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finished welding and grinding the crossmember...decided to set the engine and see where my next problems will lie. I set it without the transmission, mostly because i knew id have to pull it again, and im lazy. The plates im having machined for the master cylinders should be done this week...then i can mount them and get the plumbing started. Not super impressed with the mckinney motorsports mounts...they will work and seem high quality, but look pretty generic. would have been way easier had i removed the fan first....but what fun is working on the engine when its on the ground and easy to get to. Resting on the motor mounts, not sure how im going to pull off clearance for a radiator, e-fan, and an intercooler But, there she sits until next weekend probably... side note: does everybody just remove their parking brake? im not sure how i can route it that it wont get burned on the exhaust.

at 1:02 thats my buddys mustang...he wrecked it that day i think.... and it would appear you love wagons just as much as i do.

yea ive got a bit more time to work on it now, but we arent slowing down as bad as everyone else is...we are the only electrical company still working that i know of. Im pretty much ready to buy the gforce trans to put behind the ka24, but dont want to splurge and be screwed if we get laid off or something, so will have to wait til it picks back up to drop that kind of cheddar....kind of disappointing.

got the trans in my truck, and put ARP head studs in it, so it should be squared away. finally got my ass in gear to get started on this...getting a few parts machined to fit master cylinders. Got the cross member 85% rewelded in. Public service announcement, wear gloves kids...or dont remove that guard thinger on the grinder...

alright folks....im still alive...when i got back from North Dakota for work i was ready to buy a g-force trans for the car, then i blew the 5th gear in my truck...damn all the power. so my car takes a back seat while i figure out where to come up with $8000 to get a built trans for the truck....have made absolutely 0 progress on it :(

right now we are on mandatory 6-10's...im leaving to North Dakota next week where i will be working 12-18 hrs a day 7 days a week for 2-6 weeks lol.

Alright, well good news and bad news.... good news is parts for the car are piling up. bad news is between lack of motivation and intimidation of finishing the engine bay the car hasnt progressed much. I officially started media blasting today. Did a test section about 8x10" to see how it was going to go, seemed to go decent until i blew a hose on my compressor. Have had countless problems with the compressor but removed the problematic harbor freight auto drain, and with 1 more fitting i can switch the 1/4" plastic line to copper. The plastic line keeps blowing with the heat the compressor is putting out. Poor design i guess...so until i get the part we are at a stand still again. This is a 12v fan speed controller. Since i am removing the heating core im going to put a 12v blower in and duct it from the cowl to the windshield vents to help with defog. Should be much less visually obtrusive, and best of all, lighter, 'cuz race car. This is a bunch of wiring to relocate the battery to the trunk. New fancy battery terminals and a fused distribution block. I will be running 1/0 from the battery to the fuse block, because overkill is underrated. From one side of the fuse block i will be running 4ga to the front of the car for the starter, etc...I will then have a spare 4ga run to the opposite side of the back for an amplifier. Game plan is to not run the factory radio and run a 4 channel amp directly off of an aux cable. Then i can just plug in my phone or ipod. will run 2 door speakers, and bridge channels 3 and 4 to power a small 6-8" sub. That is all down the road, must finish the engine bay first. The cable is kolossus kable, was a bit on the expensive side, but extremely high quality and like a wet noodle, should be easy to route.

LOL i wish...my base salary is short of 40k...i work a LOT of overtime, and i make good money on mileage when i travel, which is pretty regularly. It helps im 26 and single with no kids...i spent a long time working for $9 an hr so my bills are pretty streamlined...besides the truck note (which is ridiculous) my running bills are about $1000 a month lol

im technically an electrician. We mainly work on Patterson land based drilling rigs. My company also does work on a few H&P, Nabors, and i have been on a few Precision rigs. I specialize and do IP based telecommunications on the rig, and am also a fiber optic technician, so we build and install most of the fiber on the rig.

Well I'm glad I could help...motivation is a bit lacking on my end too...I really feel over my head with this engine bay when I look at the whole picture. I need to just keep focusing on 1 part at a time and knocking it out.

planned on working on the engine bay all weekend and ended up having to work both days...so sunday about 5pm when i went to get started on it i fired up the air compressor and the auto water drain blew and oring and the tank wouldnt hold air...so in all i got 0 work done on the car this weekend... but today i picked up a new one, and kind accidetally bought another motor...so now i have 2 ka's. at least i got an ECU, 5 speed trans, and complete wiring harness with this one...although the engine itself is nowhere near as clean. on a side note, does anyone know what the screws are inside the fenders to remove them? i havent been able to get them off yet, i had assumed they were phillips, but couldnt get any to turn. Im not sure if ive got it wrong or they are just packed full of dirt.

yea i pulled the hood off after i pulled the engine....i pulled the engine by myself and didnt have another set of hands to help remove the hood.

after the freight company not calling me and letting me know the engine was here 2 days ago, i went and picked it up today...this is my motivation to finish the engine bay...im really dreading body work and paint... kind of surprised the cherry picker went up that high, the bed of my truck is up around 4' off the ground. and note, my driveway truly sucks for trying to pull a cherry picker across it by yourself without swinging the engine wildly. the project continues.

Finally turned a wrench on the car today for the first time in forever it feels like....totaled my mountain bike, concussion, swollen face, sore shoulder, etc..so used the money i had planned to put towards the motor for the car to buy a new bike. 3 Days after ordering the bike i smoked the turbo in my diesel daily. Drove a rentail Hyundai Elantra for 3.5 weeks...talk about a shock from my 3/4 ton. Anyway, truck is back up, so got to put my focus back on the car... got the engine bay mostly cleaned up, almost ready to start media blasting...the game plan is to media blast, stitch weld and prime before the metal starts to rust in the humid houston weather. doing the whole engine bay in a weekend is near impossible by myself in my opinion. So the plan is to do like 1/4 or 1/3 at a time, that way i can ensure the metal isnt exposed to long. have 80 grit glass bead i will be blasting with, and will be priming with a grey PPG epoxy primer. KA24DE will be here some time this week, eventually it will be getting a z32 transmission, and a megasquirt engine management system. Also have a few goodies ive been sitting on for a long while waiting for the right project...time to bring this project up to the 21st century. Not a fan of spending all this money building the car and taking the distributor wire with me to prevent theft. Will have full remote start, glass break sensor, digital tilt sensor, engine immobilizer, and the standard bump alarm. Since the ignition on my car is bad and i dont have any keys, i decided to use a push start, since i have the engine immobilizer anyway. Did a little bit of searching and found an OEM push start thats actually out of the nissan GTR. I need to get a wiring harness and trim ring out of a 370z so i can splice in the plug to wiring and mount the button.

i spent 3 years looking for a wagon in texas...they all seem to pop up in dallas...