Copper 450ZX

[BlazingCopperZ]

Hello everyone,

I had thought that no one was reading the thread anymore, so hadn't posted in a while. The adapter plate is similar to what Wes is making, 1/4" steel with M10 screws welded to the backside. The bottom holes are countersunk and bolt to the oil pan with M8 FHCS, the oil pan has about 1/2" thread engagement. You can kind of see the detail with this pic.



As far as the oil pan CAD file goes, I can share the files that I made, but the bolt pattern is not on it. I just used the stock oil pan and transfer punched the bolt locations to the 1/4" flange.



I was having some oil starvation problems when braking hard and turning and ended up taking the oil pan off and doing some pretty major surgery to it, works perfect now. I will post a pic if anyone wants it, it now has the "wing" sections cut out at the bottom and a pretty good baffle setup.

New stuff is the p/s reservoir bracket and location. Ended up putting it in front since there was not much room left by the fuse box without having to cut anything. It is the stock reservoir with the bottom fitting cut and rotated 180 and the return line bent a little to line up better with the pump. The bracket is just some 16 ga sheetmetal bent around some pipe and welded to the reservoir to make it look nice. I have cut all of the "extra" vac line tubing off of the front pipe and cleaned up the pcv valve aluminum piece since taking the picture below, looks much better now.





Also foam filled the chassis with 3lb per cubic ft two part closed cell foam. It is really easy and got rid of a lot of the squeaks that it used to make. I highly recommend it, easy to do so long as you don't let it get on anything it shouldn't. Urethane foam can be bought online at most any fiberglass/composite supply companies.







Suspension is now mostly Powertrix, also have the SS coilovers installed. It is about 1" lower than the wore out stock springs, any lower and it scrubs going up my driveway. Wheels are MRR GT1, 18" x 8.5" f and 18" x 9.5" r with Nitto Invo as the tires.









I need to take some more recent pics of the exhaust, all 2.5" mandrel bent 304 SS with x pipe, 2 cats and 2 high flow mufflers, sounds really unique. Interior upholstery redone two tone with black leather and tan suede. Audio stuff done also.

I will take some more pics soon and post.

- Garrett

[zdrop2]

Still reading the post the car has to be one of the best looking z's Ive ever seen.. Post more pics!!!!!

[ICEMAN832]

Man I need to come and check your Z out, Im in Roswell and drive to Marietta all the time. Im doing a VH swap into my slicktop Z32.

[BlazingCopperZ]

Still reading the post the car has to be one of the best looking z's Ive ever seen.. Post more pics!!!!!

Thanks, Its been a long while since I've been on the site but I haven't stopped working on the black-hole-for-time. Here are some pics from around October:























I don't have any pics of it, but I built the exhaust from 2.5" mandrel bent 304ss with x-pipe. Ended up being about $950 in materials and 20 hours of fabrication. Flanges were laser cut out of 3/8" plate and the tubes were bent by a local shop to my CAD files. The mufflers and cats are Vibrant Performance and sound quite nice. The interior (Interior Innovations) was a pain to re-upholster, but it looks great and the Novasuede inserts keep you planted pretty good.

The most recent thing was about 2 weeks ago. I removed the trans to fix a stupid oil leak, which was not successful Oh well.
What did work was swapping the rear end, since driving down the interstate kept the tach around 3400 rpm and first gear is useless. Scored a low millage 97-2001 model Q45 rear end (R200) for a whopping $75 and an hour labor. Pull the cover and input flange from the 4.10 geared NA and slip in with a new gasket and now you have a much more usable 3.69 ratio. I haven't gotten the speedometer sensor yet so it reads a bit wrong, but that will change soon.

Man I need to come and check your Z out, Im in Roswell and drive to Marietta all the time. Im doing a VH swap into my slicktop Z32.

Cool, maybe when it is not 30 stinking degrees or raining so I can drive it comfortable we can meet up.

-Garrett

[ICEMAN832]

Hell I wanna just come and meet you, i have so many questions about this swap....LMK my cell is 678-646-4384 if you wanna call and setup up a day or something. John

[Z32 Ver.2ptGood]

its been years, but I'll take that CAD file now if youve still got it, finally at it again.
my e-mail can be found in my profile. thanks

[DRFTBLD]

Hey Garrett... Sweet car. Just found your build and loved the car.

I too would love to get a copy of the CAD file if you still have it.
[email protected]

Thanks sir, and congrats on a GREAT build!!

[klh6686]

Hey there,

The build looks great, awesome job on all the custom parts and the finished product, you can tell that you spent the time to do things right.

I was wondering, what size AN fittings did you use on the oil filter adapter, looks like -10 ya?

[BlazingCopperZ]

its been years, but I'll take that CAD file now if youve still got it, finally at it again.
my e-mail can be found in my profile. thanks

Which CAD files do you guys want?

Hey there,

The build looks great, awesome job on all the custom parts and the finished product, you can tell that you spent the time to do things right.

I was wondering, what size AN fittings did you use on the oil filter adapter, looks like -10 ya?

Yep, they are all -10AN fittings for the oil lines. The remote filter had 1/2" NPT which is roughly the same inner diameter as the -10AN. I would use -12AN fittings if I had to do it all over again just to remove any doubt that the lines are causing any restriction, especially if you have a long run to the filter or oil cooler.

[klh6686]

-12 seems to be a pretty significant jump in price, what does your oil pressure look like?

[BlazingCopperZ]

-12 seems to be a pretty significant jump in price, what does your oil pressure look like?

A year down the road from now you won't be worried that you spent $50 extra on fittings but rather you should have spent $50 extra, I know I have "cheaped" out on several things that I wish I hadn't.

The stock pressure sensor is notoriously inaccurate, so I installed an aftermarket one last September. The oil pressure is usually about 25-30 psi at idle (warm engine) and 55-60 psi at 2500 rpm. I was surprised at how how the pressure spikes when you rev up the engine, 90-100 psi is happens a lot more than you think. I was having oil pressure problems when decelerating and turning quickly the first version of the oil pan that I made. I changed the bottom shape of the oil pan and added a different baffle set which sees to have solved the problem. Here are some lousy camera phone pics of the new baffle setup. You can kind of see the cutout in the bottom of the "wings" in the top of the second picture. The third shows the top anti-slosh piece and channeling to help direct the oil in the sump.







Currently the remote oil filter is mounted in front above the anti-sway bar and has about 3' of hose running to and from it. The -10 has been fine for such a short run, but it would be reassuring to know that the fittings and hose are not the most restrictive part of the system.

-Garrett

[klh6686]

That oil pan looks fantastic! I hope you're proud of it, I wish I had the skills to undertake a custom pan like that. I'm on the fence and trying to get the balls to try out a custom pan, but I'm terrified of screwing up something as important as oiling. I'm looking into the possibility of altering the stock oil pump gear size to lower the pressure in the upper rpms but I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

[Z32 Ver.2ptGood]

Please Please Please, All i really want is the Oil pan flange file.

My e-mail is [email protected]

[iceman1]

Hi,

Beautiful job on this conversion. Excellent clean work with engineering to match.

I'm putting everything together for a similiar swap (but with the Q45 auto) and found a couple of your latter posts interesting. They don't appear to have been picked up by other regular viewers.

The new diff ratio is exactly what I have been researching as I also thought that 4.08:1 was possibly a little low. You say that the new 3.69:1 ratio is much more usable. Does that mean just better than before or close to perfect for the gearbox/wheel sizing you are using? Afterall, the Q45 engine donor car runs a 3.5:1 final with an auto and is approximately 4-500kgs heavier than the SWB 300zx.

FYI, here in New Zealand, JDM import S15 R200's can be had in the same higher ratio, complete with a torsen LSD which would be an improvement again if the ratio was near perfect. I am aware of the differing 3x2 output stub flanges these diffs have compared with the standard 5x1 our N/A 300zx's have. I was thinking that a simple sandwich plate adaptor between the differing CV flanges could sort this difference out without lengthening the drive shafts too much.

Thanks in advance, Pete.

[BlazingCopperZ]

The new diff ratio is exactly what I have been researching as I also thought that 4.08:1 was possibly a little low. You say that the new 3.69:1 ratio is much more usable. Does that mean just better than before or close to perfect for the gearbox/wheel sizing you are using? Afterall, the Q45 engine donor car runs a 3.5:1 final with an auto and is approximately 4-500kgs heavier than the SWB 300zx.

The 3.69 is much better that the stock NA's setup. First gear was next to useless and going down the interstate at any fair rate of speed had the rpm's really high, so lousy economy as well. I think that the 3.69 is a very good match with the V8's torque, and is still quite low if you think about it. At 80 mph, it is roughly 400 rpm lower, so not enough feel like you are bogging the motor but not screaming like it was before. The stock 90-95 Q45's 3.54 would probably be a bit on the high side to still be considered a sporty gear set, even with the lower car weight. It was a piece of cake to take the 97+ Q45's diff and swap over the input shaft and rear cover, way easier than changing the diff bushings. I would recommend not using the S15's diff since the output flanges are so different and you cannot take them out near as easily. You probably could build some sort of adapter, but it would change the shaft length and need to be precision machined with the correct clearance fit to not cause any drivetrain vibrations.

For all of the other guys asking for CAD files, you might be a little bit disappointed. I did not draw the hole locations in the oil pan in CAD, but rather used a transfer punch and the stock pan to mark out the locations before going to the mill to drill them out. The transfer punch method is way easier since you don't have to go to the trouble to measure the bolt centers and hope you are correct, along with being able to float them on the mill instead of having to go to the trouble of clamping the part down and using the DRO to get them in the right spot. The holes are for an M6 bolt, standard clearance is 6.5mm and is about $4 from McMaster Carr or just buy the whole set.

[Midwest_240sx]

Dude ur car is f*** sexy. Very impressed with your work my good sir.

[orangeNblue]

The car looks great! I'm curious to hear more about the sound dampening you did. I'm thinking of doing something similar to my S14 but I can't really find too much info about it.

[C.Garcia.4768]

Loch Ness, you have a TT vh45 howd you get the turbos to fit? can i do this with a vk56?

[chharith]

amazing! I appreciate all the hard work you applied to this setup as well as taking your time to post up the pix of the work.

[HOSTvallo]

Aside from the color, I am in love!

[fluffybunny]

I was looking to redo my interior, but when the local upholstery shop told me it would cost $1300 just to redo the leather seats, I started to look elsewhere. I found Interior Inovations on ebay and at their website. I see you did business with them and I was wondering how the quality of their craftsmanship is. I would really just like to reupholster everything myself, but I don't have a sewing machine that can handle heavy materials. Did they provide the suede to do your sub and amp enclosures? Or did you just happen to find matching material? When I asked they didn't have very many color options to choose from. You've done an excellent job restoring this vehicle. Very clean.

[New Jersey]

i have my car at a shop about to get goin on the meat of the swap.
motor is out and the vh is mostly prepped.
ive seen many of these swaps where the hood closes with no problems.
what happened with yours?
is your trans in the stock location and the motor located by it?
if so, i have a problem cuz that is what we were planning on doing and a hole in my hood is a no-go.

[New Jersey]

OP still on the forum??

[BlazingCopperZ]

Yep, still here, but only check on things every once and a while.

The whole hood clearance issue is something that I thought could be avoided, but alas a hole in the hood was needed. I have the transmission in the stock location, which was used to locate the engine front to back, then I centered it between the framerails. The oil pan is only about 1" tall at the front since it needs to go over the main bearing girdle and have a little clearance left. When on the car, the pan is only about 1/4" from the steering rack, any lower and they contact when the engine torques when revved. So the very top of the intake manifold sticks out of the hood maybe 1/4" or so, unless you modded where the steering rack mounts I don't think you will be able to clear the hood.

I have finally gotten around to doing something about the hole in the hood and made a clearance bulge (for lack of a better term) and have it on the car. I haven't managed to get to painting it yet, but it is on the list of things to do. The piece was made on an English wheel from aluminum, all of the curve profiles are taken from either the hood or roof to make things look like they flow. I am not super happy with it, maybe once it is painted I will change my mind.

I was looking to redo my interior, but when the local upholstery shop told me it would cost $1300 just to redo the leather seats, I started to look elsewhere. I found Interior Inovations on ebay and at their website. I see you did business with them and I was wondering how the quality of their craftsmanship is. I would really just like to reupholster everything myself, but I don't have a sewing machine that can handle heavy materials. Did they provide the suede to do your sub and amp enclosures? Or did you just happen to find matching material? When I asked they didn't have very many color options to choose from. You've done an excellent job restoring this vehicle. Very clean.

I was pretty content with the quality of the kit, everything was well made. Getting all of the wrinkles out of the seats is an absolute royal pain though. I would probably not recommend the NovaSuede though. It is nice because it isn't hot or cold like leather, and that it isn't slippery so you don't slide around when driving aggressively. The downside is that because it is so grippy, you can't hardly slide out of the seat! I am 6'4", which makes it kinda hard to get out of such a small car anyway. Also, it gets dirty quickly and doesn't wash off easily, but it is a tradeoff for looking cool. I bought the kit plus two extra pieces to cover the sub and amp rack, it was the same as covering the other trim pieces. Oh, and the door panels are probably one the most difficult things that I have done on the entire car to make look good, you fight to get out the wrinkles only to find that they migrated to another section.

[New Jersey]

i think your hood mod will look infinitely better than a scoop that people usually do.
i hate the idea of modding the hood so much i was considering getting custom intake manifold work done, haha
is your crossmember unmodified and the motor/pan just sits above it?

[New Jersey]

ps, could you send me the oil pan cad file?
i was gonna have the shop cut my pan around the flange and flip it around 180* and weld it back up then just extend the pickup and boom- rear sump pan. someone on 3zc tried this and said it worked pretty good though they had already commisioned a oneoff pan similiar to yours.
i wanted to compare your pan to to the modded stock pan plan i had.
steven.j.sromek@ gmail. com

[markland556]

Id love to get the adapter cad file that you have. As well as the oil pan flange. It would make things much easier for me..
[email protected]

[New Jersey]

updated pics would be nice too! curious to see how the hood came out.