GNZ update

[Mat73GNZ]

Its time for an update! Should have been sooner, but my internet conection has been down for a while. I have to give a HUGE thanks to Scottie (Scottie-GNZ) for giving me first dibs on his GNZ parts and all the help he has given me. One hell of a great guy

So, I built the engine at my buddies house in his nice, clean, dry basement, but how the heck do we get it back up these stairs ? With a power dolly of course! I whipped up a engine cradle from some scrap wood on a job site and bolted it to the engine, then strapped the whole thing to the power dolly went up the stairs.

Once the engine was upstairs, we unfolded the engine hoist and strapped a chain to the engine. My car is so small that in a 2 car garage, the engine hoist was in front of the car and we were able to install the engine without opening the garage door. Here's a picture while we were dropping the engine in . A little finagling (is that a word?) with a pry bar and the engine was almost in place. We (my buddy Ross and I) were having a hell of a time getting the engine mounts to line up with the cross member. Turns out that the brand new drivers side, stock rubber mount had a slight bump in it, seen here . You can see where it was hitting, the paint is chipped off. I ended up using this old used one . You can see that there is no bump on the mount on the used stock one directly below the bolt holes. The old one will be fine for now, but I would like to replace it in the future. In this picture , you can see the mount in place. You can also see that, due to a few scratches on the steering rack, there was a slight problem getting the harmonic balancer on and off, but with a little finess, it is able to make it past the rack. Had the engine been a 1/16" lower, the harmonic balancer would have never been able to come off without loosening the steering rack first.

Here is the drivers side with the poly mount installed and the relocated steering shaft, which you can now see is necessary. At first I wasn't happy with the placement of the engine, because it was about 1.5" offset to the drivers side, but after I got the down pipe on, I saw why this was necessary. The engine could have also come back another couple of inches, but again, after installing the down pipe, I saw why Scottie placed the engine where he did. Here are a couple of shots of how close the down pipe is to everything here and here . I don't know why, because Scottie didn't have to do this, but I needed to smack the fire wall with a ball peen hammer to make the down pipe fit. I feel sorry for my passengers toes . Also, I needed to move the brake line going to the front passengers side, because it was really in the way. I need to bend up a new line, but first figure out how to route it, because there is not much room.
Here is the radiator installed . It's mounted solidly, but after I installed it, I remembered someone saying that mounting aluminum solidly isn't a good idea. So, I'm going to pull it out and widen the holes in the radiator and install rubber washers on each side of the mounting bolt. This should let the core support flex a little without stressing the radiator. An interesting side note, the radiator was installed in a 240Z, but the mounting holes are just a little bit off from the ones on my Z.
Here is the intercooler installed . You can see Scotties lower mount which had to be modified to fit on my car. I actually flipped the horns (beep beep) back to their original position and are helping to fasten the lower intercooler mount to the car. Here's the top intercooler mount . Kind of a bad picture, but it mounts under the top of the core support. Now in the "intercooler installed" picture, for some reason the pipes don't line up with my car like they did with Scotties. It seems the intercooler with his mounts, is a bit too low and the intercooler itself is just a bit too wide. You can see what I mean by looking at where the pipes go through the core support. I'll have to do some cutting for everything to fit. I had to cut this chunk out for the intercooler to fit on the passenger side. Scottie said he didn't have to do this on his car either. You know between that radiator not fitting, the intercooler not fitting, and the slight interference with the down pipe, it just goes to show you that not all 240Z's are alike.
Here is the cover I made for the LS1 fuel tank. It's held on by small "rivit on" fasteners. Works awsome! Hatch open and hatch fastened in place .
Here she is back on the trailer ready to go back to storage and in this shot I turned up the brightness so you can see where the oil pan and transmission pan is. I guess I have to watch out for those speed bumps! Here's another shot . Damn, who needs a grill when you have nothin' but intercooler!

Now that the hard part was done, I need to figure out what to do with an extra 3 feet of wiring harness and plug it all onto the engine. Then it's to the gauges for a pretty sweet upgrade, which I'll do a seperate post on that install. Then it's all the little things, like brake lines, fuel lines, ect.

!M!

[TurboZV6]

Here's a pic of my old Z. Haven't heard anything about it since I sold it to someone in Miami? Anyone?

[scott wile]

Very nice! (both posts)

scott wile

[86brick]

Originally posted by TurboZV6
Here's a pic of my old Z. Haven't heard anything about it since I sold it to someone in Miami? Anyone?

Did you sell it to a guy name Tirso?? Just curious if I'm thinking about the right Z car....

[Mat73GNZ]

Holy crap! TurboZV6, do you have any more pictures of your Z car? What was your setup at the time? Looks like a very nice Z!

!M!

[Scottie-GNZ]

Mat,

congrats and thanks for the kind words. Do not make a big fuss over the motor mount. The DS mount is the one that takes the stress and the poly has that covered as long as the stocker is not split or dry-rotted. Forgot to mention the damper as i did not think there would be a need to remove it. Because of the rack placement relative to the damper and pully, simply support the oil pan, remove a motor mount bolt and raise the engine about an inch. Anyway, glad to see it coming together and trust me, you want to make minor fitment tweaks instead of designing and fabricating laying on the garage floor


TurboZv6, Ken if I recall, glad to see you are still in the Z world. You might recall me emailing you when I was getting mine going. Yes, kinda strange that your car would be in FL and us not hearing a thing about it.

[gnx7]

Matt-

Your car is looking kick ass man. Nice job. Bet you can't wait to drive it in the spring.

If memory serves me right the teal 240Z car had a little TE-44 turbo, Spearco FMIC (1080cfm dual core), solid axle 12 bolt out back, TH200-4R, and ran some mid 10's@123mph. It apparantly can hook pretty hard . With a larger turbo I'm sure that would be easily in the 9's.

It certainly was one of the pictures that motivated me to do my swap.

[Nashty]

Nice, VERY nice. That is coming together beautifully. Going to be an awesome car. Did you get Scottie's rear end also?

I may have missed them but do you have any engine specs? How about the tranny? Are you installing A/C?

Looks great, reminds me of Scottie's car with the body kit. After I get the Metro done (painted and minor drivetrain items - cam, convertor) I'm contemplating building a tube framed daily driver in an old body style. Thinking of an old Volvo I saw when I was going to college. (Don't tell my wife, the next sound you'd hear would be a car door slamming and an Oldsmobile Intrigue peeling out ! )

[Mat73GNZ]

Thanks guys!

Anyway, glad to see it coming together and trust me, you want to make minor fitment tweaks instead of designing and fabricating laying on the garage floor

I hear that! Thanks again! Just to make things clear, I wasn't complaining about your parts fitting on my car. I was just telling about the swap is all.

The rear end, I built, which is a clutch type limited slip with a 3.54 ratio. A/C won't be installed. In a couple months, I'm taking the car down to Jimmy's in Illinois to get a mild build on the 2004R. The engine is a stock rebuild. I wanted to start from scratch and start tuning my way to faster times. Hell, on a stock engine the car should be in the 11's. Plenty fast to begin with.

My Z doesn't have a body kit, except for a front spoiler.

For the suspension, in case anyone was wondering, I have 10" 175 lb/in coilovers in front and 8" 200 lb/in in back. The reason for the 8" spring in the back is so I can get a 9" wide wheel to fit on my unflared car. All the rubber bushings were replaced with ployurethane ones. There is also Tokico Illumina 5-way adjustable shocks at all 4 corners. Bigger sway bars front and back also. This sucker handles like it's on rails! Just awsome handling

No, I can't wait to get it running, but even when I do get it running, I have to be gentle with the throttle, because of the new engine... that part is not going to be easy.

!M!

[turbo buick]

turbozv6, how did that IC in that launch pic work out for you. i was thinking about using a vertical core. what were the specs/efficiency on it?