Here, again... ???

I really do not know what this is, but its not working.

Each time I progress a little further in to this build, my body turns against me, illness, nerve pain and a new one, arthritis.

The latest one annoys me the most. I've been living with huge amounts of pain my left thumb joint at the base for some time now, and its not just a past injury.

About a year ago, I purchased some thicker/oval push rings for my wheelchair that had huge amounts of grip, powered up hills I had issues with before, the difference was noticeable. They worked much like advertised, however this was not, a good thing. In automotive terms my forearms were the engine, hands the clutch and my push-rings were really warm wide fresh slicks. The damage was inevitable. As a result some days I can barely put my shoes on, but its getting better with a little excersize.

And again I was left to stare at the empty engine bay with a LS1 block sitting there, giving me a glimpse of how cool this will be one day. And the more this goes on, the further I get from being out on the track.

Fast forward to a drift practice night at Wanneroo a few weeks ago. My friend Jason calls up and asks if im keen to go to a drift practice night. I really didn't want to go but I went along for the laughs. As we arrived, and I wandered around the pits, something quite clearly slapped me in the face, reality.




Im doing it all wrong.


I haven't sat in a drifter since the early 2000's and here I am trying to build a car with a limited budget, limited mobility, sore body and i'm trying to build it from a catalogue in my head. The huge advantage of doing a lot of fabrication work yourself is you invest in 'some' parts rather than all parts and labour thus the end result means you can dream a lot bigger in that you save in the build. This can be a deep, dark negative.

All these drivers had one thing in common, driving, meanwhile I was building. I had just sold some street/race parts from the inventory of parts ill never end up using and was about to jump into the roll cage build on the LM-3203 when I thought id be better off to invest that into a car and get out there now. But id have to keep things regular, not my usual self looking to make this a dream inspired build. Time to go simple. Rough. Cheap.

One thing led to another, the next day I was trying to setup to see a Skyline I had heard about, going cheap and ready to slide. This is my ticket. I went to see it, and for $3k, my initial instincts said to not do this, but in all honesty all I looked for was a running engine and 5 gears with a sexy R32 body around it.





I didn't want to spend 10k on a fine example, then spend more to modify it for me, again going against the idea. We came to a agreement on price, shook and I had just picked up another Skyline. I have to admit, the interior made me laugh, on the inside and out. Everything about this car is nothing like me, and thus I like it.


A couple of days later, Jason, Adam and I, along with Ivanka went to pick it up. Right near the guys house was a private road on the estate, so with his permission I took it for a quick test drive to see if it runs ok. Ivanka asked me if she can come with, so I threw the harnesses over her, buckled her in and went for a quick test drive. I just went through the gears quickly, first to fifth to make sure the gearbox is behaving as it should and then with Ivanka's permission I gave it a quick test in 1st. As it came 'online' the RB took off, the wastegate opened up and Ivanka was more than a little frightened by the noise. So in went the clutch, grabbed 2nd and just cruised down and then she says "Try again, im ready this time", so again i feed it a little throttle and she was still a little unsure why this car sounds like it does.

By now I got to the end of this little road, and I had to do a U-Turn to get it back on the trailer. So as I slowed down in first, I gave it a little hydraulic handbrake, and half spun the car, let the clutch out and finished off the 180. Half way through I look over at her, laid back in the seat hand up on window sil I can see that she feels the g-force pushing her into the seat and this huge grin on her face as she looked out the side somewhat. Came out of the 180 and she says "WHOOOOOOOOOOOA, AGAIN, AGAIN..... you don't understand, how cool that was". Oh I do !!!

Hence this is the new Nissan Skyline LM-3220 (R'32' - RB'20'DET).





And what's the plan with LM-3203?. Still on plan, just have the ability to do as I go both from both physical and financial situations. If that means it takes another year or two, im not so concerned now, and in all honesty the LM-3220 will probably keep me motivated.

Have to get back out there ....

Smooth...

So to finish the pan, we need to know the engines setup, more specifically its happy place. 

Three weeks ago I drew the flat plates that bolt up to the block, and the overkill side plate loops around the sleeve to make the engine mounts. Lets just say, broken engine mounts annoy the shit out of me at the track.

In 2003 I drove my 180sx drifter from Malacky, Slovakia to a little town called Nurburg in Germany, some 900kms away. About three quarters of the way over I started hearing a nasty noise, a chatter, only on boost /  acceleration. Turns out I had cracked a engine mount apart on the casting.

So to let it know how dissapointed I was, a couple laps of the Nurburgring late in the afternoon session did it. And pissed me off the whole time.


Mate of mine Todd gave me a set of Nissan Patrol trailing arms he had laying about. I cut off the arm-tube, cleaned it up and put some plates around it.  This way I drop in a Whiteline polyurethane Patrol trailing arm bush, four come in the bag, so engine and a spare set in the toolbox, plus the ability to buy engine mounts anywhere in the world, OEM or aftermarket.


I put in a laser cut order, for the pan, and these end plates a few weeks ago. I took a guesstimate on the size, and got it (the block) about 8mm off each side. Perfect, no need to trim down. The baseplate I made out of 6mm, but the side plates are 5mm, I know its minor but my OCD (I dont actually suffer OCD, but this will annoy me) wont let me off this out. It could have been 5mm, if the front end isnt behaving as it should, ill know that the extra weight of the 6mm base plate is all at fault!. Ok, maybe not.

Dry Sump Pan Day

So this has to start somewhere, the whole placement issue.

I call it a issue, because I get no fun from this task of retrofits. 

Actually, allow me to clarify, I like the job itself, I love the technical aspect of setting a engine up when you have artistic freedom, I just dont find this kind of work amusing anymore when youre in a 'chair. 

Engine in, measure and mark-up, engine out, modify, replace and engine back in again a dozen times or more if you want the pan, the engine and gearbox mounts perfect.

So to set the height, we need a pan. To finish the pan, we need the engine mounted. To mount the engine, the gearbox and bellhousing needs to fit the transmission tunnel.

What it does not.

Starting off I opted to go 316 stainless steel for the engine pan. Why, not aluminium?. Well stainless only won out because of the specific notching for the steering rack and engine cross-member, its cleaner, thinner and if I get a rock caught between it and the power steering rack, it wont wear a hole in it, and if it did I can weld stainless at a countryside roadhouse if need be. Welding aluminium is a bit more of a pain. Saying that, its not uncommon to find a stainless pan on a high end no budget Nascar motor.

So basic design is like you see on circle track stuff, but in a smaller simpler scale. Pan is rather shallow and runs a gutter along the scavenge (backside) side.





Ill run 3-points of scavenge on the pan, so ill happily sacrifice the gutter where it hangs too low.





Few test fits, markup and notch out.







Got it nice and low in the bay, and pretty hard up to the cross-member.

And in-case you're wondering, yes that is a S13 cross-member.




The inner view reveals how low it can sit. This time I won against that steering rack, however the next time we meet will be headers time, and I just know that will get ugly.

Real ugly.