Thanks to Mike Wray and Dave Wray for the assist and for taking the delivery.

Clearing out the 69's frame

So, this evening, we got the body (what's left of it) off the 69 Roadster. Curly has decided he wants to try piecing this beast back together. So the body parts are going with him.

The frame stays with me. Next weekend, I should have the SR20 in my garage, and we can begin modding the frame to accept the new powerplant...once the motor and tranny are fitted to the frame and mounted, we take it all off again and send it off for blast and powdercoat!





Stay tuned, next weekend there should be more progress!

Lessons Learned...

So a painful lesson was learned today, don't buy used engines off eBay. Item not as described. Mike and I cracked the motor open, first thing we noticed when we removed the headcover was, well, see for yourself...







Sludged. To death. This will be hitting the dip tank and getting scrubbed down, inside and out. Hooray for warm citrus cleaner :\

Next, let's have a quick look at the intake ports on the head...








So what is the lesson here? DO NOT EVER BUY ENGINES FROM JDMENGINESCORP.COM, EVER. NOT AS ADVERTISED!!! BUYER BEWARE. 30% restocking fee?! HAHAHAHAHA, forget that motherfucker! Let's see, pay you 700+200 to ship it to you for you to "restock" it, while you decide whether or not you sent us a shit block OR...pay 500 to rebuild the thing myself, and give you the option of either giving me some money to fix it or getting your name smeared all over the internet??? I know which one I'm going to choose. Which one will you choose, buddy?

BTW, MUCHO thanks to Mike Wray for his help so far. The guy comes over, agrees to rebuild my block on a weekend, and then when he is all done dissecting the corpse of an engine I have, he puts all the tools away where he found them and parks the cars back in the garage. You are a good man, Mr. Wray. And I salute you. Steaks on me this weekend.

I'll post up more as I hear back from JDMEngineScam tomorrow.

PROGRESS!!!

Well, we made some serious progress this past weekend. SERIOUS PROGRESS!!!
We took all the engine pieces to David Wray Automotive and did a full scrub down. There was so much sludge we ruined a drum of Citrus Degreaser. But the pics of the motor speak for themselves, it looks fantastic!


And of course I worked my rattle can magic on the head cover. Duplicolor Red Metal Specks, then a couple coats of Duplicolor Red MetalCast. Followed up by a coat of Duplicolor hightemp Engine Clear. It looks remarkable. The pics don't do it justice, I can't wait to get the car going next spring and pop the hood in the sunlight.

Mike needed to bend some metal, so we did what was necessary to make things work and bolted a 40lb vice to the frame.

Here are some Mike action shots. Grindin' and Weldin'. Progress being made



And the aftermath



The frame had to be adapted for the SR20's oilpan and transmission mounts. Also a notch was made for the alternator

And now I'd like to make a big special thank you to Michael Spreadbury and Spriso Motorsports. The engine mount adapters and Alternator adapter plate is FANTASTIC! Seriously, if you are doing this swap into a Roadster without these bits, you are doing it wrong. These parts make life super easy, they look AWESOME, come powdercoated with all the hardware needed. If you are loooking at this page and thinking about doing this to your Roadster, you had best contact michael at spriso.com and order this stuff up. The price is excellent, the quality is top notch, and the time you save will be worth every single penny. Now on to the pics of these great products doing what they were meant to do...

There it is, an SR20DET and tranny mounted into a Datsun Fairlady Roadster frame.
Much thanks to Mike Wray for his hard work all weekend. And much thanks to David Wray Automotive for letting me wreck a drum of degreaser
And crucial thanks to Michael Spreadbury at Spriso Motorsports for the engine and alternator mounts that made this all possible

STUFF!!! LOTS OF STUFF!

So, a shit ton of stuff arrived last week. Didn't do anything worth documenting this weekend, so there isn't anything in the way of work to report. But I did recieve STUFF, so that is exciting.
Here's the eBay fabulous intake manifold. I did it for the bling

All new shocks. KYB Gas-A-Justs. Not much for a 40 year old car. But these will definately be an upgrade to the rusted out canisters I have now :) Also, notice the GT2871R sitting there...;)

And of course, new springs. I wish I knew the spring rates, but I don't. But a 200lb man can stand on them and not get much in the way of compression. So I'm guessing they are pretty stiff as far as little cars go. They also dro the car 1.5-1.75." Slammed in the front? Yes plz.

And here's why. The wheels on the front have HUGE gap. We'll fix that. But the rears are just how I want them.


Exhaust manifold. Puts the turbo up-top instead of tucked down to the side. Needed to do that for clearance in the engine bay.

And the new radiator. Made for a Honda Civic, but the perfect size for a tiny Roadster.

New competition Roadster sway bar...

Here's the new Fairlady Z fender mirror for that oh-so-sexy Japense Mafia look....

And some New/Old-stock Fender badges to replace those old pitted Datsun1600 badges.


All in all, a great new haul. Not pictured is the all new carpet set, new interior vinyl panels, new canvas soft top, full weatherstripping kit and some assorted fasteners. Mike is going to be out of town this coming weekend, so work is at a standstill kinda. I'm going to work on getting all the brake and suspension crap off the frame so when he comes back in a couple weeks, we can get the frame fabrication finished and move the frame out to get blasted and powder coated.

Stay tuned!