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Project Drag 521


EricJB

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This project started several years ago, and I'm not much good with camera's ( or computers) so I will start in the middle. I am a cheap bastard. I use what I have and make whatever I can to save a buck. So please keep that in mind as you witness the carnage.

The rear suspension is a h190 diff with 4.38's, Homemade ladder bars, with airbags and the KYB gasadjusts that used to be on the front.

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The rear wheels are from a Toyota 4x4 that I had to cut the centers out of and move out about an inch, that weld back up. Mounted on them are 8x26 Hoosier slicks. The front wheels are 720 wheels that were cut in half, and narrowed to 4 inches and welded back together. See I told you I was a tight ass.


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I have tried to keep the interior looking stock, to the extent of using the stock switches. The dimmer is now for the line lock and low side (launch) rev limiter. I had to put a spring on it to make a momentary switch. The flasher is now for the low side rev limiter, and the headlite switch with the fan knob is now the electric water pump/ cooling fan.

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The motor is presently a mostly stock L20 bottom end with a u67 head. Z valves, crane springs, 490/290Delta cam. Straightened, smoothed out and match ported to the intake/ shitty header. 30 plus year old 40 dcoes w/36 chokes. I dont know how much HP it makes, but it's not enough. So a LZ2.3 is in the works. It has a Z clutch and a 200sx dogleg that has seen a ton of abuse. But it's still alive.


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The cooling system has a electric water pump, and fan for cooling down in the pits. It also has a homemade catch can to keep the safety tech's happy.

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MSD box and 2 step rev limiter live inside with me.

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Battery w/ master switch, Fuel cell, pump, and filter are mount in the box. Or at least where the box used to be.

Best time to date is 15.27 at 85.5 mph. Im looking for low 14's this year.

In addition to the 2.3, ( thanks Dat Doug) It's getting a 4.88 R and P, (thanks Wayno) disc brakes, (thanks Mike K) And getting put on a diet.

More later.
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When I seen a drag truck in the new topics, I had to see if it was you, it's looking good, have you made a run with the new gears yet? Is the guy that bought the vehicle from me on here? I am kinda interested in seeing it some day. I just told another guy on another thread that I sold all my 488 520-21 gears to the datsun drag racer, :lol: :lol:.

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Sweet :)

I'm sure you don't have them, but I'd love to see pics of the wheel work. As I was reading and panning down, I just assumed the fronts were steel too until the pic came up. Did you TIG them back together? How did you keep the sectioning accurate...lathe?...by hand? Great stuff!

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Oh man love it! When I clicked I just assumed I was going to see a v8 swap. What a nice surprise! Hoosier white letters= classic! And the wheel narrowing is something I have always been interested in. So few skinny 6-lug wheels were ever made. Can't even find a slot mag less than 5.5" wide in a 6-lug.

 

Thanks for joining!

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Thanks for the comments. Wayno, I haven't run the 4.88's yet. I ended my season early due to the brakes not stopping it at almost 90 MPH ha ha. The sold vehicle in question is in good hands. It's in a heated garage, waiting its turn. Dave is famous for saying "I'm just going to get it running and drive it" Than the frame goes to the powder coaters and the body is on a rotessorie. He's painting a Roadster right now that he bought for parts, as an example.

 

The front wheels were a nightmare, but I was determined. The back of that wheel is angled from the back of the spokes to the lip. If you just cut it, it wont go back together. So i had to cut the front off two other wheels and sawzall the centers out, chuck them up in a big manual lathe and clean them up

 

 

. I cut them with a big internal groove tool so the ring would end up on the tool instead of rolling across the shop. chamfered the edges and had my personal metal fusing bitch ( and good friend) Randy tig them back together. Not the truest wheels ive owned, But they ballance up and dont give me any feedback. If you look closely at the pic, you will see where the valve stem hole was welded up, as well as the remains of the wheel spokes. I would not run these if I didn't trust Randy's welding ability with my life. The welds were not ground down. He filled the grooves perfectly.

 

 

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I'm off to the machine shop to pick up the block for the LZ2.3, Honed and decked. I'll fill you in on that debacle shortly.

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a nissan Y44 V8 would be sweet in a drag datsun, but the LZ2.3 sounds nice too

 

Yes but then what would I do with the mountain of L series parts I have ha ha. I vowed to keep the original valve cover and oil pan on it. ( or corrrect anyways). BUT HERE IS THE REAL REASON!

 

I already have a mutated Datsun.

 

 

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Ten years and WAY too much time and money. It is now my garage ornament. I should probably go ahead and admit that I have automotive ADD. I get mad at one and just go to the next one. I'll get back to it, but I only need one of these.The best part of an L Datsun is the L IMO.

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What you are about to see is not something I would ever build for the street. Some of you may walk away thiking I'm as insane as the guy at the machine shop. The LZ2.3 block is back. It looks great. I decided to use a L20 block since I have several of them. To keep the now thin cylinders round and rigid, I filled it with grout, torqued the head on, and let it set up prior to boring. When I took it to two different machine shops, and asked for a quote to bore it 160, they looked at me like I was nuts. I then said "its OK, i filled with concrete. That didn't work out so well. But when they quoted me $250. to $360. I decided to take it home and bore it myself.

 

 

 

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Since my boring head was .080 bigger than the bore, I had to bore it half way .100 so I could bore the full length. Even then the bore was deeper than the travel of the machine, so I had to hand feed the table up the last inch. And I could only take .025 passes, so it took awhile. At one point I actually fell asleep in a lawn chair. I left .010 for the hone, and had it decked. This is how it turned out.

 

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So now your wonderind how the Hell i'm going to get coolant through it. By boring a hole in the timing cover at the outlet, and running a 3/4 hose back to the back of the head.

 

 

 

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I will be using AN12 fittings. I learned recently how AN fittings are sized. The AN# is how many 16ths of an inch. AN8 is .500, AN12 is .750 and so on.

 

 

 

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Here is the crank during and after polishing. The journals all measured within tolerance. Hars to believe for a 30 plus yr old std crank. Please don't laugh at my 1950's lathe.

 

 

 

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The rods now have BB chevy ARP bolts, That took a bit of head scratching, and a very long reamer. I will hone both ends in the morning. Then I am almost ready to get it all ballanced.

 

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Stay tuned.

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I wrote something the other day thats been nagging at me. I described My freind Randy as my metal fusing bitch. I should have said TIG welding bitch. I dont TIG weld. I dont have the finesse. All of the MIG welds on the truck are mine. Alll the TIG welds are Randy's.

 

Next on his list is a cold air intake, and welding combustion chambers up on a u67 head to make it a "peanut" with 1.5 intake ports. It may be awhile, but you will ride along.

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I'm just curious... Why didn't you just sleeve the block for the big pistons? Wouldn't that have been easier and let your engine run cooler or is cooling not that big of a concern because the engine only runs for a couple minutes at a time?

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Mike, If I had to guess an RPM ,I'd say 800 ish. definitaly fast enough to take skin off a knuckle when you hit the counterweights. That machine has a belt for Hi/Lo and a leather strap for gears in between. And it plugs into a 110v socket.It's fun a hell to run though. I've made a ton of small stuff with it. I started with 600 grit and the crank laughed at it. So I went with 400 then 600 and pick up some 1500 today to give it one more pass. I kept an eye on the size. Still right in the middle of tolerance. To do the rod journals I turned it off and did it by hand.

Dirt track, If you look inside the water jacket through the freeze plug holes on one of these, you will see that the cylinders are almost touching. If I shoved sleeves in, I would still have to bore them too thin. These blocks were not meant to be bored much, and even .040 too much will make the cylinders overheat and distort. What I did is actually very common in drag racing. The super stock guys were doing it in the 70's. Since the filler has the same expansion/ contraction rate as iron, it creates a big rigid heat sink. My cylinders are now essentially as thick as the whole block. They will stay round and the rings wiil stay sealed. There are guys who boost or spray a lot that will fill them to the deck, weld up the water jackets in the head and just run coolant through it. That way if they push a head gasket out they dont pressurize the cooling system. As far as cooling goes, the head and top of the block are cooled by water, and the cylinders are cooled by the oil. So I will have to run an oil cooler.

I would not use it in your application though.

Z Yes that is a 411sss goon. and you cant have cuz it's mine ,all mine.

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After chatting back and forth with Dirttrack last night, I did some thinking about the possibility of sleeving a block. Since a Z24 has the same bore spacing as an L20, and 90mm pistons are available for the Z/KA24, you might be able to put Z24 (or that size) sleeves in an L20 and bore it .040. That might live on the street or road race application. With a z22 crank and 90mm pistons it would be a 2341cc. And if one were so inclined to fill the block with Embeco 885, And find a piston that would work, Who knows how big it could go. Interesting. Thanks Dirttrack, now I have something else to lay awake at night and think about.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The internals came back from the ballancer on Thursday. I couldn't believe how far off things were. With new, bigger pistons, different flywheel and clutch, and different damper pulley, i figured the crank would need some work. But the rods were WAY off.Here are the #'s

 

 

 

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And this is what it looked like.

 

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Mark at Perpetual ballance in Arlington did the work. He gave me a good deal and had it done quickly for me. Meanwhile I cleaned and painted the block, and cleaned out the solvent tank. When it came back I cleaned eveything and got to work

 

I didn't deburr and smooth out the inside of the block too much on this one. Just enough that I wouldn't cut myself while scrubbing it.

 

With the crank in.

 

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Piston/rods in

 

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At this point one thing I always do,is take a few minutes to mock up the timing cover, timing marker (loosely), and pulley. Then I put an indicater on piston #1, put the piston at TDC. Then rotate the crank to -.010 tdc, mark the pulley, rotate the other way-.010, mark the pulley. If the timing marker is in the right spot, the notch in the pulley will be centered between the two marks. If not, move the timing marker and try again.

 

By doing this, you can accurately time it. TDC is TDC, dead nuts

 

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Unfortunatly, I'm really under the gun for time, so I have to just pull the head from the 2.0, and clean it up and use it as is. It's very low use, and the best part of that motor. Everything looked great.IMG_1766-1.jpg

 

 

The black build up is not oil. Its carbon sprayed with WD40, hence the shine. It looks worse than it is.

 

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That saved me a ton of time. I will probably do up another head next winter, This will have to do.

 

ARP head studs made things really easy. I dont think I will use stock bolts again. Head on and timing chain assy on.

 

 

 

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Turns out my 521 oil pan is something else that got beat with a hammer to clear the tie rod. So now I have to use the 2.0 oil pan, unless someone has a spare. Anyone?

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After chatting back and forth with Dirttrack last night, I did some thinking about the possibility of sleeving a block. Thanks Dirttrack, now I have something else to lay awake at night and think about.

Your welcome, I lay awake dreaming about my "DREAM" engine all the time. lol :sleep:

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You need an L16 521 oilpan/oil pickup tube to drop it into the 521 truck, what were you using before?

 

 

 

 

The pan and pickup that are still in the truck are for a 521. I thought I had two of them since I took my spare from a L16 521. I guess I didn't look close enough.

 

I didn't want to rob the pan from the 2.0 so it would stay clean. I'll just swap them out. Just trying to save time.

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