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Filthy_

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  • 4 years later...

Little uhhh... 4 year update?

 

Been awhile since I posted a goddamn thing, but I figured I'd keep the only build thread I have going, sorry.

 

 

I think the last time I was active here the car was running great and I was driving it, sadly that only lasted a couple of years. I ended up breaking a rocker arm doing drunken bang-pops in the shop one night, which took her out for a bit. Ended up doing Tomei cams, springs, and retainers. Took it in for a re-tune and I'm pretty sure blew the head-gasket on the dyno.

 

Also I made it on StanceWorks.

 

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Was pretty cool. I got to hang out and go camping with Mike and he shot my car at my place, it was a good time until I blew out my meniscus standing up after cooking a hot dog. It's a long read, but here it is.

 

https://chromjuwelen.com/network/345-stanceworks-com/212674-the-process-of-creation-roddy-turners-sr20-powered-510-wagon

 

Nevertheless, I took it home and drove it for the remainder of that summer with some recurring heat issues. Come fall it's game over, lots of cloudy things coming out of every hole. It was pretty obvious what was going on.

 

Anyways, pulled it into the shop and ripped it all apart. The head gasket was roached, as suspected... what I did not expect to find was a mildly melted piston and scored cylinder. It's hard to say how long it had been that way, there were clear indicators of detonation on the head, but it didn't melt down far enough to mess with the ring seats. Also I did a compression test on it prior to tearing it down and it didn't show anything out of the ordinary. I want to believe that it had been that way since I got it, I was very ocd about air/fuel and anything else that could have caused it. The world may never know.

 

Also, I lost a ton of photos around this time, so a lot of these pictures were lifted from my social media archives. My apologize for the emojis and shit.

 

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This was in the before time, basically right as it was ready for the machine shop, the 'ol covid19 showed up and all but ruined most of everything, including my life. Needless to say, the supply chain shit the bed. I waited 14 months alone just for the head studs, not to mention bearings and all the other crap that goes into an engine rebuild. Doesn't help that it's a borderline vintage JDM motor stuck in the mountains of Colorado.

 

I guess I started off hopeful that I'd have the motor back relatively soon, and was excited to work on it again.

 

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First thing I wanted to address was the dog shit throttle pedal I cobbled together years ago, made the thing damn near undrivable. Sourced an adjustable cable and got to work figuring out the logistics of getting the pedal off of the floor, and how to stuff it all in there. Ended up using a bell-crank from a sprint car company. It wasn't ungodly expensive and was a super nice little piece to work with.

 

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I've yet to finalize this, but I figured out a 9/16ths socket fits perfectly around the adjustment sleeve/nut, So I think I'm just going to locate where the cable needs to pass through the firewall and simply weld it in place. Hopefully it will hold it in place, and allow me to tighten both sides.

 

After that I figured it would be a good time to patch up the gigantic holes in the rear doors I had to cut to provide space for the tires when the suspension was aired out.

 

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I by no means am a body guy whatsoever, so I was pretty happy with how these came out, and the rear doors still close.

 

It was around this time I had some extra money floating around and basically said fuck it. Decided I was all in on the project again and started ordering everything I thought I needed to get to the next level of idiocy with the car. It started with a Greddy/Trust intake manifold. Then it went to me being unhappy with how shit my exhaust manifold looked so I ordered the Mazworx Tubular unit. Then I figured since you can order the exhaust with a V-band that fits the Garrett 25-550 I might as well upgrade the second hand turbo I had been running since the start. After that showed up I realized my Tial wastegate was too small for the flange they use on their manifolds... so that had to get bigger as well. And then for some unknown reason... probably because I still didn't have a clue when the block would be back, I made the worst decision ever and decided I was going to polish it all, by hand. 

 

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I polished for days, maybe weeks, it was retarded. The valve cover, the intake, the turbo compressor... basically if there was something visible, I polished it.

 

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I also metal finished most of the letters from the rocker cover, because... I don't know.

 

I finally burned out and was happy enough with how it all looked. I'd guess I spent 50+ hours, a lot of beer, and a lot of podcasts just rubbing my time away. I wouldn't say I regret the decision, but I would not recommend.

 

After that I got bored again and still didn't even have an Idea of what was happening with the block, so...

 

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I ordered an oil filter relocation/cooler kit from Grassroots. It's a smaller company based in Canada I believe and looks like a pretty nice kit. Unfortunately there's only so much room under the hood of a clown car, and the heat exchanger was large. I had no intentions of strapping the thing to the bumper like people do, so I had to get creative.

 

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I ended up cutting a hole through the passenger fender and mounting it directly to the "frame". From there I scrapped both of the interior headlights and replaced them with some intake stacks and screens.

 

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From there I bent up some scrap stainless I had and cranked out a little airbox kind of thing, I think it looks pretty sweet, and the alignment from the headlight to the cooler is pretty good. Also there's a small amount of it inside the fender, so as long as a rock doesn't go through the thing, I hope the tires will stir up a bit of air as well.

 

I've yet to finalize this part, but I believe a good amount of the grunt work is finished, mostly just shortening AN lines and plumbing up the filter somewhere that logistically makes sense.

 

Aside from that it was mostly just a ton of AN fittings that i thought I would need. I mocked up a dual Catch can setup and welded some AN bungs onto the valve cover. Then I found a spacer for said valve cover that drops down into the valley of the thing, allowing the use of Audi R8 coil packs. They are better and cheaper than the factory sr20 units, and they allow you to bypass the ignitor chip... it was a no brainer for me.

 

It was around this time I completely burned out. I had no idea what was happening with the motor, and couldn't get an answer from the machine shop guy. Also I guess he caught a case of the covid and spent like 3 weeks in the hospital on a ventilator. It was looking pretty grim, so I shelved the project and placed my focus elsewhere.

 

About this time I ended a 7 year relationship which is always fun. This led to a copious amount of alcohol, but I did what I could to remain productive.

 

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Got a new welding table. I had to drive to Ohio to pick it up, and then spend way too much time re-surfacing the thing by hand, but Man it's sweet.

 

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I also bought this weird little trailer from my friend and turned it into some weird Moto/Camp mad max battle trailer thing.

 

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Can haul 3 bikes, has 2 flip down tailgate tables, holds 50 gallons of water, 10 of which are in a pressurized solar shower. 2 10 foot umbrellas, A storage toolbox and a deck for the camper, The turf is nice in the desert as well.

 

I realize this has nothing to do with Datsun, but I think it's cool.

 

Time kept moving on, I met a new girl who is great, life is good. And then it happened. The fucking motor was finally ready. I tossed it on a stand and mocked up some stuff just to have a looksie.

 

IMG_20220823_101031_882_soZiqqtUi2rvgJgt[/URL]

 

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It was exciting.

 

The first thing I did was finally put a GKtech cover on the coils. Of course, the R8 coils are a lot taller than the oem ones, so it didn't fit.

 

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Spun up some little spacers and it "fits" I'm not sure if I'll leave it on there, the gap is kinda weird. Missing that piece always bothered me, so I'll probably leave it for now.

 

Screenshot_20220901-121747_Instagram.jpg[/URL]

 

Some famous RC shell builder also made a replica of my car somewhere in South Africa, that was a weird thing to see. I want one.

 

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I plopped it in to have a look at how off everything was going to be... and it was pretty horrible. Not a single thing I previously did was going to work. Exhaust, Intercooler, fuel lines, wastegate didn't fit, coolant bungs... manifold rubbing on the steering box, just a whole goddamn mess. I started off by moving a bunch of stuff around to fit the wastegate. This included a heat shield I made for my line lock, which was also the mount for my boost solenoid. It fit, barely, but it's in there.

 

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exhaust, and steering box clearance discrepancy. I'm hopeful the steering box clearance can be easily addressed with a grinder, the heat on the other hand... we'll see.

 

As for the coolant lines, I decided against modifying another water neck (I lost it somewhere). I found some AN bung replacements for the t-stat housing, and waterneck from Mazworx.

 

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Which meant I had to modify the radiator, again.

 

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It's all -16, should be great, and it's all going to fit.

 

From there I moved to the chasm that was my exhaust. I was originally planning on just removing the existing "downpipe" and lengthening it. I sat and stared and realized this was going to probably require me to not only pull the dashboard, but the access panel behind it to disassemble the pipe and muffler just to get to the thing to start cutting it up.

 

Instead I figured it would be easier, and smarter to just make a small section to fill the gap, and also give me a spot to T in the wastegate dump pipe.

 

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I already had the V-band lying around, and the required 3" stainless was minimal. My plan now is to mark the new section at the correct alignment angle prior to removing the engine again, and doing the wastegate dump on the engine stand.

 

This was yesterday, but I'm planning on going full hog on this thing all winter, more updates in the near future, and maybe some more forum lurking as well.

 

Also, I just typed this entire thing without testing the image embedding from photobucket, so if it's fucked I'm sorry and also mad.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Filthy_
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Edit: Found some more photos on my drive.

 

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New seats! I bought these off my ex's stepdad, they came out of his 911 before he sold it, I'll miss the red ones but these are so clean, way more comfortable, and aren't just bolted to the floor.

 

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Right when I started to polish everything, metal finishing the letters off was a bit nerve wracking.

 

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One of the two matching catch cans I'll eventually plumb up once the motor goes in for good.

 

Also, I just re-read the majority of this build thread...

It kind of blows my mind to think that I bought my first welder back in like 2011 for the sole purpose of working on this car. I know it's silly, but I currently work in my own shop doing metal fabrication as a job, I have no employees and no boss, but I'm doing alright. It's a cool feeling to look back at the literal origin of my current situation, and still own and work on the vehicle that started it all. Any time I needed a tool to complete a task on this thing, I bought the tool, instead of having someone else do it for me, or make it for me.

 

I just wanted to say that... this car taught me everything I know.

 

 

 

  • Like 12
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First off, keep it up.  The car is awesome and I look forward to seeing more frequent updates.

 

I have kept the lights on many times using what things that started as hobbies could do for me.  If there is anything I could suggest to the younger people out there, learn a trade. Even if it’s just Woodshop carpentry or metal shop welding.  Especially in the US.

 

Because of being willing to get my hands dirty, I retired at 39.  

  • Like 3
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On 10/27/2022 at 6:42 PM, Soundline said:

First off, keep it up.  The car is awesome and I look forward to seeing more frequent updates.

 

I have kept the lights on many times using what things that started as hobbies could do for me.  If there is anything I could suggest to the younger people out there, learn a trade. Even if it’s just Woodshop carpentry or metal shop welding.  Especially in the US.

 

Because of being willing to get my hands dirty, I retired at 39.  

Dang 39! Well done. I also COMPLETELY agree, learn a trade. The car looks awesome. Great reading through the work done.

  • Like 2
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On 10/27/2022 at 5:42 PM, Soundline said:

First off, keep it up.  The car is awesome and I look forward to seeing more frequent updates.

 

I have kept the lights on many times using what things that started as hobbies could do for me.  If there is anything I could suggest to the younger people out there, learn a trade. Even if it’s just Woodshop carpentry or metal shop welding.  Especially in the US.

 

Because of being willing to get my hands dirty, I retired at 39.  

 

I don't think I'm anywhere near retirement, but diving into the trades has definitely given me purpose.

  • Like 3
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Put some hours in this past weekend, got the throttle cable hold down tacked into the firewall and trimmed it up, feels really nice, but I'm going to have to figure out some sort of return spring, the throttle body spring definitely isn't enough. Also was able to hack up the oem oil drain bung for the turbo, which threads into the upper oil pan and weld an A/N bung onto it, probably going to have to run some hard lines, there just isn't a ton of room in there and it's going to be... warm.

 

Was able to get the wastegate dump plumbed into the downpipe, it took a few tries and I fucked it up the first go around which ruined my fitment, but it was still easily weldable.

 

If you ever try and do this, make sure you clamp the vbands on, and tack the tube in place on both ends as best you can. I idiotically thought that I could just tack the flange onto the smaller tube and then clock it to align to the downpipe, that obviously didnt work.

 

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I figured some warping would be inevitable as it's pretty goddamn hard to fixture something like this, but when I put it back on, I was relieved to see both sets of flanges were still in alignment.

 

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In hindsight I probably should have back purged it... but also it's a pretty oversized exhaust and should be fine.

 

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You can see the routing for the oil drain in this photo... I originally was planning on running a typical nylon AN line and just heat wrap the living shit out of it, but I'm leaning more toward a hard line. I spoke with a friend who builds some pretty heavy duty cars in Denver and he recommended some sort of crimped hardline with a soft line in the middle, as a hard line without some sort of vibration deterrent will eventually beat the piss out of it's own flares and fail.

 

20221107_225439.jpg?width=1920&height=10

 

Here's a shot of the braided feed line, I may try to hard line this in the future, but the length of the line gives it a pretty ideal radius, no stress of kinking or anything, and there's plenty of room in the front of the engine bay to retain that shape, might even be able to clamp it to the fender or something.

 

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Throwing around ideas on how to shorten up this exhaust exit and give it some flare, but I'm not 100% sure what to do yet, I'll probably get bored and just attack it with a grinder.

 

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Also had my first payed aluminum gig, was good to get some practice in, I'm definitely confident enough to build my own intercooler pipes now.

 

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Also found this super vintage welding hood and restored it to a usable state, I'm gonna try and start using it more

 

Sacked up and ordered the digital dash, steady chippin'.

 

cheers.

 

 

  • Like 5
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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

20230102_112822.jpg

 

Been slowly getting this thing back together when I can, reworked the exhaust a bit, I ended up having to completely disassemble it inside the firewall because when I mocked up the new downpipe/wastegate piece I didn't take the time to put the Transmission in, which ultimately was a mistake. Luckily with a finger sander and and air hammer I was able to get it all back in there.

 

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Had some issues getting my original ID1000's to fit into this Greddy Manifold, luckily Radium makes these cups that sit inside of the isolator spot, pretty slick. 

 

20230214_131925.jpg

 

I had to machine up some new spacers for the fuel rail, which wasn't a huge deal. I like the way these came out, and didn't take a crazy amount of time.

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Machined out this 1/4 inch hole as much as I could to make a new coolant passage for the turbo. I'm not sure why they put the small port on top and the large on on the front, but I guess it doesn't really matter now.

 

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Took a bit of head scratching to figure out some ok looking hose routing. Ended up running it straight down through the manifold with a whole mess of heat insulation, also made what I hope is a temporary oil drain. It should work just fine, but I think I might try and figure out something better in the future.

 

IMG_20230304_213312_508.webp

 

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Decided to go back to the s14 throttle body, so I hacked everything I didn't need off of it, cold start stuff, vac ports, etc... gave it a bit of a polish, I think it looks a bit better.

IMG_20230304_213221_474.webp

 

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Original plan for the AN coolant lines just wasn't going to line up... at all. Ended up cutting the radiator up and shortening the original hose bung, wasn't too horrible and now it fits nicely.

 

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The other side fit without any issues.

 

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I had to order two tight 90's from Ace race to attempt to get the harder of the two intercooler pipes back together.

 

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I could probably use a lot more time on the torch welding aluminum, but I'm really happy with the fit up, and they're good enough.

 

20230308_175817.jpg

 

I haven't put the Radiator back in, but you can see the clearance for the coolant line, radiator, and the oil cooler airbox is all there. It's tight, and is probably going to be a bastard to take apart in a pinch, but it is what it is now.

 

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Had to figure out a way to rotate the block ventilation tube up 90 degrees, I randomly found these little plumbing parts in my junk drawer and just kind of made it work. I don't know why, but I thought it would be a good idea to run -10 AN lines for all my vacuum, lines to and from the catch cans... mildly regrettable.

 

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Kinda Janky, but it fits.

 

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Dave's killer pilot bushing removal tool.

 

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Right before I put it back in. The motor seems to have grown a bit in girth since last time lol.

 

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Pretty much where I am now, Going to get the other side of this intercooler plumbed up and start making oil lines. Not too far from firing this thing up and breaking in this new motor hopefully.

 

Thanks for lookin'.

  • Like 4
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Your work looks really nice. TIG welding is an art and it takes a lot of attention to make perfect welds on aluminum bends. The thickness of the tubing changes around the bend and you need to account for that during the welding process.

 

The turbo drain back hose just needs to drain. That's its job, so if you got it routed so it drains without problems, who cares what it looks like? Function = form.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Been trying to get this thing together correctly in between leaving town and having knee surgery, but were getting close.

 

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Made the mistake of welding the ferrule onto the turbo without cutting off the factory "barb" for silicone. So I had to take the bandsaw to my brand new Garret housing.

 

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Was able to salvage the ferrule.

 

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I was nearly able to use the existing pipe from my previous turbo, but it was just ever so short. 

 

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Luckily the alignment was pretty solid, so I just spliced in some 2 inch that took a week to show up.

 

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Moved on to trying to get this oil cooler/filter relocation all mounted and plumbed.

 

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It's tight, but I don't see any issues with it. The filter is in a great spot for super easy changes now too which is cool.

 

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Spent basically an entire day just making AN hoses. Cooler, Filter, and both catch cans fully plumbed.

 

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I had to remove the Intake manifold again which was a bummer. Apparently all these ports on the bottom of the thing are not 1/8th NPT, and I stripped all 4 of them out putting plugs in blindly. I also attempted to weld a -10 AN bung onto the top of the manifold for my vaccum line from the catch can, and wasn't able to weld all the way around the back. Was able to lathe and tap some new bungs and weld them in place, while also just welding up the two ports I didn't need.

 

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Whipped up this little heat shield that will eventually get some sort of heat insulation on it. I'm kind of concerned about the lack of clearance between the factory steering box and this new manifold, but I'm going to run it for now. Luckily I have basically solid motor mounts so there shouldn't be a ton of movement from the engine itself.

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There's a tad over an 1/8th of space between the two with the added shield. Also the Manifold has a pretty serious ceramic coating. Fingers crossed.

 

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Went to finish up the throttlebody side intake by welding a ferrule straight to the throttlebody. The cast aluminum welded so shittily, and I could only do very short passes to keep the heat down. I ended up having to grind and sand the weld down multiple times to get all the crap out of there. It ended up being pretty gross, but it is what it is.

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Started tightening everything down and tossed the radiator back in. Rigged up a throttle cable and did some work on the new throttle pedal.

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Waiting on some fittings for my wastegate/boost controller plumbing. I need to wire my flex fuel sensor, digital dash, and fans to the ECU and then I think I'm ready to try and build some oil pressure in this thing. Wish my luck.

 

Thanks for looking :P.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 7
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Use chem weld prep for cast. 
 

usually it’s an acid and does a pretty good job. 
 

running a torch over the weld will also clean it up a bit. 
I try not to scuff with a brush because it always fucks it up. 
do not grind before aluminum weld. Always fucks it up. 

  • Like 1
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23 hours ago, Stoffregen Motorsports said:

Your welding helmet creeps me out.

 

image.png.43a3bac737d6371db539d3b1590aebda.png

 

Lol, yea that all kinda happened the same time I was doing the engine bay, I'm about due for a new hood.

16 minutes ago, Stoffregen Motorsports said:

Don't grind with a grinding or sanding disc, but using a carbide burr can help grind those impurities out.

 

That's what I did, then sanded it smooth with a finger sander and some scotch brite, then bathed it in acetone. I definitely have some work to do on getting better with aluminum, but I'm happy with what I was able to get together so far.

 

15 hours ago, shlammed said:

Use chem weld prep for cast. 
 

usually it’s an acid and does a pretty good job. 
 

running a torch over the weld will also clean it up a bit. 
I try not to scuff with a brush because it always fucks it up. 
do not grind before aluminum weld. Always fucks it up. 

 

I've never used this stuff but I might order some to have on hand, thanks for the tip.

 

20230419_181937.mp4

 

Also, this bitch is a runner, that should be a video... don't know if it's goin to embed correctly though.

 

Had to pop off the valve cover and remove the radiator to re-do the Cam angle sensor timing. Also removed the rags I forgot to take out of the intercooler... but we're nearly there now. I think one of the bungs I welded onto the radiator is dented, it has a very slow drip from the fitting, so probably pull that back out and weld a new one on there once it shows up. There was one 1/8th NPT port that I didn't know was there and needed teflon, and I tried to re-use a 180 degree -6 fitting for the flex fuel sensor that was no bueno, so I bypassed that for now.

 

Still some wiring to do to the ECU, but in the grand scheme of things that could have gone wrong, a few very small and easily fixable leaks and one rag in the charge pipe... I'll take it as a win.

 

Gonna drop the oil and fill it up with some break in stuff and hopefully get this thing out on the road soon if the weather clears up!

Edited by Filthy_
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