Mind that this is my first real post about my car WITH PICS!!!!(at least i hope so)
Ok for starters, you will need an se s12 for sure. Five speed preferable, but if your an automatic kinda guy, it still pretty straight forward on what would be different.
Parts you will need:
! He probably wondered why I'd be interested in that piece of shit lol. The damn thing had a bad throwout bearing so we hooked up one of those jumper packs, bypassed the neutral safety switch, and started her in gear!Fun times were had in that car. It went off road a few times.....
Good bye old friend...May you make a good toaster!
One of the first issues we had was that the engine mounting points were different. The turbo on a 300zx engine sits right where the driver side mount is on the 200sx. So we hacked it off and welded one to the frame! We made a template based off the 300's engine cross member(I'll get a pic of it if i can find it, its just made of plywood).
Then right after that we tried mounting the engine. Behold we now hit the firewall issue! First thing we did was move the brake lines and the clutch line up and away from the exhaust crossover pipe.(boiling brakes are not fun i bet) Then we got the good idea of hammering the firewall in. So we took the dash out and all the crap along the firewall and had at it! To get that extra 1/2" we grinded the flanges on the crossover pipe. No, this wont hurt it or cause cracks. Header wrap helps too.
After we solved that we ran into the next issue....The damn down pipe was hitting the steering knuckle. We noted the major differences between the 200's power steering rack and the 300's. We decided the 300's was a better choice and the knuckle, but the end that connects to the column was a different diameter. So i had a friend of mine combine the two to my measurements! It still didn't totally solve the issue, but helped a bunch. We still have a problem with it to this day, but i recently bought an aftermarket down pipe waste gate housing so i can route my own down pipe.
The next issue was the tranny. You'll laugh really hard when you hear this.... To install my transmission properly i have to install the bell housing on the engine first and then connect the actual tranny to it lol! Its quite the pain, but after a few times it's not so bad. The B&W tranny is about 2" longer than the s12's, so we made our own tranny cross member. If you did this yourself, you could just move the engine forward until the tranny could use the factory cross member. The reason i wanted to bring the motor as far behind the front wheels as possible is for the handling. So you could avoid all these mods by doing this, but i have a feeling it would handle as well.
I also had to cut the top of the tranny tunnel Because the B&W was taller and wider than the s12. Damn thing BARELY fits in the tunnel....and i mean barely. Here is a crappy pic
I had a one piece drive shaft made....use you imagination lol! The pinion angle was correct and since the housing doesn't move on irs it was easy. My u-joints are already worn out from side stepping the clutch a lot, so i will need to replace them soon too.
After everything was mounted where we wanted it we started on wiring. A friend of mine who is very good with wiring taught me everything he knew in this project. This whole project wouldn't have been really possible at my skill level without him. The entire wiring harness had to be extended about 15" because if ya don't know, the 300zx wiring is fed through the passenger side firewall. On ours it is the Driver side. You will the the body plugs off the 200s wiring harness that give power to the computer and various dash cluster inputs. I'll definitely get some pics of that baby when i work on it here in a few hours.
By the way i didn't have to bash in my strut tower...
Let me know how i did! This is my first write up on this and there are many other things i still have to tell, but i'll worry about it later. Sorry i don't know how to make the images look better, let me know how. I'll be on for a bit longer, gonna make something to eat.
To let all of you know, i truly love my s12 and after seeing what this thing was capable of it made it even better. The car weighs 2690lbs with no carpet and hood and a full tank of premium. I recently installed a helical diff and poly control arm bushings and new sway links, so this is gonna be a real street performer. I going to do the s13 front suspension conversion soon too, but just gotta save up the money. Are the megan racing coilover kit worth the money for the IRS? So there is no "almost complete" the damn thing started at the flick of the key and will when i slap it back together!
