I need some help here. Before I start getting head deep in a **** load of work, I need you guys sorta point me in the right direction. Now I know some of the stuff that I will be asking may have been answered before but take it easy on me cause I did quite a few searches and found answers to some of my questions, but most came up dry. If your annoyed by the tread then just don't answer, but I would appreciate input form all members especially the more experienced senior members. I know this question comes up every other day and most are not serious, but I am..

Before I go any further I'm gonna let you guys know I plan on doing all labour for this conversion myself. I want it to be a project car of my own that I can say I did myself. I know I may take years.. I'm ok with that. I may even start a thread for it and post step buy step what I am doing and how much I am spending and what went wrong as well as how I overcame the problems...

I will be going the "cutting the fire wall sub frame" way!

First of is there anyone on the forum that has done this themselves. I know it is possible cause if Pettit or PFS or any rotary shop did it so can I. I just need the right tools and access to the right facilities which I may have. What tools will be involved and how long exactly are we looking at.

If I'm missing something or it looks like I'm thinking things are way more simple then they really are.. help me out because this is something I wanna do and am serious about. Thanks guys

 

There are guys on the forum who have done 20B installs themselves mounting the front of the engine further forward (rear of engine in stock location). I don't think there are any guys on the forum who have done the job by cutting the firewall and moving the engine back so the front location is the same as stock. I could be wrong though.
I agree with you though, if you have mechanical skills, and the shops can do it, so can you!

 

OK, first and foremost, you need to understand that this is not standard procedure, but a custom procedure. It's kinda like asking how long it will take to paint a portriat, and which colors you will need. You can narrow down your options some by first deciding on the car's purpose (show, street, drag strip, road race, rally, etc.).

I think that's a bad idea. It would be easier and safer to make a custom oil pan with a modified pick-up, or to use a dry sump oil system.

Recommendations based on my experience:
1) Install the engine first with the stock turbos. Upgrade the turbos later if you like, but note that the increase in torque is going to require some very expensive driveline components, wide rear tires, flares or body kit, etc.
2) For those with an FC, start with a TII.
3) Don't take forever to build the car. Parts go bad when sitting around, and this is especially true for rotor seals, cooling components, tires, and dated racing certified-parts.
4) Decide on the car's purpose before you build. No, you can't have a streetable show car that does 8's at the drag strip and wins Le Mans.

 

Well I know for sure its not gonna be a drag car. I may take it to the strip for a day just to see what it can do!.. but that's about it. I will be used on the street and for a few track days here and there. But to tell you the truth this is more something I just wanna do to do it. A project I wanna take on because its rare and difficult and perfect for me because I was looking for a project car that will give me some gratitude after I'm finished (because of all the trouble I went through to get it there). I'm looking for a challenge.

By what tools and how much time will it take. I meant more along the lines of what type of welding is involved?
is it a necessity to have your own hoist or can you use jacks? (either way im ok) cutting a fabricating tools are straight forward for mounts and drive shaft fierwall etc. It's just that before I start this I wanna make sure I didn't over look something, get halfway through and find out I'm missing a part or need something that is gonna make me go backwords.

Thanks for the recommendations. I was gonna do something along those lines anyway. I guess is somewhere between show, street and track. I wont take it for many track days though. I don't plan to take forever and I figured id have to run the engine by itself a few times before and after I install it so it doesn't become a lemon.

However you have been the second person to tell me not to go this route (fierwall/subrfame). Am I missing something here or is everyone just making it more difficult then it really seems. It looks to me like there is a lot of work involved but its all pretty straight forward and when you making custom fabrications you really can't go wrong if you know what your doing, I have a few people that are fully qualified! But what are some other ways. This is the only way I really looked in to because of the weight distribution. Im open to any other ways though.

 

OK, that would be a Show/Street car. Don't take it to a road course, because your $8,000 show paint job will be ruined within minutes. You could autocross or drag race some, though.

The tools and time required depends on how you build the car. For example, if you modify the 20B thermostat like mine, then you will need at least a drill press, metal band saw or cutoff saw, drill, dremel, and files, or a mill, and a welder. If you swap it out for a 13B water pump, then you don't need any tools other than the wrenches, etc., to swap the pump. If you use an electric water pump, then you will need to fabricate an adapter plate, weld on AN fittings, and/or tap threads. Do you get the point? There is no step 1, 2, 3, 4 process to the 20B swap. THAT's the challenge.

There is always a safety issue when cutting into the firewall. If you have friends who can do this safely, then I guess it's OK, but IMO the other options are easier.

If you look at the Pettit Banzai magazine article, you will see that the static weight distribution will not change significantly if you build the car correctly. Mounting the engine closer to the firewall will help with the polar moment of inertia, and mounting it lower will help lower the CG of the car, but since your car is primarily for Show/Street use, I don't think it is worth your time to bother with this. Once again, it comes down to the car's intended use, and what is or isn't worth your time and money for this project.
http://www.pettitracing.com/

 

cutting the fire wall is the hard way to go, here are a few of the stumbling blocks i can think of (there will be more)
1. you need to shorten the power plant frame, and the driveshaft
2. the shifter will be in the wrong place, unless you pick a different tranny, and that is its own headache
3. if you use the stock turbos the limit to moving everything back is when they hit, so you either have to go single, move a lot of firewall, or find another way
4. you loose all the stuff behind the firewall, ac, heater, etc
5. the gas pedal wont fit anymore

and to top it off that part of the car is hard to get to, and its also (in some parts) a boxed section, you face a complete dash removal, engine and tranny removal, and water leaks into the cabin

mike

 

haha.. Ok well if by "SHOW" you mean $8,000 paint job then no.. I'm going for looks but buy looks I mean going with a new paint job of the original colour and some nice wheels! This ain't gonna be no show queen. The furthest I plan to take it is polishing in engine bay and spice up the interior with some nice accents... I'm not gonna build a car with all this power just to cruse around in it right and let it sit and look pretty? I'm going for functionality over looks first then looks second, but I didn't really want to compromise performance for looks where I can avoid it.

I took a look at the Pettit site and I've already read most of that stuff but I read it again and couldn't seem to find what you were talking about. They touched on the weight distribution a little in the article they have but there were no numbers.. Now I'm confused. The Banzai is built with the subframe and they did not cut the fire wall?.. If so it sounds like maybe that would be a better route for me as time is not a real issue but I do plan to get to drive this thing before I'm to old to bend over and crawl in!

Btw the is water pump from a 13b good enough to support the 20b? I actually haven't even looked into that yet so which way would you recommend going? I never really took a good look at the water pump so maybe it would be better form me just to go with and electrical one..

Evil Aviator if you have the stats on the weight distribution for the Banzai could you post them for me? id like to know because if the difference is not that big that I'd rather take the subframe route so everything is more accessible if I need to take anything apart or replace parts!

j9fd3s alot of the problems that you pointed out with the fire wall removal woulden't apply for me other then the gas pedal (which I didn't even think of) and shifter everthing else I have covered but it looks like I might not even be going that route after all..

Thanks, this kind of stuff really helps me!

 

btw with the subframe what happens to the steering rack? i dont want to mess around with that and that is the main reason why I was going the fierwall way to begin with. That and weight distibution!

 

the fc and cosmo water pumps are similar, the cosmo impeller is larger though. the fd pump is a reverse rotation, and it seems like it works (pettit uses it), we didnt measure anything up though.

mike

 

See the second paragraph on this page:
http://www.pettitracing.com/Images/Banzai/Banzai5.jpg

 

Yah that was what I was looking at as well. That helps but I thought you meant there were actual numbers on the CG and weight distribution! I get the picture though..

The only thing I am worried about is that going with the Pettit sub frame makes you relocate the rack, causing bumpstear! That's is kind of what I wanted to avoid! Even though I'm not going to be driving the car fast enough to feel it most of the time, I didn't want to have that problem when I do. I already have a little bit of feed back from someone who pm'd me on it. I was wondering if you guys could give me some on how bad it really is. I know it gets more noticeable at higher speeds as well. Just give me your experiences. Btw I will be making a short rack for the car for a tighter turning radius!.. wont that make it worse? If so, I'd rather just spend the extra time and money and smash in the fire wall. I'm going to be keeping this car until the day I die! That's why I don't really want to make compromises...

 

If the 20B only weighs 90LBS more than an FD engine, I'm thinking it'll weigh only 75LBS more than an old '76 four port 13B, mostly due to the heavy parts they used compared to later 13Bs. Thanks for the link, Evil.

 

those old engines are really heavy, wiegh a 73 steel vs an fd one, its about 2x heavier

mike