Project Sting-Grey - a 1966 Restomod With SR20DE Power!

[spriso]

Another New Project

As most of you know, we love resto-mods, while yes, we can do stock restorations (See Project Unicorn viewtopic.php?f=27&t=29202), our true passion is building SR20 powered Datsun Roadsters-- we pioneered this swap over 20-years ago, and have been building them ever since. For me, the SR20 is still one of the best power plants to upgrade this awesome series of cars.

A few years ago, I purchased a complete rolling chassis with a S15 SR20DE swap and our entire catalog of parts from a customer who wanted to sell his project, and that chassis sat in the corner of the shop waiting for it's turn.



I also had a very clean 1966 body that needed to find a chassis to live on top of...



And with that, project Sting-Grey was born. This thread will document the build of this car, so sit back and check out the ride.

Michael

[spriso]

Repairing the Body

Project Sting-Grey had a pretty sound body, not the greatest paint in the world, and of course, it had to be RED, but I figured we could change all of that easy enough. But it did have the standard cracked firewall in the brake area, and as an additional bonus, a cracked section where the clutch master also lived. It had been "repaired" at some time in it's life, but it was ugly, and I knew that it needed to be re-done. We just can't have that kind of work on one of our cars!





The inside showed severe cracking as well:



Wow-- this was ugly. But there is only one way to sort this out, and that is to roll up the sleeves and get to work. First off pulling off the reinforcement ribs:



Ok, so this was not going to be a grind down the welds, re-weld the cracks, and be good go to. Time to get out the spot weld drill:





And keep going.... and the next thing you know, you have a HUGE hole in the firewall. But that is not a bad thing-- now we can get busy with the repair:



On several projects that we have done over the years, we have put later model brake pockets into the firewall-- this has a couple advantages, one it moves the master cylinder away from the exhaust manifold some more (especially useful if someone was going to turbo this car one day), and two it is stronger than the original single plane firewall that was on the 66.

Fortunately for me, Dave Neal is close by and always has a pile of roadster parts cars, and he happened to have exactly what I was looking for-- a brake pocket section from a 67.5 that had been salvaged out of car years prior:



Of course, it too had a crack in below the master cylinder, but that was going to be easily sorted during the rebuild process.

A new firewall section was made from 20 gauge steel (compared to the stock 22-gauge) and it was mocked into position:



With the measurements complete, another cut was made in the original body to accommodate the new firewall section and brake pocket:



Then it was a matter of carefully rebuilding each section:







And complete:



The steering column was rebuilt to work with the 67.5 pocket as well:



A custom master cylinder reinforcement bracket was made to work with the custom steering shaft, and now the firewall is solid with no flexing whatsoever.



More soon.

Michael

Done deal-- all fixed, stronger than original

[eye]

Looks great! Also brings back painful memories. LOL

[spriso]

Prepping the Floors

The rest of Project Sting-Grey's body was remarkably sound, the only thing I wanted to have sorted out before it went out to be painted was to have the floors cleaned up and painted with POR15. I spent a few rather unpleasant hours with the wire wheel cleaning all the original sound deadening off, and then painted them with POR15 before putting new sound deadening down.

But first I needed to repair the shifter opening where someone had cut this ugly hole:





With that repaired, I could get busy painting:







And then the FATMAT was installed for heat and sound protection:



And with that dirty work out of the way, the car could go to the painter...





Michael

[spriso]

To the Paint Shop

My painter wasted no time getting the car sanded down to see what lay underneath the red paint. It had its share of minor bumps and bruises over the years, but again, was a solid body that would not take too much work to get it looking great again. Soon it was in sealer primer, and he could concentrate on getting the body lines beautiful again.













Soon it was time for color-- the hardest decision. I talked with several people and we all agreed, the world does not need any more red, black, or silver roadsters-- it was time to do something different. At dinner one day, my wife and I parked next to a new Sting-Grey Jeep, and we both said, hmmmm. What a great, subtle color, and it would look great with a red interior...



And just like that, the decision was made, paint was ordered, and the project proceeded. The inside of the trunk was painted first-- covering a fresh layer of spray in bed-liner (sound deadening) for the floor (which was a good match for the factory sound deadening on the underside of the trunk lid):



With color on top:





A NOS roadster hood was put on the car as the original was too wavy and would not match the caliber of the rest of the project:



And a few weeks later, the entire car was painted, color sanded and rolled out on the cart for it's first viewing the the natural light-- I was blown away!







A couple days later it was delivered back to the shop:



And of course, the trim had to go on as soon as possible:

[spriso]

Getting the Frame Ready

While the body was at the body shop, I got busy with the engine/transmission so it would be ready to reinstall once the body was back. The S15 SR20DE was put on the engine stand and cleaned up with the oil pans re-sealed, and all the hardware re-plated. A new oil lower oil pan was installed as well as a new front water pump and front and rear seals.



The intake manifold and throttle body were vapor blasted to get their original finish back:







Vapor honed and re-plated zinc hardware:



The transmission was sent out to our local favorite transmission shop and a new 5th gear syncro was installed and everything inspected to make sure that it would be 100% when it went back into the car. A new Exedy clutch was installed on a S13 SR20DET flywheel (again, we always use high quality OEM spec parts -- I don't want to do this again!):







And the engine and transmission were reinstalled in the frame:







Restored body clips were zinc coated and treated to new rubber and installed on the frame in preparation for the body:

[spriso]

Body Prep-- Building the Clutch and Brake Lines

Before we could put the body on the frame, the brake and clutch systems needed to be built as they would be difficult to do after the body was on the car. As many of you know, we love rebuilding the brake lines to make them as simple as possible, and this car had another evolution on that process.

The Datsun 240Z 7/8" master cylinder was mounted to the firewall, as well as the standard clutch master cylinder, and new lines were built-- I like to get the out of the engine compartment to clean up the look:





These poke thru the inner fender, and start their transition, either forward for the front brake lines, or to the rear for the rear-- the clutch line will follow the front brake, but instead of going across the firewall, will go around the front:



Since the brake lines are outside of the engine compartment, they are armored with stainless steel brake line spring.

And across the front:



And back through to the other side-- clean and simple, and really cleans up the firewall.



With those done, the heater valve and drain hose was installed:



And a few other components installed:



And now the body could be installed....

[spriso]

Installing the Body

With the mods done to the frame, and the body, it was time to mate them back together, and more importantly, get a parking space back! Eric Straw came down as an extra set of hands and eyes, and we got on with the project:







And a few minutes later, the body was sitting back on the frame, and a little later, back bolted down and one with the frame again.









A refreshed 2000 grille was installed:



And more badging (to reflect the new 2000cc engine displacement):

[spriso]

Exhaust Details

With the body on the frame, I could now build the exhaust system. A simple mandrel bent, stainless steel 2" system will be used for this car.

A simple down pipe was built using our custom laser cut exhaust flange to mate to the modified FWD SR20DE exhaust manifold:



That transitions thru the X-frame into a stainless steel catalytic converter, and then into a large stainless Magnaflow muffler:





The muffler is held in place by our custom designed Spriso Motorsports stainless exhaust hangers:



Eric came down and he and I built the over-the-axle section which is held in place with a stainless v-band clamp (don't mind the axle and old shock they are just there as a place holder until the new RX-7 GSL-SE axle is done):

[spriso]

Rolling it Outside

With the exhaust complete (other than the exhaust tip), we rolled the car outside to see how it looked. The stock steel wheels won't be used as I'm building a set of staggered 16" Watanabe SSR RS8 wheels for the car.

[spriso]

Wiring and Gauges

This car will use a EZ Mini-20 fuse box and Nissan relay system-- we have used these on a lot of projects over the years and they are compact and fit well-- but lots of work as always. Of course all the wiring will be tucked away so you can't see it like we do on all of our cars.

The problem with the EZ Mini-20 fuse box is it does not come with a mount, so I fabricated a simple mount to mount this from behind the dash reinforcement triangle:



This allows the fuse box to protrude thru the reinforcement panel, but be tucked under the dash mostly out of sight (but still easily serviceable):



A Nissan relay rail was used and new relays for the lights, horn, electric fan, ECCS system, fuel pump, and fog lights were built. All new Nissan terminals were used and everything is nice and clean and neatly organized:





The relay rail was mounted onto a custom bracket on the driver's kick panel (well out of sight but still serviceable):



For used connectors for the chassis harness (like the OEM specific Honda in-tank fuel pump connector), I went to the U-Pull-It and stocked up on connectors and after cleaning them in my ultra sonic cleaner, they looked new again (top boot is the uncleaned version, the bottom boot was after 15-minutes in my cleaner!):



Dashboard:

The dashboard was sent out for wrinkle coat black powder coat, and the gauges sent to Jon Frampton to be restored, the car now has a GPS speedo, and LED instrument lighting.







And test fit to see how it all looks together:



Still a little more of the chassis wiring to complete, and then its the EFI harness that I need to tackle-- I have a brand new Wiring Specialties SR20DE wiring harness for the car, so it will mostly be intigration with my custom chassis harness, but either way, it should not be too difficult to get that sorted.

More soon,

Michael

[iloveredmeat]

Oh my gosh, that looks amazing!

Very inspiring.

[GoldHawg]

Thanks for setting the bar high! And thanks for all the pictures--you've got some nice ones that will help influence other builds.

[Gregs672000]

Simply the best work. If I ever have the financial freedom you'll get my car...

[spriso]

Thank you all for the kind comments-- this has been a fun build and I can't wait to get it back outside with it's new wheels and chrome (when we get that back!)

Michael