Background

This Blog is about my ongoing build of my LS1 powered 240sx.  For those of you who don't know me I work at Antwerp Tool Die & Engineering we make custom parts and equipment for primarily industrial customers, but the shops capabilities are also a huge help in my build.  I am also fortunate to have the assistance of our neighbors at Advanced Chassis where they build highly competitive drag cars, pulling tractors, and custom headers.

My build started in 2002 when I bought a total basket case of a 240sx off ebay with the intentions of swapping in a SR20DET

Yes, it was ugly, but I saw the potential.  Over the next year I got my parts list together and put the SR in the car, leaving it a mostly untouched bolt on SR swap.

In the spring of  '04 after about a year of fair weather driving I decided it was time to dig in and take care of the SR20 timing chain slap. When I found some damage inside.

I spark plug had came apart at some point in the engine's life and slammed around inside damaging a piston and bending some valves.  So I had the engine rebuilt, and added forged pistons, upgraded valve springs, ti retainers and a larger turbo among other things, while you're in there might as well right...

I drove it around as a sleeper for a year then jumped into the body and paint work in 2005.

I went with a d-drug (origin) wide body kit, with bomex lowers and a text modified aero front bumper.  Then painted it all black with a lot of assistance.

Then my nice almost new SR decided to self destruct shortly after I painted the car .

There's supposed to be a cap on the end of that rod...and its not supposed to be smashed into the side of the block.  Apparently my short block was assembled on a Friday afternoon at the engine machine shop I used, I sent it back to them, they admitted fault in the matter and "fixed" it.   Which fast forwards me to this summer, when I opened the engine for a little clean up on a small external headgasket leak and found scoring from a dirty build and one SR20DE rod, which was used as a replacement for the DET rod.  Needless to say I wasn't too thrilled with the prospect of building the engine again.  After a lot of deliberation and some calculations I determined the LS1 swap idea I had been toying with for sometime was the route I wanted to go.