Sorry I haven't posted much lately, I got in a pretty crappy car accident 2 weeks ago and have been without transportation and busy with work. It's good to say though that I finally have a car to drive again and I won't be racing around anymore in Japan

I apologize in advance, I CANNOT find my digital camera, so pictures will be on hold for a while until I can figure out what happened with it. This weekend I got back into my lovely 1200 and worked quite a bit. I began plumbing the new 5/16" stainless steel fuel line on Saturday and got one of those near complete. I finished up intercooler mounting and brackets today and started on the transmission mount. The intercooler is ALL behind the grill and looks sweet, it's almost unnoticeable which is exactly what I want! I only did trimming to the radiator support to fit it in and that's it, I didn't have to touch the grill at all!

So for the transmission mounts, keep in mind the bolt holes for the engine mounts are slotted lengthwise to allow the engine to shift back and forth as I want it to, to provide flexibility when mounting everything up. I slid the engine back as FAR as I could on the mounts with the tranny installed to get the tranny mounting holes where I want them. Of course I could just slot those holes too, but for now I just put the engine in it's final resting position as far back as possible. The starter and upper transmission bolts will have to be installed before the tranny mount is bolted to the car. Even with the auto tunnel, it's still a tight fit, but really not any worse than a 180SX is.

The 180SX's tranny mount is designed for uneven mounting points, one side is higher than the other. The 1200's floor/mounting points are even/parallel so the 180SX mount won't line up right unless you put some kind of big spacers on one side (ghetto!). Instead we decided to make the mount. Using a piece of flat steel about 27 inches long x 2 inches wide and 0.5mm thick I trimmed it width-wise to fit into the rubber mounting part on the SR's tranny. Once I drilled mounting holes in it, I jacked the tranny up to it's resting place and found that the straight bar needs to be raised up in the middle about 26mm, so we took and bent the steel bar to get a raise in the center of it of 26mm x 5 inches wide. Pictures would describe this better than I can. Anyways, I am going to cut some side braces and have them welded on to make the mount stronger and keep it from bending/flexing. There are many ways to strengthen it, but I'm going to give it a little bit of overkill When it's done, it will mount with four bolts through the floor pans with another piece of thick steel plate welded on the inside of the car, kinda acting like HUGE washers to spread out the load more. Strangely enough though, the SR's transmission mounts line up exactly where the stock auto's mounts are at! (even though they've been trimmed off)

The shop is closed Mondays/Tuesdays, but I can see the tranny mount only taking another 2 hours or so to complete. It's not hard work, it's just a little time consuming to get things right, and it's actually a lot of fun to create all these little brackets and mounts to make it all work. Everything is turning out really well so far. The intercooler piping is going to be easy, and in fact as soon as the pipe gets here we'll do that part. By next weekend the engine, transmission, intercooler, and radiator will be fully mounted into the car! Then comes intercooler pipes, finishing up the fuel system, and then wiring and it should start up! I STILL have to find a Ute rearend to get the driveshaft made up, I haven't been getting much help from my friends here with that, but I'm sure I will find one soon. I may have to employ the help of the Japanese dudes that work at the shop, they're eyes are BULGING out of they're head everytime I come in and work on it....in fact everyone that works there or stops by is seriously checking it out in disbelief of the monster I am building Well, that's it for this weekend....talk to ya'll later!

-Andy

Okay, as promised I spent yesterday and today figuring out how to do this whole wiring thing. I don't think it to be too difficult, but definitely a challenge to learn if you have never done anything like this before (I haven't!). It feels very odd and not right to start hacking up a perfectly good 180SX wiring harness, so I tried to keep the hacking to a minimum. Also, keep in mind this is more of a sanity check and an experiment than anything else. There is no guarantee yet that everything will work fine, but it's about as close as I can get with all the information I've put together.

If you totally strip down the wiring on a 180SX it divides into about 4 sections. One contains a majority of connections/components for the interior of the car, not much is used from this piece.

The main harnesses you'll need starts at the large plastic case containing a plethora of Relays and fuses for the IGN COIL, EGI, EGI PUMP, Alternator, etc. it's mounted near the battery on the driver's side...basically you'll need that box and a good majority of the wires coming out of it. The goal is to mate only the wires you need from the relay box to the ones that either go to or come from the ECU, fuel pump, etc.

The other harness you need is what I call the engine control/ECU harness. It starts right at the ECU plug and runs into the engine compartment and hooks up to the ignitor, coils, MAFS, TPS, etc. Nearly ALL of the wires/connectors on this harness are required for the engine to run. My harness is actually from an automatic 180SX, since I'm swapping to 5 speed, it has some extra and unnecessary items connected to this harness that you can just leave unplugged. One is a small resistor with two wires going into it, the other is the automatic's computer....it's mounted right above the ECU and looks just like a miniature ECU. Talking to guys that've done auto-manual swaps on SR's, you can just unplug it and not use it.

The other harness is a small one that runs to the battery, alternator, starter, and transmission, you'll pretty much need all of this as well. If it's an automatic harness, you're supposed to connect two of the wires on this harness together to bypass the neutral safety switch on automatics, otherwise it won't start. I haven't figured out which wires these are yet, but I will when it comes time to start it.

So starting at the relay box, I disconnected all connectors and stripped down all the tape off the first foot or two of the harness. I took out the Headlight relays and any other fuses that won't be used and their associate wires(Anit Skid, P/Wind, Ret Mtr, Fog Lt, Horn). Anything that sounds like it has anything to do with the engine, engine control, ignition, fuel pump, alternator needs to be left in there. When I was finished weeding out the wires I didn't need, I was left with the ones I DO need. These are the colors of wires you will need, regardless of how many of the same color you see coming out of the relay box (because if they're the same color 99% of the time they reconnect up somewhere in the loom anyway!):

-1 THICK White (separates several times to provide power to other fuses/relays, long one goes to fuse block)
-1 Thinner White (to ignition switch)
-1 THICK Black/White (to ignition switch)
-4 Thinner Black/White, 3 of them connect up to each other, downstream it goes into 1 thinner Black/White to ECU
-1 THICK Blue/Red (to Ign. Coil)
-2 Black/Yellow (1 from relay to + positive side of fuel pump, 1 from fuse to IACV)
-Several Solid Red wires connect together 2 feet into the loom, eventually into 1 red wire to ECU
-1 Black/Purple (to ECU)
-1 Red/Black (to ECU)
-2 Black/Red (1 to fuse block 10A, after fuse block it is ORANGE/Starter Signal, 1 to ECU)
-1 Black (SOLID BLACK IS ALWAYS GROUND!)


Try to keep all of these wires as LONG as possible, I took apart the harness and followed the wires as far as I could before they went into a connnector, then cut them there and pulled them out through the harness.

There's another relay box in the engine compartment that hides beneath the MAFS and behind the headlight on the pass. side of the car. There are three wire connectors on the side of the box. You can either cut before or after the connectors, but I cut all of those wires. These are 90% of the wires you'll need that run to the ECU from the relay box. Once you have everything mounted in the car, you take the Relay Harness and ECU harness where you made the cuts and just match and connect the wires back up after you cut the wires to the length you need for your car.

On the ECU harness, there is a connector only 3-4 inches from the big blue ECU connector with about 12 wires on it. Cut these wires somewhere AFTER the connector if you can, once again trying to get as much length out of the wires as you can. These wires go to items inside the car:

-Yellow/Red - Tachometer Signal (connect to your tachometer)
-Yellow/Green - Speedometer Sensor (leave disconnected unless you use a 180SX speedometer)
-Black - Ground
-Blue/Green - A/C signal (if you have A/C!)
-Orange - Start Signal (goes to 10A fuse, then Black/Red wire to ignition switch/relay box)
-Blue/Black - Water Temp. Signal (hook up to temp guage, not sure if it will read accurate though, for SR20's 60 degrees Celsius (140F) = 170 - 210 ohms, 100 degrees Celsius (212F) = 47 - 53 ohms) Anyone know if the Datsun 1200 is the same???

The other wires on this connector don't get hooked up to anything.

That's about it, when you've finished cutting/trimming the unnecessary stuff away, it's half as small and a lot easier to deal with. I got the SR20DET pinout and a lot of the information from HERE.
I also got some information HERE. As well as using a rather weak S15 Workshop Manual. There's a CRAP LOAD of reasoning and work that went into this writeup, and I didn't want to get too technical with where EVERY wire goes and why this one is disconnected and that one isn't. You can do two days straight of all the research and head scratching yourself too, but in the end this is what I came up with. It helps to go through and learn it anyways so you know what you're doing next time.

Oh, I almost forgot, on wiring up the fuel pump, you may want to step that black/yellow positive wire up to a bigger size before running it to the fuel pump in back of the car to make sure you're getting good strong voltage to it. On the 180SX, the negative wire from the fuel pump runs ALL the way back to the front of the car to a resistor that drops the voltage to the fuel pump at low speeds/rpms, and then to the ground. Since I don't care about emissions, but rather performance you always want full voltage to the fuel pump. Tomei sells a connector that replaces the resistor and essentially connects the wire to it's ground, forcing the fuel pump to operate continuously at full voltage. The EASY and better way to do this in our swap is to simply ground out the fuel pump near the fuel pump, keeping the wires as short as possible.

So there you have it. I feel like a surgeon because now I'm going to study up the 1200 wiring diagram and figure out exactly where to make my incisions and how exactly I'm going to transplant the SR harness into it so that I can start on it tomorrow.

Goodnight!

ECU wiring is 95% complete! I mounted the Relay box where the ignition coil used to be. Because I kept all the wires long, I was able to mount the ECU just under the glovebox, and the ignitor ends up inside the car, right near the hood release. I have not cut or modified the 1200's wiring at all. Instead I used all the connectors already in place to feed the proper power to the ECU and Alternator/charging system. I had to extended the alternator wires to the other side of the engine bay, but that's about it. I still have to get wire harness covers, but it looks really good, even better and less cluttered than stock! The only wiring I have left to do is going to be for electric fans, the Blitz DSBC boost controller and turbo timer, and the Apexi SAFC 2.

I found a partial solution for the heater hoses using the metal heater lines from a CA18DET, they're 5/8" diameter whereas the 1200's are 1/2" and the SR20DET's are 3/4". I'm going to use the 5/8" metal line to run behind the engine where it's really tight. I WILL have a working heater when it's finished. I can't stand seeing guys take the easy way out by just leaving it off or disconnected. I can't have A/C in my 1200, but I will at least have a good working heater! I can't stand a car without a good working heater!

I also just bought a H165 Ute Diff, it should be here by next weekend! It's out of a 1993 Sunny Truck, so it should have plenty more life left in it than my 1978 B210 H150 I'm using right now. I plan on cleaning it up nicely and at LEAST throwing in some new wheel bearings. If I can find a LSD for a good price I'll get that in there too. Gearing in a Ute Diff is 4:11 right? So much for top speed! I guess I could always drop it down later if it's too high for me. Anyways once that rearend is in I can get the measurements for the driveshaft and have that made up. That's probably going to take a few weeks, but by the time it's finished I think the car will be ready to start up....we'll see!

Good stuff! im keen to see it all up and running. Are ute LSD's common over there? whats the going price for one?
i got my diff centre today, It looks like its in top shape. so im pretty happy, my front quaters should be here in about 2 - 3 weeks! so yeh im pretty happy, im onto the old man to get the shed built so i can start work on her. should be good once i start.
ur makin mad progress. u must be keen to get it going?

Yeah the closer I get to getting it going, the more excited and motivated I get!!! There's lots and lots of little things to tackle, but I have to stay focused on only getting it running right now. Once that's done I will start the little things like suspension/brakes/brake lines/wheels/etc

Ute LSD's are way more common here than anywhere else I have seen. They typically sell for about $900 US, just the same as Nissan Motorsports sells them. It's hard to find a used one in good shape. I haven't seen any selling for a while, but they're around and still fetch a pretty penny for some reason.

Gotta go to work! Won't get to the car again until Wednesday.

H165 Ute diff is in, I'm going to put it in today. I also just bought a new Blitz Dual Drive Blow off Valve and a set of polyurethane Nismo transmission and engine mounts. The engine sits REALLY close to the crossmember and I'm afraid that with the way the stock mounts flex the pan is going to contact the member under hard acceleration, so the Nismo ones ought to keep it from doing that. The stock transmission mount is so flexible that I thought it was broken! Makes for a softer ride, but these have been known to rip apart once you start putting power through it, the one on my automatic 180SX was torn all the way through when I took it off!!!

I priced the custom driveshaft too from Drivelines NW in Seattle, it's going to cost $300 for steel or $500 for aluminum. It's expensive, but a necessary evil so I'm going for the alloy one, to uhhhh keep shipping costs down....yeah that's it.

The lower radiator hose is going to be a trick. The alternator sits REALLY close to it, so basically the hose needs to make a sharp 90 degree bend as soon as it comes out of the radiator. I'm going to try to make the 90 degree with a piece of thick plastic plumbing pipe (the radiator's tanks are also plastic, so it should hold up). If it doesn't work I can always use copper or steel bends. I also found copper hose converters at the hardware store's plumbing section. This will be needed to mate the SR's 3/4" heater hoses to the 1200's 1/2" heater inlet/outlet. Alright, busy day ahead of me, I'll let ya'll know how it goes! See ya!

-Andy

Andy,

Using the Copper pipe bits for your heater should be avoided if possible. It will encourage galvanic corrosion in the engine/radiator etc.

I did run copper bends in my 1200 heater lines for 5 years and never saw any evidence of this, but try and use steel where possible.

It really sounds like you are "Getting into" the conversion. Keep up the good work.

Datsun radiators and heaters are themselves made of copper end tanks and fittings.
For galvanic corrosion to happen you need three things;
electrolyte,
2 Dissimilar metals to act as a Anode and a Cathode,
and a path of conductivity, ie, The metals have to be linked to conduct. Liquids are not a good enough conductor at low voltage.

Being that in a 1200 only the radiator is linked to the engine by the body ( the heater is mounted in plastic and is therfore not earthed to the body) it with conduct with the castiron block or alloy head. but since the A series has both castiron and alloy, we already require the use of coolant containing corrosion inhibitor to prevent it.

I put the Ute rearend in today. It's a nice lookin rearend, only 10 years old and low mileage as compared to the 25 year old H150 that was in it!!! The brake line is mounted on the other side of the pumpkin, so that will have to be either swapped or a line made up to run it to where it needs to go. Also the E-brake cable is too long, that will also get swapped out with the Coupe's. At least the H150 and H165 have the same flange for the driveshaft, so I can re-use the rear flange I've got.

I got the measurement for the driveshaft. From the face of the tranny's output shaft to the rearend face is 40.3125 inches. I'm sending the stuff off this week to get the shaft made up, hopefully in aluminum.

I also found out that I won an auction on a completely ported and polished SR20DET cylinder head! It looked really good in the photos, but it's just a bare head, no cams/valvetrain. Port/polish jobs usually cost $1000 + and I got away with this head for only $300!!!! Maybe I can save up and get some oversize valves, a lash killer kit, and some healthy cams

Anyways, that's about all I got done this weekend. I sold my Haltech F10 to my buddy Chuck for $500 plus he's welding up my intercooler piping for me. He's already helped me weld the mounts all up so it's the least I could do to give him a good deal on it. Once the piping is done, theoretically I should be able to start it up but I still need the water outlet pipe to be re-done, the angle was all wrong. Also need to finally decide on and buy an electric fan setup too. You could say I'm getting into the conversion, but now I'm just waiting on stuff!!! Kinda hit a brick wall this weekend where I just couldn't really do anything more until stuff gets here. More later this week hopefully!

-Andy

Finished the intercooler piping today! I bought a whole bunch of mandrel bent 2.5 and 3 inch pipe and just cut it to fit using silicone connectors to join them up. We ended up not having to weld a single pipe (except the Blow off valve flange). I'm still waiting for one silicone 90 degree connector to get here to be completely finished, but everything else is done.

I also installed my new leaf springs, adjustable shackles, and bushings. I bought these at Matsuoka, they're stiffer than stock and are de-arched, so they lower the rearend about 2-3 inches without having to use stupid lowering blocks.

I found an electric fan to use finally. The 180SX radiator isn't quite 16" high, so I went with a 14" fan made by Zirgo. These are the HIGHEST cfm rating I have seen on electric fans yet! The 14" puts out just under 2700 cfm, it's 3.5" deep, has a replaceable motor, and cost only $70. Their 16" fans put out 3700 cfm! Most 14" fans put out only about 1000cfm, the Flex A Lite DUAL 12" fans put out only 2500cfm!

So if you're looking for a good electric fan, these are the best I've seen so far! I got mine on Ebay.

Tomorrow my ported/polished head arrives and I think I'll do my accelerator cable too. Anyways, good progress. I finished my lower radiator hose, still waiting on the water outlet to be re-modified before I can do the upper hose. Enough writing, more tomorrow!

-Andy