Crapwagon!!!! 1975 245 wagoon project!

[msweeney]

So, I have gotten to the point with my '84 242 Turbo where it can't really get much faster and stay smog legal in CA. What to do? Buy a smog exempt wagon and go nuts on it, obviously!

So I bought this guy right here:







I should really clarify that it is the one on the right, to avoid confusion. It's an old, beat car, but it's really straight and very clean car under the faded paint and the oily engine bay. The PO was a joy to deal with, and I want to build this car right so that he doesn't regret selling it to me. It's had a long, good life as a stocker, and the time is right to make it a project.

Obviously, it had an entirely intolerable ride height, and even though I only drove it for a week before putting it on stands and tearing into it, I had to do something about that. So I broke out the Rotary Car Lowering Device and cut the crap out of the springs:








Now that it looked better, I went for one last ride in the super slow hipster wagon, then brought it inside to get started for realsies. For the record, it did handle, um, less badly with the cut springs.




I bought a sacrificial B230F (1990, hope it's a fat rod!) for the initial swap, and got my cherry picker out and unloaded it:




I got this thing from Lord_Athlon a while back with a harness and some bits, but I'm going to do my own harness after watching our Grand Am cars get wired. It says Megasquirt V2.2, is that MS1 v2.2? Is that a good thing to throw on this thing, or should a dumbass like me try something a little more advanced?




My buddy Abe came over and we broke out the cherry picker again to pull the motor:




and the cherry picker ran out of propane RIGHT HERE!!!! We literally had about 40 seconds left:




I got the engine out the next day, and started to clean the engine bay. I also bought this:




Out of this:




Yes, those are bullet holes, and yes, that is blood. Yes, it was the cops who shot the driver. No, the driver who stole the car and used it in a drive-by didn't die. Neither did the guy he shot. Most importantly; yes, it is a world class T5.

I've also collected all these parts:




and these parts:




and I'm going to put them all in here:




That's a ton of cleaning in that picture, BTW. The motor has big stainless exhaust valves, ported head, h-beams, Mahle pistons, B-cam. I plan on putting a bigger cam in there, but I'm stoked on this piece! I plan on getting it running on the stock crap engine I bought, then swapping the good lump in, start making power, and building the first motor into a good spare. I also plan on making a lot of tire smoke.

Woohoo!

Mike

[cosbySweater]

looking good mike!

[andysbeta]

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[msweeney]

Originally Posted by andysbeta

Ahh , yes. My green wagon # 2. You know, that thing was parked since 1983 when I originally got it? I'm onto green wagon #3 now, thankfully. Good luck with it!

Also duly note, that is a VERY early production 245. The original title I had to it , was titled in November of 1974. That's what makes that particular 245 pretty darned cool. Too bad I'm in Colorado now, I'd be interested in that M41 which I put in it. That was originally an automatic equipped 245.

LOL, no way!!! I looked at your new project thread, and saw the pictures of your old wagon and thought that it looked awesome, and thought it was cool that it was the same color as mine! That makes a lot more sense now...

I love what you're doing with your new wagon, you are a brave man! I can't wait to see where it goes.

Joel has the engine and trans I pulled out, so I'm not your guy on that one. I promise you'll like where this car goes, though!

Mike

[andysbeta]

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[msweeney]

Thanks Andy! #2 will end up being a beast for sure, I can't wait to get it on the road and burning tires. If it means anything, I'm voting that you put that B230FT in yours...

Does anyone have any input on my Megasquirt box? Should I upgrade that with the MSII daughterboard? This is my first stand alone attempt. Hell, most of what I've worked on are karts and bikes with carburetors!

Mike

[msweeney]

Nothing huge, but I took advantage of the machine shop a bit last week and got some stuff done for the wagon.

First, I had a little work to do on my HX35 outlet to make it a 3" v-band. Fire up the lathe!


We turned it down until the flange slipped over it:


And moved to the welding table...


Knowing that my TIG welding skills are mostly experimental, I had Phil (tech/fabricator, and
my Car Chief last year) give me a hand on this one. This was a good idea:



With that out of the way, we got back on the lathe and whipped up a shift knob. I always thought the big nasty plastic shifters in the Pratt and Miller GT and Trans Am cars were awesome, so guess what this was a copy of!



Now I'm just waiting on a few more parts before this thing can start going back together!

Mike

[fcpgroton]

Nice job, the outside of the car looks fantastic. Looking forward to seeing the car finished.

[towz-T]

i want your life

[linuxman51]

Originally Posted by msweeney

Thanks Andy! #2 will end up being a beast for sure, I can't wait to get it on the road and burning tires. If it means anything, I'm voting that you put that B230FT in yours...

Does anyone have any input on my Megasquirt box? Should I upgrade that with the MSII daughterboard? This is my first stand alone attempt. Hell, most of what I've worked on are karts and bikes with carburetors!

Mike

it's up to you, if you jump on the ms2 bandwagon, you'll have the benefit of newer stuff and a quicker transition to ms3 (if you wanted to go that route), ms1 is still very functional though, and since you've already got that, it won't hurt to run that either. Really kind of a matter of preference.. you can upgrade to the ms2 chip any time you want, just by swapping them out.

[msweeney]

Thanks guys! If there is no downside to staying with the v2.2, then I'll probably start the thing on that, then upgrade to MS2 whenever I feel saucy about it. That way I have less parts to collect, and I can start driving this thing sooner than later.

I also made some progress on the interior, started taking the dash apart so I can get my gauges figured out and find a good spot to stash the MS box, and started fitting my new seats. I reeeeally like these 370Z seats, btw... Light, comfy, spiffy, and all manual adjustment, so no motors to figure out. Sticking to the Ghetto Fab, LLC manner of mounting these, by hacking together some 3/16" steel and welding it where I ground off the stock tabs. Like a boss.



I'd say that's a pretty good upgrade...




Mike

[Matt]

saw crapwagon, expected to see this

[msweeney]

Lol, good riddance to that crapwagon! I'm a die hard doorslammer, I don't like formula cars to begin with, andthen thy went and made one ugly, made it sound like crap, and made it race like ****? No bueno.

The only open wheel cars I fully approve of are non-wing sprint cars...

Mike

[msweeney]

I've been working on this thing here and there for the last two months, and it's getting close to the going back together part. I am pretty much done with buying parts, so I guess I should start putting this thing back together...

I made some very important sticker mods...





I finished stripping the engine bay, and removed the battery tray. I need to do some more grinding tomorrow, because the steel is pretty pitted below where the old tray was. I'm not bothering with relocating (due to the weight of the wire and the fact that the wagon has pretty good weight dist. to start with), and this way I can bend up a tray to fit the lightweight battery I want to use anyway.




After that I got to work on getting my power train ready to go back in. Now we're heading in the right direction! First thing was to get the stock clutch and flywheel off the B230F.




Then got the lightened flat flywheel off my other motor mounted:




Then got my nice Spec clutch kit from Knox Performance ready. I hope the full face metallic works, because it'll maintain some driveability over a puck clutch, as I want my girl to be able to drive this thing if she needs to.




Then one of Dale's adapters went on, and I have to say that this kit is a joy to deal with! Perfect fit, no troubles.




The shift fork that came with the bellhousing I bought here was hammered and cracking, so I cleaned it up and made a little reinforcing cup out of a washer:




Then ground the ball somewhat round and cleaned up the landing surface. Hopefully this translates into a nice, smooth clutch pedal:







Then put the whole thing together. I really can't emphasize how pleased I am about how well this all bolted together, Lawrence, Dale, and Spec all sent me some great products! Next up is prepping/spraying the engine bay, figuring out my injectors, and installing this ****!

Mike

[slow240]

pictures no work on first poast

i will be watching this closely, you clearly know where you are going with this.
also, ill have a few questions for you, because i just ordered the dale adapter plate, and im not sure what to do for a DS, but apparently a clutch is as easy as calling knox, im ok with that

[msweeney]

Originally Posted by slow240

pictures no work on first poast

i will be watching this closely, you clearly know where you are going with this.
also, ill have a few questions for you, because i just ordered the dale adapter plate, and im not sure what to do for a DS, but apparently a clutch is as easy as calling knox, im ok with that

Thanks! I think I fixed all the first post pictures. As for the clutch, call Lawrence, he walked me through all the options and was really good to deal with.

Mike

[msweeney]

I hate, hate, hate body work sooo much that I'm limiting it to the engine bay for now. Maybe for ever. Anyways, I'm going to be running a smaller battery than stock, and the metal was kinda rusty and pitted under the stock tray, so that thing's gotta go! By the way, I was pretty blown away with how damn THICK the sheet metal was for this thing. THe pitting would have been holes in pretty much any other car.




Then I cleaned, sanded, scuffed, masked, and called it good enough:




Sprayed a can of primer:




Then three cans of enamel and I got this:







I really like how much it contrasts with the crappy green exterior paint in the last shot. I also was looking at my fuel pump situation, because the car right now just has a fuel pump zip tied (yep) to the car and some rigged up lines. Since 75s don't have in-tank pumps, I was figuring I'd just throw a Bosch 044 underneath and call it a day. Maybe down the road I'll convert to a new tank with a couple lift pumps and a surge tank, but that sounds like a lot of work right now... I'm also having the hose shop next door make up a pair of braided lines with -6 AN fittings to replace the stock lines.

That's all for now! Unfortunately, I'm out of stuff to take off this thing now, so I guess I have to start putting it back together...

Mike

[slow240]

putting it back together is the fun bit!!!
in 21 days my project thread will get a whole lot more interesting because ill have a title and ill be able to start putting it together!

[andysbeta]

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[msweeney]

Originally Posted by andysbeta

Hey, that car has a 1989 tank with intank pump . Just FYI.

AHA! Good to know! I was wondering why it had return lines, etc... I was also worried about the 1975 disintegrating tank issue. Thanks for taking care of that for me! I might just do the 740T in-tank and 240T main pump combo, then...

Mike

[cosbySweater]

moving back next friday, i wanna see it!!

[msweeney]

Originally Posted by slow240

putting it back together is the fun bit!!!
in 21 days my project thread will get a whole lot more interesting because ill have a title and ill be able to start putting it together!

I know, but it's also the part that you can screw up! I really can't wait until this thing runs, though, it's like it's own inspiration thread.

Erik, let me know when you're around, I'd love some input on this!

Mike

[Chuck W]

That.Color.Is.Awesome.

[apologetik]

Originally Posted by msweeney

Since 75s don't have in-tank pumps,....

Hey Mike everything looks great. The car has a brand new in-tank pump that was meant to go in a BMW e30. (OEM if I recall)

So, it was modded to accept that pump since I got a deal on the pump.

[andysbeta]

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