350sx NW Build up

[KansaiDrifter]

Sorry for the lake of updates, we had some family stuff to take care of but got that all out of the way now so it's back on! I'm crossing my fingers that my harness comes in tomorrow with the slip yolk, if it does it's possible it'll be road worthy this weekend

I went down to the hydraulic store and got a clutch line made, just used the dot brake line hose and high pressure metric fittings. I had it made 36" long and it's just right to me. I routed it under and behind the brake booster for that hidden look. Fits great.

I also got more work done on the exhaust but I didn't get pics yet. Hopefully I'll be about done tomorrow. Fitting a s14 muffler to a s13 is a pain lol. But the price was right (free) haha

[ridge]

your build is sexy haha. NW unite

[irax]

Yeah I just used the Auto->Manual conversion clutch line, though I like yours better

[KansaiDrifter]

haha yeah NW in the house lol

Yeah I thought about just getting a conversion line, but then I found that I could get a great deal on that line but the conversion line would work fine too.

Yeah got a phone call today from Zfever, apparently my harness wasn't shipped out a week ago It was found witha couple others that hadn't been shipped yet so they shipped it express, hopefully we'll see it Friday or Monday. Was really hoping to fire it this weekend but oh well I guess.

Oh I also did some research about driveline joints, since I got the slip yolk comming, I figured I'd order the rest to get it ready. Here's the numbers if anyone else is curious,

End Flange Yoke (part that bolts to the rear diff) Spicer# 2-2-1309
Ujoint bearing (this is the greasable one) Spicer# 5-153x
Tube Yoke joint (part that tube is welded to, need 2 of these) Spicer# 2-28-437

The tube yoke is for a 3" tube, there's all sorts of sizes but 3" seems pretty standard. The tubing I'll need is 48" (will be extra long) and is 3.000"x.083" DOM tubing.

I'm unsure of the front bearing because I don't know the size of the slip yoke bearing holes yet, probably the same though. All in all it'll be about a $300 driveshaft after buying all the ends, tube and having it welded/balanced. Half of it is the slip yolk so if you can find one off a G35 or a 350z in a junkyard for cheap then you could save a lot of money.

[KansaiDrifter]

Alrighty, sorry for the huge delay in posting, we had to do some around the house clean up and I had to spend my car time on that, too many Dew cans haha.

So I finally called up FedEx today and the harness won't be here until Thursday, this really sucks and puts me in a bind because that pushes everything back towards this weekend and it'll be a tight one.

That's going to put me in a bind, it's going to make getting it finished for this weekend and hassle but it's doable still. I can't build the driveline yet since I need the slip yoke that's in the harness box for Thursday so that's on hold but I've got the exhaust all buttoned up finally lol.

Here's some pics, I went and used header wrap for the downpipes to protect the fuel lines on the passenger side and the floor boards on both sides. The passenger side was priority so it got fully wrapped and I used the remainder on the drivers side.


Here's the Y pipe we made, it's using my midpipes, a dual 2 1/4" into a 3" Y pipe out of a late 80's Suburban and the leftover piece of u bend from the downpipes haha.


And here's the rest, it is a single piece from the Y pipe back, it's easier to work with and won't leak anywhere. It is a 2 person job to install it but that's no biggy when your garage has a lift haha.



Here's a shot at frame rail level, it stays with the rails right until going under the subframe, but it'll still have a solid 5" of clearance or so. I'm not worried about scrapping. The patches of metal are there because the rear section is used and for a s14, so I had to pie cut it and patch it to re-angle it a bit. It also had some scraped through sections so I patched those up also.

[sftmb]

lookin good!^_^ yeah i like how close to the body your exhaust sits instead of some of the other ones that hang down super low. lol and also i spy a soon to be purple type-x! haha

[C-unit]

everytime i see your update..i just want to go work on my cars! but again..i don't have a lift nor motivation...

[KansaiDrifter]

Haha yeah it takes the motivation most. The lift is a overkill tool I think, one of those things that I never thought about owning until I had the chance to buy one/a shop that was tall enough. And now I won't move without it haha.

So I got a good surprise in the mail and at Napa. Got the Zfever harness and ecu reflashed back along with the Slip yoke. I also picked up the rest of the driveline parts from Napa, just ordered those spicer pieces listed above. I did end up getting a 1310 to 1330 u joint since the slip yoke takes a 1330 and the rest are 1310's. So it's a 5-134x u joint from Spicer.

Here's the harness, ecu, pedal, slip yoke. I mainly shot this part of the harness because it's the main conversion section from what I can see off the bat. I think the most conversion of it is in the ecu, but the wire colors that go to like switched 12v are totally different from most other Nissan engines so it would of taken me a while to do lol.


Here's all the driveline stuffs, the u joint on the right is the odd ball for the front joint.


I also got a 14" flex a lite fan for the radiator, biggest one that will fit on the actual fin surface of the radiator. It'll pull 1350cfm, should be plenty to cool her down, especially with the 3 row Mishimoto



Now it's just get the wiring installed, get the driveshaft welded up, balanced and hoping everything works haha.

[irax]

Originally Posted by KansaiDrifter

where is your dash plug?

[tricky_ab]

Owning a lift in my garage is on my wish list (Finding a house with a tall garage is going to be interesting the next time I'm planning to move). Anyways, keep it going!

[KansaiDrifter]

Oh I didn't send them the under dash plug, I figured It'll get done that much faster without it and it's only a couple wire so I could do them the way I wanted. I did end up using the brown (92) underdash plug to run the tach signal from the MSD Tach Driver to Yellow/Red and water temp gauge sensor signal to the Blue/Black.

Here's a pic of the in the middle stage of wiring, not a whole lot of wiring but I took my time on it to do it clean. I ran the Red and yellow wires to the steering column where I could easily tap into a full time battery and a switched 12v source. I also found a nasty job of what looked like a possible alarm at one time? I took the end off another column and did it right ( I was too lazy/tired to grab the camera for that lol)



Here's the MSD Tach Driver when I talked to the Zfever wiring guys they said you need this to run a tach for the 240sx, it simply intercepts the +12v power source wire to the coil packs and reads the pulses and turns that into a squarewave signal for a tach. I spliced it into the White/Blue wire for coil pack #1, It had a yellow/red (ecu signal - ) a black ground and then the white/blue +12v. It happens to be the same loop for the timing gun hook up so hopefully that works correct.


Here's where I spliced it in


Here's the ecu bolted in, I just zip tied the obd plug there for now, If I can figure out how to get the kick panel around the cage I'll flush mount it on that.


I also installed the gauge temp sensor using the 89-90 factory fan electric thermostat switch housing. I just drilled a hole and tig'd a m12x1.25 nut on there. I put it to the incoming side on purpose so that if temps read high on that side I know there's a cooling issue. I also hooked the fan through that switch and a auxiliary toggle switch in the cockpit to override it if needed. The factory kick on was around 190F so I'm using that as just a safety if I forget to turn the fan on or if the switch fails.


Got all the rest of the bolts today for the exhaust to final bolt it up and seal it. Got all m10x1.25 threads, same as factory studs. I got the grade 8 bolts for the driveline. I also always use these brass pieces when I do swaps like s13 to s14 where the s13's heater core is smaller diameter then the s14, these 3/4" to 1" adpaters work perfect. I get these from Lowe's.



And since one of the newer tracks up here requires no antifreeze because it can ruin the surface I run Watter Wetter, it's on their ok list and I want something to prevent corrosion. Probably when the track's closed for winter I'll swap it out for antifreeze.


And here it is, I've cranked it over a bit with the ecu un hooked to just get some oil circulating and make sure the starter works. So far so good. Only thing left is to put the driveline in, silicon the exhaust flanges, and get some vacuum line for the brake booster line, it goes all the way to the passenger side lol. Cool part is that I hooked up the ecu and re hooked the battery up and turn the key on and you can hear the thorttle body move when the gas pedal is moved haha. Weird with no cable lol


Almost there!

[irax]

Originally Posted by KansaiDrifter

still not quite sure how legit this is. wouldn't it put un-needed strain to the water pump? what other cars run their coolant system like this?

[KansaiDrifter]

IT RUNS!

Yeah I started the day with trying to figure out why the fuel pump wasn't kicking on, I had already grounded out the black/pink stripe wire and found that it wasn't getting a +12v signal, so I traced it all the way to the front fuse box and ran a wire to it from the ignition switch instead for less hassle. Got that figured out, tried to fire it after setting the fpr about 52psi, still wasn't firing, bumped up the psi, tried to fire, bumped it one more time and it ran lol. It's a ebay fpr so I figured it was going to show way off.

Fired it up the first time and it ran pretty good, seemed to be missing though. I took the msd tach driver box out of the loop since the tach wasn't working anyway and it cleared it out and ran great. It's got a touchy rev in neutral haha.

I did take it out for a drive and I love these Megan Type RS coilovers, they ride smooth and it's nice and soft haha. It's easily the best daily driver set I've had.

We noticed a bit of air in the system and pressure so I'm going to swap hoses and try it the other way tomorrow. Seems like a pain to bleed, I'm thinking swapping sides will help.

The last thing I've got to address is the alternator, doesn't seem to be charging, staying at 12v while running, only runs good because I've got a good battery I bet lol.

Here's a few pics, oh and video tomorrow!
Here's the driveshaft installed,


Plenty of clearance haha


Here's the Throttle pedal after being heated with the torch and bent to shape, it was basically on the floor before so we brought it forward and up a bit. It could be bent down just a tiny bit still but it's pretty good.



And here's after it's maiden voyage,

[97240TB]

We had to run a loop in my alternator system because it wasn't charging. I'd call Zfever and ask them what they suggest you do. I Basically ran a small white pink striped wire to a ground point and it makes it charge.

the MSD tach box was causing your engine to misfire? sounds shitty I believe Autometer makes a signal box for this, costs like 75ish. Of course I could be wrong on this specific subject because I have a STACK ST8130 HUD, but STACK suggested I use it... So You could give that a shot if you can't get the MSD unit to work.

[S13coupeRB25DET]

damn dat is sick bro.

[irax]

i would wire up the tach signal from the ecu and put a dakota digital converter 6cyl -> 4cyl tach signal converter in line somewhere.

[KansaiDrifter]

Originally Posted by 97240TB

We had to run a loop in my alternator system because it wasn't charging. I'd call Zfever and ask them what they suggest you do. I Basically ran a small white pink striped wire to a ground point and it makes it charge.

the MSD tach box was causing your engine to misfire? sounds shitty I believe Autometer makes a signal box for this, costs like 75ish. Of course I could be wrong on this specific subject because I have a STACK ST8130 HUD, but STACK suggested I use it... So You could give that a shot if you can't get the MSD unit to work.

Is there anyway you could be more specific? It's definitely not charging yet, Where did the white/pink wire hook to on the alternator? Is it to the 2 wire plug?

Yeah the msd box I think I've just got the wrong wire for it, I'll have to try a different one until it works lol. It's also my speedometer so it's important lol.

[burninrubber85]

im glad to see my work in someones car (i did the harness). if you have any problems with the harness or the ecu don't hesitate to call us (813-877-7600) if you could send us some pics of the build to the website www.feveracing.com

[KansaiDrifter]

So it looks like in the fsm it has the two wire plug listed as the white/red wire just going to the gauge voltmeter and the Light Green/Black wire coming from the battery (+12v). I'm going to run down and check that real quick and see. One more possibility is it could need an extra ground on the case, but I checked with a voltmeter and I got the same reading of voltage using the alternator case as ground and positive to battery as I did using the battery terminal ground, so it's getting a great ground right now.

I think what 97240TB had to do was ground the white/red wire. (in my case it's white/red, probably the hr is white/pink) But he's going to take a look tomorrow to see if the ground is on the alternator side or the harness side for me ^^.

Another thing I ran into was it didn't seem like the cooling system was flowing much, acted like the thermostat wasn't opening up so I'm going to pull it out and try that and see if it's a big change or not. The other idea is the heater core is possibly clogged up, I'm REALLY hoping it's not, but I'll know if the thermostat changes it a lot or not.

I've been slacking on getting video since I've not been running it very long at a time and I'm still working out the bugs. I'm sad to say that I think I may not be getting to this weekends' Drift event =( Just not enough time to safely put the break in miles on it before I beat the stuffing out of the clutch and whatnot.

[KansaiDrifter]

Alrighty so I've got it all buttoned up now, big shout out to 97240TB for the help, thanks for taking the time to look!

What I ended up doing was taking the alternator all the way out and having it tested. It is a brand new Napa reman but I wasn't sure. I tried grounding the white/red stripe both ways and nothing new happened. After having it tested it showed a full 14.5 volts and 110+amps so it's putting out like crazy. What I ended up doing was just using the 240sx lower harness. It plugs right in to the two wire plug, I did re solder on the starter wire since it's the opposite type plug, I left off the big white wire that usually plugs onto the positive output stud of the 240sx alternator to the big black plug off since it already went to the battery, and since I had a g35 engine it already had a single wire oil pressure switch and I used the plug for that and soldered that on the 240's oil pressure switch wire for the dash light. So I ended up only using the starter/alt. 2 prong plug and the multi plug that has the oil and charge dash lights. Charges great now lol.

I didn't get a pic of that, but I thought I'd jot that down for anyone else looking to get the alternator charging on this type swap.

I ended up running a ground to the temp gauge sensor since it's not grounded with the engine and it's in line with rubber lol. It didn't even dawn on me until last night that it needed a ground haha. Works great now though!


I also switched the hoses to some long across hoses to get the flow proper so now the top goes to top and the bottom goes to the thermostat inlet.


After swapping them and running it a while we noticed it didn't want to flow through yet and was struggling to open the thermostat. So I took it out and cooked it lol


I found that this thermostat wouldn't open until about 200 or so and that's too hot. For now we just cut the straps and took it out. When winter rolls around I'll be dropping a new thermostat first thing and antifreeze for the winter. Unless I can find something else to prevent freezing and still legal to run at the track since they don't want normal antifreeze in case it leaks it could ruin the surface of the track. They did say you can run Red Line water wetter but I'd actually like to keep heat and I'm not sure if that will prevent freezing.

Anyhow I took it back around the block a few times and no issues at all. Runs great, the temp stays normal to a little cold while running around town type driving and sitting still actually. If it gets any colder I could benefit from blocking off a bit of the radiator lol. But another nice part is while I let it sit and idle at normal operating temp, the fan kicked on and off every little bit, telling me that the factory setting for the fan is right perfect. I also have a override switch in the center console just in case I want to run it if it's not already on yet or the electric switch fails.

Here's some pics and a video! I took just a quick vid of the exhaust sound, I like it. It's quite until you rev it so it's very daily drive able. Enjoy!




Added it to youtube if photobucket is crapping out lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8pubelKp8I

[97240TB]

I'm really glad everything worked out, My fix seemed a little less involved then yours did. Probably cause my harness wasn't done by Zfever dooders.

Your car is so quiet compared to mine hahaha! I'm happy to see another one of these on the road though, I think you will love the balance and the throttle response.
I can really tell a huge difference when in my car vs. KA/SR powered cars, The power that's on tap combined with the weight of the vehicle really work well together. Plus the 6 speed is tits.

[97240TB]

P.S. Get better wheelz!~

[sftmb]

wewt! sounds awesome. lol just like a Z^_^ hopefully you'll have time to do a shakedown test today if you still wanted to drive it this weekend at the bigfoot bash. I say you should drive down to uwajimaya and back. lol

[KansaiDrifter]

Yeah the vq's quite at idle and cruising around town, haven't really done freeway yet though. It's loud when I get on it though haha. Most of the cabin noise is just drivetrain and road noise so the next thing to come is some sound deadend panels haha.

Oh yeah I'm happy with the wheels, they were a great bang/buck. I will invest in some spacers eventually.

Haha yeah I'm just going to help out at B.B. I'm not crazy enough to drive 750 miles today haha. I'd also like to shake it down for a good week before I go crazy on it. Some guys would jump in it and go but I've put too much time into it lol. If I would of gotten the harness when we expected it the first time I'd be ready to go about 2 weeks ago. But I did check on pgp's site and there's an event for the 16th Oct. so maybe i can get in on that haha.

Off to licensing! Still hadn't licensed it yet lol.

[Yellow4g63]

Originally Posted by 97240TB

P.S. Get better wheelz!~

Ever dyno your HR?

[C-unit]

^ i would like to know as well! so i get some kind of reference for my swap!

[97240TB]

I have not yet had the HR car dyno'd it needs a tune though and I plan on getting it done pretty soon, I've seen one other guy make 298 at the wheels in a S-13 HR car.

I'd expect to be close to or about the same as his numbers when all is said and done. For reference though a month after the car was finished I raced my friends 08' WRX with exhaust from a 30 roll and beat him bye 4 or 5 cars. I Got to 130 then let off.

[Nategreat923]

Saw this in person yesterday, looks sooooo good!

[HPKMotorsports3]

Great build man only took me like a week to read but very impressive... and i dont lack the motivation i lack the pocket change to go out and work on mine... I love the green i plan on paintin mine green but im not sayin what color code because i have yet to see it done and im no where near painting it lol...

[KansaiDrifter]

alrighty, sorry for having a big old delay in posting, I ended up doing some crazy work and building a coupe for a guy in a week to pass tech for a drift event this last saturday plus getting this car ready for it too lol.

Here's some pics I took just a little bit ago when the weather was still nice





And here's some from the last PGP drift event, (Pacific Gran Prix, Kent, WA) It's this awesome go kart track that's just wide enough to drift it haha. First time I've really drifted for atleast a year and a new car, new track so I'm happy with the results. This track takes all techniques you can think of and the back half of it I was doing one handed steering to be able to shift and pull the hand brake lol.




Here's a vid of the event, it's unedited so it's longer but it's pretty cool. Only the second run of the day so still getting used to the power and handling haha
YouTube - PA160038

Enjoy