C230 240L (Read 1,020 times)

[Al Ramone]

brought this back in august 2010

done a bit of rust treatment, looks very good apart from the bad paintwork, archs and door bottoms. should get this looking a lot better pretty easy.
first thing i did was put it up on the 4 poster ramp and have a look underneath it to make sure it was better underneath then it looked on top. and it's really good. so apart from repairing exterior pannels and getting it painted it should be ok. interior is in good order and the last owner cleaned it a lot.
it drives great apart from the front end was banging on the bump stops :roll: , ruined a really nice ride. so i've fitted some longer springs for now but am planing on lowering it properly.

new ride hight, still hits the bump stops at this hight.


nasty

but behind the front splash gards it looks very good.
so i've cleaned off all the mud/dirt and seam sealed and painted/stonechipped under all the arches.
i've also had the front cowl off and cleaned the heater intake out and wax oiled all in there and all sills and box sections as these need no welding :shock:

[Al Ramone]

sorted myself an engine and gearbox.

yes. really. :twisted: :lol: this is gonna be fun :mrgreen:

was gonna do the bodywork/paintwork but have decided to do the mechanical stuff first. figure it's not gonna matter if i scratch/dent anything while doing this and also means doing the body/paint in the summer.

my plans for it right now is
swap over the front suspension/steering to 280zx stuff. this means a steering rack and bigger vented discs.
swap over the rear 4 link axle to 280zx stuff. so r200 diff and disc brakes and irs.
swap out the L24 carb engine and fit s13 CA18DET. so 4 cylinder 1.8 turbo with matching 5 speed box.
will keep the body and interior standard, thou will fit some parts from early c230.

so, first job was remove the big six and gearbox




easy mornings work and it's all out, didn't even need to remove the bonnet.



next job is swaping over the front crossmember.

[Al Ramone]

i've mocked up the engine on the newly modified 280zx crossmember, looks good 8)



just about the right amount of clearance. now i can fit the crossmember and see about getting the steering coloum to fit and work ok.

i pulled out all the front suspension and steering from the c230
and i've sorted out which parts from which car i'm going to use, i think.
i'm going to use the c230 lower arms (s130 ones i have are rusty), tie rods and roll bar(s130 doesn't fit). lower arms are the same apart from the inner bush end being tapered on the c230, means i can't use my s130 poly bushes, but the c230 ones look good anyway.
s130 and c230 lower arms


can't use the s130 struts with s130 springs as they are too big to fit the c230 inner wings, shame.
c230 and s130 struts


so i quickly removed the coil over converted s130 legs off of my 810 and fitted the c230 standard struts to the 810. (1 hour start to finish including bleeding, i love these datsuns)

and will use the coilover legs on the c230.

s130 and c230 crossmembers

[Al Ramone]

there is a difference between the s130 and c230 steering knuckles.

painted one is s130, which has a shorter arm, so quicker ratio. if i'd have used the c230 one it would have been really light but have been real slow.
also the s130 one has the strut offset more inbound then the c230 one. which means narrower track and less negative camber. the s130 struts have less off set at the hubs as well.
BUT the lower arm mounting points on the crossmember are 15mm a side further out, so this should put the wheels in about the same position, just with more king pin inclination.

mocked up the steering coloum. have had to cut and shut, used the inner and outer lower section from the s130 and the inner and outer upper section from the c230. couldn't work out an easier way, the s130 coloum would have been to long to use in standard form. will be finishing off the welding tomorrow so can get it all back together and trial fit the engine on saturday :mrgreen: thou do need to remove the exhaust first. hopefully it's not raining...

c230 with steering rack, oh yes.

this is a mock up, to make sure it all lines up ok. have to alter the brackets slighty as the brake pedal hits, also need to fit a dust boot.

[Al Ramone]

engine and gearbox are now properly mounted.

i've swaped in a fuel injection petrol tank from a c210 skyline. basicly same apart from the filler pipe is in a different location, so i've had to cut the parcel shelf and route the hose differently.

also swapped out the standard petrol pipes as they were only 6mm and fitted 8mm pipes it there place.
still need to mount fuel pump and filter.

started fiting the radiator and intercooler to see if they fit. not as much room as i would have liked but they will fit in the engine bay. might look at fitting a different intercooler at a later date, for now i just want it working. intercooler if from a saab 95.

also made a start on the wiring, not as easy as i thought it would be. pretty easy to get the basics up and working but i want to make sure it's in correctly and have things like the knock sensor etc all up and working.
and want to make it look and work like nissan would have.

couple of pics, not very exciting. i'll try to remember to take some more. second pic shows a complete s13 wiring loom in the box and a cut up loom i'm using to fit to the laurel.
oh and please forgive the blue hoses, brought them before i found out you can get them in black.




hmmm. i soon filled that space up :lol:


still plenty of work to do, not sorted out the dashboard area yet.
got rear axle to swap over then finish off exhaust, then swap over some front suspension parts sort out brakes, propshaft, etc etc.

[Al Ramone]

i also had a rethink about engine location, wasn't happy with the lack of space around the radiator/intercooler/fan shrould/pulleys etc. it worked but wasn't "right". and there was plenty of space between the engine and bulkhead.
so i've dropped the front crossmember and gearbox crossmember and am moving the engine rearward 60mm.
also means i can use the standard propshaft, so i will leave the rear axle standard for now and just concentrate on getting the car working for it's march MOT.
i'm going to have to modify the power steering pipes a bit to get clearance and also cut the lip off of the engine crossmember.

so even thou i've taken it all apart, this is a big step forward and i am going to end up with a much better car. and i am confident it will be up and running for the MOT.


only other drama i've had is the petrol tank filler pipe. i've got a 51mm flexi pipe conecting the tank to the filler inlet, but the 240k tank appears to be a bit smaller. so could do with a 240k filler pipe.
ended up modifying the filler neck so it's the same size as the 240k fuel tank. then fitted a universial hose.



then got it up and driving.

getting 30mpg average out of a full tank with my normal driving, so very happy with that. was getting less than that and a lot,lot slower with the 2.4 l6 :lol:


next i fitted adjustable hight, coil over converted s130 rear dampers. so i have 130lb rear and 180lb front springs. feels stiffer and do notice the bad roads more so now. one day i'll get myself air ride mmmmmmmm

due to how low the car sits at the front now thou i'm having to alter the front tie rods as it was putting way to much strain on them. even thou i'm using roll center/bump steer spacers, it's still not right.

still got plenty of jobs to do on it. first thing i wanna do is swap in the irs, then i can change the exhaust for one that will free up the CA's power a bit. then a bigger turbo :twisted:

[Al Ramone]

bit more progress on this.
i've swapped in an early front grill and bumper, also a bonnet mascot from a non uk c31.
rear lights have been swapped over for early ones too.



and apart from the shinney bits i've also got on with sorting out the rear suspension.
it's mostly 280zx but with c210 240k bits to make it fit.
i've added excentric bolts in the trailing arm mounts so i can adjust camber and toe. simaler to what a z31 300zx has

old axle out


new mounts and IRS axle have all been trial fitted but due to the fact i'm fitting a larger r200 diff rather then the normal r180 thats fitted to c210's and c230 hardtop's, i've needed to modify the diff mounting brackets slightly.

gonna need to make up some brake pipes and sort out the handbrake cables but all pretty straight forward.

would be a nut and bolt swap if you had both cars (c210 and c230) to swap the bits over. unlikely that anyone else will ever do this thou :lol:

[Al Ramone]

fitted my new rear coilovers and dropped it back on it's wheels





hmmm. think thats quite low.



that'll be the antiroll bar sat on the floor then :roll:

so, raised the suspension back up a fair bit and have also removed the rear roll bar, don't think i'll need that.




happy with the rear hight but now but need to drop the front a little lower. can't lower it anymore thou so will be building some custom cut down 280zx struts to replace the standard hight coil over converted struts that are currently fitted.

[Al Ramone]

ok. so what do you do if 280zx front struts just aren't short enough for your required lows?

answer, get creative



on the left is a 280zx strut with the spring pearch cut off. on the right is my cut and shut datsun/vw hybrid.

these new struts are 67mm shorter :mrgreen:

made em by cutting the top off of the stock 280zx strut and welding on the top of a VW mk1 golf strut at the right length to use stock mk1 golf inserts. mk1 golf inserts have the added benifit of having the same size top mount thread as s13. so you can use s13 camber plates with ease. win-win 8)

you need this stuff



cut strut up


trail fit insert and cut up a mk1 golf strut for the top section



make sure it all lines up and works, remove insert and weld it all up nicely. add the coil over conversion sleeve. weld that all up







drill out the spring upper mount, i had to add a washer between the spring mount and the top mount to hold it in the correct place. reassemble, paint it all up. done :wink:

[Al Ramone]

i've been getting fed up keep bottoming out the chassis rails on the road. so i've trimmed the chassis a little to gain some clearance. only about 20mm, but thats better.

heres the lip on the chassis, this is the lowest point on the car and where it grounds out.


choped these bits off from both rails


and after cutting off the lip and welding it up.


every little helps ;D

[dennismo]

That's a great project! In what amount of time did you pull this off?

[Al Ramone]

Jul 16, 2012 6:19:57 GMT 1 dennismo said:

That's a great project! In what amount of time did you pull this off?

which bit? i still haven't sorted the bodywork....

the engine conversion along with the steering rack conversion prob took a couple months.
the rear axle conversion a few weeks maybe.

brought it back in august 2010. but i've done a few other cars in the mean time too....

[westside]

that looks really cool what colour are you painting this car?

[Al Ramone]

thankyou.

i don't really know yet. it's got a light blue/ grey interior so it'd have to match that.

prob just keep it silver or met grey maybe....

trouble is, it looks pretty cool as is. but i just feel bad having it ratty looking. i think it deserves better.....

[westside]

it does look good I'm surprised you didnt run the suspension on air? I think a paint job is in order. With referance to your bluebird SSS what engine are you thinking of putting in that?