The evo started up last night. Will be out of my hair next week after the we tidy up some small loose ends and I can get a start on the Z exhaust!

Wiring specialties updated my order status to "in production" last week so things are moving along. My frontier is shipping down in the next few weeks as well, lots of expensive things happening all at once.

Here's a few shots of what I fabbed for the Evo

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...1_10-30-12.jpg
Cold side intercooler piping

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...1_10-29-58.jpg
Hot side intercooler piping

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...1_10-27-08.jpg
Bracket for the oil cooler, finally bought my own plasma (Flaring 50 amp off amazon) and a dimple die set. Pretty pleased with how it came out

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...1_10-27-00.jpg
Secondary bracket for a little more stiffness

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...1_10-26-50.jpg
Oil cooler in it's new home

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...1_10-27-51.jpg
Prefab 3" downpipe bend, 3.5" mid pipe and for some ungodly reason he wanted 4.5" from the rear diff back, yes it is loud as all hell.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...1_10-28-15.jpg
And my personal favorite thing I've made on the entire car, 2.5" pie cut of the turbo transitioning to a 3" V-band (the gap in the down pipe did not stay)

FINALLY!

Z is back in the garage and on the lift. Got the Sikky headers in without too much fuss, they went in from the top and the only thing I had to do was remove the PS pump and disconnect the steering shaft to get the drivers side in but that's no big deal.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...8_20-57-39.jpg
The V-band flange surface on the headers end up angled at 60* so a 30* bend would be perfect, alas I only got 45's so I did an angled cut and got one side tacked up to the pre-fab X pipe. It's a little late now but the prefab is 409 stainless so I may just get the mid pipe cerakoated.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...8_21-00-46.jpg
I mocked up the rear muffler just to have a sit and stare to figure out how to achieve what I want to with it. The magnaflow I chose has a 22" body so it's pretty wide and I may need to do a ton of pie cuts but that's speculation at this point. Side note I think I need to change the axle seals.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...0_18-18-05.jpg
Tacked up the passenger side "down pipe" to the prefab X pipe then moved onto the rear and hung the muffler. I decided to start mocking up the drivers side from the muffler towards the prefab X pipe, it worked better in my head this way to maintain symmetry. I am definitely going to have to delete the evap box on the passenger side, there's no way in hell the U bend will clear that.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...7_19-06-21.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...7_19-06-01.jpg
Passenger side is all tacked up! I am redoing the drives side to eliminate an extra weld I don't need so it visually matches the passenger.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...8_06-54-13.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...8_06-54-12.jpg
I ran out of straight sections so I moved onto the clutch slipper. I pieced this together between summit and ebay for way less than what they go for. I tried to show the 4an to 10mm banjo on the master cylinder and stainless tubing. It is a proverbial bitch to get a wrench in there but it looks pretty clean if I do say so myself.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...4_15-22-56.jpg
Wiring specialties harness arrived, they were supposed to send it to the hotel I was at in Miami last weekend so I could avoid shipping and duties. Alas it went to my freight forwarder (which was the original shipping address) due to their internal miscommunication.

They provided clear documentation of what was pinned where for the haltech as well as a pin out for the auxiliary I/O connector, the harness itself is very well constructed, I am concerned about the length of the wires going to the transmission sensors but I haven't gotten it in the air to mock that part up as yet.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...4_16-44-24.jpg
Also the Meziere water pump arrived, it really is christmas.

I still haven't finished the exhaust so I'll be getting on that in January then pulling the drive train to do final assembly, bfh the engine bay in 2 more spots, clean the clearance areas up and get everything reinstalled.

I was going to either fly cut the pistons or replace the pistons and rods but the intake valve has 85thou clearance as is (RIP some of my son's playdoh :rofl2:). I am going to make sure it runs properly and will make a pass before I spend on internals. It will take a progressive 150 shot easily.

In related news, my Frontier has shipped and is on the port in Florida, I'll see that some time early January :happydance:

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...6_13-07-03.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...6_13-09-05.jpg
My brother got me some purge plugs for christmas so I tried them out boxing day and finish welded the mid pipe. Ironically I still had to use foil on 2 ends since I only had two 3" plugs.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...6_18-20-11.jpg
A view of the cutting and BFH'ing required for the sikky swap kit and a TR6060 manual transmission. The cut at the top of the transmission tunnel was needed to clear the larger bell housing, I have a template to cut some caps for the holes. The secondary fire walls need some massaging for the heads and the OEM coil pack's & brackets.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...8_07-01-57.jpg
One of the rocker arm mounting points got stripped out when whatever went down, went down. I did re-tap for a helicoil but I managed to **** that up and didn't get the 2 inserts aligned properly. The insert at the bottom of the hole caught on the valve spring compressor bolt, so now I have to hope I can EZ out the helicoils.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...7_13-31-57.jpg
Comparing the new BTR dual springs & Ti retainers to the unknown beehive springs and steel retainers. I think the old stuff was from Howard since it had a cam and push rods from them.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...7_18-18-08.jpg
I decided to remove the other cylinder head and continue on changing the valve springs. The BTR shaft rocker conversion and Summit HDR push rods went in with a new OEM head gasket. There's a million reviews for each style but after seeing the bronze bushings I pressed out worn and shot to ****, I am glad the BTR kit uses needle bearings.


Tools wise I used the Trick flow valve spring compressor (p/n 90307) and Summit trunnion bearing installation kit (p/n SME-906011), I know you can do this with sockets but having the stop built into the tool so you don't press the bushing too far in made this so easy.

Wiring specialties wired up a 4 pin alternator connector even though I specified everything was from a 2011 Camaro. Waiting on their reply as to my options for converting to a 2 pin, if it ends up a pain in the *** I'll just buy a 4 pin regulator/brush holder and swap that out.

The hits keep on rolling. The cylinder that the rocker arm bushings failed on and pushed the push rods past the rocker arms has mushroomed the exhaust valve tip and I cannot remove it without destroying the valve. So I need to order an exhaust valve now.

FYI, BTR just came out with a v2 shaft rocker... not that it matters now.

A different fun fact, I purchased the first set of shaft rockers in the world because I bugged the hell out of BTR staff. lol

Sucks about the valve :|

Fun fact, you influenced that decision :cool: I checked them out and for the price you can't go wrong, I'll read up about whats different with the V2 kit. I am hoping they release one for the aftermarket heads with the different valve angle.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...1_08-50-09.jpg
Good valve tip

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/m...8-50-09-3-.jpg
Bad valve tip

I might Fedex the valve and the clutch line & remote bleeder stuff I need since, once I have those I can reassemble and put the drivetrain back in permanently.

How goes the progress during 2023?