Herro guys... been a long time since I have posted anything in Photos and Media!
As some of you know, last year in July my silver 2000 z24 burned to the ground. Had an issue with a piston and ultimately it caught fire due to the dipstick blowing out and spewing oil all over the header. I had a lot of work into it and I certainly was not done fulfilling my goals with it, nor finished having fun with it. I felt so sick afterwards for many months. I tried and tried locating a suitable replacement I could start over with. Most were automatics and or had tons of rust. You would not believe just how many silver z24s came as an automatic. I swear its something stupid like 90% of them did as it was VERY hard locating a 5 speed let alone one that was still relatively nice. Knowing it would save a ton of time and energy just buying a 5 speed to start off with this time around instead of having to swap it like last time, I did not want to settle for anything other than a manual trans. I also wanted to just go with a 2002 z so I would not have to have the mirrors/handles/lips painted. After a while I even gave up on the silver color and looked elsewhere.... I did find a decent 2002 indigo blue z at a local dealer with a knocking LD9. I ended up getting it and drove it home. I was happy I finally found something... however, in the end, It just did not grow on me. It sat in the driveway untouched for quite some time.
Skip forward a few more months, Shawn Mckenzie posted up he had been having troubles with his car/engine and messaged me asking if I might be interested in buying his built motor. We basically had that deal figured out when he told me he just wanted to get rid of the car. At first I really did not think much of it as the car was several states away and knew it would be very difficult to get it. Realizing I had already chose my bed and laid into it with the indi blue z, I passed it off as an impossibility. ....TIL... the gears started rolling and light bulbs started going off in my head LOL. A really good friend of mine Jay Schaefbauer (brodycog on here) was in need of a car for his project... so, I asked him if he might possibly be interested in purchasing the blue z so I could try and get Shawn's. He agreed and a couple days later Shawn and I came to an agreement on his car. We looked into just shipping it here and it ended up being not that big of a deal. So.... that's exactly what we did. Shawn got it all set up to be picked up and dropped off. His car was an absolute perfect fit for me.... not only was it absolutely RUST FREE, it was a 5 speed and came with a ton of mods. For the excellent deal I received I could not pass up on it. Shawn is a great person, He cleanly modded it and no expense was ever sparred. He worked with me on everything, answered all of my anal-retentive questions without hesitation and I can not let it go un-noticed. Shawn is a stand up guy and I appreciated this deal so much as it finally got me exactly what I wanted after searching and hunting for so long.
Even as soon as a week after my car burnt I was already working on getting the parts I lost re-couped. I lost a lot of good stuff on it and if any of you guys know me I am one stubborn SOB. I was not going to let a little fire get me down. I ended up selling 90% of the stuff that was salvageable and/or refurbishing the rest. As of right now, I basically only need to find a ram air hood and an aeroforce interceptor gauge and Ive gotten all of it back. I need to have the m45 re-polished and rebuilt it but other than that it faired the fire pretty well.
I have a lot of plans for this car.... I am DEFINITELY going to be supercharging this one as well as hopefully down the road doing a rear mount turbo system on it. It will definitely be getting nitrous on top of the m45 to start. I had a lot of stuff I didnt even get installed on my other z before it burned.
The car is a Silver 2001 Z24, fully loaded included sunroof. 5 speed with graphite interior and around 120,000 miles. Shawn did quite a few mods to it including a fully built LD9 and lots of suspension stuff. For an exact listing you can check his JBO page if you are curious. I have already done a few things to it myself and plan on changing even more.
Anyways, forgive my book but if you read each and every caption/notation it will be well organized and hopefully answer any and all question so please read carefully! For some effing reason JBO will no longer allow direct links to photobucket videos so the only way I could find to get it to work was post the IMG tag. You'll have to click on the photo below the description and watch it directly on Photobucket.
Here is my collection of pictures/videos of my journey with it thus far...
Getting picked up in Oregon:
The day she showed up at my house. It was a pretty long 3 day wait....needless to say I was pretty exited LOL.
Knowing it had an issue with the motor, I already had some parts ready to go to fix it. Watching the videos Shawn posted up... it sure sounded like a timing chain issue to me so I dug out a new chain, tensioner, and upper guide just in case.
This was literally 30 minutes after it was dropped off. I was determined to get to the bottom of the sound LOL
Took the mcmoney cam gear window off and immediately I noticed this:
Took the whole chain cover off and ultimately found this as the problem:
Figured Id better run some compression checks and see if any valves were bent before I started it up:
#1
#2
#3
At this point I was going yeeehaaaaaaw no problems... til #4:
So, I started it up thinking maybe it just needed ran. Basically just put the mechanical 1-piece tensioner in and it fixed the problem. Here was the engine running afterwards:
The next day I put oil in the #4 cylinder and it pumped right up to 190PSI. Few days later I checked it and it was still good to go. Must have just been a dry ring. After getting it all buttoned back up I started driving it. Motor was running pretty good so I figured the problem was fixed and starting working on other stuff...
The car honestly felt balls slow to me. No top end to really speak of, especially considering all of the mods it has. Shawn had said he thought it might need a new cat because it had been throwing inefficiency codes for it. I had the cat lopped off and a test pipe installed... did help a little but definitely did not fix the lack of top end issue.
So, after thumbing through the built receipts I noticed the block as well as the head had been decked. This actually affects the cam timing. It advances both camshafts which does kill top end. So, I decided to retard both cams 2* to see if that helped:
EXHAUST-
INTAKE-
Doing the cams did not seem to really do anything. I'll get into why I feel they didn't a little later....
Had to put my rims on it. I actually got these for the indi blue z but figured they would look awesome on the silver. They are Ro_Ja LT5 17X7s powdercoated gloss black... and if you can believe it, they actually weight 3.5lbs LIGHTER per wheel/tire than the stock 2000-2002 z24 wheel/tire. Which I thought was absolutely bad ass.... definitely noticed an increase in acceleration and handling ability.
Brought her to the other car's final resting spot:
This was at my testing grounds LOL. Nice country road with nothing around but corn fields:
Detailed at work:
Noticed the temp gauge had an issue. Bad stepper motor.
Swapped the cluster out for the one I had laying around and also had a friend come over with HPT. Lowered the idle and tweaked a few other things.... just listen to that lope!
I've wanted to try this part out for years... Phil Lindsay made it for me. Its an aluminum lower radiator support brace with arms that connect it to the subframe. Absolutely love this mod... noticed a much more responsive steering feel as well as a nice improved handling experience.
Days after this I decided to change the oil again. Upon the first oil change I did before starting the car that first time I noticed a lot of nasty dark grey sludge draining out first before the oil did. This second time It wasn't nearly as bad but it was still there. Figured it was due to the chain dragging on something so I really didnt think much of it. Til right afterwards I noticed the low oil pressure light coming on at idle. This concerned me greatly so I hooked up my oil pressure gauge to see what was going on....
Not good:
So.. I decided to drop the pan and check pump/pickup bolts and the bearings:
Pulled the main thrust bearing first to give it a looksie:
At first I thought the copper color showing through meant it was toast... It does not and in-fact a brand new C77 bearing looks identical:
No issues. Crank surface as well as bearing surfaces all looked just fine.
So... I went to re-install the bearing and saw this... which ultimately, is 100% the issue. It shows the rod having far, far too much side to side movement.
So, I have started the process of pulling the motor. Have it pretty far right now, just need to do a few things and it will be on the ground. I plan on putting my gutted by 7 pounds and knife edged crank in it. I also have another set of narrowed jet titanium rods so i'll put those in as well. New C77 bearings as well as a thinner Cometic head gasket to bump compression a bit. Depending on how much rock the pistons have and how much they poke Im hoping to use an .030. If not.. it will get a stock .05X thickness one. That will drop the head about .020 and provide about .2 more compression. I also will be using a nice set of Comp Cams LD9 cams specially ground... they spec out at intake .420 lift and 232* duration..... exhaust .430 lift and 238* duration. Here are the cam cards:
I had already gotten this badboy from a local craigslist ad for $20 bucks! Brand new RK Sport carbon fiber battery cover:
A few parts Ive gotten back and or had refurbished:
MRZ Performance washer fluid tank cap. After the fire it was a very nasty charred piece. Thank you Alex Meyers for your hard work on this:
Found this great deal on Amazon. Accel Corvette LT1 adjustable fuel pressure regulator. They claimed it had been used... It was actually brand new in the box. Got it on the cheap...
I have a lot more to post up.... i recently picked up a mint USM rear lip. Also have a sparco steering wheel/momo hub.... lo-tec 3 gauge pillar and tons of other stuff to install. The engine rebuild should not take long as I have all the needed replacement parts in stock. Anyways, thanks for looking/reading.... all questions/comments welcomed!
RIP silver car. You will be missed.
I Love My J ♡ 
lol 
