My Budget S51.5 Swap. w000t

[mtech325]

Thanks for the info on the distribution block, super handy info for vert owners!

[mpowerful]

Hit my first real snag yesterday. I was waiting on someone to pick up a tire after shop closed so on a whim (and due to some upcoming road trips) i decide to throw her on the lift for a once over. Its been 2000 miles roughly and this is first time the car has been back on the lift since the transplant.

Only thing i noticed was a small drop of coolant on the lower hose bottom. I had thought it weird that over the couple of months i had added a quart of water to the expansion tank at two different times but i could never see or smell coolant so i thought the cap was just starting to possibly get weak. Car has never ever passed the 3/4 mark either and in fact rarely even gets close to it.

Needless to say i didnt replace the plastic thermo housing with alu one. Add that to the list of things i shoulda done. If i hadnt had this super early morning fishing trip id waited for the part from a friend last night and fixed it. Anyway im gonna fix it this afternoon hopefully. Doh.

[mpowerful]

Its been forever since I updated this thread so I figure why not right now since someone local was asking me about the thread. Haha. So far ive put about 10-11k miles on the swap. I daily it so. Anyway I have done a few small things since the swap.

1. After the last post where I broke the thermostat housing I let e30bulldog drive my car and it blew a radiator hose off of it. Anyway I replaced it but cracked the old plastic neck on the radiator so I put a new(used) late model radiator in. No biggie really.

2. I went to a 3.46LSD for a while. At the time I had a gf in atlanta so I figured I might be going there a lot from nola (1000 mile round trip) but then that ho stopped talking to me so whatever. I recently swapped by to a 3.73. I think if I didnt do so much in town driving and was on the road more the 3.46 is more ideal however for mostly in town driving the 3.73 is just zippy with the g260.

3. The euro diesel fan is a beast. SO beast in fact it trys to pull that radiator into it. There is a good 1.5cm gap between the top of the radiator and the fan but I noticed under hard throttle the fan would grow out and the radiator would move in causing them to rub ever so slightly. The stock radiator stay rubber just wont hold it. I took some giant zip ties and zip tied it back to the core support which has helped. If i ever get unlazy I will fab up a solid radiator stay.

4. I went ahead and did the vanos seals and anti rattle kit about 6 months or so ago. It definitely needed it and I should have done it when I had the motor on the stand but thankfully its not a big deal to do even in the car. I am still not convinced that my tune is the best but I have not bought another tune to compare to yet. I am getting about 17-18 in town and around 24-25 on hwy. I feel like I still lack low end that could be resolved. Car still kicks like a damned mule starting around 3500.

5. I am seeping a touch of oil from the junction between the head and the block. It just enough to make some wetness on side of the block for a little bit. I am not super concerned yet but it is in the back of my mind. Ive changed the oil atleast 2-3 times now and I am still using motul 8100 5w-40 which has been fantastic.

6. Ive done numerous additional things to the car since swap too that arent exactly swap related. Full cardinal interior, keyless entry, finally upgraded the front struts to bilsteins and tossed the kybs (believe or not they werent blown after like 20-30k miles lowered). Added IE strut bar. And probably a bunch of other small shit ive forgotten.

7. I still need to fix the exhaust. I clamped the ebay SS headers to my stock pipes and they definitely leak. Ive been busy and havent had a chance to get up to mississippi to e30bulldogs place to fab the exhaust up right. Im still running stock cats to straight duals out the back and I love the sound. Loud as hell on hard throttle and completely tame at speed.