New swap-4G63T

[HKS]

how are those Silvermine coilovers you been running on for street/track usage? Any feedback?

[yenpit]

Wish I had known! Did you come thru Denver?

No. My family lives in Canon City, so I stick to the southern route using HWY 50.

Cool! Must have been a heck of a road trip in the 510, blasting thru the mountains!

[yenpit]

Wish I had known! Did you come thru Denver?

No. My family lives in Canon City, so I stick to the southern route using HWY 50.

I bought four 510's out of Salida a couple years ago, from a guy that messed with them 20++ years before, then got married, had kids, let them sit outside in a mountain wash out gully! I bought another one out of Buena Vista! I think I got them ALL!

Apparently Zcon will be held here in Colorado next August 2021, a number of the events will be at Pikes Peak International Raceway (PPIR) near Colorado Springs, one event will be at High Plains Raceway (HPR) near Denver & we are thinking about having an open house some time in between.......Zcon is 5-6 day long event! Hopefully we will have a bunch of Colorado 510 people there! Could be a great time for another visit!

[jeffball610]

how are those Silvermine coilovers you been running on for street/track usage? Any feedback?

They seem to be working well to best of my ability. At the last autocross event, I did make use of the adjustable front shocks and it definitely made a difference. I'm certainly not the most qualified to give feedback, but they seem to work well for me. If nothing else, the ability to adjust ride height independently of spring height is worth the price.

[jeffball610]

Hopefully we will have a bunch of Colorado 510 people there! Could be a great time for another visit!

I would love to. Timing is everything though. I'm a teacher and school usually starts pretty early in August for us here in Las Vegas. I will likely be out that way around the beginning of June/late May. Hopefully I'll have some air conditioning in the car to make it a more bearable drive through the desert.

[yenpit]

Do you have a dealer installed AC underdash unit? We have done two 240Z's using the original dealer installed underdash unit, but everything else under the hood was NEW universal fit components, just like the original kits were anyway. Both builds, we used a NEW Sanden compressor.............MUCH smaller lighter, MUCH more efficient than the original York boat anchors! Pretty simple fab'd up mounting hardware, minor mods to use a 280ZX belt tensioner. We are building another 240Z now, hot street/track day car with a full cage & custom metal dash, customer wants AC, so we are installing a Vintage Air universal heater & AC kit........we have LOTS of room under the metal dash!

What engine are you running? If the 4G63T, should be easy to find an OE compressor bracket.........have you tried to fit anything yet?

[jeffball610]

Do you have a dealer installed AC underdash unit? We have done two 240Z's using the original dealer installed underdash unit, but everything else under the hood was NEW universal fit components, just like the original kits were anyway. Both builds, we used a NEW Sanden compressor.............MUCH smaller lighter, MUCH more efficient than the original York boat anchors! Pretty simple fab'd up mounting hardware, minor mods to use a 280ZX belt tensioner. We are building another 240Z now, hot street/track day car with a full cage & custom metal dash, customer wants AC, so we are installing a Vintage Air universal heater & AC kit........we have LOTS of room under the metal dash!

What engine are you running? If the 4G63T, should be easy to find an OE compressor bracket.........have you tried to fit anything yet?

I WISH I had the optional under dash unit.

Finding a compressor for the 4G63 isn't hard, but I have to reorganize some things to make that work. I have my alternator in that location, and the stock setup also has a tensioner pulley in that that I'm not sure I can fit. Those parts are also cast iron and really heavy. I don't think the compressor will be my issue.

Right now my issue is grill space for a condenser and associated parts. I currently have zero inches of space up front and have even lost a couple of cooling fans due to tight clearances to the drive pulleys. I plan to run a thinner intercooler that will hopefully give me a 1/2" of space. I know all of the compressor lines will be custom, but I need some parts gathered to organize the routing. I need to figure out which A/C unit I'm running so I know about where to start pointing things towards.

This isn't even taking into account me figuring out how to adjust idle when the compressor kicks on, wiring up fans with the A/C, or routing heater hose lines. I'll get it figured out, I was just hoping others had done something prior that I might be able to steal ideas from.

[jeffball610]

It's been a while since I updated anything. I've been busy trying to squeeze a Vintage Air unit in the car. The unit itself is a breeze under the dash, but all of the fittings and trying to squeeze out millimeters of space (not to the extent of Project Binky) have taken a lot of time.

In order to get a condenser in the car, I had to switch to a thinner intercooler. The only 2.25" intercooler I could find was made for Audi and VW cars. It's way too wide, but I'm working with what I've got. However, the big issue is the A/C compressor. The stock compressor for my engine will work just fine, but the mount will not. It puts the compressor too high and interferes with my intake manifold and lowering it makes it hit my Futofab sway bar. The solution was to switch to the new T3 sway bar, but I'm hearing the strength of that is questionable for the arm length. To compound this, the Futofab lower control arms I have don't like how the T3 bar mounts up and there seems to be quite a bit of tension on the upper mount on the sway bar.
Every image seems to be upside down or backward. Hopefully you can see what's going on







This seems to be a theme with cars. Move one thing, and 5 more things need to be fixed.

[jeffball610]

Wow! Over a year since I updated this? Unacceptable. Lots has happened. I'll break it into a few segments.

The spring of 2021 was me figuring out how to get air conditioning in the car. It's still not 100% complete, but I had to make quite a few changes. I had to redo the collant lines since the radiator has moved and it needed an update anyway.





This was also an opportunity to practice TIG welding aluminum. I'm far from good, but they have held up, so they can't be that bad. I do have heater core lines and a line running to my turbo as well that are not pictured.

While that was going on, the Gilson SSS dash came in. It's great to have room for more gauges, but the quality wasn't as good as his center dash. The pattern wasn't as good and you could see it repeat since the intial product was a 3D print. It still works well and I'm not upset with it's function.






While the motor was out and I was rearranging things, I swapped out the clutch. I had a stock flywheel (with a hole for the input shaft) and a parts store stock clutch before. It worked well, but I wanted to make sure it lasted. I went all ACT with a street flywheel, ARP bolts, Sport pressure plate (formerly ACT 2100), and a street organic disk.



You can also see my heater hose lines. I used AN fittings for some bulkhead fittings to the Vintage Air stystem.

Once everything was back in the car, I had to "clearance" the front valance and grill to fit the new intercooler location. Not a ton of things had to be cut, but it was a lot of fiddling around. The grill itself is pushed out as well as you may be able to see by the headlight surrounds.



I also had to clearance my BRE spook to clear the T3 swaybar ends. When I was finished with the "mods" I threw on some paint from Touch Up Paint. It's not perfect, but it's better than 50yr old pitted and rusty metal. BTW no one can agree on the color name or code. It's whatever, but it's kind of tough to get the correct color when no one knows what it is.




After it was all put together, it was time for a road trip to the Williamson, AZ Route 66 Classic. I needed some mirrors so I found some repops on eBay of the BMW 2002 units. The are stainless steel, look and function very well.



I headed out on the road trip and made it about 130 miles before this happened.




My used turbo that I put 20k miles on while doing road course, autocross, and of course cautious street driving decided it didn't like it's ball bearings anymore. This is a Garrett unit speced by HKS mated to a Mitsubishi exhaust housing and sold back in the day by Slow Boy Racing. It's an odd GT2971R or something like that.

Anyway. It turns out that new parts can be used and a company called Kinugawa. They don't have the best reputation, but no one else makes the parts. I ended up with slightly differnt wheel trims and a 4" inlet instead of a 3".





And that brings us to about the end of 2021. The next post will be about 2022 and the changes that came along the way

[icehouse]

So those rad pipes still allow the motor to have some wiggle? I purposely add extra rad hose for wiggle room.

[jeffball610]

2022 started off with a cold track day. The start was postponed due to low temperatures. It was below freezing in Las Vegas. What an odd thing.





I did of course get the car retuned after the turbo swap. The car ran flawlessly, but I can't say the same for my driving. I'm still not confident in my brakes (see another post) and I know the nut behind the wheel still needs a lot of work. Video for this even sucks because I had motion stabilization on the GoPro, so the view swings around and you can't see anything except in the straights when I'm chasing down M3s and Corvettes

Next up was some autocross in the cold. Temps were so low in the morning that when the first car hit a cone, it turned to dust. Here is some of the carnage. (not mine)




After these events, I decided to treat the car to some new "cosmetic" parts. I got some new Euro tail lights from Z Car Depot along with turn signals and some other gaskets and pieces.





The tail light gaskets were so deteriorated that they were pretrified to the car. I did of course change all of the connectors to Deutsch connectors like everything else in the car.

After seeing all of that mess and looking at my windshield gaskets, I decided it was time to do that job. I of course hired someone else because I wanted it done right the first time.





I didn't take pics of the new windshield, because it's clear. What do you expect? But they did find that someone put some urethane sealant on at some point. I wish I could have kept the registration sticker from 1981, but being able to see at night kind of takes a priority over "vintage" glass.

And then it was time to leave Las Vegas. See next week's episode when other "adventures" were had. (posted 15min after this one)

[jeffball610]

It was time for me to leave Las Vegas. The climate (not the weather) had changed in Las Vegas and it was not for me. So I set out on the road to the Nashville area. At least I tried to set out.




I didn't even make it 10 miles to the hotel for the night before having a blow out on my brand new trailer. Seriously. It had less than 25 miles on it. And then I woke up to this the next morning before heading out to get a spare tire to replace it.



Thankfully it was completely uneventful after that and for the next 1800 miles. I made it to my new place and began settling in. Then I got a spur up my butt to get a new project car. Carnage ensued.





This is my first accident ever. I wish I had my dashcam installed. Some idiot stopped in the middle of the interstate to "downshift for the 4% grade" in his mini SUV. My truck was fine other than a busted mirror, but the trailer not so much. I did manage to get it repaired and set out a second time to get the project car. Thankfully the guy selling it held it for me. Not that anyone else was buying.



1987 Mitsubishi Starion. Non running of course. Supposidly it has a rebuilt motor, but the wiring is a mess and it's missing a few things. I'm getting it sorted. And off topic. Back to the 4G63510.

After the weather cooled a bit here, I managed to get one of the first sets of Bridgestone Potenza RE71-RS tires in the area. Same old busted wheels though. They're light and they work, so no need to change them.




About a week later, I made my first autocross event in the area at the National Corvette Museum track. Or at least the parking lot where they do autocross.




They wouldn't let me run 510 as my car number, so I had to cross off the zero and run with 51. At least they had the right tape colors for some BRE action. The tires work as well or better than the previous version. I would hope so being the new hotness.

And that basically gets me caught up. I'm sure I missed a few things, but I'm more busy driving and working on the car than documenting it. If anyone has questions about what I'm doing, I'm happy to answer anything you want to know. I do all of the work myself, so I know the car inside and out. A brake "upgrade" is coming soon.

[510rob]

A Mitsu Stallion! Cool!

What was it about the climate in Las Vegas?

[jeffball610]

What was it about the climate in Las Vegas?

People were less "people" and more just another number. Businesses would open and make some quick cash doing shady work and then close shop and move on. Home prices were so outrageous that I couldn't resist selling.
It became less of a community and more of a system. I made great friends while I was there, but good people were coming harder and harder to find.

[510rob]

sounds like it was a good decision to pick up anchor and set sail...