my vh45 s13 project!

[Carl H]

irax - do what? hybrid bellhousing? a z33 trans bolts right on...

neejay - soon enough man...have to get her legal now to drive on the road.

yellow4g63 - that was the plan but the local yard is lacking q's currently.

[CrazyTrance]

Lookin good Carl!! You couldn't fit it without cutting the hood like I did? I was going to cut it exactly how you did btw lol.

[Carl H]

eh i could have shimmed the hood but wasnt too keen on it...i have a better idea of what to do nexttime if i swap a vh in another s13 again...trick is the engine radiator cap...all it is is a bleeder for the highest point in the engine, removing the cap assembly and just adding in a simple bleeder would work better and allow for more clearance, i may fab one up and redo the hood with abit more slope to clear the cap and for asthetics.

[CrazyTrance]

hmm, mine doesn't hit the cap, just the top of the intake mani

[Carl H]

ah well remember that i mounted the engine to be oil pan flush with the xmember which is higher than most people mount the engine...we have potholes and cinderblocks in the roads around here...not good for an oilpan.

[CrazyTrance]

right.. i forgot about that. And so do we haha. I'm just really careful and watch my oil pressure gauge all the time lol. I'm gonna make like a bash bar or big skid plate or something for it. Maybe a dry sump setup eventually or just a different pan thats wider with baffles instead of deeper.

[Mettler]

irax - do what? hybrid bellhousing? a z33 trans bolts right on...

Negative, that was discussed some time ago and it was established that the bellhousing pattern was much different. If that was the case, we'd have at least one documented example of someone having bolted a Z33 trans on to a VH by now.

[Carl H]

oh i know i was refering to his post asking for a vq35 version...least thats what i got out of it.

Negative, that was discussed some time ago and it was established that the bellhousing pattern was much different. If that was the case, we'd have at least one documented example of someone having bolted a Z33 trans on to a VH by now.

[Mettler]

Whoops my bad, I must have misread >_<

[l0nestar]

This makes me happy.

[BoostFab]

great work carl.... that's pretty interesting idea about custom fab'n the bell housing; i wonder how that will hold up on the road. maybe it was better tig'ed.

[Carl H]

its very hard to fill large gaps in metal with a tig, for even penetration tig would have been better but oh well use what ya got.once the metal warmed up it melted quite nicely...i guess we'll see how long it lasts; i plan on inspecting the welds on a regular basis just incase.

[BoostFab]

it would be interesting how your result will be in the fuel economy, since the q45s are rated 16city 25hwy MPG; maybe it makes a big difference in this lighter car and a leaner tune.

[Carl H]

also factor in that i have retained full emissions sans cats it should be pretty effin good.car turns 2300rpm at 65mph with the q45 final drive...when i get her plated up i plan to do a proper gas mileage test to find out actual mileage.

[Carl H]

back up to the top with another update...car is closer and closer to being 100% complete but i have hit a snare or two as the throwout bearing blewup with some spirited driving during its testing period.reason i suspect the TOB is that hydraulics are still functional, bellhousing is in one piece and the car shifts when the engine is stopped.It had been making noise since i had fitted the engine originally so i knew that it might fail soon and was probably a bad bearing from the start.I was however able to modify the parts needed for the intake, so it has a proper air cleaner assembly on it now.A friend had given me a filtercharger kit for a sohc ka as he was unable to use it anymore due to his turbo setup...so i decided to just modify the adaptor plate to bolt the q maf to.here is the modified adaptor plate and maf all bolted together, the velocity stack id needed to be opened up about .25" to suit the 90mm maf opening.

front view of the modified plate and maf:

decided due to the size of the filtercharger that it would be best to go ahead and put the maf in the fenderwell for not only space but also to insulate it from engine bay heat, the pipework is 3.5" mandrel bent.

quick shot of the maf/filter/extention pipe:

splash guard has been refitted to keep water from well splashing onto the filter and causing operational issues like hydrolocking.

also was able to start on the cowl hood sides and back, havent decided on how i want to seal off the sides/back to keep them watertight.using some nice 16ga sheet steel a friend gave to me i started tracing out the needed patterns for the sides and cut them out...here only the passenger is cut.

and the cut passenger side test fitted...needs more triming but that is stuff to be done under the hood.

depending on how motivated i am tommorow i might pull the transmission and inspect the damage...i have a new complete clutch kit here if i have to replace the clutch but i hope it wont come down to that.worst case scenario the trans assploded, best case its just a faulty throwout bearing...we'll see.

[l0nestar]

Looking more better!

Hope that speedo converter works out for ya too!

[Coolwhip]

i wanna see this spash gaurd

[ripracer]

Looks great like I said before Carl, very impressed with the headers. This is getting me thinking about the VH business.

[Carl H]

back from the dead again...home for the holidays so i have a month or so to fix the car and get it rolling under its own power again.got the car up in the air and trans out of the car; for those wondering it was done engine in car and was full of suck...mainly due to the vh having a larger bellhousing than the ka.here is what we found:

clutch disc was damaged and the spring had wedged its self between the pp and the disc causing it to not disengage.transmission is still in one piece and does not appear to be damaged nor do i see any cracks in the welds.

here is another shot of the disc up close:

and one of the pressure plate:

i speculate that the disc was hitting the pressure plate on the large 'rivets' that can be seen under the diaphram, not sure why and if this was a defect of just poor design.I think i may just order a standard organic full face disc from the parts store as they're cheap and readily available...pp does not appear to be damaged and with a light scuffing and cleaning of the mating surfaces should be fine.

keep an eye out, hopefuly an update this week.

[SuperHatch]

Glad to see it's not your trans Carl, best of luck getting it back together!

[sijoko]

Was the clutch disc installed correctly or is it a defect?

[Carl H]

clutch disc was installed properly, done this many a time on nissan rwd cars...the more i look at it the more i think that it was damaged by the clutch hydraulics indirectly.I think the clutch slave rod is too long and was causing the tob to push the clutch fingers in too far which i guess with just the right ammount of throw caused contact with the disc.I'll be shortening the clutch slave rod down some to prevent this from happining again...

[Carl H]

car is back on the road again!the 30$ advance auto clutch disc special seems to be holding up just fine and has not shown to be a problem.got stuff accomplished today installed the steering rack bushings, finally mounted the clutch hardline to the body and the ss clutch dampener bypass line (it had been ziptied to the transmission), and installed the speedometer converter.End result is a fully functional cluster with accurate speedo and tach and a car that handles slightly better...course blown stock suspension doesnt handle well at all.A friend of mine also let me borrow his eastwood fender roller so i could roll the rear lip on the fenders to keep the tires from hitting them and scraping...eventually they would have worn grooves in the tires due to the fender rubbing.

[l0nestar]

w00t! Need more vidz!!

[fayceoff]

Good job man. I really want some R32 wheels.

Not to jack the thread, but I have a set for sale. They're not GTR, though - they're GTS. Email me.

[Coolwhip]

Hey Carl, did you ever get that off the shelf Q ECU 5spd tune down yet?

[elwesso]

You shouldnt need to change anything in the ECU for 5 speed?

[Carl H]

somewhat of a short update...car is parked for now since im back at school but i did have a chance to do a quick and dirty gas mileage test.flogging the car intown yeilded about 18-19mpg and highway driving (up and down mountains from charlotte to asheville) was around 24-25.

finally got some decent suspension on the car and it rides on the tokico lowering kit and blues...handles nicely and rides loads better:



also managed to get a baseline dyno of the car...before the dyno the car developed a missfire which would come and go.end of the dyno session it was missing badly and sounded like it was running on 6 of the 8 cylinders.problem comes and goes so i suspect either a tank of bad gas or injectors starting to fail; either way i have 8 good condition sr injectors to go in as well as the deatchwerks adaptor kit.heres a quick scan of the dyno, but my floofy cat got in the way.



hoping to pull the plenum next time im home and r&r the injectors...stay tuned.

[EMK]

Yes please tell us more about the ECU changes!

What type of issues were there in the first place? What did you do to fix them?

[l0nestar]

Looking better and better by the day man! Congrats!