Ricky, Russell, and myself went over and worked on the 240 today and got a lot of stuff buttoned up. Hooked up the heater hoses, re installed the drive shaft, and built a bracket to mount my power steering resivoir in a new spot that will be better for the setup I will be running. To top the evening off we threw a new battery on the car and got it to fire up. Due to me still needing to get some piping made it didnt idle real smooth or stay running for long but it started, It’s the most excited ive been about my car in a long time. Not too much longer now. I am going to pick up the exhaust and another “pair” of goodies tomorrow for it as well

So Ricky went with me yesterday to work on the 240 and we made quite a bit of head way and its now only a few pieces away from firing up. I had some under dash plugs (abandoned body harness disconnection attempt that i didnt button back up) to get put back together and while I was doing that Ricky got the HID’s hooked up and the ballasts mounted.

Driver side

Passenger side

And with the addition of some LED amber corner light bulbs and a jump start from Ricky’s Civic, there was life in my 240 for the first time in over a year!

We also mocked up my Gracer sides and rear valences, Im pretty excited to see what everything looks like with the lip and with paint.

The last task of the night was getting the new ISIS fuel pump installed.

Here is the old pump that was in the tank

New pump

Getting the new pump wired into the connector and fastened to the fuel pump bracket/assembly.

After installation we hit the power again and heard the fuel pump cut on thankfully. All in all it was a very productive day and hopefully the car will be running in the coming weeks.

So June 21st, been awhile. Its been about that long since any significant work has been done on my car as well. Between moving into and getting everything situated with my wife and I’s new home and getting married, I really haven’t had the time to work on my money pit. In the mean time I have accumulated quite the stock pile of parts that had to be installed including:

• Fortune 500 series coilovers
• HKS shift return springs
• Custom aluminum power steering res.
• Nismo slave cylinder
• Wiring specialties S14 SR2oDET wiring harness
• Isis short throw shifter
• Circuit sports crystal clear headlight lenses
• Crystal clear corner lights
• HID kit
• Isis Steel braided turbo lines
• Vertex engine damper

and probably some other things I cant remember…

 This week Russ and I started working to knock stuff out on the car and get it closer to being on the road. We got the engine installed a couple of weeks ago and ran the engine harness but nothing really beyond that. At that point it sat like this.

With the engine in the car I wanted to concentrate on the brakes, suspension, and getting the transmission squared away as far as installing the slave cylinder, drive shaft, shifter, and getting that section of the lower wiring harness run. I started with the brakes. The swap was pretty straight forward and aside from trimming the dust shield behind the new, larger, rotors, there was no snags.

After breezing through the brake install, next up came the coilovers, with which Reid lent a hand. Initially we dropped both the front and rears as far as they would go before install. The front was fine with them dropped all the way down and without removing any collars. The rears were a different story as Fortunes go much much lower than my old D2′s did. With the wheels dragging along the upper fender wells, they were adjusting to the appropriate height for what i wanted. My wheels were also reinstalled.

The next task at hand was getting all of the transmission stuff squared away. Russell assisted in getting the drive shaft installed and I installed the slave cylinder and ran the plumbing for it to the master, installed my HKS shift return springs, and new Isis short throw shifter. Once these were installed, the tranny mount was bolted up and the car actually left the garage for the first time in nearly a year while we turned it around and cleaned up the work space.

While this work was going on, there was also progress being made in regard to my headlights. Gary with SAGE Auto and I had previously installed my new clear lenses on to my headlights but when I got them to the shop and gave them a close look it appeared that there wasn’t a great seal around the entire housing. We decided to go ahead and redo them with more material and better means of clamping than we used before. With some assistance from my dad and some of his clamps, I think they will be good to go.

Housing in the vice without a lense.

With lense installed and clamped while sealant “set up”.

I really cant wait for these to be done and on the car, Ive always despised my stock yellowish lights. As of tonight the car looks like this, stay tuned for updates as more gets done!!

So some new parts for the SR came in today from Ken over at Enjukuracing.com so I can get it back together. I received new front and rear main seals, a new valve cover gasket, spark plug hole seals, and some braided front brake conversion lines for the Z32 brake swap. I also ordered some rotors but they haven’t arrived.

I also started to strip my two repaired wheels so I could deliver them to the powder coater. Well after two days of failed attempts with the sand blaster at my work and various paint strippers, they were dropped off over at Precision Powder coating today so the professionals can take care of it. Hopefully by Friday Ill have four fresh white Work Meisters again.

Hopefully Ill have a reassembled SR20 by the end of the week!

So its been about 5 months since I posted on this and unfortunately it’s been about that long since I even touched the 240. Ive had a lot going on the last few months from starting to plan my fiance and I’s wedding, looking for a home, buying a home, and just other things that have been occupying my time and money preventing me from putting those things towards the car. That being said I finally have an update!

Although I still owe a little money for my engine, Raz let me go pick it up this past weekend so I could start work on it. Russell and I went over to the shop last night to get cracking. This is how the engine sat from when we dropped it off last Friday (Sorry the pics are kind of blurry)

We removed the wiring harness, pulled off the transmission, and removed the clutch, pressure plate, and flywheel. It was then hoisted up onto the engine stand.

Overall the engine was pretty clean but Raz had mentioned that the timing chain cover was leaking oil and that was definitely clear from the oil on the cover. I couldn’t really tell EXACTLY where the leak was coming from so we just pulled off the whole thing, and both the upper and lower oil pans for fresh RTV to ensure a good seal. I also had a brand new water pump I planned on installing so I removed the water pump as well. Since all of this was off anyway, the front and rear main seals are also getting replaced. All of the turbo gaskets and a new set of braided turbo lines are being installed so the turbo assembly was also removed. So below is pretty much where we left off last night. I still need to buy the seals so the oil pans could not go back on due to the way the rear seal needs to be installed. Stay tuned….

OMGHAI2U!!

My new 300Z brakes came in yesterday. I picked them up for a steal and the guy I bought them from had already cleaned them up and painted. Unfortunately they leaked some fluid during shipping and some of the paint had gotten eaten up so I decided to strip/repaint them.

After pouring some acetone on the painted areas

And after hitting them with a wire wheel on an air drill

Since I have more VHT copper left over from the bay I’m doing the brakes in it too and sanding the letters back down so they’ll be silver. I’ll probably end up painting them this weekend or the beginning of next week.

I also went ahead and put on some 20mm project Kics spacers on the front replacing the 10mm Ichiba ones that were previously on there.

While I was working on the spacers my little bro attacked my driver side motor mount that the nut rounded off on with a little help from a sawzall and a drill.

Went ahead and threw the fenders on because Stephen (Wishihadasilvia) will be re rolling my fenders shortly prior to paint and also test fitted the hood to make sure the air box didnt hit it.

It did.

So with the help of a hole saw drill bit that was just a hair larger than the round threaded piece that protrudes out from the bottom of the box for mounting, we drilled out a piece of metal that allowed us to drop the box another inch or so and the hood shut just fine.

Crappy picture of what I was talking about.

Upon putting on the top part of the bumper support and the headlights, it was clear the intercooler was up too high and was hitting the lights and top section of the bumper support. Thankfully the hole that is used to adjust the hood latch up or down is the same that the intercooler mounts in so I just pushed it down another inch or two and everything cleared.

How we left it last night. (The headlights are going to have clear lenses on them when this is finished instead of the yellow ones)

Tonight I went back over and got a little bit of work done on the car. Here is a shot from tonight before I did any work. This is with the fuse box installed, body harness installed, lower engine harness removed, power steering reservoir installed, and air box installed for mock up purposes to make sure it is low enough to not hit the hood when closed.

First thing that got done is while I was cleaning up the AC (yes I’m running air conditioning) lines and painting the mounting bracket for the expansion valve, my little bro that was giving me a hand cut up a piece a metal to make a bracket for my junction box for my battery relocation. It had originally been mounted where my battery tray used to be but part of the plastic bracket had cracked off due to the tray not being flat and I wanted to move it to the strut tower. It turned out great where we mounted it and it is extremely solid.

I tossed the fitting for my new Isis high pressure power steering line on the PS rack while waiting on paint to dry on the expansion valve mounting bracket.

I also went ahead and mounted up my intercooler to make sure all of the brackets lined up and it fit between my bumper support and the radiator support. As someone that has only had generic, ebay type intercoolers and always having to had made brackets, it was awesome to just be able to line it up and bolt it on without having to drill or modify anything. I also think I am going to end up running no hood latch and just run aero catch hood pins due to the extra stress on the hood latch cables from the way I want to route it causing me to have broken 2 so far and I like look of not having the latch on there.

To cap off the evening I went ahead and installed all of the AC components.

I’m really excited to see the engine bay coming together because its come a long way since I started this project.

I had picked up an ARC air box from Stephen awhile back and had sandblasted and repainted it but was unhappy with the result. The rivets I used to reattach the name plate were too large causing the plate to bow and there were runs in the paint so I decided to redo it.

Box after sandblasting

Coat of primer

After paint (VHT gloss black epoxy paint)

Next was reattcahing the name plate. I went ahead and picked up a rivet gun, some thin 3m double sided tape, and the correct sized rivets.

Cleaned name plate and applied tape.

Installed

Ill have pics of it in the engine bay tomorrow.

Ok so Tuesday night I went over and got a little bit more work done on the car.

Ive always hated how the strut mounting nuts damage the paint on the strut towers and didn’t want to risk ruining the paint that I JUST layed down so I grabbed some rubber washers from Lowes and they did the trick. I forgot to take pics with the damn nuts on but ill grab some next time i go over.

I also wanted to put something around the holes that my IC pipes will be running through so I don’t nick up the pipes as I’ve had happen in the past. I opted to use some generic door trim I picked up at advanced auto. It worked like a charm

I also installed my braided clutch line (also forgot to take a pic of it from the other side, I’m slacking ha ha)

Next I decided to start on the wiring harness. Just from being 15 years old, a lot of the tape on the harness is starting to rot/come off so I decided to re wrap a lot of it, as well as remove the hard plastic elbows that bend the harness in factory form to where it mounts in the bay. I am tucking it up more than the factory does do removing them made it much easier to bend the harness how I needed. All I have is before shots of the harness but will have updated pics tomorrow. I also removed the lower harness for the started/alternator/transmission as I am getting a brand new one for the swap (mine is damaged beyond the point to where I want to bother using it.)

I should have some updated pics up tomorrow.

So my little brother Russell and I went out to my dad’s tonight and starting putting the engine bay of the 240 back together. Threw some fresh paint on the brackets and brake booster, got them mounted, and also went ahead and mounted the brake and clutch master cylinders. We also resprayed the cowl cover, mounted the wiper motor, and ABS module. I’m pretty excited to see the engine bay coming together.