1974 260z 4.6DOHC

[Eagle_Adam]

subscribed!!! i will be watching intently! Lots of pics yo

[Jeepercole]

Pulled the engine and transmission out today. It was fairly painless to get out, took about 4 hours.

[Jeepercole]

Not great pics but a general idea of what the interior is like.

[Jeepercole]

The engine and tranny weren't even out 24 hours and they were sold. I ordered the MGW short throw shifter for the T-45 today.

Also after closer inspection of the front suspension and steering I realized it needed some serious love. I ordered the master bushing kit from motorsport and got tie rod ends and ball joints which should at least get me started. It's back to work for a few days so next week i'm going to get the rest of the engine bay cleaned up/ grind off the old motor mounts and get the new mounts hopefully tacked up.

[Jeepercole]

Got the next couple days off so hopefully some meaningful updates will be coming up. Today I mated the engine and tranny( without flywheel or clutch) so i can start building motor and tranny mounts and get this thing in the car.

Originally i was going to cut up a mustang K-member for the motor mounts but after further inspection I didn't think it would turn out that great so I have decided to just fab up my own from scratch. I mounted the K-member for transportation.

Here it is in the back of my pickup about to meet its new home.

Motor is unloaded, I had to finish removing or moving the brake/ ac/ fuel lines from the engine bay so tomorrow will be the first test fit.

And when i got back to my house my bushings showed up...

[Jeepercole]

Got a little work done over the last 2 days, although not as much as i would of liked.

[Jeepercole]

Here are some pics of the transmission. Still trying to figure out exactly how i'm going to build a mount. Any suggestions?

Here are a few pics of the space in front of the motor.

[Eagle_Adam]

Still trying to figure out exactly how i'm going to build a mount. Any suggestions?

 

very very very carefully....  :rofl:   :rofl:    :rofl:  sry i had to 

[Jeepercole]

I figure if you don't run into about a hundred "WTF am i going to do about this" situations you aren't pushing the envelope far enough.

The plan for the tranny mount right now is to build a semi cradle that connects the stock mounts under the tranny and then cantilever a box back to meet the tranny rubber mount and gusset the crap out of it. This will put a fair amount of stress on rear of the stock brackets but i'm going to at least try to use them to start with.

[Fast720]

Hi very cool project,these type of projects take a whole lot of thinking out of the box to make them work, if it was me doing that mount for the trans I would move the stock mount bracket to where you need them,if they will work for you farther aft then surgically remove the stock ones, you might have to double up the sheet metal inside the tunnel . or cut them out completely with an inch or so extra,move them down the tunnel and patch the hole were the came out.

It sounds hard or bad but it's better than trying to but some weird hanger bracket that has to take a lot of torque.

This will be better, cleaner and give you more room for other stuff like exhaust and hand brake cables etc. I always look at things like how did the factory do this........................

anyway thats my 2 cents worth

good luck !!!!!!

Fast720

[Jeepercole]

Hi very cool project,these type of projects take a whole lot of thinking out of the box to make them work, if it was me doing that mount for the trans I would move the stock mount bracket to where you need them,if they will work for you farther aft then surgically remove the stock ones, you might have to double up the sheet metal inside the tunnel . or cut them out completely with an inch or so extra,move them down the tunnel and patch the hole were the came out.

It sounds hard or bad but it's better than trying to but some weird hanger bracket that has to take a lot of torque.

This will be better, cleaner and give you more room for other stuff like exhaust and hand brake cables etc. I always look at things like how did the factory do this........................

anyway thats my 2 cents worth

good luck !!!!!!

Fast720

Thanks for the input. I have thought about completely cutting and moving the stock brackets but I'd like to figure out a different route first. The other option I have thought about is a mount similar to the one the guy built on the lainefamily.com. I should know if my first mount idea will work when I weld it all up on Tuesday and get weight on it.

[Z-train]

Boneyard and get mounts from a donor Z.

[Jeepercole]

I have got a bunch done the last couple days but haven't had time to take many pics yet. I should be able to take some tomorrow. I got the MGW short throw shifter.

When it was mocked up in the car it looks like it will be almost exactly in the stock shifter location. Here it is outside of the car. The shifter is great, it rotates all the way around 360 for the perfect location.

Here is a picture of the motor mount cradle tacked up.

And today I got the wilwood slave cylinder, I still need to order the master cylinder.

[Jeepercole]

The Motor and tranny mounts are done and the car is finally supporting the engine on its own. Looks about the same as before which means i did something right i think. It is still going to have to come out at least 1 more time.

The shifter fits in the hole that I just eye balled like a glove!!! Not bad for a quick guess..

The shifter is going to end up just a bit farther forward than i would of hoped but i can work with it for sure. It will be drivable at least and give me another project down the road.

The oil pan is a bit close, I think it will be fine but i can still grind a bit off the bracket.

[Jeepercole]

The oil filter housing also has the oil pressure sending unit and a coolant jacket cast into it. The sending unit is the problem, it was hitting the lower Ujoint on the steering rod.

So a couple of CHOPs!

And I TIGed it back together a little shorter. Welding cast aluminum is a MOFO but I got it done.

And if you look close you can see it is still close but there is room now.

[Jeepercole]

And a couple of things showed up when i got home today(Gotta love Summits delivery time to NorCAL!) Got the Wilwood 3/4 Clutch Master Cylinder and of coarse a nice classic hurst shift ball.

[wickedminded420]

my friend has a 1973 datsun 240z with an LT1 out of a 94 camaro with a t-56 6 speed tranny a very fast little car he blew up the stock r180 and put a dana 44 out of a 87 corvette in it so your 4.6L should be very fun though 

[Jeepercole]

my friend has a 1973 datsun 240z with an LT1 out of a 94 camaro with a t-56 6 speed tranny a very fast little car he blew up the stock r180 and put a dana 44 out of a 87 corvette in it so your 4.6L should be very fun though

 

Should be fun, I already have an R200 ready to go in so hopefully it will last a while.

[wickedminded420]

The r200 just spun tires all the way down the freeway

[ArchetypeDatsun]

When I had my 81 280zx it was pretty much stock aside from a K&N air filter and flowmaster exhaust had the 3.90 R200 both my wheels lade some long ass burnout marks. Your V8 swap

Is gonna be so much fun I can't wait till it's running!

[Jeepercole]

Now that I have the major Fab work done the real time consuming part starts... All of the little crap that adds up and wastes the whole day. Bolted the clutch up finally after receiving the wrong bolt kit 2 times.

I had to chase down the flanges that go between the exhaust manifolds and the pipe. Painted the manifolds with 1200 degree paint. Bolted up the manifolds with gaskets installed. Chased down random nuts and bolts that I needed. Cut off the original motor mounts. Cut out a block off plate for the EGR. Started trying to figure out how i'm going to run the slave cylinder.

[Jeepercole]

Pulled the stock Clutch Master Cylinder out.

Here is the side by side with the new Wilwood Master.

And finally a pic without the engine hoist!

I picked up a 240 hood for 30 bucks, its rust free but the nose is a little bent up. I'm going to have to cut a hole in the hood and use a scoop of some sort so I am going to use this hood as a mockup/ test hood.

[Hermistonkilla]

had a 4.6 in my thunderbird...... that motor straight gets it from 60-100mph!!  wrecked it the first day i got my license... : ( 

[its_karl]

I love this project:

The 4.6 motor will go forever, and the timing set replacement isnt nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I replaced the timing set in mine in about 10 hours never having done it before and taking my time. The intakes on these are little annoying, don't let this motor get hot or run low on water long, or you will be replacing the intake. I anticipate you could get 22-25mpg with the right gearing on the highway.

 

You might consider swapping in the irs center from a thunderbird and build custom halfshafts. You probably already have all these things figured out given that the motor is already in the car :)

 

Definetely watching with great enthusiasm...

[Z-train]

and the timing set replacement isnt nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I replaced the timing set in mine in about 10 hours

That's funny.