Garage San Maru

[thriller]

Rocky auto photos would be cool! Definitely on my to do list next year.

 

Just read the first post here... I think I love your mum.... 

[Riceburner]

I've been hanging out for more pics and updates of the ultimate PMC build, so keep up the awesome work.

 

Nice work mate, look out for the carter though, they can be very very very noisy

 

+1 Sack the carter and go for a Peirburg, Is this race or road? I've seen the clutch and the tech toy tuning castor rods, are they solidly mounted... what is noise like?

 

Would love to see pics/info on the Porsche brakes and the PMC 3" exhaust 

[d3c0y]

Well gentlemen unfortunately a Pierberg only flows 90lph and i need 120lph. Holly pumps are no good and a 4070 from Summit was under $100 delievered. When i install the surge tank i will probably just a Pierberg as the lift pump.

I'm open to suggestions on this one?

 

Castor rods didnt add any noticeble noise in my opinion. Made the front end feel a lot tighter and I haven't bothered to get a wheel alignment yet. I did notice that it tram-linned really badly after fitting them, to the point I had to concentrate hard to drive it up the crappy M1 highway on the Gold Coast. It would dart from side to side where ever there was a rut in the lane. Now where it gets interesting is that I fitted a front strut brace and this tendancy totally disappeared.

 

Now I was reading Jamo's build thread and he says that a strut bar on a road car makes no noticable difference. Now I know the guy knows a lot about this kinda stuff, but there was a defintely a massive difference to the way my car drove. So I find this interesting and makes me wonder if there is something else wrong with my car or if people haven't been fitting them invane.

 

I think the Rocky Auto photos just went to Fiji as i just lent my worklaptop to a fellow staff member for a trip, but ill check the home computer see what i have got!

[d3c0y]

I've been hanging out for more pics and updates of the ultimate PMC build, so keep up the awesome work.

 

+1 Sack the carter and go for a Peirburg, Is this race or road? I've seen the clutch and the tech toy tuning castor rods, are they solidly mounted... what is noise like?

 

Would love to see pics/info on the Porsche brakes and the PMC 3" exhaust 

 

I take it you're not asking if the clutch is noisey and yes the rods are solidly mounted.

 

The calipers are Porsche 986 boxster calipers and I will be 306mm two piece rotor. This setup fits just under a 16" wheel.

The pistons are the same size as the 996 Carrera and Boxster S, just a bit smaller pad basically the same caliper. I'm also going to switch to 986 rears too down the track. I'm going to look at making a brake kit for those who are interested after I have it sussed on my car. Those calipers are damn light for the size!

[d3c0y]

So here are the strut bars I refered to earlier. The front is courtesy of PGZ302, which I claimed from the wreck and had a mate bend me up a new piece of 3mm stainless tube. I wasn't stoked with the fit of the strut tops so i ground them down and painted them black. Fit on the stock airbox was a bit tight and i managed to get it to clear with a couple of washer underneath, but i knew i was going to triples in the near future so wasnt a big deal.

 

 

Rear strut bar came from Alan Steen at the Z Car Workshop. I had to paint it twice because i went against my rule of only using kill rust and grabbed some Dulux from Bunnings which on the second coat had a weird reactions resulting in me having to re-strip the bar. Nothing is ever easy is it?   

 

 

I put masking tape all over the harness mount points because i couldnt bear the thought of scratching my new paint. I think some rubber piping on the leading edge should fix it up when i get a chance.

[d3c0y]

I love badges. They are the only part you can usually fit straight away, appart from my fender emblems but we've already been through that one.

 

I put new 1/4 badges on a little while back and they really cleaned up the look of the car.

 

And tonight i fitted new MSA Glove box and console emblems. The colour difference on the glove box emblem is not noticable in person, the flash on my iPhone is just making it look weird. Ahh instant gratification!

 

 

I installed an AutoMeter 5" Monster Tacho, as the stock tacho didnt work with the Crane CDI. These tachos are good because with a couple of layers of electrical tape around the outside of the tacho mean it is a nice and tight push fit in the dash. Scored this sucked off eBay for $50 posted bargain!

 

 

It's a temporary measure as when i come across one cheap enough, I will be replacing it with this:

While the steering wheel was off for the tacho, I repainted the indicator stalk and ignition barrel cover and fixed a broken wire on the inidicators.

As you can see in the photos i had the 1/4 windows out too and completely refurbished them. They had split appart in the bottom corner and I thought that this was stopping the doors from closing easily. Generally when you shut the door it was never latched properly and you would have to shut it a second time with force. All new genuine seals were fitted, frames polished on the bench grinder and what was left of the L-brackets was removed from the bottom of the frames. A friend actually TIG'd the back of the right angle join, instead of welding a new bracket in. It's one of those jobs that leaves the car appart for weeks as you get parts, weld frames, test fit, glue and remove tint. Even though I was very happy with the end result, it didnt fix the problem! It turned out that my door seals had deformed so badly that they were causing the issue. So as of today there is a brand new MSA seal kit sitting in the garage, complete with new fresh air ducts for the engine bay.

I also pulled the fender mirrors off and gave them a full overhaul in satin black paint as they were pretty blasted and pitted from a life time on a car. No pics as i havent refitted them to the car as i knew i would be pulling the engine out but they do look a lot better.

New tail lights have been fitted with genuine tail light gaskets to replace the cracked and stained units there were on the car. Pulling the tail lights out revealed some rust holes in the rear pannel where they mount so any mess there was sanded and sprayed while it was appart. I still need to paint the tail light covers (i want to get them done in 2 pack) and some rechromed tail light trims (across the centre) would finish it off. If anyone knows where you can get repro ones that would be helpful!

 

I threw in a photo of the new Watas for good measure too.

[d3c0y]

It's a PMC Christmas!

So this is how she sits at the moment. Everything bar the hardlines, and masters have been stripped out of the engine bay. I just need to get it and paint it matt black now. Just trying to get the time and motivation up to do it and writing all these posts has definitely spurred me along. I am pretty keen to hear this thing run for the first time!!

The horns looked pretty poor when i pulled them out so i decided to get excited with them. I probably ended up spending like 2 hours one shiney one so far haha. One thing people need to watch out for when doing this sort of work is all the new hardware you have to buy to finish the look off. Stainless allen bolts aren't the cheapest thing when you keep running down to Super Cheap to buy packs of 6.

You might wonder why i'm not going to more effort on the body at this stage. The answer is that im going to get everything set up and working on the car. Drill any new holes needed, get the flares fitted and everything generally planned out in it's place. Then i will take the car off the road and rotissery the body already knowing as much of the car as possible and which holes i can weld up etc. The paint is pretty good at the moment and I would love to do the engine bay properly, but it's too much of a heart breaking to scratch brand new paint fabricating, fitting and worse bending stuff.

[thriller]

Looks fantastic; my 2c on taillight lenses:

 

Before:

 

So I pulled the center trim off, attacked the lens with some autosol and elbow grease, attacked the center chrome trim with the same, masked off the chrome parts and gave the center line a hit of black spray.

 

Turns out like this:

 

Not perfect, but for about $3 worth of autosol and less than 15 seconds of spraycan, it ain't bad at all.

 

 

I know of someone who sent the center trim off to be re-chromed, I think it cost about $120? Not cheap, but it looks incredibly good. Perfect.

[d3c0y]

Yeah nice result. My RHS one had a hole in it that had been siliconed up and the left one had split so my only choice was to replace them. I ended up snagging a pair of repro lenses and a cleaned and polished set from Dimitri and used the best parts from all four.

[Riceburner]

How did you calculate the flow rate you require? I'd like to know for my setup.

 

Love the 'stack' tacho, looks hot 

[peter mc]

Garath

on the superflow dyno it works out the fuel burn and for a given hp  its one off the benifets of tuning on a engine dyno ,

and this 3.4 needs some fuel lol

[d3c0y]

Shit just got real. The engine is in thanks to Doug helping me on Friday night. eBay alloy radiator that is the size of a large intercooler fits up well too. We test fit my two 12" thermos and there is a perfect amount of clearance to the waterpump, massive ATi underdriven pulley and all that stuff on the front of the motor.

 

Now all we need to do is install the new Carter 4070 fuel pump, some new... fuel hoses, mount the adjustable fuel reg, hook up the CDi box and the radiator hoses and she should start.

 

You can see the two nasty rust holes near the wiper stalks that I would like to address too, although they are not structural so maybe i just put the cowling pannel over the top and forget about them until the whole body redo.

 

All the removable brackets will be painted silver for a bit of contrast, as again i will save them for powder coating/zinc plating when the body is rotisseried in a few years.

 

Any ideas on whether to bother with the foam that sits on the guard supports and the sealing strip down the side?

[Riceburner]

Well gentlemen unfortunately a Pierberg only flows 90lph and i need 120lph. Holly pumps are no good and a 4070 from Summit was under $100 delievered. When i install the surge tank i will probably just a Pierberg as the lift pump.

I'm open to suggestions on this one.

 

Was doing some research on the pump for my setup, the specs on my Pierburg are a flow rate of 1.9 Litres per min @2psi @13.8v, which will work out to be 114 Litres per hour. May still do the job

[peter mc]

your spot on gareth the pierberg will feed most L motors NA up to 330 race engine jakes would be just out on the trak would be fine on a road only engine

[sexual_sushi]

Jesus that must be exciting. I want to come down and see that thing when it's moving

[Riceburner]

Hehehe, If he keeps it flat for long enough he might be able to watch the fuel gauge dropping 

[d3c0y]

That's why i havent started it yet, still saving up for the fuel. Lol 

 

Christmas holidays it will be running and out and about.

[Fairlady Z]

very nice.

 

can't wait for a video. And when its run in please give it some beans want to hear it on full song. (in controlled environment of course  )

 

 

[C.A.R.]

That 'L28' is... well... rather puckering to drive, to say the least...

[d3c0y]

It's funny its a bit anti-climatic so far as i haven't even seen it running in person at this point.

 

 

I'm sure i can manage a video for ya'll 

[d3c0y]

OK so it's nearly the end of the holidays and the car still isn't running yet. Despite being away for most of the holidays I have managed to make some progress though.

 

First off I noticed that i still had the throwout bearing and clutch fork sitting on my workbench, which means that I have to crane the engine forward again which is a pain in the A$$!!

 

Next I have been doing a bit of reading on some modifications to the electrical systems. I bought a VL starter motor as an L-series starter cant turn the L34 beast over. This has been getting stripped and cleaned up ready for installation (after i fix the above stuff up -_- ). In aide of cleaning up the engine bay (and not having to refit it) im going to remove the external voltage regulator. The car already has a ZX 60A alternator and i plan on cutting the plug off for the voltage reg and hide the wires in the loom.

 

On the subject of the engine bay tidy up the following things have now been removed:

• ADR Plate (any ideas on where to mount this?)
  
• Fuel filter and holder
  
• Coil
  
• Resistor
  
• Voltage Reg
  

I have also changed the fuel hose setup on the Webers so the feed line comes from behind the motor. My setup doesn't use a return line anymore so, i would like to pull that line out completely and shorten the main feed hard line so it stops at the end of the transmission tunnel. I guess all i would need to do this is to re-flair the fuel hard line which shoudn't be too hard.

If i do this, it would remove the fuel lines that run along the top of the driver's side chassis rail, just leaving the main wiring loom to hide.

 

I also read about the green wire that runs with the fuel sender wire that can be used to power the fuel pump. I'll be using this off a relay to power the Carter 4070 I have. Pump, filter and regulator will all be mounted under the back of the car. I want to do the headlight relay mod and i need to install another relay for my new thermo fans too so i will have to find a space to mount them all.

 

I fitted up all my new eBay spec cooling gear which consists of an eBay alloy radiator which is as thick as an intercooler and two 10" S-blade thermo fans. The top tank of the radiator is warped and the mounting holes on the rad weren't wide enough to match up to the factory ones. I had to elongate the holes with a drill to get it to fit. I am also concerned as to weather the bonnet will shut over it as it sits very high. I polished the bonnet stay and gave it a coat of laquer to protect it, so it matches the shiny new radiator.

 

I've decided that anything metal that bolts to the engine bay will get polished and lacquered, so there will be no new cadmium plated bits. I feel the old parts add to the look of the car with there dings and 40 years of ware and help tell the car's story in a way. In the pic below you can see the new MSA reproduction fresh air ducts installed too, which are well made.

 

 

And finally i framed a poster i picked up at RockyAuto on my Japan trip. Awesome Japanese cheesy design at it's best.

 

 

More updates to come shortly, at least i have a plan now!

[d3c0y]

So i got to hear a PMC engine in real life last weekend...

 

 

 

The iphone has no hope of capturing what this thing sounds like!

[d3c0y]

I've been updating my project more on Facebook because it's easier.

 

 

Check it out, like my page etc!

 

 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Garage-San-Maru/277779232283715?hc_location=stream

[d3c0y]

new URL for the facebook page and the 20B project is up!

 

 

http://www.facebook.com/Garage.San.Maru

[Riceburner]

So no 20B build thread here?  :'(