Caspers_240 [re]-Build, KA-t VERT

[the vert]

Awe they dont know true custom work when they see it. LOL Cant wait to see this custom top u speak of.

^^^Thanks Vert. The rest of u guys suck for not posting in my thread! 8P

[nissan_star]

If you get a top, it will be a real vert again right?

[cmoody2006]

very nice build! I feel kinda redneck with my vert build after checkin yours out... Def gave me some ideas... Keep up the excellent work One question that comes to mind tho is your dash... How's he gonna fix that without having to fiberglass the whole thing?

I like the way you went with removing the top from the car! Makes me curious about whether or not I wanna yank mine

Did you bend the metal for your cage yourself? Or did you buy it pre-bent?

[caspers_240]

If you get a top, it will be a real vert again right?

uhh, more "Jeep-like" as in bikini top that will hopefully be kinda water tight. Its gunna be tough tho. I have to make it lightweight and sturdy enough to pass tech for lapping days and TA.

[caspers_240]

very nice build! I feel kinda redneck with my vert build after checkin yours out... Def gave me some ideas... Keep up the excellent work One question that comes to mind tho is your dash... How's he gonna fix that without having to fiberglass the whole thing?

I like the way you went with removing the top from the car! Makes me curious about whether or not I wanna yank mine

Did you bend the metal for your cage yourself? Or did you buy it pre-bent?

Thanks for the complements! I think I'm gunna cover the dash with some kind of swuade or something simular.I hired a local race shop to build my cage, I wasn't really sastisifed with his welding so we went back over them with the TIG at work.

Ride around for a month with the top down all the time b4 u yank it all out. If its a street car, u may want to keep it. Def not for a DD, unless u have a backup car. GL and thanks for finally posting in my thread!

[the vert]

I think I have a good idea on the top u said jeep like and a little light bulb went off.

[centralflZ]

Damn dude I like it a lot! I thought about Ka-t for my vert! Motivation much. lol.

[caspers_240]

uhh... 1 month old update... 12/7/09. sry.

And tonight progress:Not terrible for my first time welding aluminum I guess...

New O-ring on the maf and Nylock nuts just to be safe (even tho I tapped the flange).

To mount my oil filter relocater where I wanted to (I didn't want the filter to hang down too low in case I run over something), I had to build another spacer. I started with this

Ended with this... I think I shaved about 6.4 Oz's by milling out the center.

I mounted it on the passenger side frame rail, just behind the front sub frame. sry, pics suck.

I finished my cold pipe finally! So tomorrow I have to buy a few more clamps, get some distilled water for the radiator. s***! I forgot I still have to wire in the Z32 maf (Thanks Ashibah83 for loaning that to me! :thumb: ). Then check out my injector o-rings, fill up the transmission with the purple stuff, and hope I'm not a dumb-a**! No more stalling... tomorrow is the day. WISH ME LUCK!!

Na, everything should be good to go; I just get nervous (cranking a new engine) after putting all this work into this thing. Got to get up in 4 hrs to start a Monday... Damn... later.

[cmoody2006]

hope she fires right up for ya

mine didn't... still gotta mess with it some more...

[the vert]

wow man thats great to hear that you are going to start it. Good luck but im sure everything will work out well.

EDIT. I guess I should have asked how it went. LOL

[caspers_240]

wow man thats great to hear that you are going to start it. Good luck but im sure everything will work out well.

EDIT. I guess I should have asked how it went. LOL

fastest ka initial start up ever! timing was spot on and it runs great so far. I've only driven it a few times tho; it's too damn cold right now and i need to tune for the z32 maf.

I shaved another 25lbs or so of body harness, relays and other top crap as well... pics up soon.

[the vert]

Hell yea man sounds good. I want to work on mine but its just too cold right now. And by the time I get off work and start to work on it it gets dark. s*** sucks cant wait till it gets warmer and sun stays out longer.

[lalo]

this vert is nasty keep up the good work

[caspers_240]

this vert is nasty keep up the good work

Thanks ^^

This is how I decided to handle crankcase pressure this time...

I bought this catch can from (ashamed to say it... Egay) a couple of years ago, but after taking it apart and seeing the tiny a** holes, I decided to fix it.

This pos only had two 4mm inlets( = <Useless) coming in from the top. the brass fitting had less than .250" holes.

Luckily, the can was thick cast aluminum, so I was able to redrill and tap for better hardware and flow. I plugged the original holes (using blue loctite on the plugs) and drilled a 3/4" hole in the top for my breather filter.

The I.D. of the rubber adapter is 3/8, so I may go back and ream that out to 1/2" if I need to. Should be ok tho.

The way the system runs now is this:PCV valve has been replaced with a straight 1/4" brass fitting. the ports on the underside of the intake plenum have also been plugged and sealed. The vent on the VC will not be connected to the cold side of the IC. That is just plain stupid to me. I had a filter on it b4 but I wanted to do something a little different this time.

The 3/8 clear tubing I am using was just a tad too loose for my taste. So I put some .750" heatshrink on and it just did go in. Perfect.

I put another piece of 3/4" heatshrink over the junction, so maybe it wont make a mess down the front of my engine again. as u can see, this runs directly to the modified catch can.

The other line connects to the fitting that replaced the PCV valve.

I've never had enough oil go into the catchcan to warrant installing a return line, but then again, the old setup was kinda useless, and probably didn't really work at all, so we'll see how this thing goes... I probably wont put one in anyway unless I start running the 24hr of Daytona or something :roll: :lol: ... [not gunna happen in this car]

LMK if you guys see any potential problems with this setup (cause I haven't seen anyone else do it exactly like this). later.

[caspers_240]

I'm pissed... weighed my car today...

2,660 w/ ~7 gallons of gas and only one seat :evil:

i drove onto a scale at a recycling yard, so I'm not 100% sure of the accuracy. :?: :?:

I think its the scales... there is no way that thing weighs that much... the cage probably weighs around 65~75lbs, I saved that much with the door swap! I shaved weight everywhere I could [w/ stock body panels]. even removed ~15 to 20lbs of *extra* harness wire.



^^just some of the said wire...

good news tho... I just got a GT2871R

[caspers_240]

The painting process if finally coming along... All the little dents and dings are gone. Time for some color! :thumb:



Prep work begins as Scott [from Scott's Custom Paint] starts cleaning and sanding the inside of the chassis...

From this...

To this!

Spray on bed liner... I like it. Should be tough and easy to clean. My only concern is that its probably going to be hot as s***! Black car, Black seats, Black interior.... If it is then it shouldn't be much of a problem to paint.

The jams are prepped...

The weather has been KILLING me! This is my cousin's shop, and he is ~sponsoring me a paint job cause he knows I'll help get his name out to other people besides lowriders, hot-rodders, and bikers... Plus, we have always helped each other out when we can. So he's been working on mine when he's waiting on parts or whatever for his [cough] paying customers... Everytime its time to paint or something, we've gotten nailed with s***ty weather. It will be worth the wait tho; Scott is extremely talented!

[caspers_240]

My new 6 point FIA rated harness:

Header wrap to address some heating issues.

My new Deatschwerks 555cc injectors my wife bought me for v-day

A hint of my paint.. This is w/ no candy, and no clear coat, so everything in silver will be blood red... :twisted:

[caspers_240]

little update...

GT2871R is ready for action

S14 FLCA. When I got these, the tension rods had come loose and screwed up the holes. So, I cut out some .125 steel plate and welded them on for some added strength. These r now painted flat black.

Ohh yea, almost forgot... [/Bulls***] 8-)

Got this lip from renting Nissankat's fender roller



Enough teasing... Some of the "JDM" crowd may not like this... But I think it fu*king ROCKS! 8-)

I think it's going to look bad-a** on the track when it passes by and the shades change :shock:

Let me know what u guys think! Don't worry, it's not for everybody [a couple of my friends have confirmed that already ], No biggie tho, this is MY car, and I love it! :thumb:

HUGE THANKS For Scott's Custom Paint in Waycross, GA! [912*614*1540] Excellent quality paint, Very affordable prices... He does work from all over [people FedX him motor cycles in pieces :o ], so JAX is NOT too far away for a bad-a** paint job!

These pics are pre-buffing! Anyone that can spray this many coats of candy w/o completely FUBRing it, has crazy skills in a paint booth!

[caspers_240]

P.S. just in case u guys think this is turning into a "show car," [u have no idea what i'm about] ur dead wrong . I'm just going to look good [for once] beating the s*** out of my car! :twisted:

from this:

To this:

The suspension is still jacked way up from rolling the fenders, and I took off my rears to keep them clean... More updates by the end of the week.

[cmoody2006]

omg!!!! thats sick! I'd love to beat the piss outta it! lol jk but seriously that thing is gonna be a blast! def helped me decide on my color for my vert... can't wait to go get my new vert hopefully this weekend...

[caspers_240]

Thanks for the props man! Good luck o that vert too...

[Tech90]

Nice fukin job! keep us posted

[the vert]

Sucks cause im on a air force computer and I cant see the pics. cant wait to see how it has turned out. Got a question though. Do you still have ur back seats. I threw mine away and now I need new ones. If you have them let me know. My email is [email protected]. Thanks man.

[caspers_240]

sry man, they went in the trash... I hate clutter unless it's subframes and such.

[caspers_240]

Little update:The lines I got from sparticus were dry-rotted, so I took the fittings off and bought 2, 3' pcs of SS lines from a local race shop. I also picked up a 18" SS oil supply line to make life a little easier to install/remove the turbo.

S14 front LCA going on.

Crappy pic... But, I re-greased the S14 bearings, pressed in new studs (too short tho, they will be replaced with ARP studs) and had to redrill the strut mounts to accept the larger S14 bolts. Dust cover was reinstalled after TQ'ing to 205ft/lbs.

[caspers_240]

After installing the S14 front LCA, spindle, and hub; I had to redo my alignment.This is how I do it... I built these adjustable stands to be as close to exact as possible so I can work on the car with all of it's weight on the wheels. I use them along with some UHMW plates [w/ a little grease in the middle] to have a very low resistance and prevent suspension bind.

= -2.1* camber.

Excuse the sanding dust, I have to wash it still.Notice the center nut's location in the camber plates w/ the s14 front LCA.

This is -2.1* w/ S13 LCA

I'm not going to slam my car. Yes, it looks good, but I'm trying to reach a new level of handling since I've pretty much giving up on drifting... I'm trying to figure out a way to build roll center adjusters. Until then, this is the most angle I want.

More updates soon. I was also able to get the dash back in along w/ the dr seat and harness so tomorrow it will get a good bath [pollen suks] and start playing with Nistune again...

[cmoody2006]

Sucks cause im on a air force computer and I cant see the pics. cant wait to see how it has turned out. Got a question though. Do you still have ur back seats. I threw mine away and now I need new ones. If you have them let me know. My email is [email protected]. Thanks man.

I've still got my back seat if your still needing one

How much did that ss return line run ya? I just got my turbo today and I'm def goin ss braided steel lines on my vert

[caspers_240]

^^the return line was like $12 plus the fitting...

This is a copy/paste off of my build thread from our local forum:

Small update:

So the cage was painted single stage "DuPont Hot Rod Black" so any touching up from scratches or adding bars later or whatever will be easier... Most of the time, this would have been done first. BUT, we were still undecided on what to do w/ the cage so...It looks more "flat" now than it did in this pic... It wasn't fully cured yet.See...

Fast forward and week [finals week for my wife, no chance 4 me to work on the 40]:A good friend of mine [Tony A.K.A. Vato] and I started polishing up the vert while Scott was finnishing up the last of the panels.Scott air brushing so fast I couldn't get a good pic...This dude has some real talent... I told him to make his logo as big as he wanted to, but he was afraid to take away from the look of the car... True artist...

Vato finally allowing me to breath by showing me a buffed fender...

[caspers_240]

I had to wash off the rest of the polish and buffing compound.... So u know I had to take some pics See, its not too loud! It just depends on how the sun is hitting it as to what color it looks like.

Like I said... Black Mirror! [this is my hood]

This makes my seats look s***ty...

I think the rear cover made a HUGE difference... Only thing left is the spoiler.

The camera phone does not do this justice...

Please lmk what u guys think! A lot of work has gone into this thing...

[Tecfreak213]

Well, it looks like every one is speechless... And probably jealous... I know I am...

Now park it in a clean room and be done with it, because if you crash that, I would bet a lot of people will cry!

Gotta say it, props to Scott's paint, fantastic job. And great work on the top cover, if only it was functional.