Page 1 ��� Body work and paint
Page 2 ��� Driving and tuning the 450Z
Page 3 ��� Mechanical build-up of Infiniti VH45DE powered 240Z
Page 4 - 300ZX Twin Turbo project car
Page 5 - Previous 240Z & 510 project cars.
Page 6 - Car & Driver 1 Lap of America
THE BUILDING OF A 1972 240Z WITH INFINITI VH45DE ENGINE
The plan is to initially install a VH45DE V8 from a 92 Infiniti Q45 in a 240Z. In order to get the best performance from this engine I'm going to adapt a 6spd transmission. This 240Z will be both a street car and a track car. A mild engine of about 320hp and a weight of 2600lbs would give me about 8lbs/hp. With the proper suspension and brake system, this car should be quicker then my previous 300ZXTT project car without any turbo lag.
The engine runs fine on my make shift test bench.
See it running at:
Engine runup on garage floor
Now you can hear the engine running in the car. Not bad throttle response for a stock Q45 engine!!!
Engine runup in car
I have now weighted the VH45DE engine. It came in at about 460lbs! That's without the starter, A/C, P/S,alt, otherwise the complete engine. We weighted one of the 240Z engines I had around and it came in at 350lbs without the alt, dist. and smog pump. To compare we also found that a 1993 Ford lightening 351 engine in the same condition weighted about 430lbs. The weight gain will be further back as the entire engine will be behind the front axle. The extra power will make up for the 110lbs difference.
Installation of the factory oil filter bracket on the inner passenger fender.
The sub frame is now complete. Here are pictures of the custom subframe with the steering rack mounts and the passenger side area where it mounts into.
I have now assembled the Modern Motorsport CV joint conversion. The bottom shaft is the original Q45/Z32 half shaft, the center one is the original 240Z half shaft and the upper unit is the new upgraded system.
It's official, the car is now on it's wheels. First time in over 2 years it has been off the axle stands!! I set the spring perches to the same setting as Jeff Fleming's 240Z and I believe that will work for me as well. The 255/40-17 tires on 17"x9" wheels all sitting inside a stock fender, sure gives the car attitude. Since they fit in the fenders I thought the car might have a certain "sleeper" look, but with all of the camber and tire in the fenders, it looks more like a European Touring Car racer.
Here are some of the custom parts I had to make caliper bracket, drive shaft adapter, front sway bar link, upper spring perches and front ball joint adapter which connects a Mitsubishi ball joint to the RX7 control arm.
All struts were shortened about 2" each to regain much needed suspension travel after lowering the 240Z by about 4", by using Tokico Illumina adjustable shocks. In the front of the 450Z I used the Toyota MR2 MK1 rear Tokico BZ3099. In the rear of the 450Z I used the 240Z front strut inserts BZ3015.
Custom made front and rear MSA sway bar mounts.
Front brake system started with some 12.90" Wilwood GT directional rotors (RH #160-4564 LH #160-4565) wrapped with a Wilwood Forged Billet Superlite caliper (#120-8466-R/L). Custom caliper bracket and rotor adapter had to be designed and fabricated. Pads are Wilwood 150-8854K, Grade BP-10.
Rear disc brake conversion uses the Modern Motorsport caliper brackets with 1988-94 240SX calipers with the 1984 Z31 AE rotor(11" dia).
Front suspension is now finalized. Here are some pics showing the full range of suspension travel. One is full droop and the other is before the tire hits the fender when you are at full lock.
Rear suspension is now done as well. The tires are tight to the fender lip. After removing the lip, the 255/40-17 tires mounted on
Ford Cobra R, 17x9, Back Spacing: 5.94" (151mm),
Offset: +24mm (0.94"), Bolt Pattern: 5x4.5" (5x114.3mm). Used with
3/8��� spacer and coil overs.
They fit very well on both the front and rear of the car. This maybe the widest wheels and tire combo to fit on a stock 240Z fender. Notice the coil over and Modern Motorsport rear disc brake conversion.
Fabricated upper spring perches. Left one is to adapte the MR2 MKI rear strut cartridge to the front of the 240Z and the one on the right is to adapt the front 240Z cartridge into the 240Z rear struts. Both allow me to shorten the strut tubes by about 1.5". Both struts are Tokico Illumina adjustable struts.
Adjustable camber plates welded in place on the front.
Modified rear spindles converted to 5 x 4.5" bolt circle.
Fuel tank gets 3/8" dia feed and return lines as well as a central well/baffle near the pickup. Hope this allows me to run hard with less then 1/2 a tank of fuel without fuel starvation.
Aeromotive fuel pump and pre filter.
The Nissan Pathfinder reversing steering gearbox is now in place.
Tight clearance for the steering shaft between the inner fender and stock exhaust manifold.
In order to save me redesigning a water pump drive and save some power, I decided to take a Pro Comp electric pump motor and design my own pump body that would mount in the stock water pump location. It was for a SBC and was rated for 35 gal/min or 300hp. Combine this with the large aluminum Griffon rad, that should work well for my project.
Griffon rad mounted in place and now have a temporary set of gauges setup to make sure everything is running alright.
After 3 weeks of looking over Infiniti wiring diagrams and doing pin test s on the harness I now have a new fuse box wired to the factory ECU
Some custom fabricated parts:
T56 hydraulic clutch line adapter. Required to adapt the Borg Warner T56 slave cylinder to a standard steel line to connect to the master cylinder. The master was a Wilwood #260-1304.
Custom underdrive pulley, tensioner and water pump block off plate. I am going to use an electric water pump. The underdrive pulley was required to allow the engine to sit properly in the engine bay without hitting the steering rack.
Custom oil filter relocation manifold. This allowed me to gain some clearance as the original unit was too close to the frame rail and steering system. Now I can relocate the filter and add a cooler as well. Used -12 lines so as to not get any pressure losses.
This is the rear cross member required to mount the viscous LSD differential from the Q45 into the 240Z. After running a very frustrating season where I was spinning the inside rear tire all of the time and not putting the power down. So I finally bit the bullet and bought a KAAZ clutch type LSD. What a difference the car now hooks up like my old 240Z only this time with allot more authority. The major problem with this conversion, like everything else on this project is that I had to make my own custom parts. No one has a LSD listing for the Q45 diff. I guess there is no demand for it. So I took a gamble that the Z32 NA diff would be the same as the Q45 diff and ordered a Z32 NA LSD from KAAZ. With the same generation Nissan, same suspension, same diff housing? Only with a different ratio. Well it turns out that the Q45 stub shafts have a larger spline then the Z32 and are only a 5 bolt flange instead of the 6 bolt from the Q45! So I cut off the 6 bolt flanges and welded them onto the Z32 splined shafts. It now works great.
Installed view of the custom front diff mount.
A view from the rear of the custom transmission mount for the T56 6 speed. Still have some more gussets to connect to the frame rails.
Rough set up of my Cobra R wheels bolted to the front. These 17" x 9" wheels with 255/40-17 tires will clear the fender with some required neg camber and coil over springs.
The rears will require some trimming of the fender lip and some outward spacing as well. Should prove to be a killer package leaving me with a very stealth like stock body.
New suspension mounted to the custom subframe. 2nd generation RX7 control arm, Mitsubishi ball joint, stock 240Z strut and steering knuckle, 84 Z31 AE spindle.
Close up if drivers side custom subframe without the control arm.
New custom VH45DE subframe to hold the engine and suspension to the 240Z
Raised the inner pick up point of the control arm for better geometry.
I finally have an adapter for the VH45DE and T56 transmission! I am just waiting for the socket hd cap screws to come in before I counter sink the holes.
Here is the layout to transfer the holes from the 6 spd to the adatpter. Note the holes for the engine block are already drilled.
There was some trimming required to clear the starter, heater hose, right head and the idle air hose. Now to design the drive plate/flywheel adapter.
The final assembly of the VH45DE engine and the T56 6 speed trans. Custom adapter plate and dual flywheel with spacer make this all happen. Calculations show that I need a Wilwood .750" dia master cylinder for the AP style release bearing.
Here are the speeds I get with T56 6 speed trans and the 3.5:1 Q45 diff at 7000rpm engine speed:
1st 2.66:1 55 mph
2nd 1.78 83
3rd 1.3 113
4th 1.0 147
5th 0.74 199
6th 0.5 294 or 1774 rpm at 75mph
Here is a close up of the engine/trans support jig I made up to help in locating the engine assembly in the 240Z body.
I am now also designing a new larger more efficient brake system for the front of the 240Z. This system will use a Wilwood Dynalite forge caliper with the Wilwood GT 12.9" dia x 1.25" vented rotor. Here is a snap shot showing the latest design with a proper wheel spacer and my 17"x9" Cobra R wheel. Notice that I have converted to a 5 lug bolt pattern by using the spindle from a 1984 Anniversary Edition 300ZXT.
So now begins the adaptation of a T56 transmission to the Infiniti VH45DE. As you can see there are allot of differences between the 2 bell housing.
Using Solid Works CAD/CAM system to design the required adaptor I came up with this custom design. By using the stock ring gear to run the starter, I mounted behind it the aluminum Fidanza flywheel and custom STAGE III Bully clutch.
Thanks to fellow 1 Lap Of America racer ( http://www.onelapofamerica.com/ , Glenn Dodd of the Carolina Rod Shop ( http://www.carolinarodshop.com/ )made me an offer I could not refuse on a T56 6 speed transmission from a 1999 Camaro. It's the same tranny that was used in the Vette, SVT Mustang, GTO and the Viper, so it should be strong enough for my application.
I have now acquired a ConZult diagnostic software and adapter to be able to test the various sensors and systems on the engine. Very nice system from Eric at http://300zx-twinturbo.com/conzult/
After hours of jigging and lining up the engine/trans assembly relative to the body, I came up with this new subframe to hold the engine and RX7 control arm in place. By eliminating the stock 240Z compression rod I gained more room to allow for a larger exhaust system. IE future custom equal length headers.
With about 1" between the fire wall and the engine, I kept the center of gravity close to the center of the car. The hood clears with enough room for the engine to move on the mounts without hitting anything.
The engine is in and now bolted onto it's own mounts on the new subframe. Clearance is tight everywhere, but so was my twin turbo! This will still be easier to work on. The under drive pulley for the alternator is roughed in, just have to machine the belt grooves. I am going to use an electric water pump and converting to an electric power steering assist system as well. So all I need to drive is the alternator.
Page 1 ��� Body work and paint
Page 2 ��� Driving and tuning the 450Z
Page 3 ��� Mechanical build-up of Infiniti VH45DE powered 240Z
Page 4 - 300ZX Twin Turbo project car
Page 5 - Previous 240Z & 510 project cars.
Page 6 - Car & Driver 1 Lap of America
