Finally video of that car moving! Still chasing electrical gremlins around. This is the first time we've attempted to move it under it's own power and it went relatively well. I'm pretty sure that the ECU is in limp mode because of a knock sensor code that is showing up. I knew that the knock sensor might be bad because it was crushed under the engine when it was put on a pallet. We also noticed later that night that the backfiring is only happening on one back of cylinders. The driver side bank is rhythmically shooting flames out, and I'm pretty sure it's something to do with cylinder 1. The exhaust runner coming off of it gets REALLY hot within 30 seconds or so of the car running. The other runner's will just be warming up at that point.

Anyways, here's the video link, and some photos from our little celebration photo shoot!
http://youtu.be/5BBv3OfVhKI

Well, after trying to figure out why the backfiring was only occurring on one bank of cylinders, we started unplugging coil packs to see how it effected things...turns out the plugs for cylinders 5 & 6 were swapped, and so it's been running on 4 cylinders this whole time. We routed the harness different than stock, so I think we got a bit turned around once we flipped some things around. The car finally starts up with authority and purrs like a kitten now!

Mmmmmmmmm!

http://youtu.be/kuIW_j-dAb0

So we sorted out most of the remaining electrical gremlins. We now have a charge from the alternator. Turned out to be something screwed up in the harness wiring that ZFever did. They did a s*** job on ALOT of the wiring in that harness. But I'll save that for another post all together. We sorted it out though, so the ECU finally went out of limp mode. Here are some videos of the first few drives around the hangar complex that I store my car in. Some of the video is crappy but I'll get better ones in the daylight tomorrow. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/yesXO5d0HmQ
http://youtu.be/m62slzXyqlc

Sweet swap!
I like the paint color.

That sounds beast great work man. The color is sweet. More plans for it or just about done for now?

Thanks for the compliments guys! It's been a loooooooong and frustrating process, but it's way worth it now that I have driven it. It hauls balls! I do have more plans for it though. I have a Vortech V-3 Supercharger that I recently acquired and will slowly start piecing everything together to make that work. I have a few different pulley sizes for it, and should be able throw down anywhere from about 350whp-480whp, depending on pulley.

Left some pretty wicked skid marks on this one. Probably won't be too much more of that before I piss off the other hangar owners! Should have ypipe done this weekend, and tomorrow I'm finally getting an alignment done. Hopefully it will actually want to grip up some afterwards

http://youtu.be/oh9kqLnDoDs

Went out to Nismo Fiesta today in San Antonio. Had a blast and saw alot of really cool cars! Didn't feel quite ready to autocross my car, but I did do a dyno pull! I'll post the dyno sheet once the guy e-mails it to me. His printer ran out of ink right when I got there. Anyways, the car put down 255whp and 249lb/ft of torque. Not quite as much as I was hoping for, but it turns out it's running pretty rich right now. Apparently, since the 350z uses a returnless fuel delivery setup, the fuel pressure is meant to be static. Since I had a vacuum source connected to it, fuel pressure was increasing with RPM, which it's not supposed to on this car.

Also, I met a dude from UpRev, who is pretty sure that with the mods I have, particularly the massive headers, I should be able to put another 30-40 hp down with a dyno tune at their place.

Oh, and I did a simulated 1/4 mile and got a 13.008. And I missed a gear on that run, plus I had no tachometer so I can easily run mid 12's I think.

Here's the video!
http://youtu.be/5PQXFdDYbHA

Here are the dyno charts/simulated 1/4 mile printouts. The bottom of the dyno graph is in seconds, not RPM. I'll have better ones after I get it tuned in a few weeks.



<a href="http://s344.photobucket.com/user/fattym ... 1.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i344.photobucket.com/albums/p356 ... G_0671.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_0671.jpg"/></a>

Hey guys,
It's been awhile since I've posted any updates, so prepare for a novel! I was out of town for a good while, but have had the pleasure of putting about 3,000 miles on the car. She has performed better than I ever imagined! As with any car that you've dismantled to this degree, I've slowly been working out the kinks and shaking her down. I took her on a road trip to El Paso, about 1100 miles round trip. On the way there, the bolt that holds the shifter to the shifter linkage wriggled it's way out as I got off of the intersate. Luckily it was in neutral, and there was a NAPA just down the street. Got the bolt and went on our way. Then on the way back, about 45 minutes from my house, I ran over a dead raccoon. The raccoon got snagged on the wiring/plug for my Crank Angle Sensor, and ripped it all apart. Totally destroyed the plug! The car died and wouldn't start. I got a ride to my house and managed to crimp the wires directly to the pins. This was obviously a temporary solution, just to get the vehicle back to my place. I would have left it, and gotten a tow the next day, but I had just exited the interstate, and ended up parking it in a shady apartment complex parking lot. So, I managed to get it home and then I left town for a few months.
I'm now back, and have been working on her a lot. I have had the chance to autocross her a few times, and it was a blast! The vehicle actually handles really well, but I have grip issues. The rear tires are pretty old. They were on the rims when I got them. Also, my front tires are relatively crappy. They're new tires, but not very grippy ones. I think if I can get the power down a little better as the vehicle transitions out of turns, I'll be able to knock a considerable amount of time off of my laps.
Now, for those of you into VQ's, you'll know that the transmissions on the 03-04 350Z/G35 tend to go bad. My motorset was pulled from a 2003 G35, so I was waiting for it to die. Of course I hoped it would be an exception, but it was a bit sketchy from the get go. 5th would grind almost all of the time, and sometimes 3rd would as well.
But, the worst problem was reverse. When I first got things running, reverse worked fine. Then it started making a weird noise as I'd reverse. Then it started popping out of gear, and eventually got to where it wouldn't stay in reverse at all.
So, I tracked down a CD009 transmission, that has the upgrade synchros and such. In order to swap tranny's, I had to pull the whole motor. While it was out I went ahead and upgraded the clutch and flywheel. I just so happened to check eBay, and stumble upon a barely used OS Giken Super Single Clutch for $300! I snatched it up and threw it on there. The OS Giken setup is a clutch/flywheel combo that is quite interesting. The whole assembly weighs 27lbs, compared to 50lbs stock.



While the engine was out, I finally had space to wrap my headers. They are already ceramic coated, but that only does so much. I used the “titanium” wrap stuff. I strongly recommend it over the fiberglass kind. I tried used the fiberglass wrap once, but the stuff was so damned itchy/scratchy and annoying that I barely got through one runner before I returned the stuff. I used very thin gauge stainless wire to retain the wrap, and it worked great once I got the method down for getting that stuff to twist really tight without snapping. I do recommend this stuff to anybody having heat management issues. I saw more than a 20 degree difference in Air Intake Temps after wrapping them. They say that ceramic plus wrap is the best way to do it, so hopefully it all holds up.



Everything got installed and went back together just fine. I got to drive it for about a week, and am blown away at how responsive the motor is with the new flywheel setup! I can feel a very noticeable difference!
Sadly, I only got about a week, before the car was wrecked. I swerved to try and avoid a deer on my way to work last week, and slid off of the road into a bit of a ditch. I'm thankful that nobody was hurt, because there was a point when the car was going sideways through the dirt, and starting to roll over. Thank God it stopped and settle safely. There wasn't a massive amount of damage done, but it's enough to warrant repainting the whole car. A lot of rocks and stuff got knocked into the passenger side, so pretty much that whole side has to get repainted. But, the front bumper actually cracked, and the rear bumper had a good bit of paint come off. So, essentially, 2/3 of the car already needs to be repainted, so we're just going to get the whole thing.





There are two huge dents around the gas tank. One in front, one underneath. There's also a lot of damage further down the panel, near the bumper


It's hard to see, but if we'd slid another 2 feet, we would have fallen off of a 3ft drop off. Most likely would've rolled!


Lower quarter damage


Big gouge out of quarter panel, near door



My buddy and I can do all of the body work ourselves, so we'll be saving a lot of money on labor. While everything is apart, we have decided to modify the stock hood to make it clear the engine. Can't wait to have the hood sit flush again! Every time I autocross, somebody runs up to tell me my hood is open....very annoying. We were looking around at a ton of spare parts/cars behind the body shop that we are doing the work at, and we stumble about a steel hood that has a big cowl on it. I'm not going to tell what car the cowl came out of, but I would be amazed if anybody could ever guess.
I didn't think it would work, but my buddy was sure it would. He cut it out, laid it over the 240 hood, and amazingly, it looked like it would work. After some more measuring, we decided it could clear the motor, and would probably look pretty cool. I understand that it's a bit of a muscle car style, but I think it's pretty cool looking. It's functional, solves our hood gap problem, and also brings the car a cool custom edge.
Anyways, I've documented (sort of) the custom hood creation process. ENJOY!

First, we laid tape along the edges and marked 3 inches down from the back of the hood, on each side.


Now you lay tape across the hood, connecting those two point. Now you have obvious reference points and can find center on the hood easily. Measure across and mark the center point.


Lay another piece of tape acros the nose of the hood, making sure it's straight. Measure to the center and mark. Now you can connect your two centerlines and you have created a grid. Find a way to do the same thing to your scoop/cowl or whatever you're putting in the hood. This will make lining the two of them up really easy.



Here's the back of the cowl, lined up with the center point on the back of the hood


Once you are totally sure about the placement, outline the scoop with something that you'll be able to see really well. Now check all of your measurements 10 times, because it's hard to turn back after the next step!

It's time to get out the cutting wheel. Remove the cowl and cut out what you outlined. Be very careful, and compensate for blade thickness as you cut. Otherwise it will be just too big or too small. Also, be mindful of how deep you cut, because we don't want to cut up the skeleton just yet. If you cut out the skeleton, it will become incredibly hard to keep the hood straight. It'd be like trying to work with aluminum foil! (not really, but wobbly!) We will be modifying it later, but leave it for now



For some reason I didn't take any pictures after the cutting of the hole, but the cowl is now tacked into place at this point. The fitment is surprisingly good. I've never done much metal working, and this is totally new territory for me!






Be mindful of heat when you weld on material like this. It's really easy to warp the panel and create some huge bodywork issues for later on. So, I just slowly spot welded it. Moving around the panel in a way that helped to not put too much heat into the panel.



Then came the moment of truth! We cut out the skeleton (to be used later), but only the parts that would be in the way Now that the cowl is in place, the hood can maintain some ridgidity without this section of skeleton. Here's the fun part; Test Fit!






I'm sure plenty of guys won't dig this style, but I think it's a pretty bad a** looking solution! That's it for now. I'll update over the next few weeks as we finish the paint and supercharge it!

good s*** man. I have a vq swap and a vis fiberglass hood with the supports under cut out to fit the plenum. But I still had to space the hinges a good inch. s*** sucks but I like the way it looks honestly. As far as your hood, now it looks like a old firebird or something lol. but w/e gets the job done. Any plans on forced induction?

Yeah, I definitely realize that it takes the style of the vehicle in a different direction, but I think it will flow and look really clean once its painted. We thought about going the fiberglass or carbon fiber route, but no matter what, that stuff kit won't hold up like metal will. I didn't want to do all if this work, and then start chasing cracks and s*** at the seams after a year or so. We also might be fabbing up some sheet metal fender flares.
But, as in most cases, the form was dictated by the function. I'd rather have proper gaps around the body panels and a big cowl than go back to having 2 inches of spacers
As far as forced induction goes, I've got a vortech setup that I'm pulling all of the parts together for. I think the Insurance money should cover it. But, first I'm going to get it driving again and get comfortable with my new RE-11 tires. As long as I feel confident in my level of grip, then I'll throw it on in the next month or so. Jumping from 270whp to 380, is quite a gap...it's gonna be pretty damn scary

Firebird-esque. Something about it also makes me think of the classic Z cowl. (like the nismo one, or whatever... maybe not nismo, but some sort of race package)

Anyways, that's really neat looking. Eager to see it all finished.

I like the way the cowl style matches the pignose style.

I know you said you got larger diameter headers than the off the shelf Mckinneys, but what diameter did they end up at? The off the shelf are 1 and 5/8ths, but headers for the Z I've seen are normally larger, so did you get like 1 and 3/4 or 1 and 7/8ths?