The rescue, build up and demise of my 240sx

[gazolorean]

I'm bored, waiting on parts and **** every other forum so I guess I will start a build thread here lol.

June 2015:


Picked up probably the stockest of stock 240sx after it had been sitting in a field for a cool 1700. Dead stock single cam motor, auto trans, 245k on it but still started and ran like a top. This was my second 240sx, but first to actually be worthy of even taking pictures of lol.

So long story short I had this motor from my previous car:


Collected some wheels:


Bought some suspension stuff and whatnot and the night it got home this happened:


This was probably my favorite stage of the car. Low, functional, A/C, and best of all stock exhaust
Still slow, single cam auto!

[gazolorean]

Just look at those perfect panel gaps


Anyway, drove that thing for a while until the first sight of it overheating this happened:



Resealed the motor, did a 6 speed swap, bolted some parts on etc etc in between but thats boring so no pics.

Disassembled and machined my turbo for ultra reliability


Milled flat, o-ringed, big studs and locking hardware.

Put it up for sale and sold the next day:


Jk, took it to work and did some fab stuff:







Eibach 12kg/mm 6" springs lol
and the end result suspension-wise:



Got the motor all buttoned up:



did some burnouts:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJeQVMRj...-by=rodolfo722

did some interior styling:



started collecting seats instead of wheels:


and just drove the piss out of it for a couple months:


blew out a tire so I put my cr kais back on:


Despite a couple shitty injectors, I fell in love with my stock SR20, but all that was about to change.

[gazolorean]

I guess its time to bring this up to date.

So anyway a couple months ago I came across this



Super minty freshly resprayed OG two tone, which also happpened to be a base model slicktop like my old car

So as expected, this happened as a result:



Sad day, she was good to me

Sold the bare chassis to my buddy and currently in the process of swapping everything onto the new tub.

Now feast on some underside carnage, pretty substantial considering how short of a time I drove this daily.

[I_Haz.:R32]

how does everyone find those confetti recaros except for me???

Nice start so far man!

[storey618]

in for 1/10 240's thats all one color

[Tate]

I love your wheel collection. I want one just like it. Time to start searching.

[gazolorean]

Updated the build some, also at some point I acquired this



All original, except for an HKS axleback, OG 5 speed too! The catch? botched timing belt job

The solution?



More on this at a later time



Thanks for all the kind words so far guys!

[Tate]

JZs are always a good answer to every problem.









Timing belt went bad? ...... 1J

Can't pay rent? ...... 2J

World War 3? ....... 1J & 2J

[190Evan]

Good choice on the 2j. I seriously recommend you change all of the gaskets you can and make sure the exhaust head studs are torqued and the head threads aren't stripped. Almost every gasket on mine leaks and I had to tine-sert every single fooking exhaust stud hole. Other than that you're going to love it. If the trans you're bolting up is a W58 you're gonna have a bad time as well. **** to be the bearer of bad news but seriously I would pick up a 350z 2005+ CD009 trans and the adapter plate. Far better trans, 6 speed, and its not going to blow up when you get on it. My friend has gone through 4 W58's on a stock sc300 motor (NA 2JZ) and nothing is done to it. Just drifting and slamming gears. Also R154's shift like school busses but they hold good power too. Other than that you won't regret the swap they are insane.

[rice4life]

Good choice on the 2j. I seriously recommend you change all of the gaskets you can and make sure the exhaust head studs are torqued and the head threads aren't stripped. Almost every gasket on mine leaks and I had to tine-sert every single fooking exhaust stud hole. Other than that you're going to love it. If the trans you're bolting up is a W58 you're gonna have a bad time as well. **** to be the bearer of bad news but seriously I would pick up a 350z 2005+ CD009 trans and the adapter plate. Far better trans, 6 speed, and its not going to blow up when you get on it. My friend has gone through 4 W58's on a stock sc300 motor (NA 2JZ) and nothing is done to it. Just drifting and slamming gears. Also R154's shift like school busses but they hold good power too. Other than that you won't regret the swap they are insane.

As with any transmission, don't bang through the gears. A w58, R154, and v160 will all fail if you don't know how to drive. Though the v160 can handle gobs of power, but any idiot with a heavy hand will break it. The CD009, like most of nissans manual transmissions are clunkier and meat hand proof. Toyotas manual transmissions all feel very sharp and precise. They don't take much force to get into gear(assuming the synchros aren't worn down, that's why most r154's are so hard to shift is because the syncros wear easily compared to the W and the V) unfortunately many "drifters" think that driving technique isn't shit as long as they get sideways. So your friend probably ended up getting shafted by the previous owners of those transmissions.

TL;DR the w58 is a good transmission for around 400 at the tire if you know how to drive. I had a mk3 supra NA-t with a w58 come to the shop that was dragged, drifted, and autocrossed at over 120k miles on the odo. Only mods were a clutch masters stage 3 and redline synthetic trans fluid on the transmission. He stopped coming around after he traded it for an ae86

Edit: This is a w55 if he's going to use the original IS300 trans. That's a glass tranny.

http://my.is/forums/f114/w58-vs-w55-300762/

[gazolorean]

Yeah will be just the stock W55 on it for a while. Plan for the Lexus is gonna be similar to the s13, just low, wheels, and stock motor reliability(<350whp) but with a full interior and working A/C. Not terribly worried about the gearbox just yet


The 240 has an S15 6 speed which carries the same reputation of being a glass transmission but I have never had any issues even with the aggressive Nismo unprung clutch and single mass flywheel conversion as I do not abuse it and use only the best fluids, Redline MT90

[rice4life]

Yeah will be just the stock W55 on it for a while. Plan for the Lexus is gonna be similar to the s13, just low, wheels, and stock motor reliability(<350whp) but with a full interior and working A/C. Not terribly worried about the gearbox just yet


The 240 has an S15 6 speed which carries the same reputation of being a glass transmission but I have never had any issues even with the aggressive Nismo unprung clutch and single mass flywheel conversion as I do not abuse it and use only the best fluids, Redline MT90

The S15 six speed transmission has two problems. It gets hot due to the low oil capacity, and the circlip failure at higher output than stock.

Here's a fix.

https://neatgearboxes.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/nissan-silvia-s15-6-speed-gearbox-circlip-mod/

Unlike the S15's six speed, the gearset in the w55 is weak and you will shred the teeth off of the gears.

MT90 is the best trans fluid this side of the ocean that's affordable. My gencoupe's transmission was notchy and had a first to second grind, added stock weight mt90 and it fixed it. I feel than the s15's six speed combined with synthetic transmission fluid, a large external cooler, and the circlip fix makes it superior to the s14's 5 speed that many people put into the s15.

[cruuz]

In for 240+IS, as I have the same IS

[gazolorean]

The S15 six speed transmission has two problems. It gets hot due to the low oil capacity, and the circlip failure at higher output than stock.

Here's a fix.

https://neatgearboxes.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/nissan-silvia-s15-6-speed-gearbox-circlip-mod/

Unlike the S15's six speed, the gearset in the w55 is weak and you will shred the teeth off of the gears.

MT90 is the best trans fluid this side of the ocean that's affordable. My gencoupe's transmission was notchy and had a first to second grind, added stock weight mt90 and it fixed it. I feel than the s15's six speed combined with synthetic transmission fluid, a large external cooler, and the circlip fix makes it superior to the s14's 5 speed that many people put into the s15.

Cheers for the link! Finally something to do with this spare box I have collecting dust

I've been overfilling the gearbox by about 1/2qt as everyone on the s15 forums suggested and have never had any sort of shifting issue, like butter every single time. Definitely my favorite mod on this whole build so far. It's just so much better of a trans overall than the 5 speed!
I have however been planning out a trans pump/cooler setup so that will be in the works before the car is running again.


Thanks guys! Just need to find some more time work on them haha.

[gazolorean]

Finally found some extra time to work on the pile:

Front crossmember and suspension in place, wheel mocked up; will be at least another inch lower on the ground:



17x9+2 effective with a 215/40 rt615

Also got the motor on the stand and tore it down, judging by the amount of sludge it appears that this motor wasn't maintained very well. So the head is going to be torn appart and rebuilt.



Started pulling out my body harness as well, and finally found a reason to dig this out of storage:


The gold car as virgin as it was, unfortunately was victim of crappy 30yo wiring and had a couple things start acting up on me such as a dead fuel pump circuit and other oddball problems. Luckily I found this brand new old stock body harness a couple years ago and have been sitting on it until the right time to use it came up. Looked up the part number and it matches all of the factory options on my car too, SCORE

Then I got sidetracked and made some things out of a trash radiator I found at my local track
Cut out the bad core and end tanks and should now make a couple excellent oil coolers!


One done so far: 7 cores, 2" thick and -10AN ports

Parts started to roll in once again as well!

Sweet Tilton trans pump and misc aeroquip -8an lines off a Spec Boxster I scored at work.

And the part Im probably most excited about right about now:

Been wanting one of these for soooooooooo long now, OG ARC airbox!!! Super stoked


That's about it for now, won't be able to work on it for a while since I will be in Daytona next week for the PCA event so I guess I'll just order more parts until then :P