MX83, Southern Fried Texas style

Guess I should try to get some of my build stuff up here.
I will start with some of the newest, and fill as I have time.

First off, I use, and abuse the hell out of this car, but am dead set on keeping it looking nice.
No stripped interior, no hammered wheel wells, nothing like that.
My number one goal is to beat ever stinking mustang I can find.
When it's together, I go hunting mustangs at night  
The car will also see track days at some of the Texas road courses.

OK, my latest finished project is the adaptation of an Ikeya Formula sequential shifter meant for an S13 Silvia to a W58.
Was not an easy task, as the side to side movement distance of the selector rod between the Nissan 5-speed is different than the Toyota,
but the front to rear is the same.
But after playing in a cad program, I figured out a way to make them match up.

So I worked out a design of an adaptor, and machined it, and the internal piece it would take to make this work.
And it does !
No more stinking 'H' pattern, it now shifts like a bike.
Each click rearward shifts up a gear, each forward  goes down one.

Here is the adaptor:


And it installed:


This trans will be driven with a Quatermaster twin 7.25" disk clutch, on a 7 pound flywheel.


The only thing I want to do still is to acquire a set of the strasit cut dog gears out of Australia.
But they will have to wait until my bank account grows some  

First, welcome oh noble wise one! Second, this is super way cool! Should make trips to the drag strip a bit faster. When do you plan to install it in the car and when do we get to see some vids of it in action

Hey Gordon if I change my mind and decide to go manual I want you to make me 1 of these. I know money talks. I am good for it. I hate Mustangs. That has to be 1 Plus in your book.

Thanks Okie, and as soon as I can.  It's been too long since this thing has been out hunting mustangs.
Actually opened the hood today to see how bad the ITBs will get into the brake booster.
Not good....
Looking at different remote boosters, or electric/hydraulic boosters now.
Might be going with the Buick turbo electric/hydraulic power brakes, even theough they have a bad reputation.
So I am now running down the Toyota electric pump/accumulator set-up, so I can ditch the ones made by GM.
And found that the manifold would get right into the heater control valve.
Thankfully, that is already solved, with an inline valve (the X8 is a 90 degree unit) from one of the Toyota trucks.

Forgotten, I would never have parked my auto in the garage, except for 3 reasons,
First, I could not get anyone to build a 4500 stall converter, so the car would never launch correctly.
Second, I want to do more circuit track day type driving, and that is extremely hard on autos.
Third, seeing I am all motor, in a boosted world, I am trying to get rid of as much parisitic drag as I can, and an auto trans has a bunch of it.
But for street fights, most of which are from a roll, an auto is hard to beat.

A small update, drilled my front rotors. They came from Wilwood with some funky slots.
So brakes are ready to go on.
Front: Z32 on Wilwood 13.06" rotors.
Rear: Z32 on 12" JZX100 drilled rears.

Front Wilwood rotors:


The mounts to use Z32 calipers on the big rotors:




The mounts for the rears:

Yeah I hear you about the Auto. Since I was going to use it mostly on the streets I was going to keep it auto. but I am leaning towards manual more and more. I miss driving manual.IPT well known place for trany rebuilds, sure you heard of them are located 15 minutes from my place. it will cost me close to 4G's for trany and good Torque converter.
for that money I am sure I can get all I need to go manual with W58 or R154. Getrag 160 is to much$ plus I know only 1 guy that has it in X8 Cressi and there had to be alot of hammer work to get it to fit. You have W58. Would that hold my power?
I think with my twins setup and 93 octane I should be pushing 18, 19 boost max. which should put me around $450 whp. that might be to much for the W58. or with good gears and clutch cumbo it should work?
Also I have front and rear nissan calipers. front I am using MKV drilled / sloted rotors. Rear I Imported JZX100 Drum/disk rotors, plain no drilling or slots.
What do you recommend as Brake master cylinder. can I stay with oem or do you think I need to change it to something else. O and I have SS brake lines for all 4 calipers. Sorry don't want to turn this into my thread....

IPT drove me up the wall dealing with them,
They take your money, and give back excusses.
That guy over there just likes to blow smoke.
I sent a converter back to him several times, come to find out they guess at mods on them, because they don't have a converter dyno to test stall.

As far as mods to the trans, they really are simple.
All I did was shim the accumulator springs, and the main pressure spring.
If you really want to get fancy, install the pump from the IS300, it puts out more flow, and is a direct bolt-in.
I even used the overdrive assembly from the IS to get less rpm drop on the 3-4 shift, but it takes machine work.

Most of this info is on SupraForums under 'Making the A340 last'.

Hell, I'd sell mine, with one piece drive shaft for $1000 + shipping.

Just found the thread and read the first 6 pages. Plenty of info there. I will definitely be shimming the A340 in the wagon before it goes in. Just a question and I most likely know the answer. After 85/86 was there an A340 or were they all electric? I would like to get a newer auto tranny for the wagon, but don't want to have to deal with wiring and such.

Sorry, but I have no idea of what the older trans were like.
But you can run the 340e as a manual, just by taking the signals from the shift indicator, using them to triger relays to pull in the correct solenoids.
Some people use the signal directly, but I don't think the contacts in the position switch are designed to handle that much currant.
So it's better to use the signals to trigger relays.
There are 2 diodes that need to added, I have a diagram somewhere that came from someone in Australia, via the old TC.net.
I'll try to find it.

Here is what was posted on TC.net

Hey Gordon, very long time...
Do u still sell/make 300zx brake conversion adapters for X8 front brake set up?

Dang, I could have sworn that I had PMed you on the brake adaptors, but I don't see it anywhere.

I have 1 set of spacers, bolts, and washers still, no hub-centric rings.
I could make some if you would like, but the price would be right back up at $100 for the set.
If you can find the 60-68mm rings, you can have the bolt & spacer kit for cheap.

Well, finished up bolting in all my new rear suspension today.
Was dark before I finished, so picture of finished set-up will have to wait until tomorrow
Here are a few teaser shots though.....

Lower control arms:


Upper control arms:


Tension rods:


Toe rods:


Everything adjustable.
All heim ends with boots.
Absolutely No rubber in the rear end at all any longer, except for the sway bar bushings, and they are Energy urethane.

Will be doing the front end in a few days

Here it is all assembled.



Spent some time today stripping the 280ZX sway bar that I have had on the car for years.
Decided to drill the ends for direct bolting the heim joints, instead of using the adjustable collar that I had been using.
The weather is supposed to be warmer tomorrow, so I can paint it, and get it on the car.

I also made some special jaws for an old pair of visegrips, so I can hold the hollow arms on this suspension without marring them.

No-Mar visegrip jaws for holding the tubes on the adjustable arms:

good to see the cressy forums up and running again.
and as always mate love ya work look forward to see the sequential shifter setup finished

A little progress:

The early MkIII Supra W58 I rebuilt is going to be put up for sale, as it is the earlier all aluminum version, and are 'iffy' at 400hp.
Of course I will keep the sequential conversion.

I now have the later MkIII, iron center one, and will be gone through just as the first one, but with a twist.

The W58 has a problem for my application, there was too big of a jump between 4th & 5th gears, causing my high strung 7M to fall off the power band.
I had addressed this issue with my auto by installing the IS300 overdrive into my auto.
But the ratio issue came back with the decission to go to manual.
5th in the W58 is .78:1 overdrive. I needed something in the .85:1 ratio.

Checked through all the Toyota trans info, and a .86:1 ratio was made for a very short time in 1984, for one of the W57s, but was never imported to the USA.
(and no, the truck & later car trans with that ratio won't work,
as they also have lower 1st through 3rd ratios)
I run the part numbers for the 5th gear set, and one was available, but the matching gear was not.
None, Zilch, Nada....
Tried dealers in Canada, Australia, Japan, UK, and Europe.
So I posted want threads up all over, and they sat, and got nothing.

I then looked around for an aftermarketgear set, like Route-6 out of Japan, but they are impossible to find.
But found a post in SupraForums from 2009, about an Australian company, PPG, that made a close ratio kit, with the correct ratios.
The old post said $3800 or so, which if I sold a kidney, and maybe a lung, I could swing.
Their site had no prices, so I contacted them, and contacted them, and contacted them, until they finally answered.......
Now they want $8600 !!
Crap, a Quaife 7-speed sequential is only $7500 !
So screw that idea.

Finally, got a forum replay from a gentelman in Bulgaria, that he had the early W57, and he wanted my taller .76:1 5th gear for milage.
We traded, and I now have a .86:1 5th gear

So it's tranny building time again. Once it's all apart, the all the gears will be sent off for cryo treating.
Just want to add as much life as I can to this thing.

In the mean time, got the front suspension installed, and now I'm going after the steering quickener.
The one thing I hated about the Cressida was the damn slow steering (3 turns lock to lock).
So I had made up adaptor shafts to use the Howe 2:1 steering quickener, and finally got it in.
Just have to make a mounting bracket, which will be done as soon as the latest cold front passes.

would love to rrun a steering ratio adjuster but now with the 1uz convo dont think there will be enough room as it is for the headers.

i take it that you have to now make a torque arm to mount it some where now?
whats that uni off

Your right, what I have seen of 1UZs, there wouldn't be room.
And yes, a torque arm, or a solid mount.

That bottom universal was a tough one, metric spline to fit the Toyota rack, inch spline to fit the quickener.
It's made by Woodward.
http://www.woodwardsteering.com/images/steering%20universal%20joints.pdf[/url]

Just a little run down on the engine, for those of you that were not around TC.net.

Head, with Group-A spec. combustion chambers, SS valves, TRD 272 x 10.8mm cams.
Chambers, valves, and exhaust ports ceramic coated.
Comp Cams 975 valve springs, Toda inner shim buckets.
Ports actually opened up to match oversize valves.
Cam bearings moly coated.
And major surgery on coolant flow paths.









Valves:



Custom JE flat top pistons (12:1 compression with FET .8mm head gasket)
Ceramic coated domes, and double coated skirts.
(hard teflon first layer, with softer moly top coat)



50mm ITBs

Can't wait to hear your 7m with those it's I even bought the Oval tube to do mine but Andrew has All that now.
Still love the work you've put into it mate it's a credit to ya

sell me your suspension gear damn you i keep coming back to look at em lol
looks so good i need more adjustment everywhere plus pillow join ftw

Just out of curiosity, why not start with a NA 2J instead of the 7M?

Because I didn't have a 2J to start with, I had a 7M,
and then I had a few 7M speed parts,
then some more, and more.

I think they call it the snowball effect.   

Guess I should update this thread a little...

Decided that no matter what I did to a W58, it wasn't going to stay in one piece, so they both were shelved.
Bought this instead:


An HPI built Nissan S15-R 6-speed.
Has a very close ratio gear set, and is supposed to be good for over 400 HP.
HPI custom builds these using the Nismo gear set.

Started off by machining the bell housing off:


This plate will be welded to the front case, and will allow this trans to be bolted to the A340E bell housing:



And the engine was partially pulled down again, to do a couple of mods that were skipped, or not thought up back when it was first assembled.

First, the 2 compression rings were pulled off the pistons, and replaced with just one gapless ring, to lessen ring drag at high rpm.

Second, right after the engine was assembled the first time, one of the causes of 7M head gasket woes was discovered by Quake, over on Supra Forums. That is, on the exhaust side of the head, it gets hot enough to allow the aluminum to relax right around the head bolts, and the bolt/stud torque goes away.
ARP found this happening on the newer Detroit aluminum head engines, and came up with a washer that has a sleeve extending down into bolt bore, supporting the aluminum. Thankfully, they have a size, off the shelf that will work on the 7M.

Third, I started getting requests from other 7M guys to find a cure for the oil pump drive pulley breaking.
So I come up with a way, with a little machine work, to use off the shelf dry sump pump pulleys on the 7M's oil pump drive shaft.
Along the way, decided to eliminate the plain bearings on the shaft, by using ball & roller bearings.
Then a member on Supra Forums turned me on to Andrew's (Technico) roller thrust bearing that cures the problem of the shaft eating into the retention plate at higher oil pressures. I had got around the problem by grinding directional oil feed slots in the plate, and moly coating it, but hell, a roller bearing is always better than a plain bearing, no matter what you coat it with.
I made mine just because I happen to have the correct size thrust bearing & races in stock, so it differs from Technico's a little.



I highly recommend that if you are rebuilding a 7M, to pick up one of Andrew's bearing conversion, and the ARP head washers. You can find all the details on Supra Forums here:
http://www.supraforums.com/forum/showthread.php?683040-finally-an-answer-to-the-7m-head-gasket-issue&highlight=

More to come.....