A team with no name goes racing.

Sketchy deals for sketchy cars containing sketchy contents. Seems we have ourselves a theme!

Craigslist postings are always a gamble, and this one was no different. Craptastic pictures plus a vague description indicating the clutch is bad are the highlights of one "2005 TL" post. A few days of back and forth between the seller and one of the other team members resulted in me making a run down to Yakima (Crackima to the locals) after work last night and dragging this gem home. 

Behold our donor car! 2005 Acura TL. 3.2L V6. It runs! It does not move under its own power though. Luckily I was able to park down the hill a ways and roll / crash on to the UHaul dolly.

Car is a 6 speed manual w/ LSD and Brembo brakes optioned car, so it's a formerly sought after and well appointed sedan. 

Don't be impressed, it doesn't get better. Not even with a quick low light glamour shot.

The seller kept the battery from the car, so after very carefully unloading the car and definitely NOT just unstrapping / chaining it and driving the trailer out from under it, causing it to crash down to the gravel, it was left to sit and think about its poor choices. 

Today I brought out my favorite selection of engine removal tools and was about to get started when we were informed that somebody might actually want this car after we rip the engine out. Crap. Time to rethink this.

I decided to check hot compression and threw a spare (dead) battery in it. After a jump start from my pickup, I let the car idle and get up to temp, hoping no new noises or other issues presented themselves. While it ran, I went through the glove box and center console, only to find a small scale and a Ziploc bag of a white, powdery substance and a dirty lighter. 

Uh... right. While the thought of using it to recoup our purchase was enticing, I had it retrieved by the local authorities. This added a little over an hour to my day, as I had to wait for an officer to arrive and then give the proper information to avoid the vehicle being impounded or myself being in hot water. 

All momentum stopped at this point, so compression check will have to be tomorrow.

It's also time to order a timing kit, new plugs, some gaskets and some spray paint. 

*** picture can be removed if it violates terms here ***

Well that's an exciting twist!! Glad nothing got turned on you, I might have been too nervous to call vs flush.

Seems like a great donor and hopefully you can make some money back..

In reply to birdmayne :

Holy crap that's crazy!

Did the cop say exactly what was in the bag? I have guesses but this isn't my area of expertise. Seems like A LOT of my first guess.

thatsnowinnebago said:

Did the cop say exactly what was in the bag? I have guesses but this isn't my area of expertise. Seems like A LOT of my first guess.

Most likely meth. Possibly heroin. Unlikely, but possibly cocaine. 

The amount of lighters I also found under the seat point me toward a theory. 

So here's what I don't understand.

Somehow I'm always able to take all the stuffed animals off my bed before company comes over, but this guy can't even remember to take his stash out of his car before he sells it?

In reply to AClockworkGarage :

Less "sold" and more "didn't pick up his car after getting towed"...

Oooooooh.

I wonder if he wasn't able to pick up his car because someone put him in a room and made him stay there.

All the more reason to get the car stripped and sold off quickly.

Man, at least the PO of my e30 welded up a secret compartment in the gas tank for drug running. This guy was lazy.

Just a gentle reminder... this is still going on. Stay tuned for updates this weekend.

Yeah, after 4 months I tightened some bolts on the Zonda, vacuumed out some dust and shuffled totes of parts back and forth across my shop. It's been a whirlwind of activity around here.

I've managed to spend countless hours stating at the J32 and organizing and reorganizing and rearranging the shop. Not much to report here either. 

AClockworkGarage said:

Just a gentle reminder... this is still going on. Stay tuned for updates this weekend.

Big update! The engine is now closer to the car.

And! I scored a new engine stand for $5. Pretty exciting stuff, all things considered.

Fairly anticlimactic weekend, but good to meet a couple team members in person

birdmayne said:

AClockworkGarage said:

Just a gentle reminder... this is still going on. Stay tuned for updates this weekend.

Big update! The engine is now closer to the car.

And! I scored a new engine stand for $5. Pretty exciting stuff, all things considered.

Fairly anticlimactic weekend, but good to meet a couple team members in person

I can't believe you posted that...

Looking at the engine, I have even more questions about how this is going to fit in the Zonda. Oh well. We'll make it happen.

In reply to iansane :

The big advantage we have is that we know it's been done before.

In reply to AClockworkGarage :

I think that may actually make it worse. Some of the things the PO did to fit it...weren't the best. But it is a racecar, right? Nothing is off limits.

We still haven't agreed on a livery yet, and I'm still pushing hard for the cascadia colours. I did a more involved forza render last night to help push my case.

The whole team got together yesterday to find a seat that fit everybody. Much like mark Hamill as the table read for the last jedi, I literally didn't need to be there, but I went anyway. We needed to find a seat that would fit everybody and be comfortable for 2 hour long stints.

Enter 425 motorsports. With dozens of makes and models of seats on display we were able to wedge our rears into a variety of seats until we found one that would comfortable fit the whole team. When it was all said and done we selected a Momo Daytona Evo XXL a comfortable halo seat that was totally not more expensive than our engine.

Taking advantage of 425's inventory we tried on a series of helmets and driver suits and even made a few purchases.

After the shopping spree we stopped for some PB&J burgers and stupid alcoholic lucky charms s'mores shakes we headed back to the swap shop to test fit the seats into the car. when we got there we saw that Ian had been busy, doing a lot of little jobs. The metal spoiler had been replaced with this much nicer duck-tail.

The new seat was hurled into the car and it was determined that it would fit. with some tweaks. Notorious Miata pilot Henry decided that the Z-car was a "Vast, cavernous expanse."

this is where we hit our first hurdle. The momo is an XXl, which means it is XXL. Which means it is about an inch too wide for the current brackets.

Oooo. Fuzzy.

test fitting with the ​​​​​​​original NRG seat showed that the driving position was shifter to the left about an inch, possibly for tunnel clearance, but we determined that we would need to rebuild the inner seat mount bracket to fit the seat. This would allow us to shift the driver's position more inline with the centre of the car and add the extra width for our double-extra-fatarse seat.

as we didn't have the material needed to create a new bracket we decided to leave it there.​​​​​​​

 

With the seat on the back burner we took a look at the engine itself. Being a FWD engine the T-stat housing was helpfully located on the bellhousing side of the engine. This would put it square inside our firewall. Not ideal. The firewall would need to be notched to clear it, it would be a pain to service and would result in the shifter being too far forward... none of this is ideal. Also the cumbersome T-stat housing interferes with the fitment of the Bellhousing adapter plate. In short, it needs to go.

The current plan is to make some block off plates, tap them for AN fittings and mount a remote T-stat housing. Simple and clean. But anyone who has ever had the misfortune of working on a honda product will know. nothing is ever simple and clean. The housing and manifold are fed directly from the water pump by a pipe that routes straight through the valley under the manifold. This pipe is a slip fit o-ring style that is held in place by the T-stat/EGR manifold housing that we just eliminated. Cool.

One weird thing we discovered when removing the manifold is that the water passages behind them were threaded. Weird.

Another stopping point. we decided to mock up the mating of the engine and trans with the adapter plate. this tooks some gringing and would require some metric countersunk bolts. Field trip time. For some reason we all piled into a car and headed to McLendons to try and find some bolts, which we did not. looks like they'll need to be ordered from Tacoma Screw. we did get some cap head screws which should facilitate the mock up.

At this point I had promised SWIMBO that I would make tortellini for dinner and had to abandon the team. They were still working when I left so I can only assume the car will be running and driving when I return today.



 

It was not running and driving when he returned. 

My day began early. 3am posting the last updates. Then I made the rounds, home depot, ace, mclendons, autozone, advance trying to find the elusive metric bolts, but they were not to be had. By 10 I gave up and headed over to meet the team. I arrived as we were sneaking away to check out a BMW club car show at the museum, not much exciting there to me except these two gems: 

Then it was back to the shop to get cracking on the Zonda. While I was off playing pasta chef with my family the guys had managed to get the engine and trans mated up with the adapter and had them ready for the lift. The hood was removed and stowed carefully upon the roof, so as to avoid it getting scratched, copious amounts of lube was applied and the engine began it's first lift into the zonda's engine bay.  

Using the shifter position as sort of the guide for location we wiggled the motor around and got it to fit mostly into place. The major stumbling blocks that we found were the Thermostat housing, the wiring harness and the Oil filter adapter housing. Other than those things the block nestled right in there fully behind the K member and front wheel centreline.

The Zonda is Mid-engine!​​​.

With the motor in place, balanced on a block of wood and a ratchet strap (probably not the final mounting solution. Probably) we began to explore mounting options. Having the motor so low and so far back will really help with balance and weight distribution, but makes mounting it off the factory mounds pretty much impossible. we spent the rest of the day grunting, pointing and bouncing mounting methods of one another. Smarter people than I could probably better explain that to you, dear reader.

We spent  while going over the different options of routing the coolant hoses and oil filter and how we could make our own adapters before deciding to just spend the money to get the pre-existing solutions. Once we have those components we can really decide if the engine placement will work or if the firewall will need to be clearanced. but as it site right now:

the hood closes

The bellhousing adapter plate is the lowest component on the car, and it sits about an inch lower than the K-member. All in all a pretty good fit.

We got a Berkin' race car. It was a great weekend, we accomplished very little, and also a ton.

​

 

I'm glad the "whole team" was able to make it to 425, that's impressive.

I know the PO had fabbed up a T-Stat relocation bracket and had used a relocation adapter to fit the stock oil filter housing. 

(Edited for accuracy, I had an incorrect recollection of facts)

How do the factory exhaust manifolds fit? Any clearance issues on the driver's side?

Look at all that room for turbo piping up front!

Well, the whole team minus the engine-acquisition and scrap-car disposal department.

Manifolds will work great once I cut the cat portion off and make an "oval to round adapter".

We were thinking tons of room for ducting ala GT40.

You guys looking for a beer/coffee jockey and/or booth babe(Male)? Love the build so far!