Jump to content

From B-Body Sedan to tiny from Japan


Drakoe1

Recommended Posts

So I guess it’s finally time to start one of these build things as it does seem like I’m going to be in this game for the long run . My grand introduction to 510’s happened about 5 years ago when I happened across one on my normal home of the time, the Crownvic.net… I don’t quite know why it was there but none the less I was in love. While it was a 4 banger and a far cry from the luxury and well capacity of my 89 Crown Victoria LTD I was in love, it was a 4 door rear wheel drive Sedan, and at the time 4 doors and sedan was and I believe will always be my thing. What can I say I like look…..

 

Fast forward 5 years and here we are, I’ve been driving an ex-Chicago Police Department Chevy Caprice 9C1 and have now relocated ~ 300 miles south of my Chicago home and I’m in my Jr year at SIU Carbondale for a Manufacturing Engineering, Photography Double major… Like all of us have done before I was off checking the lovely land of Craigslist for high mileage Impala’s and just decided to search that odd out of use car company, Datsun. And well after jokingly mentioning I’d found a 510 in Texas I found myself behind the wheel of a remarkably haggard and hard worn dodge minivan on our way back through Arkansas with Datto in tow 

And well that brings us to about the current state of life for me and the Datsun. In the last few months of owning it I’ve put on a little over 2,000 miles and of those 300 was in a sickening horizontal snow storm that took out FWD and RWD modern cars with no remorse as the old 510 battled on. and have acquired a nice little collection of parts. So I figured a build thread would be in order. If for anything just so I have a record of how ridiculously slow I am at doing anything. So last but not least here she is:

 

Leaving Jay’s place and heading back to So Illi with my prize in tow.

7CEG8448.jpg

Safely Back in Carbondale

7CEG8602.jpg

Under the Hood

L16, Presumably Shaved Head, Flat top Pistons, Dual SU's and some Cam

7CEG8457.jpg

Random

7CEG8461.jpg

7CEG8466.jpg

7CEG8606.jpg

A couple of photo's when I shot her in the fall with my Caprice and then my friends 87 Supra

C97W8766.jpg

C97W9075.jpg

C97W9048.jpg

C97W9022.jpg

C97W9008.jpg

C97W6515-Edit.jpg

Link to comment
  • Replies 93
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

So you can kinda see I do have some work to do. Rear kick on the driver side is way worse than the passenger. Right now there's about a dollar sized hole and well the wheel well is kinda rough along with the rockers but I'm hoping that the body shop at the school can help me out there as I have no body work experience unless you call a lil bondo and 20 Cans of rustoleum experience haha, that was last summers project, painting the rust spotted Caprice. Right now though I'm looking to continue to keep her running and finally get her tuned. I should have a EI dizzy at the end of the week or so and then just to get wires and a coil to get the most out of it. And well I need wires anyways as she was arcing and nearly dieing on the last leg of her epic trip to visit the folks a few weekends back on a 700 mile round trip up to chicago and back in a wicked Illi snow storm. Besides finally finishing the wiring on the tach, Adjusting Timing and keeping her running that's the most of what I have planned for her in her L16 State. Though the graces of Craiglist I cam across a KA24DE and Trans on the cheap weeks back and then last weekend a friend gave me the heads up that his friend was parting a 240sx out so I now have Engine, Trans, and Wiring. So all I need for the major parts to move forward with the engine are getting and ECU and sorting out the harness. Besides that I need a crossmember, shifter and perhaps a driveshaft as I want to make this as painless of a swap as I can for my parents haha. As well they don't love cars as much as I do so I want to have everything ready so it's more of a pull engine, drop it in and then only a month of trouble shooting lol. Instead of Datto on blocks for a year or so as I scrounge up parts in this very dry and datto less Midwest region.

Link to comment

@ refresh Yeah I love that color, It looked so drab and kinda ugly with sap on it when I first got it home but a friend brought over some spray wax and hit it real quick on the C pillar and bam it looked amazing. So after a lil wax it came out looking great for what, 38 years of who knows what.

 

@ h2theizzo It is wicked how the reflection blocks out paul who was driving

Link to comment

Finally have a decent list of what all I came back with from stripping that 240sx for a friend. Now just to make the ad and hopefully get some money to put back in the datto.

 

Also a few images of the engine I got smile.gif

 

DSC_5042.jpg

DSC_5043.jpg

 

So far there's only a few plugs that were messed up on the 91 Harness but everything else plugged in fine and looks like I'll be able to use it with the 95 engine once I redo the wireing and find get a ECU.

 

And my awesome fully furnished 1000 Cubic foot work shop

 

DSC_5045.jpg

DSC_5046.jpg

 

As it sits now these are the parts I'm still looking to collect and work on for the KA swap.

 

ECU

510 Driveshaft

510 Crossmember Flipped or Unflipped

FPR

Tubing to make Fuel Lines

280zx struts

200sx Rear Calipers or Fabricate an adapter Bracket to use 240sx rears

Larger rims to fit said calipers and struts

Fuel pump

Shifter

Patience???

 

And I'm sure a decent bit more

Link to comment

Only 2 more days till spring break and then I can get a little work done on improving the L16 for the time being. Finally got a few goodies in the mail the other day smile.gif A 78 620 Dizzy + a few plates and pedestals. So I should finally after a little timing changes be getting better gas mileage than the 5k pound American ironed Caprice. Or well I sure hope so

 

Tomorrow's little after class Project

 

DSC_5115.jpg

With a little bit of work, probably hacksaw and file, on that top fin on the bottom the HEI module will fit perfectly. Gotta love having parts that work out smile.gif Plate is the heat sink from an old Ignition Control Module that sits behind the coil on 94-96 Caprice's and Impalas

 

DSC_5116.jpg

Yeah EIness haha, Hopefully bring up my 17mpg average I'm getting right now with it cause getting beat out by a twice as heavy and nearly 3x as big engine is kinda disheartening haha.

 

DSC_5117.jpg

 

DSC_5118.jpg

 

Not quite a move forward in the whole KA build part but it's gonna help me save a lil while I tool around town and country with her in the meantime. Let alone help out on those cold day starts that kinda kill

Link to comment

Haha, I hear that man! I started off with a 89 Crown Victoria LTD and from there I was hooked, moved to a Lincoln with all the trimmings and then ended up with my ex Chicago Cop car with the bare minimum but all the beastlieness, stability and solidness I could ever want.

 

Lol, yeah for my sake I'm definitely going to keep those wired multicolored for clarity and bling factor haha

Link to comment

Man what a difference a lil timing and that EI dizzy makes haha. When I had bought the datto Jay the PO had said they had retarded the timing a lil bit to help prevent detonation but wow does it seem like it was Retarded haha. Car has a ton more power it seems. No longer bogging in 1st and half of second. Also starting and warming before drivable is almost gone. Can basically get up and go almost it's awesome. So this weekend was a great sucess. Installed the distributor and MSD II coil now just have to finish filing down the heatsink and then installing that and then timing and then retuning the Su's. Also greased and rehabbed the wiper linkage as the driver side pivot spindle had frozen up so now I have working wipers again smile.gif. Working wipers and a much much much peppier car cool.gif .

 

Haha, well I didn't technically lie on the not all red wires.... but for the temp wiring they're all black blink.gif But that will change when I work on the harness and clean things up up front.

 

DSC_5134.jpg

 

Popped the valve cover to check tdc and just to see how things looked under there, not too bad really.

 

DSC_5123.jpg

 

All hooked up and ready to roll. Had to switch plates once to get enough advance to get her to run though. Ended up going with the plate that looks more like a J than a L ( Its more of a 70* angle than the 90 L) since I mounted the distributor with the vacuum advance out from under the coolant hose.

 

DSC_5135.jpg

 

Then tackled the Frozen wipers and greased all the bearings up so I can finally see in the rain. Definitely going to want to do the mazda motor swap when I get the time and parts as that motor's gettin kinda slow these days.

 

DSC_5140.jpg

 

 

And hopefully tomorrow after doin a lil work around the house I'll be able to tackle re-wiring the tach, Fixing the heater flow valve and maybe if I'm lucky trying to figure out why my battery seems to be draining down. Does anyone know if the relay closest to the battery right up front that has a 4 wire plug going into it... Does that always click and become engaged right after hooking up the battery or should I be looking for a short in that wiring somewhere?

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Not a big update but have been working on the car. Washed and waxed her this weekend before it started to get cold again. Also been pooring over the FSM and forums to get better acquainted with the future power plant for her and things are starting to get a little clearer in my mind now. 95 Engine, 91 Harness and 91 ECU should = Work. Now I just have to get to work of clearing up the mess of a harness for the engine and figure out what all is missing from it and what all goes where. Have a decent amount of the harness connected up to the engine and based on what sensors are damaged and all looks like this should work, just have to figure out what sensors I need to buy now. Along with that working on tackeling cleaning up all the vacuum tubing and various things that clutter the intake. It's going to be a slow process with school and all picking up speed here but should be making headway in the preplanning

Link to comment

remeber you will also need the 91 dist, and maybe some other parts idk if the injector plugs and IAC plugs are the same im pretty sure their diff... all you gotta do is swap them out or change the plugs on your harness... just some food for thought

Link to comment

Yep I do need to get a s13 dist now, luckily that also allows me to use my coil that I have now so

that's a plus. Injectors plugged right in and if I remember right the IAC plugs are on a sub

harness that goes back under the intake manifold and the plug that comes up out the front, its a

larger plug, clicked right in with the 91 harness. I really do have to check the wire colors

though to make sure that's waht that plug is actually for though. But definitely thanks for

stoppin in JDM510 I know I have a lot still to figure out and double check with this jumble of

random year parts haha. Would really love to have her in DD status with KA by the end of summer if

time allows.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

I know man it really truly is something haha.... Well kinda a small update in a way but I've finally got the foldouts printed for the S13 KA and have laid out the harness in the living room and work has started on sorting out what this mass of wire called a harness truly is. Supposedly a SR swap out harness so we'll see how the rewireing goes. Finally got her running a bit better, last tank was about 22mpg so we're goin forward!

Link to comment

Wow.... Never knew what 38 years of crud really looked like till I emptied the Heater core lol. Pulled the heater core and flushed it the other day and out came a fine looking slurry of well it kinda looked like chocolate milk there for awhile haha. All clear now seems like the heats working much nicer. Now finally getting around to finally wiring up that Tach which I've been putting off for way to long. Also had to pull the radiator to put on the tensioner for the Saturn alt as the PO had put on a 5 blade fan and it has a 1/4" space behind it to clear the WP hub. Left about a 1/8" clearance between the fan and the radiator so yeah that was no fun. After putting it back in I realized I had forgotten to put the belt over the WP hub and was just barely able to squeeze it inbetween the fan and the radiator. Hoping to have the tach working and the find out where this annoying ratteling is coming from at speed. It sounds like its over on the passenger floorboard and I'm thinking it's the plate the choke handle is on. Well it's been a few posts without photo's so here ya go. Took her and a friend out the other day for a lil drive and got a few. I'll have so not so cool photo's of the rust that I'm looking at tomorrow or so.

 

For being 38 years old it's amazing what a wash and a little Turtle Wax can do for the paint, she shines right up.

 

C97W1999.jpg

 

Haha, these car's really are tiny, I mean she's 5'7" maybe not quite sure but she's def not huge lol

 

 

C97W1985.jpg

 

I mean look at that reflection, this paint is sooo nice for bein so old lol

 

 

C97W2067.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.