240sx v8 build

V8 240sx? Sure! If either the chassis OR the engine is non-Nissan (i.e. SR20 in an RX-7 or LS1 in a 240sx), we've done it.
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540sx
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Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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your right , I was just being sarcastic. i stripped the whole interior(still has dash, door panels and center console), ac,spare tire, saw somewhere that everything I stripped takes off close to 200 pounds. I added a 100 or so with new motor and another hundred with the roll bar. so 2700, thes car is going to kickass. it will weigh around 3000 with me ,the stereo equipment, and new wing.


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540sx
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Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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Decided to rebuild the hood. body shop I trust said it would be $400 dollars to make the hood look clean. said he would probably need to use over a gallon of bondo.

going a whole new direction.

bought a tcsportline carbon fiber oem hood.($300)makeing a mold and going to use to make fiberglass cowl with the top layer being carbon fiber.won't cost too much more than having the body shop fix my warped hood. then i am going to either bond the cowlto the hood or rivet and use some autobody goop for the sealing effect. then I do not have to paint the hood either and it will match my light housings from raceonusa.

Modified by 450SX! at 7:21 AM 3/12/2009
Modified by 450SX! at 10:54 AM 4/14/2009

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mexicanracer03
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the car is realy comming together bro, looks great

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540sx
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Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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here is the trunk floor now.

the box is to cover and protect the gas line that I routed through the fender and through the aluminum floor panel.


Modified by 450SX! at 3:01 PM 3/17/2009

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s13beast
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THis is how your turbo set up is right?Red=hot pipeblue=cold pipeyellow=turbogreen=intercoolerIm trying to get it strait in my head. I dont think i would have room for this with my lt1 unless i moved it way back like yours. Did you just weld some flange in for the turbo to bolt to the headers? both run into one before the turbo right? and how did you run the down pipe? im so confused...

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540sx
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Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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as you can see the turbo is very close to the radiatorit now has the turbo wrap on it and I still want to see if i can squeeze in another layer of wrap or some other heat shield. could not have done if I did not push the motor back 4 inches or so.

It is this close after I modified the collectors on the headers and shortenedthem. I was orifinally going to bring the exhaust down then up into y to meet slightly off center so I could have the airfilter centered and use a scoop on the hood.

they do make top mount turbo manifolds that cost just a bit more thanthe ones I used and you could do a twin with the 3 in downpipes. it was a matter of money for me to do single versus twin turbo.

what about sc instead of turbo. can run shorty headers and have it all nice and compact. don't know if that will fit, just an idea.



















Everything fits very tight and I built a bracket that mounts to engine block under the water pump and is welded to bottom side of collector forsupport so the heavy turbo is not hanging way out there and stressing the headers so much. I heard the sbc turbo headers are prone to cracking.

Modified by 450SX! at 9:42 AM 3/19/2009
Modified by 450SX! at 9:43 AM 3/19/2009

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s13beast
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Car: 94 5-speed silvert s14 sr, 91 hatchback dd.

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ahh i got it. Yeah my motor will sit too far foward. A sc seems like a way easier solution.

Kalypso
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mechanicallythis could be the best build thread on this entire forum..

Aetheticallythis is one of the worst looking cars on here.look at the best s13's thread. Im not a jerk, im just telling you how I feel.

With that said, I love the way you put this together I really am amazed by the fabrication... I still cant trace how the passenger side exhaust piping reaches the turbo. but it doesnt matter.

Great work!

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WDRacing
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I'm not calling you a jerk...but before you say it's ugly you might want to jusdge the final product. Not something that is 1/4 through the body work and hasn't even been primered.

So yeah...stay tuned and reserve your opinion for the finished product.

WD

Kalypso
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I'll wait it out


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540sx
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Joined: Fri May 25, 2007 12:11 pm
Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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My car is definately not a show car. I was going to primer it black and leave it at that but given the cost of the car and the fact that my wife has had to put up with so much I let her convince me to paint it. will be a magnesium pearl, dropping off at beach boys racing in venice for the paint in a couple of weeks.

I painted the engine bay since the car was on jacks anc i originally planned on painting car myself due to budget. color is magnesium pearl from a chrylser 300.will be wetsanded and colorsanded.

Here is something else I fabricated over the weekend. took a sick day today and finished a few things.

wanted to reinforce the front end a little.triangulated the strut bar to the L steel I had welded to firewall previously.bolts in and helps to keep the distributor dry









got the headlights mounted in their homesthe white stuff on hood is plaster dust that I tried to wipe off with a rag and prep clean. need to use a clean rag.



then I checked them and realized that I have the turn signal on the inside and driving lights on outside. not how I intended Guess I need to switch them.


Modified by 450SX! at 2:58 AM 3/25/2009

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540sx
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Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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putting a hold on the hydrogen generator for a while. got a baby due in 3.5 wks. and right now I am trying to figure out how to get the car to not overheat with out buying two 12 in fans to replace my 10's. finishing what i can this weekend on the car. then taking to the painters , will finish the cowl while the car gets painted. then I am done for a while.

I finally got around to getting a new base for my camcorder so I can download the videos. I wil post one up either late sunday night or monday.

so my car did not make it to the painters because my wife went in to labor 3 weeks early. got home sunday night after working on the car late. just falling a sleep at 4am and my wife had gone in to labor. so long story short my baby girl was born on monday and I spent the whole week at the hospital. so my car will go to the painters soon, just not sure when. I also forgot to take the camcorder when I went to work on my car.
Modified by 450SX! at 2:00 PM 5/9/2009

a_ahmed
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Car: 1991 240sx fastback

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Hey nice Congratz on baby project too haha :D

Looking forward to some updates

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540sx
Posts: 365
Joined: Fri May 25, 2007 12:11 pm
Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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so right now my clutch is not working properly, my car is over heating and I forgot to install the check valve for the brake booster.

so I have some issues to fix ,car needs a little tuning and then going to painters.

by the way hurst aluminum shift sticks are not solid aluminum , the center is and the outside layer is cast. when you cut them open and grind them howver it all looks the same.I had cut mine apart and rewelded it so it angled back like a triax for the mustang. It snapped while I was shifting into 4th gear on a narrow road on the ranch.

So I built my own from scratch with some t6 aluminum i had sitting aroundthen clear coated 3 layers with the can so dirt and crap do not stain it.





the cowl is temporary , this is just the plug I will use to make a carbon fiber piece, blue tape is to protect carbon fiber hood.



finally posted a janky video of my car in its unfinished form. hope you enjoy, not pushing the motor yet as it only has 108 miles on itand the location is a ranch my Dad built for some rich guy so I don't exactly want to lay rubber on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDX5VXxcyGw

240sx 327sbc turbocharged 550sx!(was still processing when I edited this or I would have posted the link)

Modified by 450SX! at 3:29 AM 5/18/2009

Modified by 450SX! at 3:34 AM 5/18/2009

Modified by 450SX! at 3:39 AM 5/18/2009

Modified by 450SX! at 6:20 PM 5/18/2009
Modified by 450SX! at 11:50 PM 2/22/2010

Kalypso
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looks good!!!!

the hood is actually nice,

the wing is a little

you should get some ssr professors... with a staggered fitment. and then its all good.


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Logan76
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that thing sounds wicked man,

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540sx
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Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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thanks , the hood will obviously look better once the cowl is made of carbonfiber. I like it at times and others I don't just needs to work for now.I am actually considering buying a carbon fiber piece off ebay. the ones that look more like a mustangs. built the wing in one day.considering using nothing for now or just leaving the wing black primered soi don't waste good paint.

If I could afford the ssr wheels I definately would have bought some.very cleanthose wheels are 800 a piece though.

my rims are staggered 17 x 9 in front and 17x10.5 out back both the +28

Modified by 450SX! at 10:23 PM 5/18/2009
Modified by 450SX! at 10:47 PM 5/18/2009

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arabdrifter
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Car: 89' s13 coupe
Location: MI

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wow man very nice car and sounds unreal

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540sx
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Joined: Fri May 25, 2007 12:11 pm
Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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So i got some new perma-cool fans that are 12in.pull 3300cfm each. no joke. I had to cancel my order with the summit racing and verify the cfm because summit was advertising as 3300cfm per fan and perma-cool was advertising 1650cfm per fan. turns out perma-cool has not updated there website in 5 years and they confirmed the 3300cfm per fan.

installing them tomorrow to hopefull eliminate the overheating issue. also realized that on the sides of my radiator there are openings between the radiator and support that are letting hot air circulate back around and through the radiator. going to use aluminum to build pieces that will be pressed up against radiator that will block the opening which will also act a little as a heat sink.

going to install the check valve I got into my vacuum line going from intake to the brake booster. If that is not good enough then I will run a T to the intake manifold and use another check valve( I bought two just to be safe). hoping to not have to tap my vic JR manifold for a vacuum line, this would be a better source of vacuum when not under boost which will be cruising conditions on highway.

maybe I am over thinking this though and the intake would be enough.
Modified by 450SX! at 6:41 AM 5/24/2009

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540sx
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Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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pushrod (or whatever the thing is called that connects to clutch pedal and plunges into mc).Now My clutch works great. I noticed that my adapter plate cause the clutch mc to sit out about an 1/8 in to 3/16 farther from the pedal which was keeping me from getting the full stroke when applying the clutch.

also mounted my new fans , built a shroud for the pusher sitting opposite my turbo and let the puller be. they are awesome. I had some ebay fans that were supposed to be pushing 2700 cfm. I think my over heating problems will be over. My dad built the pieces to cover gap between radiator sides and the radiator support.

also building a scoop to connect to bottom or radiator support to try and redirect some air flowing under the intercooler, will also build scoops from the lower outside openings on the bumper to get the best cooling i can

installed the check valve inline with the vacuum tube I have connected to intake and I do not think it will be enough. probably will tap the intake tomorrow after another test drive.

post more pics soon.

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540sx
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Joined: Fri May 25, 2007 12:11 pm
Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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pushrod (or whatever the thing is called that connects to clutch pedal and plunges into mc).Now My clutch works great. I noticed that my adapter plate cause the clutch mc to sit out about an 1/8 in to 3/16 farther from the pedal which was keeping me from getting the full stroke when applying the clutch.however I got the car up to 85 real quick accidentally hit just over 5k rpm and now the clutch is slipping when I hit it hard.

turns out the front of car needs to be higher than the rear in order to properly bleed the mcleod hydraulic throwout bearing

also mounted my new fans(3300cfm each) , built a shroud for the pusher sitting opposite my turbo and let the puller be. they are awesome. I had some ebay fans that were supposed to be pushing 2700 cfm. aparently you need about 3000cfm for a small block and 4500+ for a big block. I think my over heating problems will be over. My dad built the pieces to cover gap between radiator sides and the radiator support.

also building a scoop to connect to bottom or radiator support to try and redirect some air flowing under the intercooler, use 4 in heater ducting to route air from the bottom side openings up and over the bumper to radiator.

I got the car to not overheat, drove it 32 miles from simivalley to culver cityand then around on city streets. seems ok so far.


Modified by 450SX! at 11:23 PM 10/23/2009

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skazat
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Car: 98 240sx

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effing sweet. moar pics please

sjrose247
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hey man this sounds awesome when i get some money im putting together a v8 mod for mine... figure that part out when i get there. looking to do a ford motor like a 302 or 351... althoguh the LSx swap is always tempting!

Figured id warn you about the HHO generators (the hydrogen electrolosis thing) they do work and produce Hydrogen that will increase your gas milage, not so much on performance (btw those of you who saw the mythbusters version of things they screwed up you need an electrolyte like baking soda to make it work) ANY WAY they will work for a while, but the highest grade stainless steel will end up wearing out after approx 7-8k miles (depends on driving style) but those plates are expensive and you pretty much break even on the gas money you save for buying the plates! lol

OH and a couple things we found out was you need baffles or a second bottle or you have a possibility of water being sucked into your engine which isnt good, and there is always the possibility of it blowing up. look on youtube a little youll find videos of people making them blow up and it really isnt that hard.


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540sx
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Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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have you tried one or someone you know. you said we found out. I have actually seen a lot of videos on youtube with people running them on turbocharged cars and NA cars. also seen people showing that the gas is explosive by letting it come straight out of the water into air and lighting with torch. pop...pop..pop

ideally from what I saw you want the hho gas to go into another collection chamber where it is released into water then you collect from the top. I see why baffles would help there, and in the original chamber, hard driving could toss it around so that some gets sucked up. thanks for the tip.

only way I can picture people blowing them up is if they put the chamber or lines next to something that is very hot . would not want the lined with HHO running too close to exhaust or turbo. radiator or anything , would probably wrap the line anyways. can;t remember if hydrogen has a high combustion point. there is also the consideration of the temp at which it will combust when running high compression or boost.also is supposed to produce more heat which means you need an effiicient cooling system.

I would have my line enter into my cold air intake before the turbo.

not going the plate route when I do it . I watched a video of a guy to made stainless steel coils.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfG6kyifq30

some people are using sondiumhydrachloride but I think with the water this can cause chemical burns or something, saw a video about it about a year back. however I wonder if people are getting more than 7 to 8 thousand miles out of them.

another way with coils is to use stainless wire and weave a bunch together in long strands. they even make plexiglass molds to use for building them this way. If I remember right hastings plastics in santa monica makes it.

It will be a while before I do so hopefully someone will have found another chemical to use as electrolyte that lets materials last longer. given that some of these other methods are no so expensive it might still be worth it. I am concerned about polution and gas mileage. my little hotrod is not so good on either right now.

Modified by 450SX! at 7:58 PM 5/31/2009
Modified by 450SX! at 4:05 AM 7/5/2009

sjrose247
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I just finished school at Southern Illinois University Carbondale with a degree in automotive technology and one of the classes i took was Alternative fuels which we had a project to design and build a HHO generator and write a 1 page paper about the experience and design or write a longer paper about hydrogen related fuel.

My paper ended up being the long one and against HHO generators but there were a handful (maybe 10) people who made the generators out of fairly cheap components the best being 2" PVC with steel electrodes and baking soda with PVC caps on either end and the connections poking through 1 end and it would fill a balloon up to abt softball size in 30 sec to a min and we blew those balloons up in class (it was fun) however his was the best but after an hour or two of balloons taking some breaks inbetween his regular steel plates were already showing signs of corrosion

Of course Stainless will wear better, but that is still a quick degrading because corrosion on the steel will start to make it lose its ability to create the HHO. to my knowlegde no one in the class put it in thier cars and tested it, but i know i searched on google and found a compay the builds them and it showed some plates that were supposedly high grade SS and they were still pretty corroded after not THAT long of use.

If you do want to do it the most unique and probably most practical design the kids in class came up with was taking a motorcycle battery and gutting it since yo already have your baffles in there places to separate the plates, terminals already mounted on the case, and if you got the right battery a way to quickly change your electrolyte fluid periodically.

All that being said i do really like your project, scares me a little bit about the ammount of work you did to get the motor to fit (granted you have a trubo crammed in as well) but none the less bravo on the fab work and idea for it all. Admitidly i dont know much about turbos or any forced induction, and i know more about ford motors then GM motors (used to have a 67 mustang with a 351c and my buddy had a 67 with a 351W needless to say a lot of talk about why each motors was better was exchanged) just wish i had money to get another car and get my project started! good luck getting everything squared away!

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540sx
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Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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thanks for the info. guess i will need to reconsider until a better method is derived. if the SS slowly loses its ability to produce the HHO then that means the production would slowly decrease and the car would need to be retuned every so often. that is a pain.

what about the metal gives it the ability to produce the gas and is it part of the reaction that occurs causing the corrosion as a by product? curious if other metals would work.

sjrose247
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Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 3:28 pm

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i think stainless is the most practical solution since other precious metals might work better but are expensive. but i think its basically the oxidation process that would happen if you left metal outside for a while and it rusted, but its accelerated.

i couldnt find the site that shows the plates side by side BUT http://www.fuelfromh2o.com/faq.php #13 says top off and flush and refill every 5-7k which im pretty sure thats not just refilling the water and ranging in the $50 or so for new stainless after 5-7k you end up just about breaking

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540sx
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Joined: Fri May 25, 2007 12:11 pm
Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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so My little pea brain realized recently that I definitely need to pull vacuum from the intake manifold and not just the cold air intake. so I spent a few hours removing everything that I needed to and pulled the manifold. tapped the side and installed a 1/4 npt to 3/8 hose port fittting in the passenger side of my vic JR manifold. Also bought a comp cams canister just for insurance because my vacuum readings are only sufficient when I lift off the gas.

funny thing is I had a white t shirt laying in the engine valley covering the lifters and rods. well I forgot to take it out when I put the manifold back on. luckily I had not torqued the bolts yet so the gaskets were reusable. that is what I get for working on my car for 8 hours with 3 hours of sleep.

the car runs and idles great for a while and the fans turn on relative to my tempgauge . fan sensor on dirverside head and temp on passenger side head. some times the sensor is not reading hot enough to activate the fans but the temp is reading as high as 240.

ordered one of those inline neck fillers to install in the upper radiator hose. realized that my cooling issues were related to the system not being filled completely because I was filling at the radiator cap. I have the heater hose and the hose from thermostat to radiator that are higher than the radiator cap. when I pull the upper radiator hose the water level is at the thermostat. that is not good that means the whole upper hose has air. that is a lot of air. so I am puttin in the inline filler with a bleeder valve and am going to raise my reservoir so that the line connecting to it is higher than the new filler. I might need to cut a whole in the hood for this to happen. luckily summit sells a nice little scoop for like 23 bucks that i can even get with carbon look so it matched hood. will also help to let out some of the heat from the turbo.it is meant to be a forward facing scoop but will mount backwards like a cowl if i need it.

sjrose247
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Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 3:28 pm

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sounds like your ready to have some fun with htis beast! and hey if you have any extra moey laying around ill take it so i can start my own v8 swap!

take a couple pics of the project as is i wanna see this thing fully installed and all that good stuff!

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540sx
Posts: 365
Joined: Fri May 25, 2007 12:11 pm
Car: 240SX
Location: Culver City, Los Angeles

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seriously, I spent money on this car like it grew on trees. and i bought things for cheap that I felt I could , got some stuff for free and got some help from my dad. s*** adds up quick.

hope that dough comes your way so you can watch how quick it goes into one of these swaps. guess just a motor, trans, carb, and some other stuff would not run too steep if you did not go all out.

i did the whole car though. only things I had prior to this were the shocks,(have the tanabe gf210 springs but they were not stiff enough for my taste, only used for about 8 months),energy suspension bushing kit and the front brakes. everything else happened at once.

I am waiting for that 500 mile break in period so I can go do some burnouts and doughnuts. at about 200 right now. want to track it as well. tires are only good for 146 mph, but you know i am going to find out how 140 feels the first time on a track. with the next set of tires i will get z rated so I can go for 200, obviously is stages so I makesure I have enough down force. not trying to get airborn here that is my goal 200 in 5th gear at 6230 rpms, that is at least what the mph calculator says.


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