1JZ E30 Vert Build Thread with Pastry filled wheels

[Jdesign]

So I am way long overdue for an update. I started the Swap and will post pics and such in the next few days. In the meantime I am curious if anyone has some good input on booster-less brake setup or converting their E30 to run a smaller brake booster.

[Jdesign]

for an update, here is the motor I picked up. I already started gathering goodies but I need to control myself. As I have learned in the past, if you go a little to far, it gets expensive and motivation starts to lack. 

The last day of it running. it was only a matter of a few hours before everything was out and the fun of wiring and cleaning began.

Out She goes!!

Out with the Old....SOON to be in with the new. LOL

The dirty wiring nightmare begins. I am deleting my A/C and my ABS. Its completely insane how many wires are used for just these two items. I also am removing the SRS system since I have an aftermarket wheel anyways. I am taking the time to trace all the wires back to the dash and ECU's to make sure I don't have any extras floating around. Lees mess+ less confusion if I ever need to trace any issues.

After a quick rinse. most of the wires are labeled and removed here. I am starting to figure out how to run them all through the frame/fender for the headlights, horns, and other gadgetry at the front of the car. I hope to have only my fuse box and coolant reservoir left in the engine bay.

.....And done.

[Jdesign]

All the A/C components removed, I mean it is a convertible right??. Everything worked when removed, but the bearing or clutch in the A/C condensor was starting to go bad. I am putting everything I remove in a box as I am curious to how much all this stuff weighs when I am done.

ABS and some SRS extras

The underside of that dash has got to be the most annoying place to work and I cant seem to find myself to get away whether its my own car or one at work. 

SPAHHHGETTII

Step stool powered at the moment.

Popped the oil pan off of the new motor to happily find that its in amazing shape. 

This part sucks really bad.

All for A/C. 

Prepped for paint, just need to decide on a color............GOLD.....ALUMINUM......OR......

[DrLeadFoot]

Gold!!!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Jdesign]

DrLeadFoot said:

Gold!!! Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

I decided against that. I am going to use DEI heat wrap on a bunch of stuff so I don't want the golds clashing. I did add a little metallic flake in the paint so its kinda gold.

[B C]

Jdesign said:

LOL!  I love this

[KaiserRolls]

MySpace angles dude

[Jdesign]

KaiserRolls said:

MySpace angles dude

Damn, is that a stab at my age? LOL I remember the MySpace days.

[Jdesign]

I have been really really lacking on updates, So I am going to take the shotgun approach and share some of the progress I have been making. Here are a bunch of pics of the motor in the car. I used a level and a plumb bob to get the motor where it needs to be and Chris made some brackets out of the stock M20 mounts because we agreed they look awesome. 

On a side note, look how perfect the shifter fits in the stock shifter location!! It was meant to be!

[wasnt m3]

Looking good! Any idea when this might hit the road?

[Jdesign]

Im hoping its done in the next few weeks...

[Jdesign]

I wanted to use this manifold because it looks awesome but its too big and functionally a pile of shit on the inside.

As you can see, theres no way I could run this without alot of messing around.

[Jdesign]

So I ended up buying a stock manifold because the motor didn't have one. It's an ugly SOB so I shaved all the tabs, vacuum lines and other garbage off of it and Chris welded it all shut. 

you can see even with the stock manifold the heater core lines are extremely tight.

i was also able to mount the stock oil cooler above the fmic using the stock mounts

[Jdesign]

I started painting all the new parts with VHT wrinkle paint for that OEM look and baked them in my oven for a few minutes. I was really happy with the results.

Once mounts were all made, we focused on the driveshaft. Since I had the yoke for the R154 it was super easy to just chop the stock e30 shaft and weld the new steel tube between the two. 

exhaust is basically full 3" stainless from the turbo back. Chris went to town on this and did a beautiful job. I'm more than happy.

[Jdesign]

[Jdesign]

Here's some nice pics of the manifold after paint. 

[Jdesign]

I was able to catch up with Craig again and he sold me the spare aluminum radiator he had. It wasn't quite what I wanted, but with time and money I just went for it. Obviously some modification was needed, and Chris went to town welding. I can tell you he wasn't the happiest man welding shitty aluminum but the result again was flawless

[Jdesign]

Everything slowly fitting into place. 

Took me awhile, but I finally pulled up my britches and prepared to cut the front valance.

Chris started preparing the exhaust manifold for the weird German turbo I acquired. It's a K27 from a Mercedes diesel. I guess it's similar to the turbo upgrades people use on Porsche 930's. He also had to change the mounting location and flange for the old deltagate wastegate I'm going to use. 

While he he was doing this, I was grinding and painting to try and make everything look and fit nice. 

[Jdesign]

Here you can see the result of my front mount set up. I cut out the valance but I didn't want to cut my bumper. So what I did was remove the lower section of the bumper so air still gets into the FMIC but it's not a huge eye sore in the front of the car. 

[Jdesign]

Chose a bov location and welded everything together. I wanted to make the couplers near the lower part of the engine bay because I think they are hideous. 

The turbo also had a bun welded to it and the charge piping was also welded too. 

I fixed the heater core lines which were a massive pain in my ass. Since they are hard lines, I was hoping bending them out of the way and using molded silicone hose would be enough to get me by. I was wrong. I had to climb into my favorite place, under the dash, and cut the hardlines back enough so that I could run the molded hose through the grommet in the firewall and make the harsh 90 turn under the manifold.

Im not entirely happy with the way it looks, but my options are pretty slim next to running no heat, or making some extensive modification to the heatercore so this will have to do for now.