1970 SRL311 Resto-mod - SR20DET (Lucy)

[beebo]

Hello everybody!

I've been in the process of doing a complete resto-mod on a 1970 2000. I've been wanting to do this build for a long time, and am finally at a point where I can. I picked up SRL-13421 for $900. It had a shot interior, a locked up r16 with a 4 speed, a hack job rear flares, and was pretty much in terrible condition.

Well, I'll catch y'all up on the progress I've made so far. First day home! All of the chrome and trim is off the car, but is in okay condition.

20120115_142840.jpg

20120115_142853.jpg

20120115_142906.jpg

Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures of it before I started tearing into it. Beginning to strip it to the frame:

20141107_101257.jpg

20141107_101331.jpg

20141107_101403.jpg

20141108_140752.jpg

20141108_140804.jpg

20141108_140839.jpg

20141125_171931.jpg

20141129_172304.jpg

20141129_172327.jpg

[Roman]

Yup, you got a project.

Ouch on the rear flares.

You going back to U20 or SR?

[beebo]

I picked up an S13 blacktop sr20det. The guy I bought it from, bought it with a spun rod bearing, and had begun to rebuild it. Everything is disassembled, crank machined, parts bagged and tagged, and in overall good shape. He had already had the block hot tanked, and purchased a bunch of goodies for it!

$1800 for a disassembled SR swap. CP 9.0:1 pistons, Manley rods, ACL bearings, ISIS water pump, OEM timing kit, oem timing cover, new oil seals and freeze plugs. The head is pretty clean too. My power goal for now really is to have a mild cam, nice T28 turbo set up around 300 whp. I know the engine build for an SR is overkill for these goals, but its a nice to have. Especially for the price, and to know I have a fresh engine.

Yup, you got a project.

Those were my Dad's exact words when I dragged it home haha.

20150125_141011.jpg

20150125_141019.jpg

20150125_141051.jpg

20150125_141102.jpg

20150125_141109.jpg

20150125_141130.jpg

I have much more progress to report to get y'all up to date, but I have a fear of losing a mega-post if my laptop dies, so ill break it up into sections

[beebo]

SO I have a membership to this place called Techshop here in Austin, and it gives me access to shop space and some pretty nice equipment. That's where I do most of the fun stuff I disassembled the front suspension, bead blasted every thing, and powder coated it all up. When I pulled it out of the oven, I realized I hadn't paid enough attention when I bought the powder. Instead of black, I bought black chrome. I'm just going to work this color into some other bits on the chassy, maybe it'll add a bit of bling underneath it haha.

20150124_192555.jpg

20150125_173010.jpg

20150125_173015.jpg

20150125_180836.jpg

20150125_180849.jpg

20150125_180855.jpg

20150125_205239.jpg

20150125_205249.jpg

20150125_205300.jpg

Cheers,
Wade

[beebo]

I had a pretty big order of parts over a couple months: I picked up a top mount t28 manifold and down pipe. Oil lines, and a pretty poor quality intake manifold. rocker arm stoppers, ARP head bolts, and OH!!!! Ball joints!!!!........ ....600 dollars... for BALL JOINTS!!!!! That one hurt.

20150516_134209.jpg

20150516_134238.jpg

20150516_134218.jpg

20150516_134246.jpg

20150516_134502.jpg

20150516_134540.jpg

20150516_135917.jpg

Heres some pics of all the parts that came with the engine:)

20150516_135039.jpg

20150516_135045.jpg

20150516_135051.jpg

20150516_135055.jpg

20150516_135101.jpg

20150516_135107.jpg

To get as much grip on the rear as possible I looked into tires in 15" and came up with a large gap in between a 225 wide road tire, and a 275 r comp. 225s didn't give me the warm fuzzies, and 275r's are too impractical, and expensive. I decided to shoot for a 245/45r16. There were a couple nice street tires available in that size. The rims are NS Wheels DIV 2 16X9.5+0 5x114.3, The tires are Bridgestone Potenza Re-11 245/45R16.
I realize flares are in my future, but I'm nervous about fitting the tire upfront without rub and without looking goofy. At worst Ill pick up a pair of the 8.5" wheels and 225s, and have a second set for the rear.

20150516_135157.jpg

20150516_135149.jpg

20150516_140243.jpg

20150731_130219.jpg

20150731_174619.jpg

20150731_174507.jpg

[beebo]

To fit the 5 lug wheels in the rear, I got a ford 8.8" from an Explorer. It has a limited slip, disk brakes, and a 3.73 gear set, 31 spline axles, and 5x114.3 bolt pattern. After mocking up the wheel tire combo next to the frame, I took measurements of what the new rear end needed to be narrowed to. The roadsters rear end was around 48" wheel mounting surface to wheel mounting surface. The 8.8 was like 59-5/8". I needed to make the 8.8 a couple inches wider for the wheels to clear everything. I decided to make it 50" axle flange to axle flanges, so with the brake rotors 50-1/2" inches wheel mounting surface to wheel mounting surface. It also needed a centered pinion as opposed to offset.

First I had to disassemble the thing, and shave all the explorer brackets off of it. Then I measured 10 times and cut once, then repeated a few more times I bought a 59" long 1-1/4" diameter turned ground and polished steel bar and a set of alignment bushings. This keeps everything in line when welding it back up. I MIG'd it up by stitch welding 1" sections allowing it to cool, and then hitting the opposite side until I had a full weld. This was to prevent warping. Overall it was success in my book. Everything stayed in line after fully cooling, and from what I can tell, I got within 1/16" of my desired housing width dimension. I still need to get the axles cut and resplined before I can start assembling it.

20150912_220129.jpg

20150912_220141.jpg

20151010_214258.jpg

20151010_214303.jpg

20151010_214940.jpg

20151010_214946.jpg

20151010_231308.jpg

20151010_231319.jpg

20151010_233027.jpg

Cheers,
Wade

[spriso]

Cool project-- if you need any SR20 conversion parts, let me know or see our website!

http://www.spriso.com

Michael

[beebo]

As for converting the front to 5 lug, I decided to go with the front hubs from an 88 300zx turbo. I couldn't find any hubs that would immediately accept the roadster wheel bearings, but the 300zx hubs were close, and the overall length vs the roadster hub were very similar as well. A machine shop bored the bearing diameters out to fit slightly larger roadster bearings into them. The hubs are about 3-4mm shorter than the spindle as far as where the bearing races need to be. I need to get some feeler gauges in there and make a spacer for it, but it should work out.

20150516_140008.jpg

20151013_193156.jpg

20151013_193205.jpg

20151013_205641.jpg

20151013_205647.jpg

Cheers,
Wade

[beebo]

Cool project-- if you need any SR20 conversion parts, let me know or see our website!

http://www.spriso.com

Michael

Thanks Michael,
This is pretty much up to date now with where I'm at on the build. A set of your motor mounts with a jiggy rental has been on my list all along I've heard and read great things. The goal is to have the frame painted by the end of the year with suspension and wheels mounted. The thinking right now is a 4-bar link. I'm debating doing parallel setup with a watts linkage or a triangulated setup. I want to try and take some PTO and do all the major welding on the frame in one go. Motor mounts, frame notches, rear end brackets etc.

Cheers,
Wade

[beebo]

Well it's nearing the end of the year, and I took the rest of it off from work. That means some progress on the car!!! I bought a little mig/wire feed welder off of craigslist. It's a Hobart Handler 140, and does a pretty good job as far as a 115v welder goes. the goal for all of my time off is to get the frame notching finished and hopefully get some progress done on getting the ford 8.8 housing mounted to the frame.

I did bring my wheels and front suspension up as I was dying to see it all mocked up. A little more extreme than I had hoped for, but they ARE 245s haha. Looks like ill have to abandon the square setup and step down to an 8.5" rim with a 225. I plan on flaring the fenders...but dayyumm!

20151223_165214.jpg

20151223_165227.jpg

I spent a couple days cutting and grinding off all of the old leaf spring and panhard bar brackets that won't be used on this build, and then spent another day playing with the new welder after a visit to the metal shop to pick up some steel.

20151223_165248.jpg

20151223_165147.jpg

20151223_165137.jpg

20151223_165201.jpg

Also, I found another great deal on an abandoned SR20det build. I already have an SR, but the one I have has all of the parts to build up the bottom end, and the head has been pretty much untouched. I picked up the other SR for 1000 bux. This one has already had the head machined and assembled with tomei valve springs, retainers, valve seals, and 256 poncams. This is exactly what I was going to do to the head I already have, costs the same amount as the parts it would have taken to do so, and came with the entire SR swap as well. SCORE! It had a spun bearing, and trashed the crank and block, but I will use this one as a mock up block while I am building the actual engine im going to use. Now if I just had a few more bucks to pick up the Spriso engine mounts and jig. Well that's all I can give for an update for now but check back after the new years, and hopefully ill have more. Merry Christmas!

Cheers,
Wade

[spriso]

Looking good Wade-- just let us know when you are ready for your SR conversion parts!

Keep at it...

Michael

[pebbles]

245s? pieceOcake!

[beebo]

Looking good Wade-- just let us know when you are ready for your SR conversion parts!

Keep at it...

Michael

Thanks Michael! What would the lead time be on a set of your motor mounts and a jiggy rental? I'm getting really close to being ready for motor mounts. If you could get them to me before the new year, I'll go ahead and put in the order. I have to return to Austin on the 3rd, and might not have time to work on the car for a couple weeks. It might have to wait until late January or early February.

245s? pieceOcake!

Nice, is that yours?! can you give any info on offset/fitment. I'm really at a loss on what to do for the flares as most don't look too great in my opinion, but those look fantastic. Wish I was better at shaping sheet metal and body work in general.

[Mattk]

Hey there Wade,
Nice work on the lady! Nice to see another Texan in the mix (my wife says hook'em). I'm up in the DFW and we got some good guys up here. I'm jealous you've got time (kids soak up a lot of time) and a rent-a-shop at your disposal. I'm working on a restomod like you but with a KA-t.

I'm going to go down the flare route as well to stuff 225's up front and have been looking at doing metal flares. There is an Eastwood kit video on YouTube that shows a cool way to do it, I'm not saying buy the kit it's just an idea, I think it's the direction I'm going.
http://search.eastwood.com/search?p=Q&l ... type:video

On a separate note I have an extra set of Miata seats with headrest speakers that I have laying around. I'd be willing to some horse trading for them.

Keep up the nice work.

Merry Christmas

Matthew

[beebo]

Hey Matthew,

A KA-T should scoot pretty nicely! Do you have a thread of your build I could check out? I checked out those flare videos, looks like i'll need to hone my welding skills a bit before I attempt welding sheet metal that thin. That would be the ideal way to go VS. a rivet-on type flare like the ZG style flares of the 240z.

I can't say for sure what I want to do the interior and seats. If I keep the original sora blue paint, im going with an all black interior. But, I have an urge to paint the car white, and do a red/black combo interior. I'm a LONG way from making that decision though haha.

A quick thank-you to Spriso for some info on the transmission mounts! Also, his motor mount kit is on order!!!! so excited!

I received my 3/4" heim joints, and when the rain here in Dallas clears up, I hope to build the 4 link and get my 8.8 quasi-mounted up

Cheers,
Wade