Perfect Balance's cars | Small update| 05/03/14

[MaliciousMD]

anyone noticed how certain Tomei stuff has become super cheap?

Cheaper camshaft core availability these days. That and the fact they are competing internationally against companies like BC which is always on the cheap. Nothing in any of the other sub-lines like Expreme or Reytec is any cheaper, really just their cams...

Plus the Chinese mafia factor, but thats a much longer post. Just take notice on the few companies who always have the best prices on Tomei. We were cut off as a master dealer a few years ago when the mafia deal went down despite the fact we sold a ton of it at retail plus.

But the whores will always come out and nobody can make any decent money slangin' parts anymore...

 

[Perfect Balance]

Engine bay looks a lot cleaner than mines... Mine is full of gunk, you can't even see the original color of it. I have to pay 300 bucks for the dude to clean it and paint it before I swap the engine into mine.

I have question about coilovers, How long do they take to put on? This shop tells me it takes 2 hours per wheel. I see videos with it done in 20 mins!?!?!!

2 hours does sound excessive, but it does take a while if done properly, because the proload needs to be set on all of them, then installing them, but after that you need to adjust them properly, and that takes by far the longest amount of time. Lowering a coilover can easily take 15-20 minutes per corner, and if you've got to do it a few times, it's very time consuming.

Is that rust around the transmission tunnel, or just oil, gunk and road crap?

That's simply dirt and grime. The engine sits right up against it so I was never able to clean it well there.

Cheaper camshaft core availability these days. That and the fact they are competing internationally against companies like BC which is always on the cheap. Nothing in any of the other sub-lines like Expreme or Reytec is any cheaper, really just their cams...

Plus the Chinese mafia factor, but thats a much longer post. Just take notice on the few companies who always have the best prices on Tomei. We were cut off as a master dealer a few years ago when the mafia deal went down despite the fact we sold a ton of it at retail plus.

But the whores will always come out and nobody can make any decent money slangin' parts anymore...

The Expreme stuff dropped too. Their sr20det manifold costs about $600, including all gaskets, studs and heat wrap. There simply isn't another high quality manifold in that price range, everything else starts at $800+, except for the $200 Megan/Isis/Ebay stuff.

I've never heard of this Chinese Mafia ordeal though.

 

[Punknoodle]

Sounds like an interesting topic...


PB hurry up lol I wanna see the SR20 where it belongs!

 

[Anathema]

Is that rust around the transmission tunnel, or just oil, gunk and road crap?

That was going to be my question when I saw the picture, but glad that it's not.

This may be a personal question to ask, but how much did you originally pay for the 240, PB? There's three in my area for sale, but I don't know what the median price would be for one (not that I NEED one, just wondering.)

 

[Perfect Balance]

That was going to be my question when I saw the picture, but glad that it's not.

This may be a personal question to ask, but how much did you originally pay for the 240, PB? There's three in my area for sale, but I don't know what the median price would be for one (not that I NEED one, just wondering.)

There's a bit of a story leading up to it, but long story short I paid $400 for the car. I don't think I'd be able to get another one that cheap.

 

[Perfect Balance]

Well, today was spent removing brackets and stuff to get ready for pressure washing (hopefully tomorrow) and sanding for paint. I needed to remove the factory battery tray, which is always kind of rusty on 240s from leaking batteries or something. I can't use it anyway because the intercooling piping goes there. So anyway, the plan was to hammer a chisel between the two pieces of sheet metal to break the spot welds and get it off. Turns out, there's like 25 spot welds holding the thing on, and my attempts to break them ended up putting the chisel through the metal. So I said screw it, I'll just cut it out, since there was a bit of surface rust, and I'd already made a few ugly holes in the metal.

Step 1 = pry up the bracket as much as possible to cut as little as possible.

Step 2 = Sawzall

And the state of the engine bay now.

The harness runs out one side of the car along the outside of the frame, across the front like it is there, and back up the other side and back into the car. I'm probably just going to tape it up and hang it somehow so my cousin can paint under it. Most of that area will be covered anyway so it's not a big deal. I'm still undecided on what I want to do about the brake boost and whatnot. I'll probably look into what it's going to take to get it out of there, but I want to avoid removing the brake master cylinder.

 

[homeforsummer]

Step 2 = Sawzall

Lighter = faster

 

[Keef]

Careful taping, Alex. Careful. Or you could just take the booster off which can be a pain but might be worth it.

 

[Perfect Balance]

Part of the reason it's a pain is because of where the car is parked, I can't open the door fully, which means I can't lay on the floorboard and just reach under the dash. I'm considering doing it, and then since we're purposely getting the paint done in single stage, I can go back later once the car is running and pull the booster off and touch it up. I think that might be easier and save a lot of headache. I'm gonna have to get stuff touched up anyway when I start cutting things for my intercooler.

 

[Perfect Balance]

Since the last update, I've pressure washed the bay with a bunch of degreaser, and had a patch welded in where my battery tray was. In the process of cleaning up the welds, possibly a bit of body filler, and then shooting for sanding/scuffing and paint this weekend.


Sorry for the blurry, I had been holding a grinder for about 10 minutes immediately prior to taking this pic, so my hands were shaky.

 

[Perfect Balance]

Well, got the bay painted this weekend. Reassembly starts whenever it decides to stop raining.

After prepping. Laid some body filler and primer over the rust spot that was repaired and the patch welded in place of the battery tray. Taped everything up and my cousin sprayed it.

 

[motortrend]

Looks great, painting really is the best part, reassebly must be a PITA

 

[nobuffalo]

Looks great, painting really is the best part, reassebly must be a PITA

When everything's cleaned up it's actually pretty simple, easier putting things back in than taking then out IMO. Just gotta be careful with the fresh paint.

PB are you gonna remove and paint the subframe/crossmember or whatever it is while you have everything out?

 

[CodeRedR51]

I did that on my old Miata, by hand with rattle cans.

 

[Perfect Balance]

PB are you gonna remove and paint the subframe/crossmember or whatever it is while you have everything out?

No. The subframe and everything is fine, it just needed to be cleaned, which I did when I cleaned the bay as well. There are a few brackets and things that I plan to hit with some black rattlecan, but otherwise everything is staying like it is.

I spent today reassembling most of the bay to get ready to install the engine. If it's not raining tomorrow I plan to wheel the engine outside and hang it on the engine hoist so I can remove it off the engine stand and install the flywheel/clutch and transmission.

Excuse the overly blue color, it's the hipstergram filter I applied to the pic.

My AEM wideband sensor also came in today. Once I get the engine in I will need to mock up the downpipe and figure out where the bung needs to be welded on for it. Then I've got a few things to figure out like the heater hoses and battery relocation, and then it "should" start. I think I will wait to put the Walbro 255 on until I get the car out the cramped space it's parked in.

 

[speed junkie]

 

[Punknoodle]

Looking really good dude!

 

[Perfect Balance]

Looking really good dude!

Thanks man. Messed with things a little bit more today and pulled the engine outside for tomorrow and covered it with a tarp.

Tomorrow I need to put the clutch and flywheel on it and install the starter, and the engine should be ready to be installed. Finally.

 

[Punknoodle]

Those pulleys looks awesome

 

[homeforsummer]

This is looking great. Looking forward to seeing it all back together, too.

 

[eiriksmil]

Ohwee. I like this.

 

[Perfect Balance]

Thanks for the comments people. Over the past few days parts have been trickling in. Weld on bung for the turbosmart BOV is in the mail, as long as a new O ring for the fuel tank for when I replace my pump. Ordered a new gasket for the shifter assembly as well. Yesterday my BSPT to NPT adapter came in so I installed the Stack oil pressure sensor onto the car. Also got a replacement factory O2 sensor, since I never got one with the swap. Also picked up a few bolts I was missing from the transmission bellhousing. Cleaned and installed the lower harness for the starter and alternator, and with that, the engine is finally ready to be installed. This will take a while and I will need help, so I think that's being put off to the weekend unfortunately. I'm excited.

My only hope is that the car runs smoothly. And if it does make it to the next DriftValley event on June 8th or so, it doesn't blow up at the track/I don't crash it.

 

[Perfect Balance]

Motor is in, but now that I've started to reassemble everything, I've come across a plethora of other little issues that are going to consume a huge amount of time. Missing hoses, routing the wiring, figuring out how to make power steering work, ect ect.

 

[Punknoodle]

Sounds fun. I thought with it being a common swap there would be aftermarket kits to perform such tasks easily?

 

[Perfect Balance]

Not really "kits", since it's just a bolt in swap, but more like things I'm coming across like the heater hoses being different sizes on the firewall and engine, that nobody bothers to mention in the swap write ups.

 

[Perfect Balance]

So I've started to assemble things. Got my heater hoses figured out by using 2 S shaped hoses, one in 3/4 inch and one in 5/8 inch, used half of each one to make half of an S shape, with the adapter coupler in the center. Don't have any pictures of it, but it involved $60 of hoses and clamps. Sucks.

Started drilling holes today for the intercooler piping so I can mock everything up, as you can see, the battery died in the drill halfway through the hole for the passenger side. The ebay kit hotpipe is about an inch too short so it kind of pulls everything tight on the driver side and I don't like how it fits. I've been having trouble getting my hands on a Turbosmart Veeport flange to weld onto that piping, so I'm considering using the pipe with the flange already mounted to it that I've got and cutting as short of a piece as possible and and getting it welded into my hotpipe to have the flange on it, as well as slightly extending said pipe to make things fit a little better.

Also, I was going to use the factory clutch fan, but turns out the fan shroud I've got is for an S14 and doesn't fit. I was just going to buy an s13 one, but they aren't as cheap as expected, and some people mentioned that with the thicker radiator, sometimes the fan hits the shroud. Definitely not paying money for a potentially useless part, so I'm going to go the altima/g20/maxima fans that everyone uses for a cheap electric fan setup that works really well. You can see it laying under the car in the second pic.

Still need to run wiring for my battery relocation, as well and some hoses and clamps for the power steering, but I'm missing a bracket for the pump still so I won't be using that just yet, but with those things the car should be able to be started and drive itself out of the cramped area it's in, so I can assemble the interior back together, install the Walbro 255 and my Gauges. Oh yeah. Need to get the wideband bung welded into my downpipe.

 

[JacoJa]

Wow, really amazing work. It looks superb. 👍

 

[Perfect Balance]

Well, as mentioned earlier, the intercooler piping was too short, in two places, so I'm getting them extended, as well as getting the bov installed on it.

Here you can see the pipes that were too short. I cut them and mocked everything up to know how much longer they needed to be.

As you can see there's water all over everything. It's been raining nonstop since Sunday evening, and it's really cutting into my progress.

 

[Keef]

That's still some pretty damn good progress.

 

[Perfect Balance]

That's still some pretty damn good progress.

If I was doing "a build" I would agree with you, but I specifically waited until I thought I had all the parts to begin the swap. Granted, I ended up not having all of them, but at no point was I ever waiting on parts, so essentially, it's been taking me this long to simply install a motor and hook everything up. This usually takes a few days. A few extra days on some custom parts makes sense, but I'm going on 4 weeks now and I'm not anywhere near starting it yet. It's somewhat frustrating, it needs to be nice outside for once so I can actually get something done.