Daily Driver 5.3L/4L60E S14 Build

[LS13.5]

Been reading a lot, not posting much.
Think this is my first one haha.
But I was wondering why EVERYONE seems to be doing the wheel tubs in the front, what is that for?

[heiyuu]

[bprzybyl]

to make a long story short...

that's mine. it's in my garage. the old one is gone. more to come on that tomorrow or whenever I get a chance to upload pics and make a post. I'm not exactly happy with what had to happen, but I am very happy with the new shell (so far).

New strategy...get the motor in and running as soon as possible, then worry about upgrading suspension components and such. This would leave the following to-dos:
-Install Walbro 255 pump (still need to purchase, probably thru frsport.com)
-vette fuel filter & fittings(need all of it)
-figure out a trans cooling system, need to buy everything but the transmission.
-sort out cooling lines, current radiator is set up for an SR
-Steam Vent hose (I want to get the LS6 Crossover and tap into the top of the water pump)
-ALL the electrical
-driveshaft (see if I can get an old f-body one and modify locally)
-intake (probably thru intakehoeses.com)
-battery
-need a steering wheel

Still looking for wheels, and I really wanted to get a set of the Cobra R wheels for mustangs...but now that I've seen pictures of this car with 18's (the mustangs are 17's) I think I may have fallen in love. They really fill out the wheel wells.

_________________
1995 Nissan 240SX - 5.3L/4L60E Daily Driver

Daily Driver 5.3L/4L60E S14 Build Thread

[bprzybyl]

Wow, I'm horrible at updating. Been getting some work done, hopefully a good chunk tomorrow and maybe have the engine in by Sunday. Regardless, I ordered a bunch of stuff, and JEGS has become my best friend. I ordered a heap of stuff (3 items not in stock, but not essential at this point) at 2:45PM on Tuesday...received all the in stock items on Wednesday . So, I'll be doing a lot more business with JEGS from now on. Here's what I picked up and some other older items:


Fuel System
-20ft JEGS -6AN braided hose
-10 Hangers for hose
-(2) straight -6AN fittings
-(NOT PICTURED, BACKORDERED) 3/8 Push on to -6AN (Vette FPR to fuel line)
-LS1 Fuel Rail to -6AN
-LS1 Fuel injector connectors MSD-2400 (to convert truck harness for LS1 injectors)


Power Steering System
-(2) -6AN 90* Power Steering Hose Fittings
-3ft -6AN braided hose
-16x1.5mm to -6AN Fitting (P/S Pump to Line)
-14x1.5mm to -6AN Fitting (Rack High Side to Line)
-Derale Power Steering Cooler


Transmission Cooling
-B&M 70264 Transmission SuperCooler
-10ft -6AN Braided Hose
-(2) 90* Braided Hose Fittings
-(2) Straight Hose Fittings
-Pure Choice Motorsports P/N 12055 (4L60E to -6AN)
-Lokar Firewall Mount 4L60E dipstick
-(NOT PICTURED, BACKORDERED) 4L60E Cast Aluminum Pan, Stock depth


Intake System
-4" 90* Spectre Elbow
-4" Spectre Coupler
-K&N 4" Filter
-(NOT PICTURED, BACKORDERED) 4" x 24" Tube

[jmauld]

You can fit 285/30/18's under the front of a S14, with nothing but a fender roll. Are you planning on going wider?

[bprzybyl]

Figured I'd also throw up a couple pics of the new shell:



18" G35 7-Spoke wheels are HOPEFULLY on the way, they're paid for at least.

And here's the interior as of now:


One thing I noticed last time is that with all the work to the tranny tunnel, there was a good possibility the little linkage under the blower would get blocked or jammed, so I decided this time around to just rip out everything above the tunnel, cut the carpet and firewall insulation, and monitor how much it gets moved up and test with the blower every once and a while. After this is done, I wanna put the dash on and not rip the interior apart anymore.

With this short schedule on getting things done my goals are pretty simple, get the motor in as soon as possible while taking care of anything that can't be taken care of with the motor in. So I'm hoping to finish cleaning out and preparing the bay and then I'd like to spray it with a fresh coat of white paint to hide the repaired surface rust. There is 1 spot of rot, and I haven't fully decided how to address it yet. It's of course on of the shock towers at the corner, but multitudes better than what I was dealing with last time. So I'll probably just cut a new piece of metal, weld in, and grind it down so it looks like nothing ever happened.

Once that stuff's done and the tranny tunnel has been addressed, I want to get all the wiring on the engine and tranny, and attach the headers and crossmember. Then the plan is to lift the car enough to install the engine from under the car. We'll see how that goes...

[bprzybyl]

I really liked the fit (and the look) of the Nismo LMGT4's the previous owner had on there, and they were 18 something. The new wheels are 18x8 +30 front and 18x8 +33 rear, and I'm planning on running a 245 40 18 all around. I would have liked to go wider, but I think that will be a little out of my budget. Maybe wider down the road. If the guy I'm buying the wheels from actually sends them to me (starting to look iffy) I'll have a wheelset for $550 including mounting & balancing.

[rouseyss/sc]

man i couldnt imagine going through the problems with rust that youve had to deal with i would be pissed beyond belief.. glad to see you not giving up man

[bprzybyl]

The way I figured it it would have cost me more to just call off the project than to just finish it. Plus I really wanted to do this anyway so it didn't take much arm twisting.

Got some work done today. I would say I am 75% done beating the sh*t out of the tranny tunnel. Thanks go to randall for the great picture in his build thread. I still need to cut the front bolts holes off the tranny crossmember mount as well. I looked into moving my engine further forward, but no matter what I do it seems they've gotta go. Oh well, my tranny crossmember should be more than able to hold up the weight.



Tomorrow I plan on finishing the tranny tunnel, getting the tranny crossmember mounts modified, and I may look into making my own mounts. The only reason I'm thinking this is that then I would move my motor forward a little bit, and this would make the tunnel modification not need to be as drastic as well as allow me to level out the motor some more. I just worry it'll hinder hood clearance even with the corvette throttle body. If I do attempt custom mounts, I plan on trying to make them the way jhankinson did it by using threaded rod through the lower-back motor mount hole and fab up something from there possibly using some new audi mounts I have (used to own an audi...sore subject. In the end, that car probably cost me more than my 240 project has at this point).

[bprzybyl]

Well I hope someone is enjoying these pictures, if not oh well. Regardless, I was very productive this weekend.

Just in case anyone was wondering at this point
Vehicle: 1995 Nissan 240SX
Engine: 2005 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 5.3L V8 (L33)
Transmission: 2003 Chevrolet Avalanche 4L60E Automatic
Mount Kit: Otto's Version 1 mounts w/ 4L60E mount
Headers: Hinson Supercars Stainless Steel Headers


Motor found its way into the bay...




Sway Bar Clearance with a filthy quarter on the sway bar for size:


I really like this shot, it'd be quite a bit better if my bay was tidy


Fit was pretty great with the headers as well, just would have wished they'd be a little closer to the floor pan. Otherwise, there's about 3/16" between them and the frame rails on each side:








I was astounded by the amount of radiator - water pump clearance I have:


And finally:


Honestly I didn't think things would fit as well as they ended up fitting, but I have run into a bunch of new problems, all of which I think shouldn't be to hard to overcome.

Problem 1: Oil pan hits side of crossmember pocket. For this one, I thought this might be a big problem, but after moving the motor around, i think it just hadn't settled all the way down on the mounts. If this problem comes back up, I'm going to throw a piece of 1/8" or 1/4" aluminum under the passenger side (the picture shows the passenger side) mount which should slide the motor over enough.


Problem 2: Throttle body is hitting the hood. This problem is one of the bigger ones I have, but should be fixable one way or another. The top of the throttle body is hitting, and by trimming that little corner that sticks up I should be able to get the hood to close without hitting it. The intake elbow is REALLY close to being able to fit on there, but if I can't get the intake on I'm gonna try cutting the webbing on the hood.


Problem 3: Transmission hits the tunnel. Honestly this aggravated me a little. There was a ton of space all around the transmission. I was fully expecting to have to pull the motor out thinking I hadn't beat the tunnel nearly enough. This is the one spot the trans hits the tunnel. Other than that, somewhere around a 1/4" clearance everywhere else minimum. I bet I could shove my hand between the tunnel and the transmission on the sides of it. The picture shows what I believe is the servo hitting the passenger side of the tunnel.


Problem 4: Steering shaft hits the header. After seeing rh4motorsports build using custom mounts and hinson headers, I was worried I'd run into the same steering shaft - header interference, and it seems I have. I'm gonna try grinding the universal down where it's hitting and also dent the headers in the location a bit for some insurance.


Honestly, pretty optimistic at this point. The only thing that really pisses me off at this point is getting that damn driver side header in. It literally took me 2 hours to get it in. And I still need to get the damn thing out again to finish up the welding on a bunch of stuff. Gah! and I know it would be easier had I dropped the car on the subframe as I had planned, but honestly this isn't that bad and I wanted to touch the suspension as little as possible. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get the motor back out before I go to work, and thursday night I'll get the bay all squared away with wire wheeling and a quick white paint job. Friday will return the engine to the bay, and I'll have a rolling LS1 swap. From there it's fuel system and wiring.

[kirk]

You're making excellent progress man! Keep us updated when you fix your issues.
Those pictures will be a great help to people!

[stirfry89]

[rh4motorsports]

Ah yeah that header issue is because Hinson drops the whole subframe with like 1" blocks so the steering shaft goes down that same 1" and clears. I heated mine with the torch and used a round draft pin and banged on it lol. I don't see any issues so far with mine. I just much rather not have the binding issue then the flow.

I also added a couple big washers under my mounts to get rid of the pan touching on one side. I shimmed both sides though.

_________________

[randall]

Here are a few pics of mine. You can see where i modified the knuckle some. This is with a 1" spacer, i tried to do this with out a spacer but finally gave in and made a spacer to get the clearance needed. It seemed like i would have had to get that extra room from the trans tunnel and i didnt have mush more it would go without splitting the tunnel. Looks like i need to do some cleaning.

_________________

[atutt]