Project wife's birthday present: Sketchy's Z32 TT

Have ordered exactly zero parts or bits so far. Am having a discussion with a mate who has a heap of S2 stuff he wants to offload so possibly in the near future.

Whats the major issue with the S1 items? Just old and shit and fall apart or something more sinister?

 

Chugging away. Tonight was "the degreasening"





Gave the motor and box a hose down with two cans of Selleys finest BBQ cleaner, wait a bit, then blast with the pressure cleaner. Protip, the BBQ cleaner is far better than anything else I've used and only costs a few bucks more than your typical Supercheap rubbish. That shit is only good for starting fires when you're drunk.





Much better. Nor quite factory fresh but certainly better than it was.



Removed some more interior as well as reinstalling the cross member and steering so the car can be moved.



Out she goes.



Trying to think of a roulette gag with red and black but I got nothing. Always bet on black? I dunno.



Some musical car jiggery pokery and the black rig is in the garage, waiting for the next round of works. Pull up stumps, time for bed.

And that's where we are at. The red shell will probably stay for a couple of weeks in case I need bits for the black one before my Oct 27th cut off date to have it running but after that it needs to go ASAP. Will put up a thread in the for sale section if anyone is chasing parts. Have pretty much everything bar the front end and passenger door in good nick. Will be full manual conversion, interior, dash parts, rear hatch, etc out the door cheap.

 

Members say the S1 PTU is a timebomb, but others say they are good.
(Nissan did a recall in US)
So if you were ordering a new loom from Wiring Specialist you would have to decide on S2 PTU plugs and S2 injector plugs, etc. If you haven't ordered a new loom already, then it is too late for your cutoff date, unless someones stalled project is willing to let you have their loom while they wait for a replacement.

Someone with a red car might be interested in your wife's Brazilian hatch with brake light insert.

 

Have already located a complete S2 96 engine with low km, loom and a bunch of other goodies. Just trying to scrape together some funds to make it happen, fingers crossed it all pans out.

 

Wow, that BBQ cleaner works well. Will have to remember that!

And love the Beemer

 

Do you want to sell that rear hatch infill panel off the red car?

 

Gave it to a local forum member yesterday sorry mate! Had a decent crack in it anyway.

 

Had planned to go full tilt at this thing all weekend but like the best laid plans of mice and men that idea got kicked in the dick pretty quickly.

Went out for a downshift cars and coffee lap with a good mate in his LS2 powered RX8 in the e30 and had a ball.





Chopped some proper supercars (gallardos, 997 GT3's, etc) had some excellent battles over the course of the morning with some cool stuff.
Unfortunately I got too excited and grenaded the engine (again) on the way home. Then while I was waiting for Harun to come back to rescue me, the poor bastard smacked a light pole in his rx8. So adding insult to injury we both had to fork out nearly $300 to drag our broken shit home.



I celebrated by taking the wife out to dinner and getting shit faced.

So finally hooked in on Sunday arvo and got shit done. Left the box in and pulled the motor out by itself, did actually make things a bit easier surprisingly.



Once the motor is off its mounts and slid forward an inch or so it's quite easy to get at all the top bell housing bolts.



Turns out the AC is still good so we dropped the compressor off the block and left it connected. Same with the PS pump and alternator. After that and the oil cooler lines were out it was a really simple job to come straight up and out.



Here's the ancillary bits left in the car.




Run out of room in the shed so covered up the motors so I can work on them outside during the week.



Turns out the motor from the red car has had the turbos replaced. Anyone able to shed some light on what spec the turbos are from the serial numbers?





So from here its work out what I have, what I can use and what I need to buy as cheaply as possible.



Anybody want to buy a bmw m20 stroker turbo motor to fund the mods and give me some garage space?

 

Clearly the logical solution is LS2 -> E30.

 

No updates for a while, been crook as **** with some kind of super flu for a week. Got a little bit done over the weekend before I crashed after my cocktail of flu drugs wore off.



Pulled the turbos off the dead motor. Surprisingly in excellent condition, no shaft play or end float at all.



14 thousand brackets and the complete oil filter assembly later got the sump off. Went to spin the motor over to check the crank and rods, wouldn't budge. ****, must have some good compression! Go to pull plugs out, already gone. Oh. Seized like a rusty dick in the bum.



Looks ok from this angle...







Till you look in the sump and the oil. I kid you not, the sump was full of rat droppings. I don't even know how that is possible. The sump was fully sealed when I removed it. There's also some random bits of plastic lying around in there too, no idea where they came from.

So next up is the sump swap (original one has a small hole from the accident) and either grab some AMS engine mounts or take some meat out of the giant Nissan items to give clearance for new intake and intercooler pipes which are a massive restriction in stock form.

Anybody want a short motor for dummy ups or a rebuild? Freebie, otherwise I might make a coffee table out of it down the track.

 

So unsurprisingly for most Z32 owners its been almost a year to the day between updates thanks to wedding, honeymoon, blown motor and subsequent rebuild on the E30, work and general 300zxCBF.

Major updates coming including the purchase of a previous 500rwhp project donor car, Nistune, injectors and what not. I want this bastard driving out of my garage before Christmas so watch this space!

 

So due to being made redundant about a week after making the last post there has been little movement on either project until recently. Obviously didn't get Z no1 out of the garage before Christmas 2015 but well on track to have it out of the shed by end of financial year 2016 which is better than nothing. Happy to report there is plenty of movement on all projects again due to scoring a great gig with far more liveable hours.

Have a bunch of pics to update all four (!) projects on the go currently but having some issues retrieving them from my phone. Will update in the next few days with a more full write up and pics.

 

So as what I know will come as a huge surprise to everyone the car didn't move before Christmas. A heap of stuff was purchased, stored and ignored until a rainy weekend recently motivated a garage rearrange and push ahead with Z32 number 1 (or two if you count the smashed donor parts car that started this whole thing originally). After being for multiple sprints in the Free30 (my 2jz converted E30 coupe detailed in another thread) my wife decreed that her car must be at least that fast. The original plan was just to swap over the good drivetrain from the red wrecked shell into this straight black roller and drive as is in relatively stock form. Because Z32's are a prick to work on pretty much everything needs to be done with the motor out so rather than put it together, pull it apart later, upgrade stuff and repeat I decided to just search for some decent go fast bits to go on/in once and be done with it.

After a few days surfing I had a set of hard to come by 555cc nismo injectors (because the S1 z32's have a strange shape and length injector that is different to just about everything else), Nistune, ECUtek reader thingo, set of cheapo 2.5" split stainless dumps, modified factory downpipes stepped up from 2.5" to 3" and a short shifter. Not a world beating setup by any stretch but enough to make probably 250-270rwkw on pump fuel with stock manual turbos once together and tuned. Got pictures that I'll update with shortly.

While searching for parts I came across a fellow zed forum guy selling a Z32 project and as is the way with these cars rather than buy bits and pieces we bought the whole damn thing. Will be doing a build thread on that when it gets moving.



So first thing needing to be done after removing the motor from the 2+2 was finish tidying up the donor motor to go back in. Attempted a compression test while on the stand was futile (got it mostly up near 100psi with a bit of oil in the bores) so inspected the bores with a drain camera, gave them the eyeball seal of approval and continued with the clean up.



Pretty filthy after sitting in a car under a tree for at least 4 years which is expected.




Pulled the inlet manifold off and deleted all the water and EGR lines hiding underneath. Gave it a wire wheel and then paint in Hitemp black to match the exterior.



The water lines run up and through the the throttle bodies, presumably for cars in colder climates to prevent them icing up. Trimmed the hard lines off the side of the throttle bodies and gave them both a good wire wheeling for a brushed look finish. I'll fill the holes with some kneadit or black sikaflex later to prevent any air being sucked in or blown out.



Also removed the fuel line, pressed out the old injectors, gave the lines and caps a solid wire wheeling then fitted the new (to me) 555 nismo jobs. Still tossing up if this gets E85 or not so might look at decapping them at this stage if its worthwhile.



Throttle bodies back on the manifold, looking pretty good at this point. Have since wire wheeled the manifold balance pipe and semi polished it, picked up a matching red throttle bell crank cover and dropped it on the motor to see what else looks daggy around it.

 

Continuing to chug away with little jobs at the moment, the cam covers look pretty haggard so giving them a clean up and paint.









Good sanding, a few coats of hi fill primer to remove the random gouges and scratches so far, just waiting for some time on a dry day to resand, prime and then paint. Considering cutting the covers open to show the cam gears and belt for something different but undecided as yet. I've got at least four complete sets of cam gear covers so experimenting with different ideas is on the cards.



Gave the water pipes a once over with the wire wheel as well, came up great although I'm thinking I might paint these black to tie in with everything.



Ebay special $63 dollar complete gasket set turned up as well, it's clearly not quite as good as the local gasket set I was going to buy but at a saving of $420 I'm happy to take the punt on most of the little gaskets I needed.



Thanks to my mate dropping around for a few beers with his Hilti rattle gun I knocked the crank bolt out so I could remove the lower timing cover and water pump and check out everything on the front of the motor.





The water pump had rusty goopy human slime caked in it from sitting for 5 years or so since it was last running. The pump impeller spins nice and smooth though so just going to scrap all the ooze out, give it a solid clean up and chuck it back on.



A few bits to clean up, paint and reinstall. Also did the rear main seal while I can get at it, the last one looked to have been leaking slightly. Was a prick of a job initially because the rear main supplied with the cheap gasket set of a gigantic pile of shit and would fold over itself when trying to push over the crank. Luckily I had a good quality spare new item so punched the shit thing out, kicked it in the bin for wasting my time and slotted the spare seal in which fitted like a godamned glove.






After I whipped the cam covers off I noticed some markings on the cam caps, clearly the engine has been out and apart before. The wife bought the car from a 300zx nutter originally who had done plenty of maintenance and upgrade work previously and it shows. The engine is minty fresh inside.





The cams look to have plenty of lift, wondering if they could possibly be aftermarket or regrinds. I compared them to a set of cams I got for Project 500 which are supposed to be pretty angry and they look similar so I guess we'll see when its running.





Also grabbed a few bits from a guy wrecking his zed which included a neat alloy hicas lock bar and an NA power steer pump and resivour to completely bin the complicated hicas system and tidy up the engine bay. If the weather is good this weekend I should be able to complete painting and tidying all the fiddly bits, reassemble everything on the motor including manifolds, turbos, cooling system and have it ready to go back in the car. I'll also turf the hicas system, get the car off stands and push it out of the garage to give everything in the engine bay a solid degrease and pressure wash ready for installation.



I chucked a the cam covers that came off the blue car on to cover everything up and keep the dust out, bit grubby and need a repaint but look ok otherwise.

 

So as per usual instead of working all weekend on this I got tied up with other projects helping mates and only spent a few hours last night before bed. Removed the entire hicas system and copped repeated loads of rust and dirt in the eyes working under a car that was stored outside (under a cover) for the last 5 years. Gave the front end a wipe down so I could lay my guard protectors over and was pleasantly surprised to find the paint in excellent condition with a heap of gold and silver sparkle mixed in so should look pretty good when it gets wheeled out for its first drive. Will be aiming to fit the hicas lockbar and reinstall tonight as well as the NA powersteering setup. I'd like to remove all the old hicas lines if possible but if it involves pulling half the car apart I'll just chop them out where visible to declutter things.

Might try to either find the tank drain plug or chuck a battery in and pump the old fuel out before the fuel system goes back together, no doubt there's litres of wonderful smelling super useable juice awaiting me on that task.

 

More work continuing, aiming to have the motor back in and at least running if not driving before October (which will mark two years this thing has been here!) A few more rainy days spent in the garage should knock that over comfortably.

Modified a set of spare cam covers to show the cam gears for something different, got the front of the motor cleaned up, got the gunge out of the water pump and bolted it all back together. I may have to pull everything off again for a timing belt and pulley replacement but I'd prefer to do it out of the car and definitely before it lunches a motor. It was supposedly done shortly before the donor car was involved in the accident but I'm yet to check service records to confirm. Inlet manifold and cam covers are now done in hi temp matt black with a few polished alloy bits dotted about the place. Looks pretty good. Bar chucking the sump back on and a bunch of hoses the motor is ready to go back in.







Also got around to fitting the stock turbos up to a set of ported and HPC coated factory manifolds along with some stainless 2.5" split dumps. Massive improvement over the factory cast right angle nuggets.










Few other little bits done, will update soon.

 

Your getting there mate, and it is looking good.

 

Thanks mate, hoping to have a big push over the long weekend and get the motor back in the car to have it moving under its own steam by next weekend to actually have it ready for my wife's birthday.

 

Got some time in over the weekend to get a bit more done. Closer inspection of rods and pistons revealed them to be cast factory items so not a built motor, not a surprise really.

Manifolds, turbos and most of the pipework bolted back on. Such a fiddly job even with the motor out.



Ti wrapped the exhaust manifolds and gave the inlet/outlet pipework a touch up in gloss black enamel.



Pulled all of the intercooler pipework out to remove the factory blow off valves. Every pipe removed resulted in a puddle of oil like this or bigger...



And unsurprisingly the intercooler itself had a nice oil bath happening in the bottom of it. The old engine from this shell was seized, damn thing must have pumped all its oil into the pipework!





Tonights job will be to cut the blow off valve stubs and weld them up for more SSSSSSTU TU TU TU once reinstalled



Also started giving the engine bay a clean up and degrease. My OCD wants to remove all of the wiring, brackets and smooth everything out to declutter the engine bay however because I'm not a sadomasochist I'll leave it as is and just close the bonnet.



It looks as though I'm going to have to pull the sump off again too. I left the dipstick in while putting everything together and now the bastard thing is stuck. Apparently leaving the dipstick in doing the sump is a cardinal VG sin because it gets jammed on the oil pickup or something.

As long as my mate up from South Australia doesn't rock up and drag me off to the strippers till 4:30am again I *should* be on track for reinstallation and crank this weekend. Fingers crossed!

Big shoutout to Niall from BrisEuro (I forget your name on here mate) for being super helpful with random bits and advice.

 

:rofl: Ohhhh come one you know you want too be a sadomasochist bitch and pull all the wiring and shit out and make it look all nice a purty. Come like the nike ad says " Just Do It " .