It weights 260. Only thing missing is the intake manifold.

I also weighted my VQ30 block. Complete shortblock, no heads, no intake manifold, no timing chain cover. It weights 126.

The Z33 6-speed tranny weights 127.

4th gen 5-speed VLSD weights 109.

And my cat weights 17 pounds (no kidding!).

 

RWD !!
I wonder how your s13 weight

sick project man
looking good
are you going whit the EU ?

 

thats a heavy puss

 

260 is pretty damn light!

I was draggin my DEK around in the garage (on the skid) it feels like it weight atleast 350lbs.

 

It weighted 2790 stock with me in it (165 lbs) and 1/3 tank of gas. So the stock weight is around 2600 flat but it didn't come with A/C to start with.

So far I've pulled out over 300 pounds. That doesn't include the KA24 which is a good deal heavier than the VQ35. I have no way to weight the 2.4. The scale only goes to 280.

I have 4 garbage bags full of crap and a mini junkyard behind my garage.

 

Are you making your own motor/trans mounts?

 

Yeah. The stock ones suck (verrrry soft and mushy). The engine/trans was surprisingly easy to pull out. First time I pull a RWD engine.

 

damn that is pretty light. but your cat needs to go on a diet.

 

Jclaw can you do me a favor pretty pretty please? I realize this is alot to ask and is a long shot, but can you take that z33 transmission case off of there and take some good pics of the gears? I want to see how beefy these things are that guys are putting upwards of 700tq through them without breaking, and I don't know anyone else who has a z33 trans out of the car.

 

I was planning on doing that at first but I don't think I trust myself to open it up. Ever since I first opened up my 5-speed in my max I had troubles with it.

It's really itching me to see how thick those gears are compared to the max's 5-speed but I just don't want to *** anything up. If you saw the thing you'd understand... it's brand new. That aluminium is brand shiny off-the-showroom floor new.

I know you had the thickness of the max 5-speed measured. We could simply find the gear thickness from the FSM and compare.

BTW, are you just curious or planning something? You said your next car would be RWD...

 

I'm just curious. I won't be getting a new car for quite a while.

 

I'm secretely hoping I NEVER see the insides of that transmission

 

what about fuel management Jclaw ?

 

S13's can get light as hell. I know I'm below 2200lbs right now. We'll find out in a couple weeks. Keep me updated on the project man and feel free to continue asking Q's.

I knew those 6MT were heavy SOB's. Ima toss my KA tranny on the scale tonight to see how much weight saved by the motor was lost by the tranny.

 

Probably E-U. But for now I'm just going to run the car with the 95 maxima wiring harness/ECU, as it was in my max. It's going to run like it ran all of last year at first.

 

okok i c 10char

 

Another sweet s13 project. Pics of the car?

 

So thats with the alt? I'm very impressed.

 

I need to know what the KA24 weights though. My scale only goes to 280 lol

Right now it looks like absolute crap. I've got a bunch of rust to repair first (This car went through 18 Canadian winters!). It's a red 1989 fastback (hatch) with ugly @ss stock alloy wheels and studded winter tires lol.

The fenders and front bumper (89-90 style) are in the trash. I'm gonna get new fenders and a 91 bumper to replace it. The stock hood weights 40 pounds so I'm gonna replace it with a sheet of .040 aluminium and hood pins.

At this point I'm not sure what do to with the pop-up headlights and I might actually put the grinder into the front portion of the unibody which I'll reinforce later. Battery will be in the trunk. The front end is going to be really light. I don't know what the weight distribution will be, but fastbacks are heavier in the back already because of the huge glass portion.

I'm buying a G35 front driveshaft for tomorrow. I'm also picking up a new Z oil pan directly from the dealership tomorrow.

And of course a bunch of misc stuff and hours and hours of swearing, welding, cutting and doing the wiring.

I just sold my 95 SE to my bro for 4500$Cnd (Maximas sell for a lot more up here than in the US). It now has a 3.0L with a budget y-pipe and my old Cattman exhaust system. So at least the car is going to stay in the family. I didn't want to see it go anyway.

 

your cat is severely obese. put that thing on a diet.

 

You have no idea. It's a walking bag of cholesterol.

 

just curious, what kind of measurement was the thickness on the JWT spacers?

 

The KA24 weighs about 368lbs.

how does your cat compare with this one:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/bigcat2.asp

Mike

 

i think tilley has a few 350z trannys and maybe some fwd . maybe he could tell you.
Iam going there fri maybe i can find out

 

Can you find out if he has a VQ35 short block lying around he could sell me while you're there? Kthx...

 

7 pounds must make a pretty big difference because it's nowhere near that huge. Just short and fat lol

 

Rust is the most annoying part of any project car. When I do my next project car(E30 M3) I will take a lot of time to find a chassis that is totally rust free($5K+). The expense is worth it. I don't really have that much rust. It was an Arizona car except for the last two years before I bought it. And I think the dude that had it before me took care of it well. There was only minor body rust and three areas where the frame rails in need of repair.

BTW, I thought we were keeping it on the D-low that this was a cheap swap. LOL. Then everyone is gonna be doing it.

 

Now that were going off topic here just think about this. Say an average house cat weighs 10lbs. Yours weighs 18, that's like the difference between an "average" 200lb man and a 360lb man. Then another 7lbs on a cat is like stepping up to a 500lb man, percentage wise. 360lb people are big people (like your cat is a big cat), but 500 pounders are absolutely huge.

 

Oups.

But cheap and easy are two different things.

 

True.

As far as the motor/drivetrain parts I think its very easy. Its like lego's all the VQ stuff bolts together. The fab required is essentially the same as any fab for a motor swap. I think its in the upper midrange as far as motor swaps goes. Honda's being easy as hell because there are hundreds completed every day. And something really hard like an S2000 motor into a Miata.

 

If you still need the weight on a KA, I can fudge around in the shop when i get my VE put together. I have a KA24DE in pieces (shortlobk separated f/ head and manifolds.) so I can stick it on a scale in two pieces.

I'm guessing the bottom end weighs ballpark of 200lb, because it's all I could do to heave it off the back of the truck and get it in the garage by myself. I had less problems with a VG shortlobk, and it weighs 190lb with just block, crank, pistons.
the head, intake, and exhaust manifold are about 80 I'm guessing. heavy as sheit. but at least it's more manageable than the block!!

once I get caught up on the VE, I'll throw the KA on a scale and see what it comes up with.

 

My Aunt had 17 cats at one time, one of them had a 23" waist, must have been about the same size as yours.

Mike

 

Yeah that would help. But I removed the KA with all the crap on it (PS, ect) and if I don't sell it soon I'm gonna dump it in a junkyard, and get it weighted at the same time. I know that the trans weights 100 pounds. But those extra 27 lbs from the Z33 tranny are in the middle of the car so no big deal.

Thanks that relieves some weight from my shoulders. It looks like repairing the rust is gonna be harder than the actual swap lol. But I didn't really have a choice, I've seen too many guys get screwed over buying imported S-chassis for 7, 8, 9 grand and get a car that's rusted anyway. So I bought one for 800 bucks and it'll have a new paintjob with the color of my choice (some sort of bright blue).

I sat the 3.5 in there the other to see what it looked like. There is a coolant line behind the block which I'm gonna cut and loop together (it's the heater coolant lane) and there's an aluminium coolant chamber with the termostat in it.

I'm thinking making a nice curved "buldge" in the firewall using a giant hammer to house that coolant chamber. That would allow me to sit the 3.5 right up against the firewall. The heads would end just a little after the shock towers.

What do you think Broaner? Feasable? I could sit the engine back another 2-3 inches using that method.


I went to get the G35 driveshaft yesterday but those morons didn't even have it. I hate dealing with junkyards. I called before and went down to Montreal for absolutely nothing. Ugh.

 

Dude. I'm not even sure you need an OEM driveshaft. The guy that made mine was able to get an aftermarket beefy U-joint with the correct bolt pattern for the diff. He said he couldn't do that for the Z33 front u-joint because the car was so new. That was a year ago. Maybe some aftermaket u-joints are available now. I'd say hit up your local driveshaft shop.

About the firewall, in my situation it was the upper oil pan that limited how far back the motor could get. The indentation in the pan kinda controlls where the motor has to sit. Unless you wanna get really crazy and put the motor under that dash. I think I'm going to be doing that this winter as I do my front suspension resto and upgrade.

Anyway, I didn't have any problems clearing the coolant log. The biggest problem for me was the OEM FWD TB placement. I really should take some more detailed pics.


As for the heater lines I crimped and welded them shut. I then made a blockoff plate at the head where the lines go in. But that caused and overheating issue because it limited coolant flow. I haven't yet fixed that correctly. I just did a simple fix by removing the T-stat but I figured out a way to run the T-stat and not overheat. I'll give details and pics of that when I do it.

 

I'm simply going to "loop" the two (in and out) heater lines together.

About putting the motor in the dash: even if you wanted to set it back like crazy you'd still have tranny length to deal with. The way I want mine the heads are going to be almost right up against the firewall. Pretty good IMO.

And weight distribution: I've looked at how much weight I've taken out front/back and it gives me something crazy like 45/55 (assuming 51/49 for a stock fastback) taking into account the 3.5.

 

Ah the ingenuity comes out.

Did we talk about my plans of moving the motor back in PM? If we did I won't go too indepth.

Tranny lenghth is an issue but I think the part that magnifies the tranny length problem is the sifter lenghth. I think shortening the shifter like Allen did could move the shifter forward three-four inches. Then to make up for the remaining ~10 inches the seat could be moved back. This would neccesitate a floor mounted pedal setup and custom steering rack setup.

I don't think the fastbacks are that rear biased. I've always heard and seen is 54/46. Maybe those are the coupe numbers I'm thinking of.

 

Maybe. But it should be under 50/50.

 

Does anyone know how good the OEM 95-99 maxima radiator & fans are? I'd like to use it.

 

It won't fit between the framerails on the S13. I am currently using one but its ghetto as hell. The plastic fan holder/shroud need to be trimmed and the extra fins on the outside need to be bent in carefully. Also, the crimped on plastic piece can't be modified to fit so it has to go below them and rest on the TC rod bracket. Makes for a very ghetto setup. I suggest getting an aftermarket S13 rad and having the bottom fitting moved to the driver side. I am probably doing that next month.

Current setup. Again, ghetto cobbled as fxck.


See how the bottom is angled back toward the rear. That is due to the bottom cap being to wide. It has to go below the frame rails and sit on the TC bracket. But the TC bracket eventually comes up and meets with the lower rad support. This makes it so the bottom cap can't be any more forward. It could be made to work and I guess look clean if you really worked at it but I need serious clearance for the blower. I'm either going to run a rad inside the lower and upper rad support or use a koyo aftermarket unit, move the lower coupling and angle the top forward to give blower clearance.

 

Yeah I already measured but it's not a problem for me since I chopped the front portion of the unibody and frame. This includes a little over a foot of frame on each side, the rad support, and the whole thing that supports the pop-up headlights. The stock headlights are goners too.

I'll be boxing the frame there and replacing all that with 1 5/8" tubing (two on each side and one bent at the bottom replacing the rad support. This will allow me to sit the rad about 6" lower (and straight). And I'm taking a hell of a lot of weight off the extreme front of the car.

I was advised against doing this by my dad but it's going to be stronger and lighter than the OEM setup. Not to mention having a lot more space to work.

One thing though. Did you use ALL the max wiring? Including the one around the engine bay? I'm trying to figure out how the fan is going to activate automatically (has to see the thermostat)...