Meet "Blue Nose" M62b44 swap (Pic Heavy)

[DIIRTY-30]

Your engine bay turned out awesome. What truck bed liner did you use? Thatoneeuroe30 just painted his engine bay a flat black, I wonder if he used bed liner as well? Great update. The car is coming together and looking great. I look forward to what you do next. What are you going to do with your current wheel setup(AC Schnitzers)?

Thanks buddy!

I used Duplicolor's bed armor; I wanted to get it rhinolined but that was going to cost more than I wanted to for such a small area. Overall I like the texture and turn out, gave it a few days to cure in the sun before putting everything back in. Overall for $14 worth of paint, not a single complaint. As for the wheels they're just going to be daily wheels if anything; Just re-polishing the lips a little and run them till the tires blow out hahaha. Can't remember the last time my car looked like a well... car.

[rzerob]

Your engine bay turned out awesome. What truck bed liner did you use? Thatoneeuroe30 just painted his engine bay a flat black, I wonder if he used bed liner as well? Great update. The car is coming together and looking great. I look forward to what you do next. What are you going to do with your current wheel setup(AC Schnitzers)?

[DIIRTY-30]

I love the attention to detail on this build! Great choice on the wheels too! 8)

Thanks Matt!

So I haven't really updated this in a while; between going to school/work/having no life I've been pretty preoccupied. So with that said my time to work on this project have pretty much been either super early mornings or late at night after 10pm. With that being said here's some pictures..


Reinstalled the dashboard after having it sit for a long time. Haven't seen a cluster in there in 8 months atleast. Kinda miss this view.




Truck bedlined the engine bay for starters.. I dig the contrast that it gives personally.






Tossed the motor back in, this time I took the exhaust manifold off thinking that I could somehow get it back on afterwards. I had an issue where the drivers side was hitting the steering joint since the rack was installed. Still need to figure this out.





Idea of the ground clearance, almost level with the subframe






I then begun working on the bracket for my oil cooler. I wanted to mount it somewhere near the stock location, out of the way of the radiator so it didn't inhibit airflow. So I had to trim the little "airdam" plastic piece on the valance to accommodate in about half without having to remove it completely. This managed to wiggle it in and make it more stealthy while maintaining good contact.


Improvised a bracket from a strongtie that was laying around since I'm budgeting things lately. Also when I went to drill the holes for the mounts, I noticed that due to the impact my PO inflicted on the radiator support. Guess what, its not gonna line up.. So I drilled it out to about 2"-2.25" hole, hammered it out to flatten the mounting section on the bottom so everything sat flush. Then with the giant hole that I had left on the top section I cut up a piece of metal, ground out a U, then mounted with some washers. This was the result. If I had a welder, or could get my friends brother over here with his MIG I'd weld the tabs in place but for now theyre floating.

Oh I also cut up a piece of aluminum I found on the side of the road to make a bracket/template for my pusher fan. After lining it up, turns out it sat about 2" to low for my liking. So now I need to remake another one or just say F it and go ahead and just make 4 little metal tabs and move forward.












I'm extremely disappointed with the MTC intake boot that I ended up getting, as you can see it's angle is way off. Debating if it's worth dropping the money on a new OEM one considering how much they go for. Haven't found one at the yard so meh...




For shits and giggles I put the front back together just to see how it would look since it's been ages. I'm missing a lot of my hardware from it being moved around a lot so I need to re-source a lot of bolts unfortunately.





Also spent a few hours on the OZ's; used a bottle of bug and tar remover, then I had my buddy Chris come over the next day and help me smooth out some of the curb rashing on two of the lips. Not perfect or show quality by any means. Once I get the car running and have more funds, I'll do a full rebuild/build, but for now this is how they're gonna run.

[MR 325]

I love the attention to detail on this build! Great choice on the wheels too! 8)

[DIIRTY-30]

Sunlight kills the POR15, something to do with uv light or something. So don't leave it exposed.

I throw the hood back on pretty much everyday I'm done working on it. Kinda has become monotonous but yeah POR15 and sunlight dont mix. I'm gonna sand it back down again anyhow; just slatered it on so that the exposed metal wouldn't rust for now. Once I get to finishing the seam sealing and primer I'll block it off and shoot the final color/clear and be done. Just kinda was a quicky job while I was doing other things. :)

Nice work so far man! I'm enjoying reading through the progress!

What did your mate actually hit?

Thanks man; He hit a curb doing roughly about 35-40 mph I want to say. Swerved out the way of a car or so he said; ended up bending the control arm, broke the wheel hub knuckle where the shock bolts up, snapped that piece clean off, snapped the shock where it mounts at the tower. Broke the axle at the hub off, broke both ends of the brake line, bent the tie rods really really bad, i'll try and find the pic of the comparison.

Overall he did a giant number on it, it would have been done a little sooner but I had to order the knuckle & two front shocks from the east coast; that was about 6 days waiting. Dealer wanted $384 for the knuckle; I found one for $75 shipped. Got the rest of the parts from BMA in burbank, and brake line from Napa.

All in all parts w/fluid ran $680 minus what I charged for labor. He's just very lucky he didn't hurt, kill or hit any parked cars really.

[cypriotgeeza]

Nice work so far man! I'm enjoying reading through the progress!

What did your mate actually hit?

[rzerob]

Sunlight kills the POR15, something to do with uv light or something. So don't leave it exposed.

[DIIRTY-30]

Finished up my buddy's car & got paid finally; didn't even need an alignment after all that stuff. Eyeballed it almost spot on, bled the brakes took it around the block then on the freeway. Can't believe after what he did it drives normal still; insurance for sure would have totaled it. So now back to the E30








_____________________________________________


Went ahead and changed out the spark plugs out, lot of carbon.






Started mocking up panels to cover the rails (just to get a rough idea); ended up getting some free sheet metal for it so saved me a good chunk of money there.





Cut off & grinded the last of the tabs off and tossed some POR15 over it for the time being. Once I get some paint together I'll block and shoot it.




Laid out the reflective film, decided to wrap the exhaust when I tack it together for under the floor boards instead of going all out on the trans tunnel.







Got my two resonators finally after almost 2 months of waiting for some reason, so exhaust can be started once its in the bay again. Also started running my lines and just need to figure out where to mount the thermostat, most likely on the rail and bracket it.







As a little teaser; my package from Germany finally arrived so this will be coming up very soon once I build them out... Always wanted a set of these, staggered 16's

[DIIRTY-30]

Well I got the car back from JMP Saturday afternoon. Jerrick did a badass job with the brake lines, after discussing the location of the brake reservoirs, we decided to move them again. Very happy with the outcome. Allan TIG'd the weld ons to the factory housings for me, did a pretty bang up job for cast aluminum parts. Got some nice professional looking wheel covers just to keep stray cats from pissing on my wheels and nice rotors.















I got a call Sunday night that my friend crashed his car at around 11pm, so I had to come get it towed off to his house. Dudes so lucky not to had hit anyone or killed pedestrians. So after talking to his pops about how bad it was, this is my new project for the next week or two to get some more funds together for the e30. He snapped the knuckle, broke the shock off, bent the inner and outter tie rods, bent the axle pretty bad, smashed the control arm, and snapped the brake line off; just truly did a number...
Needless to say, curbs will always win against a car. So I've been running back and forth to Burbank a lot, hit BMA to get parts for the 00 Maxima, waiting on shocks and a used knuckle off ebay that I found for 75 shipped. Dealership wanted 380; aside from the knuckle and both front shocks, I got everything for around 380. So thats that.














I've splurged a little bit with some AN fittings... I think I have a problem guys.










Came back last night and went ahead and did more research on my wires that I haven't looked too deeply into. Green/Black is 30h & Yellow/Black is 50 on the post. So i went ahead and spliced the wires I had from the original harness that were if I recall correctly 12 ga & 16? Grafted them onto the existing harness so fingers crossed. Spliced the alternator wire together, but I'm unsure where the green wire (igintion switch to the DME) from the 740 auto harness plug goes onto the 540 one; going to have to trace it back to pin 21 i believe and see where it is on the harness boxes. I'd think it would be with the blue, starter wires, and the oil pressure switch but nopes. Also went ahead and cut, spliced and soldered the oil pan sender to the oil plug connector since the 540 one didn't fit the connector I originally have. Found a e34 starter cable so I didn't have to go the home depot route. So ultimately as far as wirings concerned with the exception of the green ignition dme switch, everything should hopefully work.












Picked up another shift at work temporarily so that leaves me with 2 days a week to really work on this so I'm gonna try to get it dropped in hopefully one of these nights. Once I get the motor back in, I can get the SS lines made for the oil coolers and start routing them and only thing left on the list is cutting and re-welding the shift carrier/selector, exhaust work, praying the driveshaft is the proper length, running a line to the slave cylinder, and turning the motor on, then coolant stuff after all that.

[2mAn]

bump for updates :)

[DIIRTY-30]

Part 1 of my AN fittings; If anyone is local to the LA area. I can't suggest going to Luky's in Burbank enough. I would have wasted so much time and money playing what if's buying stuff through summit or online. Way easier to visit a place and be able to test fit everything before buying; beyond ecstatic. Also my mystery package now has a tracking number, so hopefully I'll be seeing it by the end of the month.

[DIIRTY-30]

OMG where did you get this from?!?!

http://baacdesigns.bigcartel.com/product/mulholland-track-style-sticker

[2mAn]

OMG where did you get this from?!?!

[efficient]

Lol. Keep up the good work

[DIIRTY-30]

Went ahead and spliced the o2 wires back together; snagged them from the same car I got the o2 sensors from. Heat shrink ontop of heatshrink ontop of heatshrink. Cleaned, capped, and wrapped all the auto transmission wiring to avoid hassle. Can't recommend using Super 88 enough, best electrical tape I've ever worked with. Eventually I'll get some wire loom and make everything look a bit cleaner/factory ish. Hopefully I'll have the car back this Friday so I can get started on dropping it back in and turning it over. Just need to figure out two wires for the alternator & for the fuel purge valve. I have these few wires that I'm somewhat unsure of because they don't match my original harness from the 740 & the 540 that I pulled from the yard. Not sure if anyone can advise me on this, wiring isn't really my forte.

Oil cooler came the other day so once the car is infront of me I can start making a bracket and buy the AN fittings. Contacted Earl's plumbing since I wasn't sure what size fittings the thermostat required. Since they're based in the UK; they use UNF fittings there. I'm pretty familiar with NPT but it looks like I need to buy UNF to NPT adapters then NPT to AN to avoid leaks and cross threading. The UNF size is 7/8" 14 pitch for future reference. Going to check out Luky's down the street from me and see if they have any of these odd fittings.

Received the 2.5" X pipe from the company and didn't really think there would be a great difference until I put them side by side. Really glad I went ahead and had them send the 2.5; looks like there's a pretty noticeable difference in the flow. Definitely looking forward to the exhaust work pretty soon.

Only things I really need to tend to at this point are the shift carrier & selector once the engine is back in. From there run a wire to the starter & alternator, and we should be in business finally. Oh yeah and I got this cool little mulholland sticket since I pretty much drive it everyday for work.



















2.25"




2.50"







Oh and for a little humor; I keep seeing this one meme pop up on instagram since I had a few mins to burn I figured I'd make my own. Never made one before but fuqqitt.... This is the #1 most asked question from my friends and co-workers so I found this incredibly appropriate.