I finished the radiator mounts, and have moved on to evaluating the C6 Corvette exhaust manifolds. They look like they’re going to work, buy aren’t going to be quite as simple as I was hoping. Oh well, nothing should be considered simple when doing a swap like this.
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jason
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jason
So, I made one bracket for the cooling fans this evening. Then tonight, I made the other bracket for the passenger’s side. Due to the water outlet, I wasn’t able to duplicate the driver’s side bracket, so I had to rethink it. Geez, if the second bracket didn’t turn out way better than the first. I’ll be redoing the first one to duplicate what I did on the passenger’s side.
On a side note I guess I found my motivation to work on the car and it turns out it might’ve been an itemized to-do list which allows me to maximize the use of my little 30min-1hr excursions to the garage. It seems to keep me focused on the individual items that need to be done instead of sweating the big puzzle.
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jason
Friday evening I found out I had bronchitis, which left be unable to do any significant work on the car. Anyway, the largest item I tackled this weekend was re-routing the engine harness. My first attempt at this, I had routed the primary trunk of the harness in front of the ABS pump, before pushing it through the firewall. There are two issues with this. The first being that it’s unsightly with the harness weaving around that pump like that. The second is that the harness would’ve been passing right over the exhaust manifolds. No thank you.
Instead of trying to fish the harness back out of the firewall, I decided to unhook everything from the engine and just work in the engine bay. Fortunately, everything went smoothly and after about 20 minutes of work, I had the harness routed in a very neat path along the firewall and behind the ABS pump. It’s barely even visible when looking in the engine bay.
Besides that I was able to mount the clutch bleeder valve, install a few heat shields, tighten down the bolts that I left loose while positioning the engine and start work on installing the radiator and fans.
The radiator went in easily, but the fans are requiring a few modifications. Nothing major, so I should be able to get that completed one night this week.
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jason
I’m getting close to the point where I will need to connect the the cooling system. I’m going to start out with simple upgraded components without going to anything truly custom. The radiator is a Mishimuto Aluminum Radiator that a local guy was selling. I got a good deal on an unused one so I thought it was worth the risk to try it out. I also just picked up a set of Flex-a-lite 220 low-profile fans.
If this isn’t enough to keep the engine cool, I’ll work on adding additional ducting, but I hope to avoid that weight if possible.
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jason
I started on the wiring harness this past weekend. So far, I have ran both the GM Engine harness and the Nissan ABS/Dash harness through the firewall. Later this week (if it cools off enough), I will be splicing the two harnesses together, and start routing it around the engine and in the dash.
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jason
As I’ve alluded to before, this project isn’t just about building a v8 powered 240sx. I’m trying to build a car that will excel in a lot of areas. I’ve already put a lot of effort towards making the car handle well, and I plan to continue making improvements to the handling as I can. The end result of this project is that I want a street car with 300-350whp, under 2700lbs, full interior, and enjoyable to drive on the street. I’ve already got the car down to under 2700lbs, but that’s with the factory 4 cyl. While the aluminum block v8 weighs about the same as the factory iron 4 cyl, the T56 is the Big Bertha of transmissions.
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jason
Part of my goal with this project is to get the weight down to 2700lbs, while keeping the car completely streetable to any car enthusiast. The car started life at 2828 with everything in the car, including 3/4 tank of gas, floor mats, jack, tools, etc…
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jason
I went with the tried and true Walbro pump. Hey it works, it’s cheap and everyone uses it. I won’t question that, so in it goes.
First step is to remove the carpet from the trunk, and then you’ll see the access panel for the fuel pump. It’s held in by four 10mm screws. Remove those. You should now see the cap for the fuel tank. There’s probably years of dirt and grim on it, so clean that off at this step.
Next up, unhook the three hoses and the two electrical connectors. With those out of the way you can remove the large plastic nut that holds the cap in place. Supposedly there’s a tool for this. I just used an oil filter wrench, like this one <PICTURE>
Once you have that removed, lift the cap slightly, being careful not to drop anything into the tank. There should be two electrical connectors and a hose connected to the cap. Unhook the connectors and then follow the rubber hose into the tank. You’ll reach a metal bracket that you should pull straight up on. This is the bracket that the fuel pump is attached to. <PICTURE> Remove it, and be careful not to turn it over. There’s likely fuel still inside the pump.
Oddly enough the upgraded Walbro pump is significantly smaller then the OEM pump. Cool, more flow and less weight!! I love having my cake and the icing.
Remove the OEM pump from the bracket and replace it with the WALBRO pump as indicated in this picture: <PICTURE> Now you’ll need to cut the OEM harness near the factory pump and attach it to the connector that was included with the new pump. I used solder and heat shrink tubing here, even though the kit included crimp-on butt connectors. I’m not a huge fan of these, especially in this “environment”.
Now you can reinstall everything by just reversing the steps above. The large o-ring around the cap should be replaced with a new one.
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jason
My LS1 came packaged with a Richmond/TexRacing T10 Transmission, Hurst shifter, and a Lakewood 15005 bellhousing. From my research this should be fairly easy to adapt to the LS1 while using the LS1 flywheel/clutch and a specially made hydraulic throw-out bearing.
First, I’ll start with some links
Tex Racing Catalog
Circle Track article on rebuilding T10sMy gearing:
1st: 2.64:1
2nd: 1.75:1
3rd: 1.33:1
4th: 1:1Looks like it’s a ‘W’ gearset according to the catalog linked above. My stock rear end is a 4.08 final drive, which absolutely will not work with this transmission. I have already picked up a 3.54 final drive from a 350z that should make the gearing a little better for my application. However, I’m still looking for the 3.3 from the automatic 350z.
I still haven’t decided if I’m going to use this transmission. The lack of overdrive has me concerned that it will keep me from picking this car to drive to work, like I had planned on doing. On the flip side, this transmission would save about 50 lbs over the alternative (T56), so it isn’t something that’s easy for me to overlook.
With that said, I opened it up tonight to get an idea of what the gearset looked like. Without any oil, it shifted fairly smoothly and didn’t seem to have any binds. Of course I didn’t shift it too much since it was dry of oil.
Here are the internal pictures:
