Today I finished up the cold air intake for the Fiesta. It was pretty simple and we only had to go a short distance to put the filter into a fresh air stream. The custom milled mass air flow adapter was a pain to make but it all turned out to look real good.
I also gathered some measurements for the wheels. It looks like I might be able to fit a 10 inch wide wheel in there with a 2 inch widebody kit. I would say that is plenty of meat to keep this light car on the road.
When we were first approached by our customer about this build we were a little skeptical. Why would you get rid of a proven, reliable, powerful, and technologically advanced V6 motor for a 15 year old, 2 liter, 4 cylinder? The answer was much more simple than we expected.
With the closest 350z/G35 specialty shop having outrageously high costs for mostly bolt on work , it is easy to get caught up in the idea that the car is expensive to work on and modify. If it costs over $300 to get a compression and leak down test from them, what would it cost to get an engine swap? In this case our customer is on a budget of under $15,000. That will cover the cost of purchasing the the body, motor set, all upgrade parts, and labor. Not too bad when you consider what you will have at the end of the day. A lighter, more balanced, and nearly double wheel horse power version of the 350Z. Go ahead, go buy a stock one for that much.
Cost and Weight: The SR20DET motor in full stock trim including the transmission is nearly 150 lbs lighter than a VQ35 in stock trim with transmission. Add in that we are going to make 450whp and now you have twin turbos and manifolds, 2 down pipes, Y pipe, extra intercooler piping/couplers/clamps- the difference is even greater. Now factor in the cost of buying 2 of everything on the hot side. Your 450 whp VQ powered 350Z is significantly more expensive than the SR powered one. Now I know that there are single turbo kits out there for the VQ and I know they work really well because we have installed them here. The cost of those kits are quite a bit lower than that of the good twin kits. but you still are adding weight to the already heavier stock motor.
Balance: The stock 350Z has a front to back weight distribution of 53/47% and a curb weight of 3815 lbs. That puts 2,021.95 lbs in the front part of the vehicle. Subtract 150 lbs, all in the front half of the car, and you will see that the SR powered 350Z has a curb weight of 3665 and a weight distribution ratio of 51/49%. Nearly perfect. This will be priceless when on track. It will definitely be on track, this customer plans on entering the car in the Redline Time Attack series in the street tire class. After tearing it up on track he can drive it home too because the wifey is going to daily drive it as her commuter hotrod.
Power: With the plan to get 450 whp out of this car, our customer has a nice list of goodies that he wants installed. Getting that level of power is not voodoo magic to us anymore and almost all of it can be completed with off the shelf items. A Garrett GT30R turbo mated to a Mazworx turbo manifold, and custom 3″ exhaust will expel the the hot gases. A Meizure electric water pump and a Koyo radiator will help keep the motor cool. A custom FMIC and 3″ piping will be enlisted to cool the incoming air. GSC S1 Cams, and an upgraded intake manifold utilizing the stock VQ throttle body (yes the drive by wire one) add to the list of bolt ons. Controlling all of this is a combination of AEM EMS and a stock ECU. Our customer absolutely wanted to retain as much daily driver comforts as possible. Functions like cruise control, power steering and A/C are being incorporated into the build and the custom wiring harness. A custom set of engine/trans mounts have been fabbed up and the engine assembly is in the car. No solid mounts will be used on this build, as I made sure to incorporate the stock 350z motor mounts and the stock trans mount from the SR.
Justin will be starting on the wiring job soon and we hope to be able to fire this project up in the next week or 2. I am always excited to do something different and this fits the bill. We are already looking at another motor swap in a 350Z for a summer project, that one is gonna be a whole different animal, with a 700 whp goal. With the shop having a LS6 powered Z, this customer with an SR, another customer with a 3rd-still undecided motor swap, the RB26 swap Dan did back in 03′, and my “stock” G35 sedan – thats 5 different motors in a Z that Batlground has or will complete. Whats your flavor? I like mine vanilla with Reeces peanut butter cup pieces.
After an eventful Friday into Saturday work night, trying to get the LS/Z together and running, anyone who was watching via live broadcast is probably wondering what happened? Well I can tell you at about 4 a.m. saturday morning the car started and ran.
We spent about an hour longer on the car before the starter took a dump and we were dead in the water. We accomplished our goal of getting the car running but we fell short of our goal of getting the car to the event. Dan drove his 240 instead and tore it up just the same.
Yesterday saw us work on it a bit more and get a few of the bugs figured out. Today we are going to live broadcast again when we get the car on the dyno. We are aiming for a 4-5 p.m. broadcast time. Stay tuned this week as we continue to get the LS/Z together.
Ever wonder what it looks like when we are scrambling to get a car together? Even seen Brandon in action when he gets mad and throws a temper tantrum? Watch us work on the LS/Z right now! Follow the link here, or search Batltracy on justin.tv
Please visit Batlground Motorsports gallery for more pictures of this build.
Day 5 is here and the only thing we have left is everything. Dan spent over 12 hours yesterday getting all the plumbing done. We had hoped for more like 4-5 hours. Considering what had to be done though maybe we were a little too optimistic. With the power steering, brake, fuel, and accusump lines all being made from scratch-its not hard to understand why it took a lot longer. With that being said todays list still includes the exhaust, mounting the seat/harness, installing the wiring harness, mounting the battery, getting the alignment done, mounting the Moton reservoirs, start it up, and tune it. There are plenty of other small things that will pop up too. Hopefully this evening will bring a positive update and a sweet sound bite or video.
As always you can visit our gallery to check out more pictures of this build and all of our other projects.
Day 4 is under way and the LS/Z just left the shop. Dan is bringing the car to Andy at Performance Hose Distributing to get all of the power steering lines and fittings installed. Since this is a completely custom job-a custom kit must be made. Yesterday saw some tasks take a little longer than expected, so a little extra time was spent last night to try and catch up. Dan modified the fuel cell for the return and breather hoses, he also got the headers installed so we can get the flex sections and “X” pipe installed. Once those are installed we can make the turn downs and the exhaust will be complete. Justin finished the harness and it looks great. Its really amazing how few wires there are once you cut out all the non-essentials. The accusump is going to be a little more of a pain in the rear than we hoped. According to most amateur organization rules and all professional rules-the accusump and all of the hoses associated with it, that are exposed inside the cockpit of the vehicle, must be contained in a secondary firewall. It makes sense because you are going to have hot oil running inside of the car. If you were to hit a wall, another car, or even flip upside down you could possibly have a nice bath in 200 degree oil. Anyone up for some deep fried Dan? So we are going to move it into the engine compartment for an easier installation.
Once Dan gets back with the car, we can get it on the lift and make some significant progress. We will bust out the alignment machine and get it real close to perfect. Later we will take it to Gran Turismo East to have Kieran and the guys there make sure it is perfect. The major goal for tonight is to get the car started. Once it is cranked we can check for any leaks in all of the plumbing, and hear how she sounds for the first time. Maybe I can even get a sound bite or video! At any rate, time is getting short and we have to buckle down to finish the job.
Visit Our Gallery for All the Build Pictures here: Batlground 350z Gallery
Yesterday saw some crucial work get completed. Justin is working feverishly to complete the wiring harness and is but a mere half dozen wires away from wrapping it up. Dan completed the custom tension rods for the front suspension, got the radiator mounted, installed the throttle cable, and buttoned up a lot of small things. The exhaust parts showed up as well, we had ordered a couple flex sections and an “X” pipe. Todays list of tasks includes: Modify the thermostat housing, mounting the Moton reservoirs, mount the fuel filter, modify the fuel cell for return line and breather, mount accusump, install Earls firewall fittings.
Full gallery of the progress here: Batlground LSZ Gallery
We are but 4 days away from a local drift event and the LS/Z looks far from ready. Dan has been frantically working to get the car ready enough to get some shake down runs in. The main goals for this week are to have all of the suspension components installed and aligned, power steering plumbed, exhaust fabricated, wiring harness, fuel system, and tuning.
Not only is there an event this weekend that Dan must be at, but there is another just a week away. That event presents us with a completely different set of obstacles-the car does not have any glass installed, including the windshield, as well as the doors have not been hung. We will have another article on those processes later. Stay tuned this week as I will be posting everyday on the progress, set-backs, and plain ‘ol weird stuff that happens when you have a month worth of work to finish in 1 weeks time.
Since I bought my G35 back in Oct. I have been doing small bolt ons. A shorty intake, headers, Y pipe, and 3 inch exhaust have all been installed for engine performance. I had seen the Z1 intake plenum spacer work pretty well on one of our customer cars. I had looked into getting a whole new intake manifold but didn’t really want to spend that kind of money right now. Since I love the fabrication aspect of this job and feel I am pretty good at it-I decided to take a stock intake manifold and modify it. I cut the top off the manifold and took some sheet aluminum and shaped it to my liking. I was going off of some pictures of other manifolds out there and in all honesty guesstimating at the demensions.
Last night I finally finished the manifold. I did a baseline run on the dyno with the stock manifold to get an apples to apples comparison. My G put down a cute little 238 whp. So I installed the new manifold and did a run. The car sounded absolutely crazy! However it didn’t feel very crazy. The dyno confirmed what I felt, 217 whp. It lost 21 whp. Not only did it lose peak power, it lost power everywhere in the power band except the last 300 rpm. What did I do? I did another run. Nope, no better, actually worse. Down another 2 whp. Something did sound different though, I got out of the car, looked under the hood and HOLY S#!T!!! The intake manifold collapsed into itself. It looked as though someone had jumped on top of it. EPIC FAIL!
I feel more humbled today. I feel disappointed that I didn’t really learn anything from this except that I apparently used too thin a gauge of sheet metal. I do have some ideas that I am going to try before I scrap this manifold. I still cannot justify $1000 for a new manifold, and I would like to get more out of it than with a plenum spacer. Back to the drawing board. Just thought I would share my failures as well as my successes. I talk A LOT of smack, but I have enough humilty that I can admit it when I am wrong. Enjoy!
This particular car is very well known in the local Subaru community. The car has been around for some time and like most projects, it all began with simple bolt ons. It has now become a full blown monster, with a race motor built at Ball Engine Parts and Service, and all of the supporting modifications to support well over 500 awhp. I will not divuldge the actual final number until authorized by the owner.
For this project we were removing the old turbo, FMIC, exhaust manifold, and up pipe. We were also fabricating new intercooler pipes to match the new I/C and turbo. The turbo being installed is a Precision Turbo 6262, with journal bearing and a billet compressor wheel. It is also utilizing a V band inlet/outlet exhaust housing that has been ceramic coated. A custom up pipe was fabricated here, in-house, at Batlground. The up pipe is designed to match the equal length header that was installed. This up pipe has a 3 bolt flange to mate to the header and a V band flange to mate to the turbo. The up pipe diameter is 2.5″, which is a significant increase over the previous 2″ diameter. The new unit also needed to have an extension to accommodate the Tial 44mm wastegate. I re-used the Baller Racing down pipe that had been in the former configuration to get my locations for all the piping and routing.
Once the turbo was in position and mounted I could fab up the hot pipe and intake. The piping was routed to the new intercooler that is an increase in core size to provide some extra cooling for the new, larger turbo. On the cool side of the things I increased the outlet piping to 2.5″ before it mated to the already existing 3″. All the intercooler piping that was missing beads was fixed to insure we didn’t have any “blow offs” on the street or dyno. The new intake is a 3.5″ diameter in contrast to the 3″ that had been removed. The only modification needed for that was some trimming and a smaller bodied air filter.
I love the routing of the hot pipe on this car! All rotated turbo set ups on Subaru’s should be this way. The Legacy does have a little more clearance than say an STi or WRX, but it has a different intake manifold. It also has a very large opening in the wheel well for the intake and I/C piping to get routed. The only thing left was to trim the bumper cover to make some room for the new intercooler and piping and we were finished.
I was very pleased to get the opportunity to work on this car. It had been to 2 different well known shops before and I feel proud we had earned the privledge to do this upgrade. There aren’t many more upgrades to be done to this car besides the possibility of a stand alone. Having already performed that upgrade for another customer, I hope the owner would allow us the opportunity to do it on this car.
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