Thanks guys Its taken time to get all the right parts, but I'm stoked with how its slowly, but surely coming together Thanks Tov, means alot man I may need your help measuring the prop once the engine and box is in, but ill drop you a message nearer the time. So yesterday I went down to set the Powered by Max LCA's up, as I wanted to run them at their maximum length to try and mimic my old LCA's. Slapping all of this together was pretty straight forward, just following PBM's recommendation for the amount of thread engagement, then it was just a case of reinstalling the steering rods and ends and brakes. So after a couple of hours, it was finally on the floor! Ideally I wanted to keep the car in the air until the engine goes in, but I got a bit excited and had to lower it onto the floor to see the outcome This picture doesnt do much justice of how long the front subframe is, nor how low the car is. My old 13 was pretty low, and this was always going to be lower but its literally too low haha! The front wheels sit on the upper arch, so raising it around an inch is on the cards, but thats a job for Monday. (Ignore the silly camber, I left the top mounts set to full negative camber, so i'll try and dial a fair bit out!) And odd thing was that my front was toe'ing out massively, I'm putting this down to the Geometers as the mounting point on the hub is probably different, and the extra 5mm track the PBM LCA's have given me, as they are now essentially S14 LCA's +25mm, instead of the +20mm my old setup used to run.) The rear fitment is so good though! No spacers too So today I'm hoping me and a friend can sort out the shifter linkage on the gearbox as it needs to be shortened, and then it should be a case of getting some gearbox oil and then the engine and gearbox SHOUD be ready to drop into the car. Wish me luck
Nope, its either I source and buy a 350Z prop and chop the yoke off, or I find a shop that sells the yoke individually. So since it was back on all four's with a ridiculous ride height, I couldn't stop taking pictures. I wish I could keep it at the height it was, but its not practical (read that as usable, the car would even move as the upper arch was just sat on the tyre!) After lifting the Z33 box into the back of my car by myself, it was time to quickly pop to a friends unit, where a friend offered some welding the shifter linkage to meet the new shorter Mazworx shifter. In theory this should be straight forward, cut the rod between either mounting points to make it as physically short as possible, weld it together and happy days. And it was exactly that! After the linkage was cut, a few tacks were laid down and it just so happened to be that the first attempt lined up perfectly, all 6 gears plus reverse would engage. (I was having issues with the standard adjustment plate on top on the stock shifter, as this is supposedly meant to restrict movement in the shifter from going past 5th and 6th gear. Thankfully, the new Mazworx adjuster solved this instantaneously to me relief! So now the box works exactly as it should ) Now it was time to reassemble the box, bolt it back to the engine and get the engine ready to go in! I was going to wait until I dropped the gearbox oil in as I was a bit worried about accessing the fill plug once the engine is in. Having spoken to a friend with an SR/Z33 conversion, he assured me its doable with a suction pump The reason why a tubular front is so useful After 5 minutes with a friends help and the worlds best engine crane, it was almost in. (The straps look a bit messy, but I always run a single primary strap to do the lifting, with another as a precaution should the first snap, which is unlikely due to the loads they are built to take. Better safe than sorry eh.. ) Once it was in, I couldn't help but stand in amazement for about 5/10minutes. I was pretty overwhelmed with how well everything works together, and the fact I'm so so glad I went with the Candy Apple Red engine bay over the gold I originally first had in my mind! We did come across a problem with the Collins Performance gearbox mount however, even though it fitted fine when the car was with Huxley getting the exhaust work done. After looking at the mount, I could see the marks from the bolts were at their maximum adjustment, and since then I've had the bell housing machined to accommodate the adapter plate. So a quick bit of thinking meant 2x 12mm holes were drilled slightly more forward, both of which lined up exactly, albeit with a little bit of enlarging to make sure the bolts go in straight. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of this so more of a heads up to anyone reading who follows in my footsteps regarding the SR/Z33 conversion. Quickly threw the tubular slam panel back on, as well as the Mishimoto oil cooler, intercooler and rad Whilst the engine was out, we quickly installed the Mazworx fuel rail and ID1000cc injectors Thankfully, these seem to fit as they should which was a relief, considering how the standard rail did want to fit. But i suppose this fuel rail has been tried and tested by Mazworx on the Greddy inlet :roll eyes: Ignore the front fitting on the fuel rail, I threw that on just to close of the fuel rail. Mazworx's kit only comes with one AN6 fitting, and one blanking orb/plug. I can only guess this is because they assume you will fit the standard fuel pressure regulator? Who knows, i'll measure up the threads and grab an AN6 male fitting when I order the rest of the AN fittings for the fuel, power steering and oil cooler setups. When fitting the Mazworx Z33 relocated shifter, it was apparent I had to "trim" the trans tunnel a bit more than I already had. Its a bit fiddly getting it in, but I'm not expecting to be removing it anytime soon. Im hoping to take my Bride down tomorrow to see how it feels, but like a friend said, the Z33 shifter "arcs" from side to side as you shift. It feels a bit weird, but with a bit of getting used to I'm sure it'll be just fine. I did have a bit of a nightmare when fitting the shifter however, as I completely forgot to tighten up 7x 10mm bolts on a plate that covers the shifter/selector mechanism. I could have maybe gotten away with squeezing a spanner to reach the bolts with an SR box, but the sheer size of the Z33 box meant this was a no go So I had to quickly remove the shifter and drop the gearbox mount to allow the box to pivot, and thankfully this was enough to reach, and tightness all 7 bolts with ease, phew!
I started adjusting the front end setup today, which was mainly raising the front and beating the front arches to try and get some kind of clearance on lock. I wont know for sure what clearance will be until I get the castor setup, but smashing the inner arches can be quite therapeutic As you may notice, I also installed the brackets to try and stop the brake line away from getting caught As today started off with quite nice weather, it'd be rude to not let the car see some daylight, and then proceed to find the largest hammer I have and "massage" the rear arches I raised the rear a bit too, as it was sitting uneven with the drivers side tucking rim statically. Im hoping this ride height will still be pretty low and under compression it'll tuck rim This is how the ride height sit as of tonight; A few tweaks are still needed, as the drivers side sits lightly lower I did find a problem with the bonnet however, quite a common one it seems. The most rearward vent hit the top of the valve/rocker cover which is a right pain in the ass to be honest as it never did this when the engine was last in the car. I can only think its because of the Vibratechnic engines mounts being slightly larger than the Japspeed ones that were in the car beforehand. So my option are to either cut/trim a hole for the bonnet to close as it should, or possibly try to space the rear hinges to ease the angle the bonnet has to sit at. I'll try the latter tomorrow, even though I'm not a fan of raised bonnet, it may save cutting a hole in an expensive bonnet
Just read your last few updates mate, incredible work, starting to look awesome! I also don't understand how people run so low when the upper arch is a problem, even my car shows signs of rubbing the upper arch and its not even that low lol Keep up the good work man almost there
Haha it seems that way, especially with Marc's gorgeous JZX it can never be a bad thing Just get that TD06 fired up and come join us xx Yup, it depends how far you want to take it really. I could theoretically get the upper chassis leg cut and welded. But to me, I never wanted to tuck rim up front, it just so happened the Geo's dropped the ride height alot more than I was anticipating. Hopefully I plan to run around an inch from the upper leg, which given my coilovers should be enough clearance. haha, thanks guys. I'll try and keep the updates coming when I can So with the engine, gearbox and shifter all installed for what I hope to be the final time, I thought it would be a good idea to throw my seat in to see how the shifter feels. A friend of mine was saying about how much nicer it is with the shifter sitting a couple of inches further back, which I completely agree with! Im not the tallest of guys, but with my seat on my old settings (which is fairly low) the shifter feels like its in a much more natural position. After playing around with the shifter and handbrake again, I seriously can't wait to see how this feels out on track. For those with a keen eye, you'll see I've had to raise the rear of the bonnet using 3 nuts/25mm ish. Even though the Vibratechnic engine mounts state they are the OEM height, I can't help but feel they are slightly bigger as the bonnet never used to foul the valve cover. Hey ho, I never used to like bonnet spacers in terms of aesthetics, but I suppose they depend on the car in question as it's slowly starting to grow on me... In addition to raising the bonnet I still had to "trim" the bonnet which was something I really, really did not want to do. Today's job was mainly about measuring the prop. Originally, I was sold on the idea of modifying the original 2-piece Nissan prop like a friend (Diamondsink) had done to his, albeit with a Z32 box. After spending a few hours online, I came to the decision to purchase a 1-piece aluminium prop from America, Shaftmasters more specifically. This was because the price differential isn't as much as you'd have thought, especially by the time I purchase a Carbon 350Z prop just to cut the metal yoke off, and then pay for somewhere to professionally cut and balance the new "hybrid" prop. I wasn't really confident on the idea of measuring the prop as its something I've never done before, but everyday is a learning day i suppose! Anyway, I got in contact with David @ Shaftmasters and he talked me through the measuring process with this simple diagram; So firsts thing first was to get the car back in the air, yet again! But this time I need to make sure the car is loaded/suspension is compressed. Shaftmaster's do offer an "S13 Non-ABS with Z33 Transmission" prop, but as I've machined the bell housing I wasn't really sure whether my measurements would be the same as theirs. But with a little bit of luck, my measurements came back at 1247/1248mm, which luckily enough is the same as their measurements! Worst case scenario was that the prop would be made to suit my setup, but having the same measurements did put my mind at ease somewhat. As for those intrigued how the Z33 box sits inside an S13 tunnel, here's what it looks like; So thats me up to date for the moment. Ive ordered a few little parts up, one of which being yet more AN fittings! But hopefully this means I only have a few more to get in the due course of time when I need them. One of the issues I do have is mounting the Greddy/Grex/Trust sandwich plate due to the side of it, as I'd like for it to be mounted to the side of the front arches, but the size of the AN fittings and oil filter are making things a little bit more difficult than they should be. In my head I have the idea of mounting it vertically, so that the oil filter is positioned horizontally. (Similar to how they naturally sit on the SR20 block, albeit facing the opposite direction)
Fairly small update; Ive been toying around with how to fit the Greddy/Trust oil filter relocation plate, as its quite bulky and with 4 AN fittings, it needs quite a bit of space around it. I wasn't keen on the idea of mounting the filter vertically upwards in case the filter doesn't have a one way valve(?) to stop any crap falling back into the oil. With this in mind, I want the filter to be mounted horizontally, similar to how they are naturally on the SR20, just facing the other way as I would like to mount the plate onto the front arch. So first things first was to order an oil filter so I can test a few locations. Thanks to Driftworks I grabbed 2 OEM filters, one being for the run in procedure, and the later for when the engine is ready to get wound up a bit. I checked the Greddy thread against my old oil filter to make sure they are the same, which they are. But it appears today when trying to mount the filter that the thread engagement is less than ideal which is annoying. I can get the filter to go tight, but I'm not sure whether i'd have any piece of mind as the seal on the filter makes contact before the first thread does. I'll do some research as I remember Greddy recommends on of their filters which may help things. In order to finish of the fuel system, I finally bought some of the remaining AN fittings from Torques now the engine & fuel rail is in place. Fuel lines all done; I quickly threw on some old BM50 BMC I had lying around just to gauge clearance on the line running from the FPR to the fuel rail. Hopefully my BM57 turns up soon so I can get that finalised too. I did notice the S13 clutch master cylinder wont fit with the Greddy inlet due to the length and positioning of the bleed nipple. After scouting the internet this seems to be an issue with people running the Greddy inlet on RB conversions too, where an S14/R33 master cylinder is much shorter but maintains the same cylinder bore size. Fingers crossed this will be a solution to my problem too. With the fuel lines done, I turned my attention back to the Greddy sandwich plate and the oil cooler lines. I finally managed to find an area on the side of the arch which allows an easy removal of the filter which trying to make the lines as easy as possibly. The annoying thing is that as it's mounted, the directional flow of the oil to and from the sandwich plate means the fittings aren't opposite to each other, meaning one line needs to be higher than another in order to cross over. You may get a better idea below; Note how the closest 90* fitting in the picture has to meet up with the fitting on the block that is the furthest away, hence the cross over idea by tilting the plate a bit. Next up was the oil cooler lines from the sandwich plate, which was a much more relaxing job due to more space and a much more simple line design was needed. So I'm pretty sure that is most of the AN lines made up now. Im just waiting for the power steering reservoir to turn up as that has AN6 fittings, but they should be a simple case of use some push on hose in order to plumb up the steering rack > cooler > reservoir.
awesome work mate, the only criticism I have, if you could call it that, would be to keep a close eye on those AN fittings, the ones they sell are Chinese made and not the best in my experience - especially the swivel fittings which can be a little slack - you don't want the O ring failing on the oil feed line spraying oil all over the turbo!, I ended up binning mine and replaced them with ones from earl's and speedflow. p.s, if you order earls fittings from summit racing they're 1/4 of the price they are in the UK, still works out cheaper even after shipping etc
Yeah, I'm a bit cautious about AN fittings in general as I've never really touched them. But for sure, I'll be keeping a close eye on them. A few friends of mine run the Torques stuff and all seems fine, but I completely understand where you're coming from Worst case scenario is that I now know exactly which fittings I need so can happily buy in bulk from the 'states
Use an s13 filter with those plates. I think they say to use an ae86 filter but they are tiny. The s13 filter has less dish to the thread then the s14 filter so screws on loads plus its slightly bigger.
Awesome, thanks dude. Not alot has happened to be honest, which is annoying and frustrating but hey ho, thats the process of a long build I suppose. I managed to finally find myself a BM57 Brake Master Cylinder, although it is an ABS version but thats nothing a T-piece will sort out. Hopefully this will be more suited to the front brake setup, but time will tell I suppose, plus the brakes are always a very personal thing in regards to feeling. I finally got around to emptying the fuel tank as it still had fuel in from when the previous owner broke the car for parts, which is a shade over 1 year. Plus, it allowed me to see the condition of the tank, as the last thing I want is dirt/rust clogging the fuel filters and causing issues down the line. But thankfully, it looks pretty clean inside! I went about finding another Walbro 255lph in-tank pump too as I ran my old one for around 4-5years without any issues, but it was something i'd like to replace now with a fresh filter to make sure it'll be fully working in the next couple of years to come. I got a bit bored too, and after flicking back through this thread it was cool to see how far the car has come along in the space of a year; The next thing I wanted to sort out was the intake, and with so many people running various generic filters I wasnt too sure which route to go with mine. So cue a quick chat with Martin @ MB and I went with his recommendation; a 3" K&N filter. But all of this wasnt without an issue of course, but this time it came in the form of the S13 Clutch Master Cylinder. So the long story cut short is that the Greddy inlet plenum is quite a bit larger and sits completely different to the standard inlet (Obviously duhhhh haha ) but this also means the standard clutch master cylinder is too long! Great.. After doing a bit more research, this appears to be quite common when using an RB25 with a Greddy inlet in an S13. The common solution to this is to use an S14/R33 clutch master cylinder as they are the same 5/8 piston/cylinder but with a much shorter design. Now before I went ahead and bought one I search the internet for hours trying to find the dimensions of the shorter clutch master cylinder to make sure it fits. As I couldn't find the answers, i'll answer my own query in here so anybody with a similar problem in the future can see. S13 CMC on the top, R33 CMC on the bottom; R33 CMC length - Around 78mm in the length S13 CMC - Approx. 117/118mm in length. And with a little bit of filing it fits, phew! So thats another problem resolved, and hopefully I can get the clutch line made up soon Before I installed the R33 CMC for good, one thing Martin advised me on was to swap the "Clevis" (Don't worry if you have no idea what that is, I didnt either Its just the end "fork", which as you can see in the comparison picture, they are different lengths to suit their respective pedal setup). I didnt really see how the pedal would've sat with the R33 clevis, but with the R33 CMC & S13 clevis the pedal sits identical to how it used to in my old S13 All bolted in for good measure, its quite a bit shorter than I was anticipating too which is nice. Obligatory engine picture! Im sorry for whoring it off haha. (Im not sorry ) One thing I read on the US forums surrounding a 1-piece aluminium driveshaft/prop on an S-chassis is that they tend to use the centre bearing support bracket as a safety feature. I do have reservations about how well it'd stop the driveshaft if something let go bit I suppose for the sake of 2 bolts, its better than nothing. I got these in the post yesterday. For the radiator hoses I went with Mishimoto again as quite simply I can't get enough of their stuff, everything looks really well made so I can't complain. The top hose will need some trimming as the radiator sits a little closer to the engine, and the GKTech water neck spacer offsets the outlet on the engine, nothing that can't be sorted. I also bought a 2" cast alloy elbow, which I plan to get Tig welded onto the compressor housing. This is mainly for reliability, as I always tend to see 90* bends blow off the compressor housing, whether that's down to user error or not, it'll be a relatively straight forward process and I can get a barb/nipple welded on at the same time for the boost control.
Next up was the gearbox oil, which after many hours of scouring the internet I finally settled on Redline MT90, with the idea being a GL4 oil it should help to keep the Z33's syncro's in check I've ordered various little silicone joiners today to start and start on the intercooler piping. Im planning on using 2.5" piping on the hot side and 3" on the cold side which will be ample for my current and future power levels. Im hoping my Chasebay's overflow tank and power steering reservoir turn up this week so I can get them mounted. But apart from that, its just a case of completely all of th plumbing before getting in touch with MB to finalise mapping details and sorting the wiring out. I also wrote up this mini blog post; Hopefully I can be a bit more active on there once the car is done Yet another PS13, but this one is mine.
