Most of those lines are ready deleted on my setup.

I think blocking off the heater core flow makes the most sense, then doing a custom plate/inlet for the bypass flow.

As you say, the bypass flow would be fine with a smallish hose as once it is hot it'll just open the t-stat and it'll have plenty of volume to flow at that point.

I'm sure we all let our engines come up to temp before we put any load on them anyway, right??? Right????

Also, Spohn, if you get someone to make a custom plate for the inlet that takes it down to a single connection, let me know what it cost and who to contact to buy one...

Will do. It's simple and cheap.

+1. Curious about this myself. Also, need to cap whatever's not being used on the other end (I guess the heater outlet on the rear passenger corner of the engine, on that water outlet pipe). I've been running bypass hoses (x3 now) just because I didn't trust my previous blocking solutions with rubber caps + clamps.

There's at least one opening (for the TB heater) that I am capping with a cap + RTV + clamp. I'm hoping that since the orifice is so small that the cap will be sufficient. I would really hate to have to run lots of tiny bypass lines... :(

Damnit wstar, now I'm paranoid. I'm going to buy some 8mm silicone line to bypass from the output on the coolant manifold to the input on the return pipe.

Jerk.

:P

Oh, my Wedge Engineering seat bracket finally came in.

It seems to be a solid piece made to the proper dimensions and specs. Took a while to come in, but I don't regret it.

I like that it doesn't come pre-drilled, that way I can drill my own mount holes. It's also fairly heavy gauge steel, so I feel pretty confident that it'll be strong.

There's also been a shift of priority in all of this that I haven't really mentioned here....

I'm going to get the car put back together, get my seat mounted and see if I can get the stock belt to work with the seat long enough to get it inspected, and if I feel like it's safe enough, street drive the car a little.

The cage has been put on the back burner because of a couple of reasons:

1. Fabricators keep blowing me off.
2. I need to devote funding to fixing up my daily driver a bit.

Therefore I want to get the car running and drivable and then see where we are in a month or two on the cage situation.

It sucks, but that's life. :)

So I had some difficulties with the accessory drive belt.

Basically the belt I had bought that worked for Spohn didn't work for me due to the underdrive pulley:

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369319181

As you can see, it's way too loose.

I found that this one appears to be satisfactory, though:

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369319181

It's only an inch shorter, but it makes all the difference.

So now I've got this for sale, I guess, for someone who wants to delete their AC but doesn't have an underdrive pulley:
http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369319318

Ordered:
Radiator
Oil Catch Cans
Green Filters (to replace crappy paper ones)
AeroCatch Hood Pins

Once that stuff gets in, I can work out the shopping list for my silicone hose order to get the coolant and vacuum lines squared away.

Nice updates. That sucks about the cage builders being cagey. At least you'll be driving the Z again in some form. It's been quite a while since the beast prowled the streets

I see what you did there...

Boom goes the dynamite?

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369444885

Nice as always. What catch cans did you get?

These ULTRA cheap 'Godspeed Racing' ones.

I'm thinking the hardware and hoses that they come with are probably garbage, which is why I'm already planning on using my own fasteners and silicone tubing.

Re: belts, I ended up using a 483 size. I can barely get a 480 onto the car (unbolting an idler pulley), but the tensioner indicator ends up pegged over at the "almost too tight" limit. With the 483 it's pegged over at the "almost too loose" limit, but it's not slipping badly or anything. Don't seem to be any inbetween sizes (even in 6-rib, which I'm using). I tried 485 and 490 before that and they were both way too loose on my car. I think we have the same basic config and same front Stillen 20% UD crank, but my alternator pulley is swapped for NST's 10% OD one.

Re: hoses, yeah I hate the bypasses too. I'm running two long bypasses (3/4 for heater, 5/16 for throttle body), and then I bought a tiny 45-degree section of 5/8 to replace that little rubber elbow on the true bypass line (which is mostly metal).

I'm assuming I'm right in thinking that the heater line is open full-time, and the thermostat just moves between "closed radiator + open bypass" and "open radiator + closed bypass", right? Or does the thermo also partially block the heater flow once the car's up to temp?

Also, at one point over my past track weekend, I got a CEL for "your coolant's too cold for the supposed thermostat setting", I think it was P0185, running my bypass setup + the mishimoto thermo. I imagine that one's deletable via UpRev, and it only happened once during a warmup.

Yeah you would need an even smaller belt than me with that alternator pulley though I imagine only a touch.

I didn't think about getting a 6 rib.. doh.

There's that big of a difference between a 480 and a 483? It's only supposed to be a 3 tenths of an inch difference!

Do you have MFG part #'s for those belts? I'm not convinced that my belt is going to work long-term.

So far as I know, the heater continues to flow, the thermostat just opens the pump to radiator flow in addition to heater flow.

I think that mishimoto tstat is a little overkill for N/A cars... I'm going to stick with the stocker for now, maybe go to the inifiniti one when i replace the water pump. I'll have a pretty massive radiator in place, so I think having the tstat open at stock or a little below would be sufficient to keep everything happy.

For the 6-rib dayco/gates stuff it's K060480 or K060483 or whatever. And yeah, I was shocked that 3/10" makes such a difference as well. I guess it's because the total length is so short now. If I could get a 481 or 482 maybe the tension would be perfect, but I think as long as I'm in the ballpark on the tensioner's range it works. The other 6-rib sizes I've seen from Gates and/or Dayco are K060485 and K060490. I don't think I saw anything in-between those two values, though.

I bought a 480 and it's way too small.

Gotta take it back this afternoon and get it exchanged for a 483. Supposedly have to order that one, but the guy @ Napa said he'd have it in 24 hours...

I can't find a 483 on their website now that I look though... So I dunno.

Gates has a 483 and a 486 (I forgot about that one earlier). Amazon.com has both, and usually O'Reilly stocks Gates-brand stuff in-store.

Thanks for the heads up, Oreilly's price on the 483 is absurd. Over $40...

I'll see if NAPA can get the 483 quickly, if not I will get it from Amazon.

Some goodies:

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369779928

My AeroCatch hood pins (!) and the previously mentioned 'Ultra Cheap Catch Cans'.

As I suspected, the tubing (blue tinted vinyl, FFS) and hardware (cheapest you could think of) are awful. The bracketry is... pathetic.

All that said, I wanted an aluminum cylinder with two barbed nipples for me to put PCV hoses on and that's what they are.

I'm going to add my own additions to make them true Air/Oil separators.

Total cost will be around $65.

Got started on my oil/air separator fabrication yesterday, but had to go with a friend to pick up this beast:

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369924415


It's an S14 and already has some upgrades, including Z32 Diff and brakes:

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369924415

Got adjustable arms in the back (all but lower which are spendy, for a 240 anyway) some brand new megan racing (haha) coilovers, a longtube header and full exhaust, NRG quick release hub, a huge upgraded radiator with electric fan conversion.

Only runs on 3 cylinders currently, I suspect a timing issue based on my initial inspection, so we're going to go ahead and replace the distributor cap and rotor (good ole days, yo!) as well as wires and plugs, then re-time it.

Then the plan is to drive it as is until August when the SR20DET will go into it. It'll be stripped and gutted by then as well, yeehaw!

Well, I never claimed to be a master fabricator... but the big f*cker is in there.

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369968646
http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369968646

I've done zero finish work at this point, still have some clearancing left to do...

Going to shroud in the gaps on the sides, the one of the left is going to provide me an avenue to run my oil cooler lines much more conveniently:

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1369968798

Last (I hope) of the clearancing done on the radiator install.

Last of the painting on the crash bar done. I'll snap a couple photos tomorrow.

Got the first of the two catch cans finished.

Ordered:

• Shrouding materials
• Radiator hosing
• All new vacuum and PCV lines
• TB coolant bypass line
• wrap for exhaust system

Love the new photos, because now I don't feel like I'm the only one whose garage looks like that during a project. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether I'm just in mid-project, or someone set off a grenade in my toolbox :)

LMAO!

That's half the reason I'm glad the car is almost rolling again, so I can get it out of the garage and spend an afternoon cleaning the place up... I feel like I can't find anything at this point... lmao.

Lotta packages in today...

My Green Filters:
http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1370398437

The others had my high pressure radiator cap and the raw materials for sealing up the radiator areas.

I got half of the front done... you can see it on the left side.

I'll be sticking the seal down to the radiator itself as well as trimming it up a little more to seal better, but I think even as it sits, if the fans kicking on will suck it down to the radiator just fine...

Big box of tubing and piping comes in tomorrow, as well as the wrap for the exhaust system. So much work...

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1370398437

Reassembly has begun.

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1370748000

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1370748000

Oil cooler is way to small.:tup:

I know right? haha.

Long day...

Well, I got the engine bay re-assembled.

Hit some really frustrating road blocks that prevented me from firing her up.

First, I can't get the steering shaft back into the collar... Just wouldn't go in. Anyone have any tips on that? heh.

Second, my shiny new Fast Intentions exhaust doesn't fit.

It isn't their fault, it's PPE's fault. My driver's side header sits about an inch lower than the passenger side (which is at the correct height).

Modifying the header is out of the question, so I'll be taking that section of the exhaust to get a couple flex pipes installed in it so that I can wrangle it into position.

I took the cockpit-side parts of the steering apart so that you can literally look from the driver's foot well into the engine bay and see the steering collar, so hopefully when my buddy comes over, the two of us can get the damned shaft to go in.

If I can get that taken care of and the exhaust sorted, i'll be ready to fill'er up with coolant and fire it up...

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1370831476

From my dealings with the steering shaft. It will ONLY go on one way. The shaft is keyed to the coupling. Look for a blank tooth on the shaft and the matching spot inside the coupling.

What kind of radiator hoses are those? Me like.

It's corrugated stainless steel hosing. Gotta cut it with a saw/cutting wheel.

You use silicone couplers to attach it to the radiator and engine.

I went with this option (over Aluminum pipe + silicone couplers) because I didn't want to go back and forth with the various parts to make everything work, because I couldn't find a bending reducer in the sizes I needed, so I'd end up with several couplers/reducers in line with tiny sections of actual pipe... imagine a top radiator hose with 6 or 8 hose clamps holding everything together... no thanks.

I've yet to get the engine started up and get everything up to pressure, but I'm pretty confident that it'll hold.

I'm a little beat down with this exhaust issue... More $$$ more waiting. The difference is large enough that I'm pretty sure I'll need a pair of flex pipes for the thing to be flexible enough to work. fckin annoying.

Maybe that's what is going on? I dunno. I work from home on Mondays, so I'mma go take a picture of the end of the shaft (I completely disassembled the steering column so the shaft is out of the car at the moment). I am pretty sure mine isn't keyed (I've heard more than one 2011+ owner mention that theirs is keyed, but I'm pretty sure mine isn't).

I'll report back!

I've been anxiously waiting to hear this thing... PPE's and F.I. should sound intense. I wanna go and measure my PPE's now lol, everything lined up perfect on mine, but of course my MD Y pipe has flex couplers.

You and me both...

Yeah, I dunno what PPE's process control is like, but it's pretty bad when they're off by this much.

Crazy part is, we sent them back to have the header nuts clearanced (couldn't even tighten down the nuts due to welds being too fat) and to have this issue addressed. They came back with the nut issue fixed and the collector was maybe a quarter inch closer to "right" than it started, but the cost of shipping them back and forth was so huge that we just leveraged the old exhaust on there (it had flex pipes) and called it "good enough".

Well the FI exhaust has no flex pipes and its made of very strong materials..meaning it doesn't flex. At all.

Thinking to get my fabricator guy to cut and re-weld that one pipe is going to be more cost effective than throwing a flex pipe or two at it.. we'll see.