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Beef Supreme

Turbo Monkey
Oct 29, 2010
1,434
73
Hiding from the stupid
View attachment 119717
I got this back last fall for the winter (C320, AWD). Needed lots of little stuff.
Front right seat was missing the fore-aft seat motor and jammed full forward, after not finding the motor anywhere, I ordered a L/H lower seat frame w/motor from ebay, then reversed the seat motor bracket and installed it on the R/H lower seat frame, which wasn't an exact replacement, as the bracket was slightly different, but it still fit in and works perfectly. I had to slowly "unwind" the seat by taking the seat-pan out and getting at it from above, to move it rearward, only then could I remove the heavy seat and do all the stuff above with the motor/frame. This was a huge job.

Replaced the L/H power window control. Got the M-emblem for the grille. New front brake rotors. Studded tires. New battery. Made a new wheel-well panel out of a trash-can (cut to fit). Replaced a few lights.

The defroster/ventilation did go out recently, so I had to bring it to the shop for that, I wasn't going to take apart the whole dash, crazy big job and I'd probably take me a few weeks. Little actuator arms open and close to control the venting and they went bad, so got that all rebuilt at the shop.

Ran awesome all winter, virtually unstoppable in the snow and ice. Selling it now as it's no longer winter.
You are braver than I am. My wife was recently rear ended and the trusty Passat 4-mo was declared a complete loss. I love Audis and the older E and S class MBs but I just couldn't do it. We bought a 2007 Infiniti G35X which I am really hoping does not turn into a project car.
 

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
40,941
13,134
Portland, OR
as the owner of a g37s i'll say it's hard and expensive to gain much from it w/o adding turboz. it's a fun car but you're safe.
I looked at the 370Z NISMO and I didn't fit. I was told the G37 has more room, but they didn't have one for sits. Sport Coupe, has a legal back seat my daughter could squeeze into, but I haven't made up my mind. My car is in need of some things soon and replacing it is tough, but dropping $3k on a OE clutch is far from easy for a cheap bastard like me. If only I could change that bitch myself, it would be $500 in parts. :rofl:

After seeing this, I am thinking turbos might be an option in my '63 Impala project. :D

 

Beef Supreme

Turbo Monkey
Oct 29, 2010
1,434
73
Hiding from the stupid
I looked at the 370Z NISMO and I didn't fit. I was told the G37 has more room, but they didn't have one for sits. Sport Coupe, has a legal back seat my daughter could squeeze into, but I haven't made up my mind. My car is in need of some things soon and replacing it is tough, but dropping $3k on a OE clutch is far from easy for a cheap bastard like me. If only I could change that bitch myself, it would be $500 in parts. :rofl:

After seeing this, I am thinking turbos might be an option in my '63 Impala project. :D

You will probably find they are not great for wookies.
 

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
40,941
13,134
Portland, OR
You will probably find they are not great for wookies.
The same dealership had a low mile Cayman I wanted to fart in, but it sold before I got there. It was an auto and I have decided I hate paddle shifters anyway, but a few donuts would have been fun. :rofl:

I'm 6'4", so I fit in MOST things ok. Both my C4 and C5 have plenty of room even wearing a helmet, and I know I fit in the C6 just fine, too. My only real issue with the C5 is the gawd awful seats. But there are only a hand full of seats that will actually fit in the tiny seat space.

The Recaro's in the NISMO are a proper seat. I wish those fit in mine.

 
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Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,016
Sleazattle
With all this talk lately about cars I forgot that I haven't posted any updates to my Volvo project. Anyway, I had decided that I wanted to get a little more performance out of the old motor so I did a fair amount of head work. Sent a junkyard head to a machine shop to get a 3 angle valve job and get machined to increase the compression ratio from a measured 7:1 to closer to 9:1. My eventual goal is a 10:1 ratio but I left room to deck the block if I ever get the bottom end rebuilt. I decided to do some porting on the head. Never done anything like this and it is a bit of an art. I just thought of where I would want to go if I was a bunch of hot air.

Before

IMG_20151112_130747972 (4).jpg
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,016
Sleazattle
Stock rocker arms are supposed to be a 1.5:1 ratio but are notoriously off and all over the place.. Had a bag of 60 or so junk yard rocker arms. Measured each one to get a set all close to 1.5:1. Most were closer to 1.4:1

IMG_20151123_194402104 (2).jpg


No pictures but I installed new valves with double springs to prevent float at higher RPMs. Stock valves would start to get unstable at 5500 rpm. I expected to push the new setup to 7000.
 

roflbox

roflborx
Jan 23, 2017
3,163
834
Raleigh, NC
Stock rocker arms are supposed to be a 1.5:1 ratio but are notoriously off and all over the place.. Had a bag of 60 or so junk yard rocker arms. Measured each one to get a set all close to 1.5:1. Most were closer to 1.4:1

View attachment 127902

No pictures but I installed new valves with double springs to prevent float at higher RPMs. Stock valves would start to get unstable at 5500 rpm. I expected to push the new setup to 7000.
what is that going into?
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,016
Sleazattle
In addition to the head work I decided to fuel inject the old son of a bitch. First step was to install a high pressure in tank electronic fuel pump. The stock tank is rather shallow so I had to cut a hole in the bottom and weld in a little well. I dodged a bullet because the tank had previously been repaired via brazing. You can't weld metal that has been brazed, out of sheer luck the section I picked was clean. I managed to weld the very thin and irreplaceable tank with out burning holes in it or blowing myself up. Final install picture sans complete plumbing and wiring.

IMG_20160227_105842793.jpg
 

Blown240

Monkey
Nov 19, 2013
443
290
NICE! I had a 63 2 door with a twin turbo 283 Chevy in it, and airbag suspension. Never finished it though....
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,016
Sleazattle
With the head and fuel system done I installed a set of fuel injected Individual Throttle bodies. I had to find a set of rare intake manifolds that allows the use of some old Weber DCOE side draft carburetors. The jenvey throttle bodies are designed as drop in replacements for the Webers. One of the reasons ITBs are rarely used (besides cost) is that there is no common plenum that can be used as a source of constant vacuum. A fuel injection system needs to know the amount of air going into the engine. An easy way of doing this is by measuring the amount of vacuum in the intake. A less sophisticated alternative is to just read the throttle position sensor. I decided to cobble up a vacuum system that I could use for the ECU. I drilled holes in each intake plenum, connected vacuum lines with checkvalves that go all back to a common manifold. It worked really well, I got a constant vacuum reading to use with both the ECU and a vacuum referenced fuel pressure regulator.

Trumpets are the sexiness.

IMG_20160307_174752263 (2).jpg


I used a Megasquirt DIY fuel injection system. Initial tuning was pretty simple. I had issues running electronic ignition timing from using the points on the distributor. Ended up mounting a crank angle wheel and sensor. This not only allowed me to run accurate electronic timing but also running in semi-sequential injection mode. The only real tuning challenge was with acceleration enrichment. The throttle linkage uses all linkages and bell cranks. Engine vibration caused a noisy TPS signal, a lot of trial and error and filtering eventually netted a good result.

At the end of the day, the head work and fuel injection made a massive difference in performance. It is still old and slow but 0-60 times improved by 25%. I don't know about peak HP, but that means an average HP increase of 25%. The higher compression ratio really boosted low end torque and the porting + ITBs lets it pull really strong all the way to 6500 rpm. She sings quite the song at full throttle and high rpms.