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Our build thread....a 2dr 510 story


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So this is going to be the start of me and my uncles Datsun 510 build thread. We talked about doing several different cars like a Vdub squareback and a few other options. I have always been a 510 fan, but haven't really known very much about them. I mentioned doing a 510 with a motor swap. Apparently that was one of the cars my uncle has been a huge fan of ever since he was young and had a neighbor that had one that did a bunch of work to when he was growing up.

 

So from there we had a car in mind, he is a big wagon fan, i am not as much. We looked at a few meet threads on honda tech, i found a red 4fr on ccw's that i fell in love with. He was not as fond of the 4 dr's so we settle on a coupe, which we both really liked. After spending about 3 months searching craigslist, the realm, 510 quaterly and this site we finally found one. We picked it up off 510 realm for 2800 running and driving with little to no rust. We bought the car sight unseen but the seller dave was an awesome guy. We put a lot of trust into him and he sent us every picture we could ask for. So after about 2 weeks the car was loaded onto a transport and is headed our way.

 

I will update this thread as much as possible and document everything. We are fully aware that this will be a 20k car or more as well as looking at close to 12 months or possibly longer to complete depending on motor set/paint and body shop time. We are more concerned about donig it right than getting it done in a certain timeframe.

 

So here is the future build:

 

Honda f20c swap from hmotors online

install done by a local race fab shob, full custom fab'd front crossmember and tranny crossmember as well as tunnel

 

full suspension from ermish. i have spent about an hour on the phone with troy planning stuff out, notched crossmember rear coils front coils willwood brake setup t/c arms. everything taken off and upgraded to poly or troys setup

 

haven't decided on pillowball upper mounts yet, dont really want to cut into the upper strut mounts for ermish but we will see

 

def going to be tucking tire on a set of 16's, hopefully ccw but we will see what we end up with

 

full respray in and out, bay tuck/mild shave/rewire

 

interior panels recovered/possible 4 pt

 

bride/recaro seats haven't really decided

 

prob start with a r160 rear end and rock it until it fails lol. hoping for either the 4.11 or 4.44 but def lsd (stock s2000 runs 4.10s)

 

 

May 6, 2010

here is a shot today of the car being loaded up

 

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May 11, 2010

 

Car is supposed to be delivered today. KS has has a bunch of very heavy rain/storms so the truck might have been delayed. If not we are probably looking at it being dropped off tomorrow.

 

 

We bought a rear dif for the car. it was posted on the realm. Its a 4.44 subie r160 with an LSD installed. it was just rebuilt with paperwork. The stock s2000 runs 4.10's but this should give it a llittle bit more low end on the streets and still be able to cruise at a reasonable rpm on the highway.

 

 

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JULY 3, 2010

Well its been a while since i have updated but the car is doing well. Over the last 2 months we have been shopping for body shops and getting estimates, from what most have said its going to be a full media blast and repaint, there are a few questionable things and we are going to opt to start from square one rather than paint over and hope for the best.

 

THE BIG NEWS

 

we bought our motor. thanks to steve at hmotorsonline.com we have a 00 JDM honda f20c swap coming, hopefully within the next 10 days or so. I have been calling every 2 weeks for the past 2 months checking to see if they have gotten one in and finally they do. We will be pulling the old swap and trailering the car up to a local race fab shop probably around the first of next month. Things are finally starting to get underway.

 

Note: (photo shown is not actual motor, i just pulled one off google to have a pic for the update)

 

 

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July 14, 2010

We pullled the old motor and trans out of the car. Ended up taking just over 3 hrs. Noticed a large oil leak coming from the trans cooler lines and also and oil leak coming from the plug and oil pan gasket. Not that it mattered much because we had no intentions of keeping the motor/trans.

 

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August 9, 2010

Car will be going to Larsen Race Car fab today to have the s2000 transplant completed. They will be fabbing the front cross member, trans tunnel and tranny mounting bracket. They will also be notching the front suspension for more adjustability once the new suspension is installed and aligned. We put the car on the car hauler saturday and strapped it down, we will be swinging by my uncles business to pick up the s2000 motor and will be on our way. I'll post pics of the motor and the car loaded up as soon as we get back and some shots of it coming off the trailer. Hopefully turn around will be quick.

 

 

 

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August 12, 2010

We ordered our PLM header a few days ago and I just got word that it shipped out. calling Ermish on monday to finalize and order the suspension

 

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September 16, 2010

 

Wow didn't realize that it had been nearly a month since i had done an update. Ok, the header came in and went to the shop, header looks awesome but it doesn't fit with the steering so its needs to be modded. The wilwoods came in from troy @ermish and they look sick. Didnt realize how nice the calipers were till i had them in my hands.

 

BIG NEW!! Motor is sitting in the car, unfortunately my uncle and I had so much to talk to the fab shop about (seats, radiator, exhaust) I didn't have time to snap any pics. They modded the crossmember, boxed it and added a tubed support member to clear the engine, and same with trans. The also modded the steering a little. Its looks great and fits really well....well to be honest its a little tight. i'll have pics of everything up next weekend when we go to pick the car up, but thats really all i have up to this point.

 

Wiring...We shipped the wiring off to chase at chasebays so he could build a custom tuck harness, chassis harness and guage cluster harness and help me tie it all together, should be done in the next 3 to 4 weeks.

 

once again sorry for no pics, ive just been super busy but the project is coming along nicely

 

ALMOST FORGOT. we ordered a set of Recaro SE seats for it yesterday, so hopefully those will be in sometime next week as well.

 

October 7, 2010

So the datsun is getting near completion at the fab shop. The motor is in, sitting on mounts, the after market header we bought was modified to clear the steering, the steering was reshaped and everything is getting close. We also dropped off the recaros to have the sliders fabbed up and installed. And this time i have the pictures that everyone has been waiting for.

 

I should have more updates in another week or two after we get more parts in. sorry i took so long for updates but these are the pics i think you guys have been waiting for. feel free to leave comments

 

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November 20, 2010

 

The car has been picked up from the shop and brought back to where we will be working on it.

 

Since last update, the radiator and fan came in from ron davis and were mounted, seat rails from wedge engineering were installed and moved a few inches back for more legroom, and the Recaro SE's were installed for a test fit. I will have pictures up by monday of all the progress. I've been out of town for the last 2 weeks so I have yet to see the car since it was picked up.

 

Stay tuned for pictures

 

December 4, 2010

 

Ok so I finally snapped a bunch of shops showing all of the fab work done at larsen race cars. Basically they installed the ron davis radiator, fabbed up the OEM s2000 gas pedal and throttle cable, installed the recaro's and sliders and custom made the heder we ordered to fit with the steering plus did the custom mounts and basically set the motor in the chassis. all in all they did an amazing job and we couldn't be happier.

 

GO TO PAGE 3 for these pics, ratsun said I have posted too many lol

 

 

January 1, 2010

First update for the new year. I went to work on the car today, pulled the f20C to get ready to start fabbing up brake lines and the fuel cell. The motor came out with only a few hiccups. It was the first time I have pulled the new motor and it was a little tricky getting it out. We had the car inside of the garage and the boom on the engine hoist was hitting the top of the garage because the tranny is so long that the motor comes out almost verticle. But we got it out after i put some muscle into it and pulled the trans out to get the motor close to level and lower the boom down. Here are a few pics from today.

 

Here is a shot of the header off the motor. They did a great job with the fab work

 

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Engine bay after we pulled teh motor

 

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close up shot of motor mount

 

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threw some parts away lol

 

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shot of the radiator out of the car

 

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February 19, 2011

 

We got a bunch of stuff knocked out on the datsun. We spent last week dragging it around to body shops and getting estimates, but most restoration/hot rod shops want 15-20k to paint it so we are still on the hunt. Today, we got the car ready to go to the media blaster. We pulled EVERYTHING out of it and we are almost done, trunk lining, gas tank, the whole interior, front end, bumpers. It basically down to a rolling shell with windows now. We are going to take it to be media blasted here in the next few weeks. It was fun for my uncle and i to finally get to work on it together, and we got more done than we had hoped.

 

 

check out page 4 for pic's, this post is now too big to post pics on

 

February 20, 2011

Finished up with the disassembly. Pulled the rear 1/4 windows, got the bumpers pulled, axle shafts, rear diff, and all the plumbing out from under the car. All we have left to pull is the steering box and steering column but we are going to wait until after we get it onto the trailer to take it to be media blasted so we can still steer it.

 

Check out page 4 for pic's from today

 

 

February 28, 2011

 

The Dat is going back to Larsen Race Cars today. Our RCI fuel cell came in so they are going to cut out the stock fuel tank mounting brackets and mount up the RCI tank and fuel pump and plumb the feed line going from the tank to the pump.

 

Check page 5 for pictures

September 22, 2011

Ordered the suspension from Ermish racing. Basically ordered the entire suspension setup for the car including the fully modded rear crossmember front coilovers real coilovers and poly/spherical mounts for everything. Car should handle like a dream when its all done. Im sure there is a few weeks lead time on all the parts we ordered so stay tuned for pics when everything comes in.

September 29, 2011

Body shop will be taking delivery of the car in the next 2-3 weeks. They have delivered a few of the other projects they needed to get out of the shop to make room for ours. With any luck we should have some pics of it out of media blast by the end of next month. Sorry it has taken so long for an update but we are still working on it.

 

 

October 10, 2011

Ordered the full s2000 dash wiring harness so i can have the s2000 gauge cluster plugs as well as the factory radio plugs. Also ordered a new Inline Pro fuel rail and aeromotive FPR to start mocking up the fuel system when i get home. I think Im going to use all black lines/fittings just for a clean look. Its amazing how quick $500 in parts adds up.

 

Pics on page 5

December 31, 2011

The 510 has been at the body shop for a while now. When they stripped it down they got to the point where they wanted to see what was under the bondo since it was about to go to the media blaster. They ended up sanding the entire sides of the car down to bare metal because of how much bondo they found. The car is almost done being sanded by hand and its getting ready to go to the media blaster. check out the pics and you can see body damage on the front driver fender, behind the driver door and behind the passenger door. The car was in better shape than what we thought but still not great. Also, the previous body repair had metal strips welded above the fender lip as a "bondo shelf" i haven't seen that before.

 

Pics on page 6

January 20, 2012<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); ">

<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); ">Wheels are now on order. Thanks to mike at weksos for a ton of help calling work to talk about specs to make sure the wheels would fit<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); "><br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); ">Front 15x7 +22 T disk for BBK<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); ">Rear 15x7.5 +10 T disk for BBk

Pics on page 6

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cool.gif keep us updated..... on everything.. i want to do this to mine as well. big fan of the f20c power for a n/a motor it is has a good power range for light weight cars..

 

Yeah i will update this thread anytime we have new parts come in or any work is done on the car. i'd like to have a build thread because not too many of the f20c swaps are documented, and there really aren't that many to begin with.

 

this will be the only car in our area kansas/missouri will be f20 swapped (that i know of), and very rare for the midwest region. the whole 510 scene here is very small

 

i will def be needing help from many of the forum members once we dive into it.

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we just ordered our first part for the dat biggrin.gif Check out the update for today

 

I'll be posting updates by the day so people can track the progress.

good idea!

 

may 11th

 

I went to class this morning and turned in my term paper

 

I had lunch at a pho restaurant and now I'm waiting for my next class :)

 

 

p.s. what part did you buy?

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  • 1 month later...

honda engine in datsun? thats not right! tongue.gif

 

 

 

haha im sure we will hear that alot as the car gets torn apart but my uncle and i felt like the motor was a good fit for the car for both power and weight as well as size. sr20's and ka's are pretty common as well so we wanted to do something a little more unique.

 

full swap shipped to us was $4300 blink.gif

 

swap should be here by the end of next week

 

 

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thanks for all the comments. the shipping company said the motor was in ks yesterday (sunday) so we should expect delivery today or tomorrow. I'll be out of town in Gulfport, MS for 2 weeks so we wont have any updates until im back.

 

When i get home the car is going to larsen race cars in oak grove, mo to have the engine set, should be somewhere around the first week of august. biggrin.gif

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  • 3 weeks later...

FINALLY AN UPDATE!!!!

 

thanks for all who have been watching, sorry its taken so long to update but we have been busy. Check out the last 2 updates. I will post a bunch of pictures tomorrow of the car the motor and it being dropped off. I have the camera ready just hoping the battery will last all day because i can't find the charger.

 

CHECK BACK TOMORROW NIGHT FOR PICTURES

 

 

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Seems like not a whole lot of people are interested in this thread but i will keep it updated anyways for the few who have been following

 

Wilwood brake kit from ermish is on order, should be here mid next week. Ordering the chassis/engine wiring harness tomorrow so it will be a fairly plug n play install with the exception of crimping connectors and wiring switches and such. Chase from chasebays is doing all the wiring and setting it up for the s2000 guage cluster that we are going to run

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:rolleyes: ITS SAD TO SEE NOT A WHOLE LOT OF INTERST BUT SOME ARE NOT HONDA FANS.. LOL I LOVE HONDAS AND NISSANS BUT U CANT BEAT THE NA FEEL AND FOR THE PRICE I THINK IT IS NOT BAD.. SURE U CAN BUILD A KA24DE BUT IS IT GOING TO BE ABLE TO GO TO THE TRACK THEN DRIVE HOME AND STILL GET 30 + MPG??? CAN U EMAIL ME SOME PRICES ON THE WIRE SET UP AND PUT UP MORE PICS.. WHAT ARE U GOING TO DO FOR THE FUEL SYSTEM ? :cool:BREAKS?? PRICING

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