It's hip to be ZX2 Squared?
It's hip to be ZX2 Squared?
In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :
Have no idea if it's hip to be Squared. I never was a cool kid anyway, just the guy that could fix your car before your parents found out.
Sudden memory, Saturday night, 1984, 11 pm or so under the hood with a hot (temp) 454 trying to un-collapse a lifter on his dad's work truck. Never got the beer he promised.... Got it to fill, reset lash, win!
Anyway, thank you for changing the title!
2 days of cold and some rain have made me lazy.
I did dig up a large stump and remount the pegboard with better support.
Also I am trying a better way to organize my power tools.
Not mounted but getting there. Bigger tools will set on top.
I used a 2x4 foot x 3/4 inch piece of plywood cut in half. Then I cut 2 pieces 4.5 inches tall off the end. Smaller slots are 1.75 inches wide and 6 inches deep. Larger ones are 2 x 6 inches.
I hope it works like I think.
Being organized is difficult. I am getting closer to the elusive goal. As of today this is as close as I have ever been.
I have spent much time getting organized and working on the shop.
I have not forgotten about the ZX, in fact I spent more than 2 hours at the DMV getting the title. Thus was the third time there, so you know I haven't forgotten about the ZX.
Now to the plan, I could swap everything over and bring a black version of the yellow ZX. I feel like, well, meh.
I looked at v6 options to bring more power to the game. Another option that I considered was making a FWD a RWD.
Ordered my first part and since I am starting with a free car and using NO parts from the yellow body my Challenge budget total stands at $65 spent, $0 recoup, $1935 available. Once I fix the RX-8 I'll bring the ZX in and start destruction / reconstruction.
My work space went from crowded, gravel floored, closed in shop:
To this, I can get a car on the concrete, tools are organized and i am not done, but need to move other things along,
This illustrates how it will be easier to get stuff done. I was lazy today, I jacked the RX-8 up and laid out the electrical outlets, but decided to take the weekend off.
Check back in a week or so, I'll be knee deep in the ZX then. 
looking good. it's important to take a weekend off, now and again.
CL find, I screen shot the ad. I'll add it when I get home.
Got my transmission, $30. May or may not need rebuilt.
Now 70 miles home.
Yeah, I know its, well, non stock.
Edit -- The ad in CL. I post it here so I can build the "Build Book" if I lose it on the computer. I have already started a new spreadsheet using the template.
And now my idea is out, fwd to rwd drive, and it has been discussed before. I ordered an OMC adapter off Ebay that allows you to mount a Zetec with a Chevy transmission.
It works with T5's and should work with Turbo 350's. I kind of wanted a T5, but this was an easy way to get Stage one done.
Stage One is simply changed to RWD, I will reuse the Zetec, mounted sideways, and stock intake etc. Once it's rolling as a RWD then upgrade it.
Ok scope creep,
An unnamed friend, who will remain unnamed, (Matt, you know who you are) has urged me to add 4 more cylinders.
Why not? He says. It'll be fine he says. You have that 69 307 just rotting out there he says. He is kinda right....
Since I got no satisfaction from the RX-8 today, I decided to disassemble something. Glass shards flew everywhere. Some more of it is cleaned out. I think it shall be a drag strip build instead of the half and half I was aiming for.
Oh and the iron worm infestation was worse than I thought. Did this with my fingers, it had small blisters but was really rotted.
And a final picture of the original power plant. I have looked at it several times and a V8 will fit, with proper orientation, unlike the Nelsons who seem to have gotten confused this year...
I have no delusions that it will be the fastest, or corner at all, but it will be fun, that I promise. And that has been my main plan for quite some time.
I always thought a 914 transaxle with a kennedy adapter for the zetec mounted midship would be cool in a ZX2
Seriously uncool place to pull an engine. The pics don't do it justice. And this is after I drug it to the "level" bit of land...
It looked like this:
Then this, and I was surprised to find almost no rust in the cylinders.
But then I went to lift it, the hoist wouldn't roll, so I had to drag the truck out from under the engine, to keep the hoist from tipping I ran a chain to a tree.
This may give a better view, my land is very hilly. I would have taken the front off, but at some point someone riveted it together. I would have had to cut it apart.
Then I drug the hoist up the hill a little to get a trailer under the engine.
And now its hanging in the shop, and I find what may be a bad block, so all this work may have been wasted. I'll check it tomorrow.
This is the passenger side rear freeze plug, this is what concerned me. So after popping it up onto the engine stand this is the first thing I checked.
And after scraping and wire wheeling it I have this. There is no crack that I can see. I can't afford magnaflux so I am gonna run it. I'll use water wetter, I'm gonna wind up towing this anyway, so I can just drain it if it gets cold.
As it gets cleaner and I get dirtier I find the next issue.
Note the ZX staring hungrily at its new power plant... But first I have to fix this broken bolt.
And quite some time later, I get it tapped. Then I ran a tap through all the other threads I could get to.
Also tomorrow is more cleaning, so I am removing the freeze plugs to blow out the water jacket, I find this behind the one that might have leaked...
And Murphy is not in the shop today, its just muddy gunk. It moved easy and I cleaned what I could out.
Up to now this project has been kind of without direction, I just knew I wanted something to take to the Challenge. As the nebulous ideas solidified I have boiled it down to:
1) A drag oriented chassis -- I have never built a straight up drag car, I never knew how to go about tuning a chassis or suspension for launching until a few days ago.
(Still may not know )
2) 200 to 300 horsepower with this build -- Yes a bit light on power, but if I can get it to the ground and not waste it lifting or squatting, its a win. A 69 Chevy 307 had 205 hp stock, I dont have good pistons so a bit more than an RV type cam and a 4 barrel should get me into range I am aiming for and not pop the engine. If I find I can get and afford some hypereutectic pistons instead of the stock cast I may aim for more power.
3) Better build on chassis than engine -- An engine / trans to compete with but a chassis that can handle more power and is more tunable than a set of leaf springs with ladder bars. I think 4 link will be more forgiving on my first attempt than ladder bars. Post Challenge if I build a better engine the car doesn't have to be rebuilt.
4) A good start on a NHRA roll cage that covers Challenge rules, another reason for not so much power, I don't want to DQ myself. but I also want to be able to take it to a local track and tune it.
All of that is a tall order for $2000, but I am preaching to the choir here,
So I have laid out the next few days.
The goal is to have the basic car done by the end of June. Yeah, I'm a glutten.
Scope Creep.
I love it!
In reply to Indy "Nub" Guy :
How is your finger doing? I hope its healing up well.
I've never done anything that bad but I've poked a few holes / sliced myself.
And while moving my Machines and pulling the engine I thought about you from time to time.
In reply to Bent-Valve (FS) :
It's been 4-1/2 weeks. The pain is pretty much gone unless I bump it on something. But the healing is going slower than I would like. I just don't heal up quickly like I did when I was in my early 20's.
I look forward to seeing your creation at the Challenge in October
Today was final disassemble of short block.
Cam and lifters were a given, looky here...
Service life exceeded, long time ago, and I had to knock most of the lifters out after I got the crank out.
Then there are the bearings, go ahead pick your favorite destruction, its in there somewhere.
But I did get it down to the bare block.
I didn't take a picture but we loaded it up on the trailer, drove to the car wash, slight detour for lunch, and blasted the heck out of it.
After some more scrubbing at home and a little paint, a little WD-40, here it sits.
And I have to confess, I'm going old school, like straight edge and file old school. There were some slightly raised areas around the threads and edges of the cylinders. I cleaned them up to hopefully seal better.
This going to be fun, its been, um, several years since I built an engine, and several more since I haven't used a machine shop. Although I may have to find room in the budget for the crank. It didn't look bad despite the bearing damage but I'll know more when I sit down and measure.
So the "MayPop Special" is under way, all of $150, confirmed on the fair market value thread I started plus a can of paint.
I'll have to get a price on it as it was shop stock. It was just Walmart black, like $0.99, I'll be buying more for this build.
Casting number is 3970020 in case you're trying to read it. 70-73 307 according to one website.
Doing research I found this video, part of a series, its worth your time.
I was out just kind of measuring the engine, car, crank and stuff to get an idea of how the construction needed to go. its going to be tight with a V8, my drive shaft will be maybe 2 or 3 feet long, not much more. Looking at the rear suspension and figuring out how to set it all up I started looking at professional builds and that is where I found the videos.
The crank is almost .010 under on both mains and connecting rods. By the time I polish the journals it will be. I'll remeasure tomorrow and find the bore size.
Of course with flat cam lobes, anything is better than the stock cam. The 307 got a bad rep for low power because the cams were unhardened and wore flat. Owners didn't know what was wrong and replaced the engine with 327 or 350's and swore 307's were junk. They however will respond nicely to the same mods that make 350's so popular.
And i kind of planned out what I need in the area of roll cage due to rules. An online calculator showed that the if the ZX weighed 2300 lbs and had 250 hp, "theoretically" I should do 60' in 1.94 secs, a 1/4 mile in 12.83 secs and 111.6 mph. So I figure 13 to 14 second times.
Given its a small car and stock it weighed 2478 lbs and I have stripped the interior out but will add a larger engine and drivetrain I "think" I'll be around 2300 lbs. Dreaming a little, if I get it down to 2000 lbs and up to 300 hp I could do 60' in 1.76 secs and a quarter mile in 11.52, which borders on adding all sorts of additional safety requirements.
Frankenstein, dead parts, box flares.
About to drive 2 hours to get a cheap axle. A Dodge 9.25 out of W150.
Yup, box flares.
Bent-Valve (FS) said:Frankenstein, .............. , box flares.
Yup, box flares.
Perspective. Remember that. Perspective.
I started laughing, "That's big." I said as I stared at the rear end.
Don't queue Sir Mix A Lot, please, it gets stuck in my head.
I continued, "It'll work, I've seen even more odd ball combos."
"What are you going to put it in?"
45 minutes later, I have a good friend for life.
This is what it looks like in the back of the Ridgeline:
I won't keep the 30 x whatever 15's. But the view out the rearview mirror made me laugh from time to time.
My mind blowing bad choice, tongue in cheek decision to have wheels hanging out the sides of the car was reinforced by the first meeting of car and axle.
Then I realized I had made a better decision than I first thought. If you look down the sides of the car:
Its all a matter of perspective, 2 hours of driving home and wondering if I had made a mistake and now I think this will be great. Also one of the wheels has more dish so its even possible to tuck them in more.
I now have all of the major chunks of metal. This one cost $100. I am still working on understanding all the NHRA rules. I will be cutting more than 4 sq feet of floor board so its an altered floorboard and that complicates things in the roll cage.
I need help.
I have an issue. Wait, I have issues, don't we all, but I mean with the build.
The reason I am so concerned with this is I am going to have to cut approximately 1/3 of the firewall, and a big chunk of the floorboard out to fit the engine / transmission. There is no way around it.
According to the NHRA rules that means I have to have a roll cage if I get anywhere near the 11's.
With the 307 and stock heads, that is not as much of an issue. But its a sbc, a good 350 with nice heads etc would move this car into that range. And I am not building this just for the one time Challenge. A second thought is if I can build it for this year, next year change to a modern (+1999) 4.3 with cats and register it so I can drive it down.
I do not have a tubing bender. I have a HF hydraulic pipe bender. It wont do as nice of a job as I want.
I researched renting a tubing bender and finally I have looked at prebent tubing.
I am open to suggestions as to how to get a cage. I guess I could carefully cut the cage out of the yellow car but then what would I do with it?
Here's some helpful cage information:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/good-cheap-tubing-bender/135030/page1/
https://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=11012
https://pro-tools.com/pages/tube-and-pipe-bending-basics
Go to the "How not to fail lemons tech" in the link below. They have great rules on building a cage that'll be legal in most things, and cover the do's and don't(s) of cage building.
https://24hoursoflemons.com/prices-rules/
So far as benders go, they're pricey when it comes to dies - there are a few budget ones that are DIY (trike, etc) that you can get plans for. I think they're covered in the above links as well.
Im working on a cage option. I think a Neon cage will fit and they are WAY cheaper than one for an Escort.
Which cage dimension is neon?
Those are the Escort Main hoop and roof hoop.
Those measurements are the outsides of the hoops, like the 39" is the widest easy fit of the roof.
Its 44" tall from the floor pan to the underside of the roof.
Its 51" wide from side to side.
All that said I can cut a bit from inside the car body since this thing is a Challenge only car. I was going to make it more but the iron worms have had their way, a bit more than I thought. The rockers are going to get cut and replaced with heavy wall square tube to bring the strength up.
The collection of parts I have may change also if I find better parts. Right now its a Ford, Dodge, Chevy mash up. I was looking at Peterbilt front springs for the suspension. They are new, cheap ($45 for both) and have 3 leaves, I was going to remove 2 leaves and it would still be stiff, but after crawling under the car it would fit great.
I wonder how many different makes I can cram in one car. Johnny Cash comes to mind.....
Rear suspension. Yup, its a pain.
Reading extensively about rear suspension the gold standard is a four link set up that launches you forward with out squat or lift.
This ain't a gold standard car.
Leaf spring try to wrap into an S shape with lots of torque, but they are simple and easy to fabricate mounts for. They are also cheap. I'm cheap.
These are cheaper than most, so i looked up the part number.
With Peterbilt springs my tow capacity should be awesome!
Am I crazy? Maybe. But I did think this through.
They fit under the car pretty decent, this shows laid out next to the car, I crawled under it and measured.
Took the bolt loose and the main leaf flattened out like I hoped!
After cutting the others free, I did a very unscientific test and the spring seems nice. The end on the wood slides and my 200 lbs can compress it about 1/2 or 3/4 of an inch when I bounce.
Laid inside the car, the yellow arrows show the center of the spring and were it goes for the axle. The blue shows the eye and the rear seat mount which has space under the car for that mount.
A different shot of the spring, not moved from the last shot. Under the car is a reinforcement u shaped channel welded to the floor which I'll use for the slide box. I'm going to cut off the rear eye, and make a slide box to hold the spring and allow it to move fore and aft but not side to side. The spring will be 49" long with the axle at 25". The radius of the swing should be minimal.
Also I have free scrap metal. 3 friends and myself wound up with a bunch of it when a lady wanted it off her property. Total work time was maybe 2 hours 10 years ago. I have no idea how to value it. The 4" right angle will make a great box and front mount. I will have to fabricate a bushing for the front eye. I have started running the wiring for the lathe and mill cause I'm going to need them soon.
Finally, I don't have a picture but the dash is out, I need to finish pulling the hvac stuff to get to the firewall. Removed all the inside panels and put them up for sale. No recoup on a free car but money for more parts!
You'll need to log in to post.
