I’m happy to finally have a website to post my build projects. And I have to say I’m proud to be where I am today. I’ve been drifting since 2012 and every friend I’ve met and every connection I’ve made has made me grow as a driver and as a person. I thank everyone who has helped me along so far.
I’ve learned so much about myself and my driving over the years and every year I grow more and more. Who I was last year is not who I am today. I hope I can continue this journey and hopefully me sharing this build with you all will be helpful. Passing on the knowledge of this build I hope will inspire others to do the same!
This build started with the purchase of a 1991 Nissan 240sx Coupe in early 2014. When I first got the car it had a full Nascar style cage with a completely redone wiring harness(done very nicely with a diagram).
My plans for it were uncertain until I talked to some of my friends. I wanted the build to be unique, but I wanted something reliable, like a tank, and parts that were cheap and you can find them everywhere.
I went with a GM motor. A 3.8L V6 – the 3800 which we got at the junkyard from an 2005 Pontiac Bonneville. The cars they came in were not so great, but the motor themselves were very solid and even came supercharged.
After mocking the engine in the car we saw that we needed to get a different oil pan since the stock brick-style one made the motor sit way too high. I ordered a front sump Holden Commodore oil pan from Australia which helps it all clear the front subframe. Several small modifications will need to be done to accommodate the new changes as well. I also got a T5 world class transmission out of a 2002 Camaro, which bolts right up. Then my husband and I made up engine and transmission mounts to finally get it mounted in the car. The engine mounts were all custom, but we used the stock 240 trans mount with metal spacers to have it mount just right. Later, we ended up buying some rubber bushing washers, so that the vibration of the V6 wouldn’t be so harsh.
At first I had plans for a 3800 Supercharged motor… then a turbo… then just naturally aspirated. But then that changed with a small trip to the junkyard. We found a car with it’s entire front end burnt to a crisp. But a jewel laid on top of it all – a 2007 GTP supercharger. At first, I was unsure about it, but we took it off and it really just needed a little cleaning. I was very excited.
I did need to do some upgrades to the engine itself with ARP head studs and the best intake manifold gasket money can buy plus the gray gasket stuff XD.
Nothing too exciting was done to the interior. Just a stock dash and I did end up doing my own gauge cluster and switch panel. A head unit and sub are also on the list to be added 😉
We finally took a long needed trip to the junkyard and collected a whole bunch of stuff. We got a supercharged fuel rail(which is bent in the picture), a bypass valve, idler and tension pulleys, a computer from a supercharged motor, a starter from a 2002 Camaro, and a oil filter adapter from the same Camaro. As I get closer to the end of this build I will show and tell exactly what parts I used and what, if any, modifications had to be done to them.
After having to get an oil pan from Australia, I now needed to find a pick up tube from Australia. No one was really selling one or if they were they weren’t shipping over seas. I tried a few different places and I just had no luck. So, I ended up having a friend of mine help me hack together the US pick up tube with another pick up tube and got it nice and just about perfect to where it should be.
Next, I bought a clutch and flywheel. We bolted up the transmission and put it in the car. The next day we started to put the parts of the motor together until we go to the starter. We realized that when we made the motor mounts it was only the block that we had. The starter was resting on the steering rack joint, so we placed spacers underneath the mounts and although not pretty the motor is nicely set in the car now. I didn’t have the funds to redo the mounts anyway.
Recently, I went through my NA harness(because the motor we took from was NA and I only grabbed the computer for the supercharged motor when I saw one) and deleted a whole bunch of wires that were not needed. My plan is to use the supercharged motor’s computer and just compare the pinouts of each. Then I’ll just plug into the supercharged motor’s computer. At the moment I am getting all the wires set up in the car and just getting the placement of the plugs.
As I was trying to get the placement of the injectors… I realized there were no holes for them. I found out that on the NA motor they go through the intake and on the supercharged motor it goes through the heads, and I have the opposite for each(seen below). So, the other day I picked up some supercharged heads and plan to put them on next week or so.
A good note I think to point out is that several electrical plugs, the starter, the valve springs, and various other small parts are the very same parts that can come off of some LS motors. So while this motor is different, parts may not be so hard to find at a drift event… and obviously not very hard at a junkyard. Most parts stores carry parts for this motor so you don’t need to wait for the part if you’re in a pinch, or even worry if they carry the part. Just some food for thought.
Finally, I just hope this build teaches you something and maybe more people will use 3800s in their 240sx who knows. But if you do I’ll have it figured out by then. And like I said when I’m done with this build I’ll list everything you’ll need to make this happen.
My hope is to get it running sometime kinda soon, and driving by late winter… we’ll see if we can do it.
I have a T5 transmission from a 2002 Camaro I will be using which comes up short with the s-chassis. We will need to do a shifter relocation mod to move the shifter to a place I can reach it. This may have been fixed with a curved shifter, but my arms are shorter, so that would not have worked for me.
Also, with the Holden oil pan I need to try and find a Holden pick up tube. Along with that the new oil pan is in the way of the s13 front sway bar, which I believe an LS swap s13 sway bar will do the trick. And we need to do an oil filter relocation because the stock oil filter adapter ran into Holden oil pan.
Other mods will include things like a smaller supercharger pulley to get more power(which I have), getting 8 rib pulleys to go with the supercharger, a new fuel rail, injectors, custom driveshaft, head studs, custom exhaust, gaskets, as well as wiring harness and map sensor for the supercharger.
We also had a dilemma with the supercharger because the back of it where the intake pipe would be ran into the firewall. So, a common modification to the supercharger is to cut the back of it off and weld a plate to it. That will allow room for the piping.
Only have some of these at the moment, but I hope to continue with the build real soon.
We used the front power log from ZZP on both sides of the motor. For the passenger side we ended up cutting and re-welding it so that it went the correct way. Then, we married that up underneath with an eBay Camaro aftermarket exhaust and ran piping that we welded after that.
We then just made a custom exhaust with stock piping from O’Reilly to the back of the car and used a quiet muffler we found on Amazon. We also ended up wrapping the exhaust in exhaust wrap and the fuel lines with a high temp sleeve since they run together.
With the exhaust installed we attempted to put the alternator back where the AC compressor would go, but we could not get the right angle for the belt to clear as the alternator ran into the power log. We ended up having to put it back in the stock position on the top of the motor, and to complete the belt loop, add a AC compressor idle pulley.
The main issue we ran into to get the engine started was the wiring. I ended up running a 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP ECU, which was compatible with all of the plugs and sensors I had. Then, there was the process of deleting all of the things I didn’t need. I tried to keep track of everything, even down to writing on the pinout packet where each wire went and what it was for, so I knew exactly where to look.
The first start up test was promising. We got it to start, but then it immediately shut off. We thought it could be a whole bunch of different things, but long story short, it was the MAP sensor wiring that was wrong. The wire colors were incorrect for the computer we had (the downside to having a harness and computer that don’t match). A wire that should have been grounded was getting power. This was throwing off the TPS, etc. Once we got that taken care of it started right up.
I can’t comment too much on the tuning process, but all I can say is that ZZP was a great resource in that we could send the tuning files to them. Unfortunately, I was not able to get the pulls they needed to fully tune the car, so I ended up taking it to a somewhat local dyno guy and he finished up the tune.
The car runs amazing and I could not be happier to have this build. It has some pep to it, but does fall short. Because of the position of the coils the plug wires are being stretched slightly, so one of the plug wires may have come loose during the dyno. I do plan to take it back since we forgot to grab the dyno graph. With that in mind, it made 315hp and 195tq. I am slightly confused as to why it made less torque than stock. It could be the NA parts I chose to put on the car, but even with the smaller pulley it made less than I thought. It is pretty quick though and the torque is right there all the time.
I originally thought I was making more boost as well, but we were just reading it wrong so, sorry to all those that I told was making way more! lol. It actually made 7lbs of boost.
Photo By: Austin Hattabaugh
All in all this build was a fight in the beginning and great in the end. There were a lot of things I didn’t understand when I was starting out and I had to rely on others. And because the process took so long things were forgotten and it was like we had to start all over each time. Honestly, it wasn’t until my first event with it, on the partial tune, that I was really excited about it. It wasn’t until after that that I understood everything about the motor that I needed to. This was one of the biggest hurtles I had to overcome and I had to do it while I was growing as a person and fighting to be more productive.
It’s exciting to have an idea and it’s exciting to have your idea running and driving, but the parts in between will beat you down over and over. I could not have done this build without the support of my friends, family, and future husband. It stinks that it took so long, but I did move twice and buy a house (and renovate it) in the midst of it all. All I can say is that I’m proud I’m finally here and I can enjoy this car!! XD
The hardest thing I’ve ever done mentally in my life… was trying to build my drift car. I’m sure everyone goes through these struggles, but this is how I finally finished my build.
When I first got the car, I was excited to start working on it… as you usually are when you get something new. The problem was that the car was stored 3.5 hours away from me. The other problem was that I knew nothing about the motor I was putting into my car. Which is fine. I needed to learn. In the beginning, I had to rely on others knowledge of the motor and build since it was my first rodeo. I understood the basics of motors and this motor that I could get by… only slightly.
My husband had to help me understand what I had to do next because I didn’t know what I needed to do to the motor to get it ready. I almost never wanted to work on it because I would be visiting him and would want to spend time with him and not work on the car. This made things go really slow.
Once I finally moved down with the car, another year went by that went very slow since I had my other car to drive. Eventually, I got sparks of motivation, but really only when I felt like it… this was few and far between.
Every trip to Pick-a-Part with my husband was helping me understand and get the pulleys or parts needed for the build. He helped weld up the motor mounts for me and got it settled so I could start work on other things. I basically needed him to tell me what to do… I also had another friend that I relied on for knowledge of the motor and parts that would work together. This mixed with the continuously long breaks taken between working on the car made me have to remember what was discussed every time. I had remember things I didn’t understand and even relied on my husband to remember a project he was barely working on.
I felt nothing but frustration every time I worked on the car which made me want to work on it less. I didn’t understand what the next steps were which made me frustrated at myself. The build was not going well… I was not enjoying it. I wanted to say I built my car, but I started to think I was in over my head. The car was also stored outside which made getting tools for it annoying. Once it was in the garage though… nothing changed too much. The car still didn’t make me feel inspired. That and I made a huge change… I originally had an NA motor, but now… I was adding a supercharger. Which was what made this build sooo much harder for me. That was the hardest part of all of this, but ended up making me learn so much about the motor itself in the end.
Then… we bought a house. We had a barn built and renovated just about the entire house. I had half the house striped down to the studs. I even took down a load bearing wall and had an engineer help me understand how to support it. The majority of the work took 9 months and then I just needed to save money to finish the rest. The car… it’s already been 3 maybe 4 years at this point.
My car was then put into our new garage and after all the renovations I should be motivated, right? Not really. Don’t get me wrong… I wanted to do this, but my negative experiences overran my drive for the build making me still unmotivated. I cried. I was mad at myself. I could not finish my projects. My husband needed space in the garage so my car got moved to our tiny storage garage that was hard to get tools to and space was obviously tight. I was having PTSD at this point. This whole time I had been working on it but at a snail’s pace.
After a while, I got frustrated again at the conditions I was working in and told my husband I needed a space in the garage. After all these years he and I did not have confidence that moving the car into a workable space was going to do much, as it hadn’t before, but I was determined.
He had helped me figure out some things with my car and I was starting to get closer. At this point, I had made my own mistakes trying to figure out how the motor went together from changing NA to SC. I started looking at pictures of other motors, I had to figure out wiring, I realized that the injectors are in different parts from NA to SC, I learned how to get AN fittings to work with my oil filter relocation and power steering… my husband had just been a great help (and helped me fight through my struggles) and at this point my brain was finally thinking a little bit for itself. I was learning and making mistakes that allowed me not to rely on others and that I started to understand how these motors went together… all the problems they have, and don’t even get me started on the pins for wiring… I had originally pinned for an NA… yeah. But with some helpful info I was able to get things situated.
Were things finally starting to come together? It seemed like maybe I could actually finish this thing. I just had to cry, kick and scream long enough and I’d find the inspiration – find the light at the end of the tunnel. Then, I set a goal for myself? What? That’s crazy. I wanted to get the car ready for Halloween Bash 2019. I started putting fluids in the car and figuring out what belts I needed. I was ready to start it.
It cranked but didn’t turn over. My husband helped me for a while and we finally figured out it was a wrongly pinned MAP sensor. It then started right up. I was shocked. Then went the process of hiring someone to tune it. I’m still shocked every time I touch the wiring on my car and it still starts. Hell the car ran once only being grounded to the body of the car and not the negative of the battery at all! lol.
Anyway, this was it. I did it. I felt excited. Some hurdles got me frustrated once again. This time, I used that drive to push myself and just finish the task already! Also, I got to a point where I just wanted to drive my car on the road (since I didn’t have anything fun to drive anymore and I just wanted to be happy again) and that pushed me to get some other things done so I could finally drive it! It was just a few more tasks… that’s it. And I ran to get those done. This was motivation I never had before… if I had this motivation the whole time the car would have been done a long time ago. The thing is… I could never see the end and so there was no hope. But, once I saw the end and the closer it got… the more I pushed to finish because this was something I really wanted. Driving my car on the road having others admire the car and drifting with my friends make me incredibly happy.
Through all of this, I worked on the car a lot more and now I work on something for it just about every other day like it’s just something I do now. It runs and drives and that’s all I need it to do.
I get frustrated easily… my hands and arms are not as strong as a man which makes a lot of what I do really hard for me. I always need leverage or a man lol. Every other thing I did with the car required knowledge or strength which made the process so slow and made me frustrated a lot. For me, I just had to cry through my frustrations and the strength was always on the other side. I don’t like to be emotional like that or think that “I’m such a girl I can’t deal with this”… no. I’m such a girl and I cry through this sh*t and I fight for this sh*t!
I’m still working on my frustrations and patience. I’d like to think that I’m a hard working person, but honestly I worked through the mental pain more than any physical work I had to do for this car. This build was in my the head the whole time. While it seems to some I didn’t work much… I worked a lot mentally. I can only thank everyone who has supported me and gave me hope to finish the build. I can’t go without saying that my husband didn’t have struggles with this either… he did. He is such a hard worker and just wanted to see me succeed and didn’t understand why I didn’t push myself to finish something I cared so much about. I think his work ethic rubbed off on me a little.
Fight through the hurtles in your life because through all of the kicking and screaming you’ll find that it was all worth it.
artistikdrift.com 