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[ironcrx]

Alright guys I managed to get out of my slump and back to wrenching and doing work.  With the help of some friends we made a make-shift work are in my driveway.  Got no shed/carport due to funds so most off my shit is kept in a van to keep it from getting rained on.

Today after setting up shop rhmt style with a tarp held up with nails, straps, a fence, and the van holdign a corner, we set to work.  There were several hold ups but we managed to get the motor pulled out.  Pain in the ass cause the bottom side was dirty as shit, old school vac,setup so it has to have a million vac lines and other shit, plus its been like over 2 years since I've done serious engine work.

Plan is to swap the vg30e out and stick a vg33e in.  Gaining a .3 displacement making a power gains go from 160 hp and 173 torque to 170 hp and 202 torque just on the stock baseline of things.  I will have to do several different mixing and matching things to make it work.  A few of the following will have to be changed over from the 3.0 to the 3.3 such as intake, dizzy, exhaust headers, oil pan, and a few other things I cant remember.  Some mandatory, others optional.  Depends how much work I want to put into it.  There will be some makeshift stuff done.  The transmission will be a ka gear box with the 3.0 bell housing.

Enjoy the picks and give your input nogs. 





Porn later.  I'm going out drinking tonight.

Oh and there are boost plans.  Just gotta get this bitch running.  The old motor works like a champ but its 25 years old.  The 3.3 is 13 years old.

[PhilStubbs]

At least the pavement is nice. I have seen much worse work areas. This is interesting, can't wait to see the progress

[ironcrx]

So how about an update.  School and work have been getting in my way along with other shift.  Oh well.  Some progress has been made.
 
Since my last post, the car has mostly been mostly sitting.  Got a shed/workshop put in a few weeks ago at last (been at this house for little over a year) and that has jump started my work ethic.

What's been done in the past few weeks and where it stands now:
-VG30e motor and trans pulled out.
-stock motor is getting a partial work over.  All intake seals, valve cover gaskets, rear and front main seals, oil pan gasket, and timing belt will be replaced once i finish cleaning the motor. 
-not replacing head gaskets or opening the bottom.  Those were fooled around with before I got the car.  Thanks receipts!  Even though that was like 3 years ago now, its still only been a few hundred miles.
-Suspension tophats and bearings replaced.
-new ball joints, lca's, tie rods
-all front suspension bushings and links (except new stock lca's) are prothane
-cleaned engine bay some, painted hightemp/rust resist over all the exposed areas.  Wasnt too bad for 25 years.
-Rebuilt rack & pinion
-valve covers repainted
-intake cover soon to be repainted
-rear sway bushings replaced

Note: I'm doing this to the motor cause it still has plenty of life and I want to keep driving it while I do a full and proper total rebuild on the VG33e I've been lugging around.  I also have to make a new wire harness for it.  Going to be running it true obd2.

Next steps:
+Finish cleaning all the intake stuff then put it back together with new seals.
+replace belts
+swap KA gear box onto vg30 bell housing.
+Replace rear lca bushings (paint in the ass due to them being huge, and a lot of stuff to be dropped)
+replace rear subframe bushing
+Weld up a whole new exhaust
+Put motor back in

Once all the motor stuff is done and put back in, the rear suspension stuff happens.  The last two phases of this phase of the car will be the interior and then some body work.  I got brand new interior carpet for the car.  Real Nissan oem.(new as in never used, been sitting in a nice facility somewhere) Jackpot.  Going to line the entire interior with sound deadening.  The stuff I'll be using isn't as thick and heavy as Dynamat brand.

Pictures to show stuff off:






I used a 280z/300zx master kit which just so happens to fit 90% of the bushings on the 200sx.






Engine bay before I cleaned it


That's it for now. 

[turbohf]

good to see progress on this!


so you pulled the motor to put the same motor back in the car??


needs more turbokit fab...

[ironcrx]

good to see progress on this!


so you pulled the motor to put the same motor back in the car??


needs more turbokit fab...

Yep.  I need to use this car as a DD for a while because I'm struggling too much with payments on a 2012 mazda6  .  So when I dd tihs car and get rid of the mazda, I can afford to rebuild the vg33e completely top to bottom, work out a future turbo setup, and do a wire harness. The dimensions of the two motors are so damn similar, it'll be nice to have the vg33e out to work on freely and have the vg30e in car as reference.

Make sense?

The stuff being done to the current motor going back in is to get some more life out of it, and even make it a sweeter buy for someone else if I can manage to just sell it after i do the end goal swap.

[Ntrain2k]

Shit, I thought you had died or something.

Welcome back.

[ironcrx]

Minor update

Took more of the motor apart, did more cleaning. Not as much done as I would have liked but some progress is better than none.

Pictures. This batch sucks because my phone was on some shitty setting. Pictures in my last post were from same phone.

Engine bay after cleaning and patch work
 

Top of three block with intake plenum off. There was 1/2" thick grime and enough acorns to plant a small forest.
 

This is a shot of the worst/dirtiest intake. Not bad at all. All the others look much better. You can see how wonderfully clean the valve is
 

This is the intake plenum all cleaned up. Notice the darker surface on the left. That was thee only carbon and soot covered part. Any ideas why?
 

Fuel rail and other half of intake. Still needs to be cleaned.
 

Comparison of old suspension top mount vs new. Suspension is going to feel much better
 

Vg33E still waiting patiently
 

Hopefully more to come. Wish I had a second set of hands on this thing like I use to with the crx. My gear wrenching buddies are gone due to moVing and whatnot.

[crxvtec91]

Looking good, DO WORK!

[NoPistons!]

AC/DC is playing in my head right now.

Bravo sir!


Also, your passenger side rockers are dirty as shit because of how the factory pvc system works.  My low mileage wrecker was the same way.  Gold on one side, black on the other.  Not sure where the egr dumps on that intake but that also will cause a shitload of carbon buildup. 


I recommend you get an automatic z31 turbo oil pump from the get go.  Otherwise dope ass build.  Looking at the steering knuckles of the s12 they look to operate the same as ae86.  If you were into drift angle it would be easy as pie to add it!  Sweet car man!

You can buy a rail kit with big boy injectors on ebay via acadia motorsports or something like that.  They build stuff for vg z cars since nobody else really does anymore....  THe low buck solution since you have the dual fed injector rail would be to cap off the secondary feed then just run standard bosch/denso 14mm's clamped on like i am.  I have no idea wtf nissan was thinking running 3 different types of rails/injectors on the same engine.

Kind of a strange request but relevant would it be all possible to take your dizzy's apart to show me the clocking of the rotor tip vs the nearest optical pickup slot for firing?  Takes about 15 minutes.   Would appreciate it.

[Joseph Davis]

Matt Gross rolled a friend's turbo VG33 swapped FC onto my rollers the day after this year's east coast dyno day.  It was the SC Frontier motor, which are NOT forged despite internet legends.  515-530whp, I forget exactly what the numbers were.  Bad ass machine.

[crxvtec91]

Matt Gross rolled a friend's turbo VG33 swapped FC onto my rollers the day after this year's east coast dyno day.  It was the SC Frontier motor, which are NOT forged despite internet legends.  515-530whp, I forget exactly what the numbers were.  Bad ass machine.

I wish I would have took some pic's of it!

[PhilStubbs]

Matt Gross rolled a friend's turbo VG33 swapped FC onto my rollers the day after this year's east coast dyno day.  It was the SC Frontier motor, which are NOT forged despite internet legends.  515-530whp, I forget exactly what the numbers were.  Bad ass machine.

Was it still supercharged for the Dyno? I worked at a Nissan dealer when those came out, the s/c trucks were barely faster than the n/a trucks all stock

[ironcrx]

Couldnt have been a stock S/C.  Comes with a rinky dink m62 I think

[92CXyD]

Couldnt have been a stock S/C.  Comes with a rinky dink m62 I think

Yeap Toyota used the same for their s/c v-6s too 

[PhilStubbs]

I wasn't implying stock s/c. Just wondering if it was turbo'd instead or still using a supercharger

[ironcrx]

I wasn't implying stock s/c. Just wondering if it was turbo'd instead or still using a supercharger

Ah.  My bad English 

Word all over the internets keeps saying that sticking a turbo to the vg33e put out nice gains and is reliable.  Although there can be a ton of variety in there depending on whats on the inside.

[Joseph Davis]

Matt Gross rolled a friend's turbo VG33 swapped FC onto my rollers the day after this year's east coast dyno day.  It was the SC Frontier motor, which are NOT forged despite internet legends.  515-530whp, I forget exactly what the numbers were.  Bad ass machine.

Matt Gross rolled a friend's turbo VG33 swapped FC onto my rollers the day after this year's east coast dyno day. 

turbo VG33 swapped FC

turbo

Fuck yo couches.

[PhilStubbs]

I don't know how I missed turbo in that. Maybe I should not drink and internet at the same time

[Minor Threat]

I don't know how I missed turbo in that. Maybe I should not drink and internet at the same time

You don't drink enough, that's the problem. Gotta go full circle.

[NoPistons!]

Matt Gross rolled a friend's turbo VG33 swapped FC onto my rollers the day after this year's east coast dyno day.  It was the SC Frontier motor, which are NOT forged despite internet legends.  515-530whp, I forget exactly what the numbers were.  Bad ass machine.

I heard about this.   Words can't describe how stoked i was someone built that setup and followed through with it.

What internet legends say those are forged?  Lol.  Cast pistons in all vg series.  E, ER, ET, DE, DET, DETT all cast.  Dont need forged bits in vg series anyway.  Nissan overbuilt the shit out of them.  Not sure about the rods.  Cranks are forged though.


Ironcrx.  if you ever need a feed line source, check a certain bolt towards the front of the block on the drivers side about 3" up from the oil pan flange.  You have two threaded coolant ports on opposing sides of the block you can use for whatever and on the passenger side, that bolt 3" up from the oil pan flange towards the front has a copper crush washer and is high pressure oil supply.  Can use that for an oil cooler or turbo feed line over the oil pressure sending unit or using a sammich plate.  Just fyi.  Found this out yesterday from one of the people that talked me into vg30e engines about 4 years ago.  I had a question about these when i found them a couple weeks ago and got answers.    Whether you use this info or not you have it.  i'll post pics of what i'm talking about in my thread when i have time.  The're on my phone.  I'm just lazy.

[Joseph Davis]

What internet legends say those are forged?  Lol.  Cast pistons in all vg series.  E, ER, ET, DE, DET, DETT all cast.  Dont need forged bits in vg series anyway.  Nissan overbuilt the shit out of them.  Not sure about the rods.  Cranks are forged though.

I think it was a comment about the rods.  I can't say I have retained the info in an accurate fashion, so who really knows?  *shrug*

[ironcrx]

Figure it's time for an update.  Since the last update I had mostly done minor things with the car here and there.  Last week I really turned it up and was working on the car every day I had off. 

I got the bad bitch put together and running.  There is of course a bunch of little things I still have to get done before It's even where I can drive it without sweating my nuts off that something is going to go wrong.  Any who, I'll ramble off the technical stuff with pictures.  JD sure likes his books to be the picture kind 

I'm missing all kinds of nuts and bolts which was real annoying.  I'm sure a few are misplaced due to how long I took with this build and was kinda messy with it.  I'm still developing my work area.  That being said, I need to get a few such as a nut to lock the tie rod to the rack and pinion.  Driver side doesn't have one.  I'm pretty sure they got tossed by accident with the old tire rods, oops.  I gotta get the car aligned as its only aligned from eye balling it some.  Once my spark plug wires come in, I'm going to replace the plugs, wires, cap, and o2 sensor as the exhaust smells too rich still.  For all I know egr could be a culprit too.  Thats on the list to get deleted anyways.  I need to get to replacing the fuel filter and taking another look at the vacuum system.  Nissan sure loved using vacuum in copious amounts.    With all the under the hood things addressed, maybe my issue with it being somewhat difficult to start when cold.  Few cranks to get it running, but dies after idling for a few seconds unless I give it throttle for about 10 seconds or so, then it runs alright on its own mostly.

Valve cover when I got it all cleaned.  I don't have a close up of it painted but its a nice red.  I didn't do anything fancy


motor mostly together.  This is where it sat covered mostly


Frankensteining a transmission.  VG30 bell housing with ka24de gear box


Soaring high


Getting it in took time and proper use of angles but went smoothly with exhaust up to cat and trans included


All hooked up


This is what I had to do to the trans tunnel.  The interior pieces will fit alright on it with a different boot though.  Whats nice is its moved almost 3 inches closer and lets me use the s13 shifters instead of the giant telephone pole mine had. lol


How it is now (hood is back on actually)


I can't do shit today because it's raining fucking heavy outside right now as is expected to continue most the entire day
Thats where things are at now.  I still got a lot to do and thats just motor/trans/suspension related just to get the car driving normally.  Im hoping to get it running just good enough this weekend.  I sold/got out of my DD so thats a nice chunk of money I save hats not going to payments, buuuut I need to make sure this thing is reliable enough for a while. That's college life yo    I still haven't even touched the VG33E yet. It's a big project but thankfully I can work on rebuilding the vg33 and still drive the s12.  I onder how long this partially build vg30 will last now.

[ironcrx]

Did a few more things with the car to resolve issues.  Got a likst of culprits and what not so it's a lengthy process.

Replaced the carrier bearing aka support bearing.  Also did a neat little ignition control unit upgrade thats the cheapest thing I've done for a noticeable upgrade.

Old support bearing vs new

 
This little bad boy is the prw-2 ignition control module that is a nice little upgrade item for guys running VG motors with older stock ignitions. This is found in most 90's V6 nisAnd because I'm an intellectual being,  (vg30e) Cost all of $8 on ebay.  Neat trick from the z31performance guys.


This is the ignition control module wired up.  The old one is on the top right.  This upgrade made a noticable difference in starting the car, idle, and throttle response.


With these things done I no longer have the driveshaft hammering around when I'm getting up to speed and my ignition system seems much improved so I may have fixed my cold start issue.

Next things to fix is why my car is running so rich.  Like really bad rich that I see my gas levels dropping with just minimal driving. Got a new o2 sensor on the way so hopefully thats it as I have done everything else I can for checking vacuum, timing, new plugs, wires, egr delete.  There is an exhaust leak before the o2 sensor either at the header or where that header connects to the down pipe.  It shouldn't affect the o2 sensor like that but the smell gets in the cabin so thats another thing to fix somehow.

Also I need to take the car in to a driveshaft shop to get it balanced.  It vibrates a lot now unless I'm driving at highway speeds.  Just had the alignment done and it's only started doing this since getting the support bearing replaced (which fixed the horrendous knocking the driveshaft would do)

[crxvtec91]

Looking good cant wait to see this thing boosted!

[ohisofly]

I like seeing old school stuff like this  keep at it looking good

[ironcrx]

Been trying to fix all the odd lose ends. Funny how on these older cars they all start showing up suddenly once you fix something else. It's like they get jealous or something

So doing code diagnostics and had codes 13, 23, 33 a few days ago when ran through all the self diagnostics.

So to take care of code 33 i replaced the o2 sensor.

Still getting code 33 along with a few additions. code 14 and the dreaded code 31

13 - engine coolant temp sensor
14- vehicle speed sensor
23- idle switch (I beleive this is an automatic ecu thing only. This is an auto to manual converted car)
31- ECM. I dont have my FSM on hand but I do remember its solution to code 31 is to replace the ECM
33- heated o2 sensor (even though I literally jsut replaced it. could be because of the code 31 though....)

Welp, thats it for now. Just gremlin work.

[Rosecitycrx]

Glad to see this thing its making progress, the nature of the s12 is to always be broken in some way I swear!

[DasPoop]

That car is so baller. The look just screams 1980s finest.

[NoPistons!]

Props for your efforts thus far.

Nistune would be something worth savign for or investing in.  maybe use turbo mtx ecu. If i find one would you like me to cop that shit for you?  Not sure if the plugs are the same but 99 percent sure they are.

[ironcrx]

Update time yeaaaaaaa 

So I've been swamped in a few different things and haven't been on much besides lurking.  Between school, work, depression(on going battle) I haven't done much but I've been sporadically working on the s12 here and there since my last update.  I've been trying to get another car running to sell (98 ford contour) but the fucking PAT malfunctioned so I gotta get new keys ($$$).  So its back and forth between them.  I can do more with the s12 once I sell this other pos.  I'm on summer vacation now so maybe I can get more done.  Thanks for the support guys!

Whats been done:
custom drive shaft
new shocks/struts
welded up a solid trans mount (soon to be changed)
new interior carpet
sound deadening
swapped seats.  Had my old '85 turbo s12 seats laying around and they are in better condition (slightly more comfortable too)

Old interior carpet from 1988


Side by side of new carpet vs old.  I bought up carcoal grey carpet because black wasnt available.  It's not everyday you come across OEM carpet    I actually like it more than the black.


New carpet in!  Fits like a glove.  Gotta love OEM


While the carpet was out I washed the shit out the inside, scraped the rotten padding/sound deadening that was useless and went ahead with putting down a layer of sound deadening material on the entire floor.  Some ebay stuff I had from a while back. Its thinner than dynamat but does the job well.  I can hardly hear road noise but now I hear the shit inside more. lol

New driveshaft


compared to old:


Trans mount.  Cost all of $8 in steel from Lowes.  My bird shit flux welds have returned!!!  Been rolling with this a few month now.  My welds are solid 


Thats all I got for pictures.

I wish I took pictures of the work I did on the suspension.  Interesting stuff:
I had the stock sized shocks on the car but they handled shitty/blew soon after the car was lowered.  So proper sized shocks and struts needed.
92 mr2 fronts, 96 mustang rear.  I went with monroe because I'm on a budget and I'm ok with oem.  Plus they had an awesome deal.  I don't like how the rear feels tohugh but thats another day down the road.   Anyways, the new shocks are 1-1/4" shorter in the front, 2" in the rear.  The fronts are cartridge type shocks so to make up the length to match the shock travel I just put a bunch of washers in the bottom of the tube to raise the shocks.  Also had to drill the top hats to fit the thicker (giggity) tops.  Rear replacement was really straight forward easy.

Next on the agenda:
Fix the water leaks.  The rear hatch leaks for fucking bad when it rains.  I have to bail out the water from the spare tire well before I can go anywhere.
Make a new trans mount using a large rubber mount.  The solid one I made blows just because I don't like feeling and hearing every vibration from my engine.
Exhaust.  I pretty much need all new exhaust starting from the end of the header.  Dunno what to do about that due to poorness and inability to weld "precisely" enough to make an exhaust

More to come soon hopefully