1967 Boomerang Resto-Mod - Utah

[UTBirdMan]

Project Background

I posted this on the introduction forum, re-posting with some minor changes.

My first car was a '76 280z 2+2 4 speed. I drove it like the teenager I was, and that car lasted me through high school, college, marriage and our first child. I lived in Utah and drove it to Seattle, San Diego, into Mexico and all the way back east to Philadelphia, it never let me down, never left me stranded. At 250,000 miles it succumbed to rust and it didn't move with us to California, and was later sold for $100. I'll probably never own another one, but I have my memories.

When we moved to California, I picked up a sensible Mitsubishi Galant for work and my wife came with a Ford Escort Wagon. These were respectable new/newish cars, the Galant even had a 195 hp V6 engine. However, neither were fun. Not even close to it. They both took care of the need for transportation. After driving a Z for eight years, my life was missing the fun factor for transportation. This was back in 1999.

Work was going well enough that I somehow convinced the Mrs. that I needed a fun car. At that time, about the only car that fit the bill and price point was a Miata, but those just didn't move me. Then one day I was back at the farm in Utah, and on one of the side roads near our house an old convertible was posted for sale. I turned around to look closer at it. The car had seen better days, but it was a Datsun. At that time I knew nothing of Pre-Z Datsuns, I was hooked. The Internet was just starting to fill in the details of everything, and I jumped right in, learning all that I could. I knew better than to buy that car, but I started looking for one.

A few months later in spring of 2001 I was made aware of an early 1967 in the Sacramento area, not far from a relatives house. Mechanically sound, cosmetically lacking. We drove up there and I drove it home to Orange County. What an experience. Over the course of the next two years I did a mild frame off restoration. The engine came out, body off the frame. The body was delivered to a local shop where it was prepped and painted, I took care of the interior and other necessary items. Good friends helped put it back together, with Paul Bauman working with me during his entire Christmas vacation to assemble it, parked next to his with his early 1600 to use as a guide. Eventually it all came together and I drove it to our then home in Tempe, AZ.

For the next two years it was used regularly as a third car, even at times a first car. It was loved, it was lovely. I was active on the Roadster Email list as well as in AzROC. I visited Solvang once (while the car was in pieces) and the car became a part of early family lore.

This is what it looked like when I drove it from So-Cal to Arizona

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Then I followed another passion of mine, in December 2003 we sold everything we had and moved to Vietnam. This included the little SPL311. My brother took it off my hands for about half of what I had put into it. We drove it up to Utah for him. He did his best to take care of it, but it became his only car, driven in the Utah winter, without a nice place to store overnight. He never loved the R16 engine, but he did like the car. Eventually the engine "blew up" and he picked up an eBay JDM S15 SR20DE and never quite got it running. The project languished for far too many years, then he moved to Idaho, left the car with a friend, then had the friend take it to a shop, where the shop didn't get it running, and then, two weeks ago, I received a phone call from him where he dropped this bomb on me.

"It's yours. If you sell it, we can split the sales price, if you keep it, it is free for you"

Now I have a dilemma. We lived in Vietnam for 10 years and have been back in Utah for the last 10. A new job might have me moving back to Asia in the next six months. I liked the older R16 engine and enjoy keeping things as faithful to stock as possible. The old engine is long gone and the frame has been modified for the SR20DE. The interior needs refreshing, the body will eventually need another go-over. All key items also need to be refreshed. If I take the project, it'll be a resto-mod that could easily take me years.

I'll clean up my garage and find a place for it, I'll work on it for a few months while my job figures things out. I have committed to my wife that if I take this as my own, I will have a plan for it, even if we move abroad again for a few years. I've been into adventure touring motorcycles lately, this came to me out of the blue. I am cautious, concerned and realistic as to what will happen, but I might just return to an old hobby soon.

[UTBirdMan]

I have to be careful with any criticisms of the previous owner, as not only is he my brother, but he gave me the car. That being said, there will be a lot of challenges getting this car where it needs to be. Those challenges are in large part why the car was returned to me.

The car was at an auto restoration shop for the last several months, unfortunately they were unable to make much progress getting the SR20 engine running. Some work was done, but much of it will need to un-done. A friend of my brother was supposed to deliver the car to me, but as a few weeks went by and it hadn't been delivered, I decided to take control of the situation and picked up a U-Haul car dolly. It was raining, but as the car was outside with minimal shelter, I didn't think it really mattered.

Mapleton.jpg

Let it be known that the two-wheel U-Haul dolly will tow a roadster. The wheels fit, just very tight in the wheel indents on the trailer. There were a lot of pieces missing, including the windshield, dash, hard and soft top, as well as many other smaller pieces, but enough of it was there to get started. Towing it home was uneventful, which is just what you want. The roadster was positioned in a spot in the garage that should allow reasonable access while providing room for the family van.

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After my first few hours looking at the car, I was discouraged. There is a reason why some things are "free", and though the car looks good at a distance and even in some photos, the more I dug, the more work I saw, rust was prevalent, after market parts had been modified somewhat, taking on an halted project mid-stream is less than ideal. One day in and I'm not sure of this will be a keeper or a flipper.

[UTBirdMan]

I've had the car in my garage for a few days now. Each day just trying to absorb what I am looking at, reverse engineering the work that had been done, and trying to figure out where things stand. An Aeromotive fuel pump had been installed, Wiring Specialties wiring harness purchased, Hal Tech ECU as well. Engine has been properly mounted with the Spriso jig and mounts and alternator kit.

The fuel pump didn't work for my brother and the shop changed up a few wires and supposedly got it running, but it wasn't pumping any fuel when I got to the car. Some wires were cut on the harness that related to the distributor. I went through wiring diagrams, checked leads, etc, and eventually got pins in the right place and the fuel pump pumping. Flexible fuel lines were cracked and leaked, the engine turns over, but there is no spark. Fingers have been pointed multiple times at the distributor, and some modifications have been done to it. I'll get to that a bit later. I took a look under the carpet. Something I had been dreading, and it was as bad as I feared. Chances are new floor pans will need to be welded in. Old carpet is being taken out, I might re-use it, I might use it as a pattern. Not quite sure yet. A new-ish, very heavy battery is in the trunk. Holes have been punched in a few locations and above the tank some tin-snips did a hack job for access to the pump, the vent line from the pump/tank just vents to the air, thus stinking up my garage when I put a couple of gallons in the tank. I'll live with some of this for now, but eventually I''ll review all of it. The harness has been pulled through un-protected sheet metal damaging portions of the loom. Again, all in due time. For now, just looking at what I have and not spending a penny.

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[23yrRebuild]

Good to know about the U-Haul tow dolly.....thanks !

[sfdaugherty]

My recommendation to get it started would be to purchase a wiring harness from Wiring Specialties. In order to run, the ECU requires certain sensor inputs and a new harness that is labeled will go a long way in making sure you have that. If you’re using a stock ECU, you need to install a MAF (I don’t see a MAF in your photos). If you’re using an aftermarket ECU (mega squirt, Haltech,etc, you can use a MAF or use speed density tuning with MAP (manifold absolute pressure),wideband O2, and IAT (intake air temperature) sensors to run. There are other sensors needed to run the engine properly like a tps (throttle position sensor). If the shop removed the distributor, you can check to see if the installed it correctly (check YouTube videos on how to install the distributor to get the timing right). My first engine was an older S13 and getting it started was very difficult using the factory harness. I’ve used Wireless Specialties harnesses since and it makes it so much easier.

Shannon

[UTBirdMan]

Shannon, thanks for your comments. There is a Haltech ECU and also a Wiring Specialties harness. I was able to plug the ECU into my computer and it recognized it, and also RPM's when trying to start. This was after re-wiring some of the harness based on the diagrams from Wiring Specialties. The fuel lines are not quite ready, so I picked up some starter fluid and sprayed it into the air intake. The engine coughed and sputtered, put some nasty soot out of the exhaust ports, but it really looked and sounded like it was trying. I'll take care of the fuel lines and tank over the next few days and hope to have it running on proper fuel. Things are looking up.

I need to invest in some SAE sockets. Everything in my garage is in metric, but so much of this car is SAE that I need to be smart with how I work on it.

[UTBirdMan]

Working on the roadster each day. The engine has proven to be problematic and I will be picking up a JDM distributor soon in hopes of that helping with the ignition issues I am having. The gas tank is out, floor is being taken out, and general prep for other items on going. It is too early to tell how cancerous the rust is. I'll continue to work on small things until the Dizzy shows up. I am also still waiting on the batch of parts including the windshield, dash, hardtop and soft top frame. One step at a time right now as I get a better understanding of this car.

[UTBirdMan]

It has been a few weeks since I gave an update. While waiting for the distributor to come from Japan I started working on the interior a bit. The vinyl that I bought 22 years ago still look good, but the backing material did not. I've been doing a few pieces a week with my son, cutting 4mm corrugated plastic and adding a 3mm EVA foam layer where there was foam before. We aren't artists, but the panels we've done so far look pretty good. I'm glad that the old vinyl still has some life left in it. Rather than use clips, I plan on using velcro. I saw that somewhere and it seems like a good idea.
I also ordered a 3D printed Fairlady logo in cursive, that'll go on the rear when the whole thing is done. We sanded it down and painted it with some chrome paint, looks pretty good.

The distributor showed up yesterday and I put it in immediately. It didn't make any difference. I tried all sorts of things, but the timing from the ECU just wasn't working. I went to bed really frustrated, didn't even sleep that well. Michael Spreadbury has been a great help in pointing out a few things along the way, but nothing seemed to be working.

Today I decided to try the stock ECU again. I tested spark and it looked good for once. I made sure all the timing was good, and got some really loud bangs with starter fluid. With my son watching, we got some really good explosions coming out of the intake manifold, it even singed my arm hair a bit. I realized that something was right, but also really wrong. I had set the distributor so that just after the exhaust stroke, the rotor would be pointing at the first plug wire. Then I realized, the distributor needs to point at the 3rd stroke, not the first. We rotated things 360 degrees and the car sounded pretty good for starter fluid. As it is the stock ECU and I don't have a MAF and possibly a few other sensors, I didn't expect it to run. My brother has the old wiring harness components in Idaho, he said he would track down the stock MAF and send it my way.

So, after a few days of frustration, things are moving forward. Here is a simple video of the starter fluid and my son watching. He cut it off a bit early, but it is always a good thing when can work together. We both did the valve cover / distributor timing together too.

[Gregs672000]

My EFI experience is limited to Microsquirt, but I think the basics apply the same. It appears you now have spark (consistent?) but it's not timed to the correct moment. Since it has a distributor I assume it pulls engine position data from electronics inside the distributor, so does that mean you can static time the engine just like any other... i.e. set the engine to whatever an SR20 uses for initial timing on the crank (say 10 degrees) on #1 then install/rotate the distributor until it lines up with the contact for #1 on the cap? Then at least the engine will be mechanically timed correctly or close at start up (who knows if the electronics are advancing the spark without it running). What data sources does it use for firing the injectors... TPS, MAP, crank position and/or MAF? I'm familiar with using TPS and MAP but not MAF, and like you said you didn't expect it to run without the MAF set up, but I kinda wonder if you would actually get a whole lot more response out of the motor on starter fluid alone than what you're getting, especially if the timing is off. Are the injectors firing at all? Does the fuel pump provide enough pressure? Maybe you don't expect them to at this point, but I'm thinking it might just "idle" if initial timing was right and there was an adequate fuel supply. A cold engine needs a lot of fuel and modern engines often have special valves and systems to make this happen that are waaaaaay beyond my experience. Hope I'm not just barking up the same trees you have already cut down!
Looks like you're getting close! Best of luck!

[UTBirdMan]

The MAF should be here in a few days, hopefully that wakes up the injectors. Once the SR20DE is running on proper fuel the real restoration can begin. Ideally some time next week.

[UTBirdMan]

My brother didn't have the MAF, so I ordered an aftermarket one on Amazon, it came amazingly fast, but unfortunately was the wrong one. It goes back and another one has been ordered. Hopefully next week I'll be able to test things out a bit. To keep the photos going, here is the re-working of some of the interior panels. I might eventually get new ones, but for now, these old ones are cleaning up pretty good. My skills are not in arts and crafts, but I can live with these for now.

Old Door Panel Outside.jpg

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[Gregs672000]

Bummer on the MAF, but hopefully it will solve some issues! The panels looks great! I saw you mention velcro... I strongly suggest the use of a hot glue gun for attaching that stuff. I've tried contact cement/glue and my wife's craft hot glue gun is the only way to go!

[UTBirdMan]

I'm using contact cement and staples at the moment, similar to what was taken off. Starting with 3M 77, but might go up to 90 or something else if that doesn't work. Though not on the car and probably won't be for 2 years, I am liking the corrugated plastic + EVA look.

I'm hoping to use some type of industrial velcro instead of clips to mount the panels on the door and sides. A bit early to decide though.

[bajaroadster]

FWIW, its been my experience that velcro is not a long term solution. The backing glue used deteriorates and becomes useless. Especially in locations with extreme weather conditions, whether it be hot or cold or both.

[Gregs672000]

FWIW, its been my experience that velcro is not a long term solution. The backing glue used deteriorates and becomes useless. Especially in locations with extreme weather conditions, whether it be hot or cold or both.

For sure, same result with any contact cement I tried. Discovered the hot glue gun when working on my wife's BMW Z3 door panels and was so impressed with the solid results I used it recently on the Datsun door panel velcro that was "gooing" off from time and heat... solid now on the panels and the door. You can easily seal the ends so the velcro doesn't want to pull off and it's not sticky when cool. Works for me!