Daily Driver 5.3L/4L60E S14 Build

[bprzybyl]

After a fairly short amount of time had passed between knowing about V8 240SXs and some research, I picked up the above shell about 300 miles from me. And after driving a rental to the owner's house and a Uhaul with a trailer behind it 55mph the whole way back(idiotic idea), it was in my driveway in the above condition. No motor, transmission, front lighting, fender, and some random interior pieces. Some rust, but nothing which couldn't be repaired.

This was originally going to be a budget build, and somewhat still is, so I bought a 5.3L L33 (complete from MAF to headers, intake to oil pan) with full harness, ECM, pedal, alternator. Being that I live in New York, I'm trying to minimize the changes to the truck components in order to not have a finished LS14 that I can't drive on the road due to a failed inspection. The transmission is actually from an '03 avalanche.

All of that was purchased around May, and since then it's been ordering parts as needed. What drove me to start this project was the availability of kits, and in the end I decided to go with Otto347's mounts. Which leads to the current condition of my car. Otto cut his oil pan which honestly would have made a great deal less work, but I didn't want to modify the oil pan (didn't wanna mess with the oil pan and I'd need a buddy to weld cast aluminum. Otto does offer it as well) so I did a great deal of work to the engine crossmember and reinforced it with 1/4" plate and 1/2 of a piece of channel stock. So here's where my build is at the moment:

















In that last pic, that's with the hood NEARLY closed, and the engine being supported by the car. I'm using the DBW throttle body at the moment, and it's definitely giving me hood clearance issues. with that off, there's at least 3/4" between the LS1 intake and the hood. So at this point, I'm researching what would need to be done to switch over to a corvette style throttle body as those don't stick up above the intake at all.

That's led to my current decision to make. I could go to the trouble of changed the TB over to the corvette style, or I could just cut up the tunnel and weld it back shut. it looks like the vette TB would need a new TAC module, Pedal, and ECM to work. For me to weld sheetmetal, which I probably am going to have to do more of anyway on this car, I need to get my second welder working, which needs a tank, possibly regulator, and wire.

The reason I say cutting the tunnel would solve the problem is I could get the engine and transmission sitting at 0 degrees relative to the car. This would probably put my driveline at about 2 degrees, which would still be good. The other reason is that would bring my throttle body down and I believe give me the clearance I need.

As of now, the big things left to acquire are radiator, driveshaft, fuel pump/regulator, exhaust, and trans cooling. There's plenty of other little things left such as power steering line and gauges too.

As for instrumentation, I need speed & tach, and I'd like to have water temp, oil pressure, and trans temperature. If there's anything else which'd be a good idea to put in, let me know. I'd like to be able to monitor critical engine stats.

That's really all I can think of at this point. If I'm doing something stupid please point it out as blatantly as possible. This is my first swap and besides all the rusted out bolts which have broken on me (probably 35%-50% of the one's I've removed) it's been a blast.

[Gjohnson]

Nice progress man. I'm having the same hood clearance issues with my S14 and truck DBW throttle body, although my hood will actually close completely. I plan on cutting out some of the hood support because that is actually resting on the throttle solenoid. I thinking trimming it will give me enough wiggle room if the engine gets to tourqing.

_________________
Kouki Project

[bprzybyl]

Basically no progress has been made on my part, been super busy lately. I finally got my mounting stuff sent off to Otto so he can powder coat the engine and transmission crossmember as well as the motor mounts he made. I'm gonna try to get the engine out from under the bay and set it up on the stand for paint. I had a thread set up to help me decide on a color for engine paint, and I'm (not surprisingly) still undecided on bay/engine color. I figure while the engine's out, might as well paint all of it. I did decide I'd like to do the bay light gray, as I really like how that makes the engine stand out and won't be too rice. Regardless, I'd like to go with POR-15 to coat the engine, which leaves the following colors-

I was thinking Chevy Blue, as I'm not a huge fan of the Chevy orange, but the red could work as well. Suggestions please!

[kirk]

Paint it "Aluminum"


I wouldn't paint it at all. If it was a steel block, then yeah. But that's just my opinion.

[Otto347]

Looks good so far!

_________________

Fueled wrote:

Funny shit, I hope no one was dumb enough to buy these pans and think they will work with the 240sx.

[jhankinson]

If you are looking for a GREAT gauge to monitor all the engine functions. Look into the Aeroforce Scangauge. I run dual gauges on my LS1 S10 and will be doing the same on my 91 HB 240. They have every function the PCM monitors an more. Just an option.

_________________
Building LS2/T56 1991 240sx HB

[Gjohnson]

Got any pics or said gauge setup?

[NoClassic]

It looks like its just an OBDII reader with the display in a pod type housing.



There are a few other companies that make similar products.

[jhankinson]

Yeah its an OBDII scanner....i just like it the most cuase its in a regular gauge housing...not some square box or anything. And it looks good.

This is in my S10


Each gauge also has 2 aux inputs. To monitor almost anything extra you want. I opted for a Fuel Pressure Input and a Oil Pressure Input

[bprzybyl]

Those gauges are pretty cool, but I'd probably go with a DashDAQ with GPS navigation or some kind of Car PC. But all of that is still well ahead of me.

At this point, I just got the engine back out of the car, and now it's on the stand. Tomorrow or Wednesday I'm going to prep for paint, and hopefully by this weekend it'll be all painted. I've changed my mind again and I think I'm gonna go with duplicolor engine enamel instead due to availability. as for why to paint my engine, I'll try to get some pics up but it looks cruddy. Probably gonna go with aluminum as I thought it looks nice. Shouldn't look bad either.

If anyone's got any advice on things to do before mounting the engine up, please speak up. all I can think of is changing the crank pulley over to the LS1 version and something for the trans cooler lines.

[PhoShiz]

sweet build, im considering doing the 5.3 in my S13 after i do this LQ9 into an S13 for a customer. Keep up the good work!

[bprzybyl]

Love the internet. Found this-
http://forums.clubrsx.com/showpost.php?s=577998981930dd0e2dd0170faf7b577f&p=26799693&postcount=7
Guy does exactly what I wanna do (down to the color & brand of paint!) on an acura engine. I've been throwing some time at getting it ready during the week, but I hope to complete engine & trans painting by the end of this weekend. Engine will be cast coat aluminum, trans will be gloss black. I don't think it'd much matter what/if i painted the transmission, I doubt many people will see it.

Otto - Crossmember should be here today!

[bprzybyl]

Productive weekend, but not nearly enough. Got the motor completely painted, just the intake and coils need to be painted. You can see the finished motor below, minus some polishing on machined aluminum surfaces, and the intake and coil packs will be gloss red, to match the brake calipers once they get painted. Should look nice. Here's a shot of the inside of my heads...nice and clean .



But anyway, here's what I used to paint the engine and accessories. Brake parts cleaner (LOTS), Eagle One Etching Mag Cleaner, and dupli-color engine primer and enamel.



Clean everything with cleaner, etch, wash away etch, I chose to clean again, then tape and spray. I seemed to have better luck with the blue painters tape as opposed to the automotive tape, but maybe mine was just being difficult. Regardless...

Fully Prepped:





Primered:





Finished:





Assembled:



(that's the truck crank pulley, f-body pulley will be gloss black)

Overall, I'm very impressed with the result. I did use rustoleum paint for the valve covers as that's what I had laying around, but I think next time I'll go with only dupli-color. It seemed to dry faster. Also, you have to be careful with the cast coat aluminum, it loves to run if you spray it too heavy, at least more so than I'm used to. It did take 2 cans of engine enamel also. I did as the directions say, 1 coat every ten minutes maximum for a maximum of 1 hour. So I did 2 coats primer, 5 coats color. Just did the last coat right at the end of the 60 minutes.

Hopefully I'll get something done tonight, either the valve covers and intake or the trans, and I still need to finish up the engine bay.

[NoClassic]

Looking good.

I vote against painting the coils or intake. It been done and looks cheesy.

[DKapes]

I also vote against painting them.