almost empty, put in a little marvel mystery oil because someone gave it to me and i'm trying to get rid of it, figuring it couldn't hurt the questionable mileage injectors, and 5 gallons of 93. as soon as it burned whatever was left in the line the bog was gone. i can jam my foot through the floor and it just goes right up to 6000.

i jockeyed stuff around and got the car out of the garage. the transmission is wired right, i get all 4 gears and lockup in 4th. which means I DROVE IT AROUND THE BLOCK!

yeah, it's definitely the quickest car i've ever driven.

i had a rubbing noise while moving that is still there post swap(so trans, driveshaft can be ruled out). the rear rotors were HOT after the short ride, i'm suspecting something in the rear brakes. have new metallic name brand pads coming for all 4 wheels because i suspect the ones on there now are bargain basement organic $6 specials, and the car sat outside for 5 years prior to my purchase so i am done trusting them.

This is awesome, just awesome! I'm sorry I won't be at the Challenge to see it!

if the pads are dragging it's probably not the pads.... i'd look closely at where the pads slide on the ears and (depending on your caliper design) the caliper sliding mechanism and the freeness of the piston(s).

i, too, am very disappointed not to be able to see this thing run!

jfryjfry wrote: if the pads are dragging it's probably not the pads.... i'd look closely at where the pads slide on the ears and (depending on your caliper design) the caliper sliding mechanism and the freeness of the piston(s). i, too, am very disappointed not to be able to see this thing run!

Im guessing sliders, but since they have been dragging im putting in new. Ripping out a customer's bathroom right now, no car things today.

Abby got her arm straightened out and her real cast this morning, Carli says she's doing fine. I gather that they are sleeping now as the appointment was at 6am and she left before 5. I couldn't go, i have to get this bathroom done before we leave for the challenge.

Thanks for all the kind words, you guys keep me going with this crazy stuff i try to pull off. Going to do my final spreadsheet tonight to determine the fate of the dipstick. The final budget worthy purchase was a 55 cent nut for the brake switch, the gm switch was too big for the datsun's bracket so i drilled out the thread and welded a 1/2-20 nut on to screw the new switch into. Converter unlock works as it should

Holy crap! Great build! If you can get this thing sorted and it stays in one piece you'll definitely be a contender for the overall. A 5.3 with nitrous in an Andy Nelson chassis seems like a great recipe.

I remember reading that the truck intakes were generally not a restriction. What was your reasoning for going with the LS intake? You should have plenty of hood clearance for the truck intake and it would have been free for the budget.

Good luck getting it sorted!

the truck intake is just too tall for a Z car. even with my giant hood i put it on and measured and the throttle body would have protruded from the scoop and i'm not cutting this hood, i like it too much.

car intake was free to budget too, traded the truck intake, rails, electronic throttle pedal/module/TB to a guy building a caddy that wanted the truck intake to run an escalade engine cover for the ls1 intake, ls4 fuel rails, cable TB and a used cable. it's all cobbled together, the truck injectors on the camaro intake with the FWD fuel rails and some conduit clamps from home depot holding them down because their bolt holes are not in the same location as the intake. people consider the ls4 parts as trash, but in reality it put the fuel inlet right where i needed it so i made it work.

rear brake parts are all supposed to be here tomorrow, except one caliper is saying friday i want to get it all done tomorrow after work as fridays i go right downtown to the studio after work for the radio show. i've never had amazon prime miss the 2 day delivery window, hopefully the estimate is wrong and it shows tomorrow.

i'm stuck until then. i need to get the truck and trailer ready for the trip, so maybe i can work on the trailer today. last year it needed everything, this year it just needs a little interior reconfiguration and check the tire pressures.

patgizz wrote: Cheapest android Bluetooth tablet from Amazon and a $2.95 obd2 dongle from ebay plus the torque app.

I really want to do this with my fire tablet that I never use. I dont need it to be dedicated and permanently mounted in the car, but it would be nice to have a boost, oil guage, and shift "light".

the tablet has some super heavy duty 3m velcro type stuff keeping it on the dash so i can pop it off and charge it and/or keep it in the house so it does not get ruined. the kind that holds my ezpass to the windshield. i had to get a little bit when i switched trucks because it doesn't peel off, so i had a few inches left. it comes off easy enough that i'm not going to break the tablet, but hard enough that i fear i'm going to break the tablet.

one caliper isn't supposed to get here until friday, amazon finally is taking longer than 2 days on a prime shipped item. maybe if i let them know what i think about that they will put a gift card on my account, as i am up against it here. the only thing in the back brake system besides the hard line that will be untouched is the master cylinder, and i have no idea what one it is. changing the hoses just to rule out hose collapse. if need be i am sure i can get a master cylinder before wednesday, and mr nelson certainly knows what it is. i hope it doesn't come to that, but i'm prepared if necessary.

so right now i'm in a holding pattern with car in air, rear brakes disassembled, waiting for new parts. i was hoping to take it for a slightly longer ride today but can't do that without brakes.

pretty sure china factory stamps aeromotive on some fuel system parts and then sells the rest on ebay for 1/3 the cost with a crapton of extra parts. the regulator looks exactly like the aeromotive one down to the machining and colors, but came with so much -6 hose and so many fittings that i had to buy zero hose or fittings to add the return line or to reconfigure my engine bay supply. it came with i think 6 90 fittings, 4 straight ones, a bunch of -6 flare to -6 o ring fittings, and a stack of o-rings. likewise with the filter it came with a bunch of different fittings. the pump came with none but i was able to use fittings from the filter and the regulator to get it plumbed. the supply that was to my carb pump went right to the efi filter, i attached the regulator output right to the hard line that was there, and up in the engine bay i used one of the -6 unions that came with the regulator to attach the hard line to a braided line(that used to go from regulator to carb), with one of the new 90 ends, to the only fitting i had to buy. the little blue adapter for the gm quick connect to -6an. could have got away with a compression to AN but i like the quick connect.

all brake parts arrived.

passenger side rear caliper is bad out of the box, will not self adjust and the parking brake lever does nothing... i don't have any more 3 days to wait for crap at this point.

the pads just sit there almost 1/4" off the rotor and it needs pumped up to do anything. gah!

freed up the piston on the old one and got it spun back in, and the parking brake lever actually moves the piston in and out. going to run out and get more fluid and see if this works. driver's side is working perfect now.

If we need to source one here in jax let me know.

You can have parts shipping directly to the hotel if needed.

Just took a 5-6 mile extended test drive. Brakes working better than ever. Washed car, it's lined up to trailer to load in morning. Intend to have everything loaded Tuesday night and leave around 7am Wednesday morning

Corrected the trailer shelf problem that bit last year and dropped the tire rack on the car's roof. Rebuilt things and now have a luggage rack above the car thats much better thought out and since a certain newman isnt getting team alavanche free snow tire shipping service this year, expect no transit issues to slow me down. Also I have a new truck that isn't a colossal steaming pile of E36 M3 this year

Will be documenting the trip down again on twitter this year.

Clean, ready to load.

I'm afraid the Challenge will be one of those things I always wanted to do but could never seem to make time for. I admire all you guys that dive in and make it happen.

sirrichardpumpaloaf wrote: I'm afraid the Challenge will be one of those things I always wanted to do but could never seem to make time for. I admire all you guys that dive in and make it happen.

I felt like that for years, then last year I just did it. No looking back, I regretted every year I missed, no regrets about going. If you have the means, I'd suggest making it happen

In reply to sirrichardpumpaloaf:

I've always felt this way too. The lack of anyone nearby to form a team with, combined with the realization that I don't posses the correct combination of talent/tools/persistence to pull off a project like this, prevented me from going all these years. So this year I'm heading over to spectate/assist in the parking lot build/whatever else. It's time I meet a bunch of these crazy people in person.

Iirc there were several teams last year running stock cars and having a ball. It is a lot of work "building" a Challenge car but 95% of my fun last year was just meeting a bunch of freaks like me that love cars.