donandal

This is the build thread for a project dreamed up by my oldest son, Allen
I had spent the previous four years building from scratch, a custom two seat aluminum body roadster with a Subaru 2.5 five speed all wheel drive. He got the build bug. He wanted to do an engine swap into a 240SX. We decided to try to find one. After about a year, he located this rust-free original paint coupe in Miami, Fla. We made a road trip all-nighter from Miami about two years ago in February, 2009. While he was searching for the car, he decided on the vq35 engine swap. We went to work locating a donor car for the swap. I found this 2008 350Z on an insurance auction website about 3 months later, in Salem, Mass. My wife and I made the round trip in a day, hauling it back on a rented car hauler trailer, to my shop in Lakewood, N.Y.
After we got it home and looked at it, we decided it had so many things that would work in the 240SX coupe, that we would do a lot more swapping. It has been about two years now and the swapping is done. We ended up using the 350Z engine, tranny (six speed), clutch master cylinder, steering column, entire dash, rear diff and entire wiring harness and emissions system.
We started by stripping the S13 down to the sheet metal, cataloging all the parts as they came off. Then we started rough fitting components just by eye, to see how things lined up. First was the engine fitting; it was pretty tight, but it fit, we decide early on to remove the top cross-member above the radiator and fabricate bolt flanges to make it easy to get it in and out. The engine mount cross-member needed to be modified by cutting, lowering and re-welding to use the original Z engine mounts. We also fabricated a new tranny mount, and reworked the rear diff sub frame to use the Z limited slip with 95-98 five bolt hubs and custom axles from the Drive Shaft shop. They also supplied a custom driveshaft. We looked at the dash and gauges and, thought about the options, and decided to use the entire dash and wiring harness. We used the 240 gas tank and modified it with a second riser and flange to accept the two sending unit harness. We also used all emissions systems. The dash was just a little too wide to fit but we just cut it short and fabricated. The exhaust didn’t fit but with a little chopping and welding it just clears the firewall. We also kept all of the heat/air controls and slipped them into the dash.
Allen wanted to get 265’s under all four corners, and we soon determined we would need to fab our own strut cartridges and coilovers, and rear coilovers as well. Some research on the web, and my son had the info on what struts, springs, shocks, and wheels and tires would work. We made our own camber plates and strut braces as well. There have been a lot of other little things along the way. One thing that we did come to realize was just how many things were compatible from these two cars built 16 years apart. The wiring harness chassis ground points lined up, the bolt pattern and screws on the sending unit were exactly the same, the steering column splines, the axle splines, just a lot of things worked out nice.
We are finishing up the interior now and will probably drive it for a year or so then get it painted. We already painted the engine compartment Millennium Jade, the color he chose. He has plans for a body kit and some other mods later, but we’ll see.
Now I’ll try and post some pics with explanations

this is the day we brought it home

we worked over the winter and pulled everything off

not much left of the Z

the donor car , a 2008 350Z

the cross mount was modified, slots are where engine mounts go, here it is primed with brush on enamel

we also fabricated a new tranny mount using original chassis points

the headers were shortened to clear the firewall

I fabricated this coupler so we could use stock cat converters
here it is installed on engine, I added extra heat shields on firewall because it's pretty tight

this shows the stock shifter support, and our shortened steel one

the shifter sits a little farther back

this is the rework of rear subframe to house Z limited slip diff

we reused the z rubber mount and added a brace that will also carry exhaust hanger, as shown above. These two
show the bottom side as we worked on it

since we are using all of the Z wiring we decided to keep both sending units in the tank

one is also the fuel pump unit, here fitting it to spare tire area, it will be soldered and then sealed

closing off the spare tire area, this top will be bolted together in case of service access, no room for spare,
but we can use it for tools and storage

we bought a radiator from Griffen, and built our own shroud from .060 aluminum, used 350Z fans

we also built a radiator overflow tank

making our cold air intakes

this will be capped off on top, air draws from front, we used dry type cone filters, the box is sealed around
the tube with foam rubber to allow engine shake, air can only enter tube thru filter end,even if foam wears out

Allen wanted to get 265/40/17s on all four corners, to get enough clearance we fabricated our own strut
housings with about 1 inch more offset at the lower ears

we also made our own threaded coilover converions

we ended up with about 3/8 " tire clearance

we used koni shocks and struts, the rears are an eclipse model,with adjustment at the top, same as the front

our camber plates, stainless steel with 5/8 spherical bearing and a 1 and 15/16" thrust bearing. with our custom
spring top hat , we tucked the spring in above the tire

no room for the battery

here you can see the strut tower braces.....

so it went in the trunk in this sealed and vented stainless battery box we made. the vent goes out the cabin vent
panel in the rear wheel well area of the trunk

the other side of the trunk, this protects the stereo amp and radio/phone/antennae components

we needed to protect that low sitting aluminum oil pan

so we built this skid plate, the mesh is painted stainless steel

some work on the interior, I am building the center console

fitting it to the Z dash

after I covered it in black vinyl

here is the headliner, I recovered it with headliner material that had a foam backing, that is the Z mirror

This just about brings it up to date...the carpet is in and I am installing the seat belts...two side panels of the
dash need to be fabricated and covered in vinyl...package tray needs to be covered...I'll post more pics shortly
I have hundreds of photos so if something strikes your interest and you want more details on something,
let me know
Thanks