Mr. G. Brettin's Slow Motion Leg Hump

gbrettin

All the leaks have been addressed on the car with the exception of one. ANPlumbing lines proved their worth on everything with the exception of the pan, and that's because the rear fitting has been gacked (see picture). With that said, the pan had to be pulled off no matter if I want to repair or get a new pan. I opted to get a new Sikky rear sump pan that can hold 7.5qts, has traps, and most importantly has ORB bungs that screw into the pan so that AN lines can attach. Here's the pan:
https://www.sikky.com/product/370z-l...-sump-oil-pan/

Getting the old pan off was a challenge. I went to harbor freight and picked up an engine support bar so that the engine could remain in place. The engine is also being supported by the transmission. Prior to finding the engine support bar I was stressed out because I thought that I was going to have to disassemble the front end of the car, disconnect all wiring and take off the transmission. SOOO, happy about not doing that. That's not to say getting the k-member to drop off wasn't a challenge... it's about 1/10th of the challenge that pulling the engine represented. lol. The pan is currently off and I'm now waiting for my other pan to arrive.

Prior to pulling the pan I drained the oil (obviously) but also removed the Clearview filter. The screen caught a few larger debris which was cool to see it was working. While inspecting the Clearview I noticed some oil seeping out the side, not a lot, so the whole unit was tightened up (the bolts were loose snug so they were snugged with a 1/4 turn past). New K&N gold has now replaced the STP filter. Engine masters did a oil filter test with the K&N gold filter that's worth checking out.

Ok, so back to the pan. I noticed break in of bearing materials at the bottom of the pan with no evidence of the engine eating its self. The engine probably has about 45min of run time total at this point with about 4 heat cycles. I think it's time to pour the 14w - 40 Amsoil engine oil in when the new pan goes on. The engine will get dyno time and about 100mi before the next change. I know there's a lot of ideas about break in theory but this is the path I'm taking. My main goal is to keep contaminants to a minimum.

So my off time I really wanted to get the mold going again for my cubby. I have the whole mold roughed out so I can do vacuum bagging. I gave up on the compression mold idea due to the height on the back side. Lots of hand sanding in my near future.

Lastly, I needed a simple win... so I installed my parachute handle.

gbrettin

From IG@gbrettin:
I've got to hand it to @sikkymanufacturing, their pan looks top notch. The pan has a billet block that bolts into the pan that allows for -10 lines. The pan flange looks to be billet. Welds all look great. Sides have a drain for my scavenger pump. The oil reservoir has trap doors to prevent oil starvation. Capacity is 7.5 qts. The pan thickness is beefy. So yeah, great product so far. Now to get it on my car... And hopefully no other modifications are needed.

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The summation of what I said on IG was pretty on point. One other thing that makes the pan highly desirable is the ORB fittings on the pan... SO if it gets stripped out from some @ssh0l3 then it can easily be changed.

A little birdy on the Internet also told me to pour some oil into the pan before putting it on the car to check for leaks. That was some solid advice that I can't pass on.

gbrettin

The Sikky pan was a flop!

Sikky designed their pan to work exclusively with Sikky mounts. Unfortunately I can not change from my LOJ mounts because the transmission, turbos, up pipes and exhaust can not move back and down roughly 3in that is needed.

Some injury to insult... The hydraulic jack used to bring my k-member up and down works with approximations. When letting the jack down it abruptly drops about 1-2 feet and then bounces a bit. Not super scarry at all with a few hundred pounds sitting on it. Don't worry about it dropping too far because my stainless steel brake lines slowed one of the bounces. Sooooo.... looks like I'm in the market to replace my SS brake lines. Not that they leak or anything but they did just have 200lb yank on them.

Later that night, when I was really mad, I called my buddy who designed the pan and asked him if we could chop the flange off the Sikky pan and weld it up to the old pan ... Sure can! So I am going to meet yo with him and both of the pans to make some Frankenstein stuff happen.

The next day after that call I was a bit more calm and found a remote adapter that might be adapted to the old pan with out hacking the Sikky pan up. That would allow me to sell the Sikky pan at a discount to someone, because it's "used".

My Amsoil came in... which was a slap in the face.

Aggression was taken out on my cubby mold. Right side of the mold is now smoothed out. Left side and top need just a bit more, but the next step is going to be filling some of the low belt sanded spots with a bit of fiberglass.

Really, the mold is nearly done! It's shaped out to do vacuum bag molds. The face of the cubby for the mold is pristine still, and as far as I'm concerned the only thing that really needs to look perfect. As you can see the back has been dinged up. I'll hit the bad spots with bondo and sand smooth but like I said... not a big deal.




Shows how far the engine needs to move back compared to the oil pickup... 3in?


Space on the back of the engine compared to firewall.


Ordered this next day air. Maybe it's a fix? Like I said, I'll chop the $780.00 Sikky pan to get this project done.


Oil that can't go in my car...

gbrettin

I finally wrapped up the mold. There are a few pin holes in the mold but they can all be filled with filleting wax or plasticine clay. Also, the edges will be of the part will be filled with some filleting wax and draft angles created so the B side of the mold will come off.

Tonight I will prep the part for the B side casting by doing what I said above and cleaning up the part a bit more with some light sanding. The inside of the cubby also needs a bead of wax which will prevent the mold material from leaking into the cubby and for another draft angle.

If I haven't said this already, the mold will only be used for vacuum bagging and not doing compression molds at this point.

gbrettin

Still waiting on the pan. So... more mold work. Cleaned up the garage and prepared the area. Waxed the mold and also filled areas with wax to avoid having the mold lock by having draft angles.

Here's information that I didn't really read:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics...ng/draft-angle

gbrettin

Had a buddy swing by last night and help pour the mold. Before he got there I was able to get the side wall built out using plastic. I used about 5 sticks of hot glue in the joints and behind the plastic. Filler wax was used to smooth out the transitions between the mold and the plastic. Inspection of the mold was critical to ensure there was no chunks of debris hanging out and no mechanical locks were present. A bit more wax was needed at the top and bottom because we didn't like how the molding material would flow in. I used the air compressor to blow everything off at the end. Lastly, I waxed the mold one last time by hand and sprayed the mold with a heavy duty spray on release wax twice (link below). Just prior to pouring the molding material you could see a thick wax barrier. I suspect the heat of the mold takes it from a solid to more of a grease during the curing process. The spray on wax layed down perfect, it was great!

https://www.easycomposites.co.uk/rw4...-release-agent

gbrettin

Popped the mold this morning. Doing a double post today.

BOOM

The B side pulled fairly easy, due to the fact I built in leverage points on the side. The cubby plug cracked as I pulled the B side but that's alright because that's not the end goal here.

gbrettin

I've been out of town for work last week but in-between the last post and now I've been removing the cubby from the mold and attempting to get my old pan on.

The pan has been quite the pain in the azz getting completed. I learned that there are three different flare options that GM has for their pick up tubes with three different o-rings. The o-ring I put on was from my Sikky pan because I had dropped the black o-ring. Well, here's where it gets interesting, the o-ring is red which indicates a slightly thicker o-ring and when I attempted to put the o-ring on I crushed/cut it going into the pump. Clearly I didn't notice because I had put the car back together and attempted to roll over the engine to check for oil pressure. Thank god I did that AND had a clearview filter because I was able to visually check for pressure. Of course, there was none so I had to brace the top of the engine again and drop the k-member again. The first time I had dropped the k-member I used a shitty transmission jack that loses pressure and bounces. Yeah, not really fun with 300lbs on it (or what ever it is). The second time I made the attempt was with the forklift. That was slightly easier but still a pain in the d!ck.

So that was the fun of doing the k-member twice. I'm ready to focus on something a bit more up lifting... The billet block that adapts to my pan is MINT. The AN fittings are perfect and even better is the fact they can be changed if needed. The AN fittings on the pan previously were out of spec because getting the hose ends onto it was very difficult. In fact, I'm certain that was the root cause of why it was cross threaded.

As it stands right now... I have one more nut to put on the pan. I was exhausted after a along day of work so I called it and left it so I need to put on the oil send/return lines and the last nut.

If anyone is in the market for a Sikky pan, HMU. I'm selling it for 650 (before shipping) and I paid 830 with shipping.

Here's some destruction on a perfectly good custom cubby mount that I paid Jason Gale for:










ROUND 2





ONE RING TO RUIN THEM ALL

gbrettin

Ok so I have one picture to show. Not really impressive until the full context of what happened previous to this post has been read. lol . My engine now has oil pressure! From what I can tell there are no leaks anywhere other than a possible bad ORB fitting on my Clearview Filter. I tightened down the fittings more to see if that worked but I'm also going to but 2 new ORB 12 to -10AN. No leaks on the turbo drains, pan (I dropped the gasket in kitty litter and had to clean it while rushing around the forklift), and most importantly the billet block on the pan! If the only thing I need is the 2 orb fittings on the filter... that's easy at this point.

Ok here's the exciting part.. To get the car oil pressure up I started it. WOW, it sounds like a pro mod! Other cars in the shop do not sound this spicy and they are built similar. I'm excited to get to the dyno now.


Inquiring minds about the oil... I used Amsoil 15w-50 for this engine and used Lucas 30w break-in. The break-in oil was cycled for about 30min total in the engine. The 15-50 will go through the dyno session and what ever mileage I can put on it this year before I drain it, I'm guessing 100-200mi.
https://www.amsoil.com/p/dominator-1...cing-oil-rd50/

redondoaveb

Great news! Excited for you. Let's hear it again

__________________
Fast Intentions "Stage Seb" twin turbo #098- Specialty Z/Tial-Xonarotor/CJM/Ecutek/HKS/KW/SPL/Hotchkis/Rohana/Toyo
700+whp

gbrettin

I took off all the ... ... Well, some of the cables off the positive battery terminal and terminated them to a 600amp (over kill) busbar. Everything is routed through a Quick Car disconnect in case my car turns into the burnanator. It took about 3hrs at the shop total to do all that was shown. I'm slow AF in the garage. Takes a bit of time to find tools, crimp wires, heat the shrink wrap, hog out the terminal leads (a tad) and bolt down the busbar. I stand there and think about possibilities because I'm not trying to drill my car a whole bunch.

I still need to ad some protection to the passthrough hole in the car... Or maybe Ill route them next to the MS3 power and signal bundle (just thought of that).

These are the items that really don't make it on to the build list, but take a chunk out of the budget. If there was a budget.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JG2C2QQ

gbrettin

Waiting on the shop, Auto Dynamix, to finish up welding my exhaust and wiring. On going waiting game that is getting old.

gbrettin

I missed some updates, albeit it isn't much.

The car had some oil drain issues with oil dripping around the ORB fitting on the maven mount. Also, the turbo drain line is really difficult to get on and off. After some searching I found that the "Fragola 491930-BL Dart LS Next -10AN Hi-Flow Oil Supply" Fitting. The reason why there was a slight leak was because the drain line wouldn't allow for it to be completely tight, although I thought it was, it was actually hitting the turbo. Additionally, the fittings are not touching the turbo housing which means less heat transfer. Since I was was messing with fittings... I had a small oil seeping issue on the ORB top fitting of the clearview so I went ahead and replaced both of them.

NO MORE LEAKS, PLEASE.

After that the car was lightly cleaned up and pushed (no tune to drive) to the other side of the shop for wiring (which you know I'm waiting on).

While in the pattern of waiting I decided to shift gears and order Varis side skirts. There was an option for carbon fiber side blade attachment but I really didn't see the point, (it's 600 more). I figure I can do a wet layup on the side blade for the look and then color match the turbo/brake with a pin stripe going down the edge. I've been thinking about these side skirts for years, infact... I believe I posted it in this thread way back.

Lastly, I've been talking to Betty, Spooler, Rusty, Redondoaveb... and a few others outside of here about options for a rear diff. Looks like over the winter I will put in an OS Gilken. That will be used until I can afford the complete Winters Quick Change components. I'm stepping up the rear diff to the OSG due to safety concerns due to how the VLSD reacts under power.... aka the threat of death.


One last note about the Clearview Filter... I was able to hit it with air to push all the oil back into the car. Pretty awesome having the option to see the oil and push the oil back for oil changes.

SteveVQ

Sick AF!

__________________
‘19 Camaro SS 1SS 6MT
‘13 370Z Sport/Touring 6MT 328whp (Sold)
#LetsGoBrandon!

gbrettin

(Used the same text from FB)
Had a bit of free time today so I worked on my 370z cubby mount. One side of the mold is going to be used for a universal mold for boost gauges, small tablets, or what ever needs to be mounted. The other side is more specific to my car (don't worry about that). Anyway... I had to chip away carefully for a long while to get the plug out of the mold's death grip because I didn't sauce up the release wax good enough. 36 and 80 grit was used to knock down the face. After knocking the mold down there were some uncured mold bits that needed to be dug out and filled with extremely hot fiberglass.

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Let me say this here: This mold is awesome now! It may look not special but it's a beautiful sight to me. I was able to get the plug out which was a huge concern of mine, specifically gouging the mold. After MANY MANY MANY hours it's getting close. A Discord group I'm part of tipped me off to some polishing wheels for my drill so I will be able to make this mold ultra slippery to release. That will also help the final look too.

making a legit mold for CF is much harder than skinning parts.

Last thought... that fiberglass was WAY hot. I had all but 3-4min to work with it.