This is a site built by a buddy of mine (StudioRhoad.com) to document the progress of my project 620 build that I’m doing. I hope I have the patience to continue adding and updating as I move further along with the project. I will also be blogging about general stuff in my life as I experience them. Feel free to check out my About page for more info and background.
Ok the garage was a wreck!! So Scott started the clean up and Kathy and I went to Home Depot and bought some new shelves and bins and below is the results of our two day project.
MUCH MORE CONDUSIVE TO A WORK GARAGE!! I was able to get rid of the axle and two wheels sitting in front of the 620 frame since the picture was taken.
This is the end of the updates for a short while until I get more done. I will update as soon as I can.
I had to put some angle iron in place to hold the frame in place when I chopped it for fabbing. I also used a jack in the back for support just in case the angle iron wanted to sag.
The 2nd picture shows where I started moving the frame over to setup for mounting the rear most mounting point of the rear subframe. The farest point of the inner frame rail back across to the outer edge of the standard frame rail is 9 and 1/8th inches. It’s 24 and 3/4th inches from the end of the frame to the cutting point of the frame. And it’s aproximately 2 and 3/4th inches from the tower mounting point for the bed of the truck to the bend of the frame.
It should line up fine like this. I will have to get the height right though on the subframe when mounting it.
This is as far as I got until last night but that was after some serious garage clean up!! I will go out and take pictures later after I finish the other side too.
1620 Ironman clutch and Pressure plate and 10 pound Flywheel. All from Competition Clutch.
S13 SR20det Power FC with Commander. Figured that I might as well do it right the first time around.
The new boost controller and a bottom mount manifold because the top mount isn’t gonna work with the 20g. 20g has a T2 flange and the Top Mount has a T3/T4. 
Decided to get rid of all the crap in the engine bay because I’m gonna need all the room that I can get to make the frikk’n SR20det to fit.
16 gallon foam fuel cell for to mount in the rear for weight control and the foam will keep it from sloshing all around when drifting and throwing the truck off balance.
Bought a cool dual 4″ tip exhaust at RIPgarage. I think this will look baller hanging out of the back!!
Bought myself a new Lincoln Electric 3200 so I can get better welds.
I still have to buy:
I bought this motor for $750. I was aware that there were a few problems with it and that I may need a new head. But that was suppose to be the extent of it. As you can see, the dude that I bought this thing from really has no reason to be working on motors. RTV on a head gasket??? Multiple bolts missing on the head and several other little issues that would’ve been caught by someone with general experience.
The head is shot! Can’t fix that and expect any performance. It’s about a 64th deep.
My girlfriend is the best!! This was my birthday present (Dec 5th) from her! I know, it’s cheesy. But I like them and I think it’s frikk’n sweet!! Now I gotta figure how to mount them on the truck!
**Read the bottom of this post to see why I’ve been absent for so long.**
We got the front subframe mounted with little effort. I was quite suprised with how easy it was to get it on there. I cut off the “ears” of the subframe to clean it up some. I also added bracing in front of it so that I can move the motor closer to the front. The subframe had to be mounted in this location so that hubs would line up with the factory wheel alignment in relation to the fenders. When I measured the motor in its current location to the where it sits on the subframe it will put the motor in the firewall by 3 inches. Thats the point of adding the motor mounts in front of the factory mounting points.
After a little clean up and paint.
The frame on the truck is considerably narrower than the 240. I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do about the tie rods. They won’t fit for the truck. And I don’t think I can weld anything to the ends to get them to reach the front mountig points without being to flimsy. I think I can use the factory datsun tie rods and just redrill the holes on the ends.
Looks like I’m gonna have some issues with the rack too. The sway bars are going to need tabs welded for the mounting points as well.
Here’s the obvious issue with the rack and a closer look at the welds. I’m going to go over the welds again when I get a better welder.
Since the bolts on the gear box are “A-Symmetrical” I just removed the bolts and turned the gearbox cap two positions and reinserted the bolts. Hopefully this will work without any henderance to performance of the gearbox. Now all ports face away from the frame and subframe.
This is a look at the passenger side sway bar mount. It’s obviously gonna get a mounting tab.
Ok, next issue is the turbo elbow. It’s pointing right at the frame. We ordered a V-mount setup with braided flex pipe from ATPturbo.com so we can fab up our own turbo elbow. Everything needed was just under $300. Quite expensive for just a custom Turbo Elbow.
I’m also gonna need to make a tranny mount too.
I didn’t take pictures, but with the motor mounted forward on the new mounts it was hitting the steering rack along with the turbo elbow completely covering the path for the steering shaft to the gearbox. The swaybar was hitting to oil pan too. So I had to move the motor back to its original mounting point on the subframe.
Ok, after some cleanup and trimming the fairewall for the motor fitment. This is the color I’m thinking of going with.
I had to remove the dash to make room for the new pedal assembly, wiring and gauges.
All of this stuff even though it says December 30th, 2007. It was all done over this past summer. I’ve been on the road working for AT&T and haven’t been working on the truck much because I haven’t been home.
I was able to order most of the parts needed to finish the project. I’m still going to be on the road for a few more months but will be updating as much as possible and building as often as possible.
Scott got lost and didn’t show until late today so we weren’t able to get very much done but we did start tipping the iceberg today. :):):):) Scott brought over the intercooler. It’s a little thick but I think we can make it work.
Now it’s time to see if we can get this front subframe in place and welded there.
First, we have to grind everything off and get all the rust off and have a clean surface to work with.
After some fitting we were able to get it to fit with no problems!!
We were going to tack it into place but for some reason the welder wouldn’t work. So we have to settle with a jack holding it into place for the moment until I can figure out what is wrong with it.
This is all I have until next week. Oh Wait, I’m suppose to be in Pensacola next weekend. So I won’t be posting anything new for that weekend that is truck related.
The Sunday after the Turner Field event (June 29th) Chris and I started working on the truck and made some progress before our fatigue from the previous day kicked in. We were able to remove the rear axle and springs and place the 240 rear subframe on the jack to see where it would sit in the rear. I didn’t get any pictures of that as I was stupid tired.
Check out my handy car dollies that I made one day! It still cost $200 to make myself! But it will hold a 3200 lbs car damn it! 
This is what we were left with once we left with for that day. I think we went in a watched NASCAR for the rest of the day. Ghey Amanda, Ghey..
I made it out to the garage for a little while and was able to make some progress pulling all wiring and tubing from the frame. I was also able to remove the front subframe and torsion bars. And that was actually a pain in the ass. I didn’t get any pictures of it being removed.
Scott came over and we were able to make a decent amount of headway. Today was removing all extra brackets, tabs and braces that weren’t gonna be used again. I wanted to pressure wash everything too.
Here’s Scott showing us his bald spot.
We slid the 240 front subframe under the frame to get it ready for fitment.
After sliding that into place we called it a day and I grabbed these pictures of what we did.
So this concludes July 6th.
I don’t know why but I’ve been seeing a lot of damn snakes lately! Been seeing at least one snake a week. Sometimes 2. I saw one yesterday but he got away before I could get a picture of him.
Here’s a few pictures of some of the ones that I was able to get some pictures of with the iPhone.
Don’t throw rocks at snakes. They get pissed like anyone else would.
This one was bigger. Almost 5 feet long!
A Soccer Mom got to this one before I could.
I hope I’m done seeing snakes. Getting scared to open the pedestals at work now because I’m worried there will always be one in there.
Kathy asked me if I wanted to run the road race with her pretty much right after we had started dating. I said sure. I hadn’t run in a road race since I was like 12 or 13. I think I was in better shape then. I was having some issues about half way through because I hadn’t trained enough to be making such a long run. My knees started to kill me around mile marker 3.
This was Run Group 1 that was running by on the other side of the fence.
Kathy and I were in Run Group 9, so we had some time to kill. So we went to our setup area and just hung out and took a couple of pictures.
It was time and we were excited. Kathy was VERY nervous. It may have also been because I told her that I wouldn’t be talking to her when we were running so I could conserve energy. I know that was tough because she doesn’t have a quiet bone in her body. She out-talks me if you can believe that!
Here we are about two miles into it. Look at the pack of people going up the hill! People as far as the eye can see! Or at least as far as my iPhone can see.
Yeah! The finish line!
We’re gonna run it again next year. But this time we will be training more frequently than this time. I want to finish the race with no issues other than fatigue.
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