| This is a customers car I just finished. The owner lives in Aspen and brought it down to me to do some work on it. Thing was in pretty bad shape when I got it as you can see from the pics. Engine had turbos with blown oil seals and low compression across the drivers side head. He decided to buy a jspec and so the swap began. His engine had oil everywhere! Every vacuum hose that connected to the intake system in anyway had oil in it. The wastegates had oil in them, the boost controller had oil in it, not to mention the plenum, ic pipes, etc. The ICs themselves each had a good amount sitting in them as well. The car also had a bad power steering hose so there was a mix of oil and ps fluid all over the engine bay, along with a good amount of that cosmoline (sp?) crap. I ended up buying a pressure washer just to help clean everything up......not to mention my driveway, lol. Here are some before pics. 
Boost controller hoses:
 Loose ic clamps allowing oil to spray out all over:
 I started tearing into the jspec replacement engine and found a few interesting things. I already posted the lovely melted det sensor:
 Then I found this improperly installed vtc spring on one side only:
 Also found that most of the rtv seals had been redone so I'm suspecting this engine has a lot more miles on it than is advertised. Oil pan, valve covers, water pipes, etc had all been redone at some time with new non-nissan rtv. Also the water temp sensor was non-nissan as well. But the compression and leak down tests came out good so we decided to continue on. So I tore the engine down, resealed the valve covers, 60k kit, pcv's, resealed the engine pan (had to remove to get the dents out), etc. But being who I am and what my engine bay looks like, I just couldn't leave this engine looking the way it did. So I decided to surprise the owner and add some flash to it. I had a spare plenum and valve covers laying around that were sandblasted already. So I went to Pepboys to get some paint. I found they started selling Plasticoat paint in OEM matching colors by year and modle. So I picked up some body color paint and some aluminum color paint as well. Here's what I came up with: 
The paint turned out really good to my surprise. The plenum, water pipes and cas are painted with the aluminum paint, and the rest with the Plasticoat. I also did my own little throttle body water bypass where I use custom bent piping and also the egr/aiv removal. All new water, fuel, and vacuum hase was used through out the engine and bay. 
And here's the finished car all back together. I had to clean that cosmoline crap off as well (has my oil handprints all over int eh pics though). I just couldn't help myself. Needless to say, when I popped the hood for the owner, he was very surprised and happy. He's already bought some hardpipes for it and I'm sure some other nice appearance things will be added as well. 
Of course I put in a new wiring harness and ps hose as well. The car started right up and idled down and purred along. Best start up I have ever had. Many thanks to Jeff (owner) for his patience. It was a lot of work, but for some strange reason I enjoy doing this stuff. There are a few things that need cleaned up a little here and there, but I had to leave something for the owner to do :P.
 JackB nimble JackB quick JackB can suck my dick =P - james-lee 11/02/01
Arrogance is the #1 weapon against Supra Owners - MikeH 08/06/02
Dallas with a Z: I like the bulge dude 05/02/03
Bezbefootball: Does dick have anything for me? 10/21/03 |
Engine swap story.... before and after pics. (kinda long) - 
