I will forewarn you all this may be one of my dumbest undertakings ever... It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

I have a 91 Nissan D21 pickup. Reg cab, short bed, 2wd. No motor or trans, but the body is great.

My friend just picked up a good running 92 Mustang 4 cylinder that he's gonna put a chevy 5.3 in.

I'm getting the 2.3, T-5, computer and wiring from him for cheap.

I will cram that in the nissan in the most niggardly manner possible... Then i'm gonna try to do the ultimate junkyard turbo buildup.

Figure I'll probably tear it down before i put it in and do some massive port work on the head and intake... maybe replace the rings and bearings while i'm at it. I dont care if it smokes a little, dont really care if it lasts long... shooting for ~250-300 hp at the wheels.

Anyone have any 2.3 building experience and tips to share? I know my way around the windsor v8s pretty well but never really messed with one of these

2/24/2009 10:04:31 AM

i fully support this niggardly idea

be sure to do a full write up with pics

2/24/2009 10:26:41 AM

Quote :

"i fully support this niggardly idea be sure to do a full write up with pics"

2/24/2009 10:48:23 AM

http://www.turborangerforums.com/showthread.php?t=20

2/24/2009 11:58:02 AM

^^^, ^^ I plan on fully documenting this endeavor. Will keep this thread updated.

2/24/2009 1:15:41 PM

chevy 5.3 = dumb idea for 92 mustang

put a fucking 2v in it of at least the 4.9 truck motor strait 6 with a turbo and call it the 2jz killer

2/24/2009 1:23:27 PM

he's already got the 5.3 sitting there- so why not (was gonna put it in an s-10).

Kinda like I already have this truck and now am getting the 2.3 on the cheap... so why not

2/24/2009 1:34:44 PM

well hell if you already got the motor than why not.

2/24/2009 1:39:10 PM

Your first task is to figure out how to mate up the new engine harness with the pre-existing dash harnesses so that everything works close to stock. For example, try to get to fuel pump to work with the stock Nissan wiring. A bunch of random switches and a big ugly tach gets annoying.

If you're trying to save money, your best bet is to use some kind of OEM turbo manifold (does the SVO manifold work?) and a hybrid turbo that will bolt on without too much hassle.

2/24/2009 1:47:09 PM

I plan on hitting up the pull-a-part in charlotte soon and will get the main dash harness and gauge cluster from a fox body... gonna cram all that into the nissan dash. That should leave me just to deal with power, ground and fuel pump. Who knows what will actually become of it once i start playing with the wiring

I will look around for some OEM turbo manifolds- currently thinking the holset turbo off the late 80's cummins with the small housing would be a good choice.

2/24/2009 2:02:48 PM

1.

Quote :

"will get the main dash harness and gauge cluster from a fox body... gonna cram all that into the nissan dash. That should leave me just to deal with power, ground and fuel pump."

I think you are underestimating this part. Unless what you are proposing is a well-known method that I am unaware of, your best bet is to mate the factory Nissan body harness with the 2.3 engine harness. There are probably a couple big plugs on the nissan body harness that connect to corresponding big plugs on the nissan engine harness. You should cut the plugs off the engine harness side of this connection. Find the equivalent on the 2.3 engine harness, cut those plugs off, match the wire colors, and hopefully that will all work.

But the other question is--what about the big engine electrical stuff? On the nissan truck, is the alternator and starter on yet another harness that connects to the dash harness at another point? Are you losing their wiring by eliminating the factory Nissan Engine harness? The gauge cluster is only part of the issue. There can be all sorts of random ass wires that connect between the engine and dash harness, depending on the vehicle. You really want to reuse as much of the OEM nissan stuff as possible if you want the wiring to be even remotely serviceable.



I'm not saying that's what those harnesses actually look like (but from what I've seen of late 80s and early 90s cars, it could be similar). You need to understand how the harnesses work before you just randomly go hacking stuff up. Get the official OEM service manuals (not some inaccurate Haynes or alldata crap, I've seen a crap ton of errors in Haynes wiring diagrams) for both vehicle's EXACT MODEL YEAR (wire colors and locations change all the time) and study them very carefully before you do anything. Also, if you try and remove the factory dash harness on the Nissan truck you may destroy whatever's left of the brittle interior, so keep that in mind.



there's your OEM SVO turbo manifold (ebay FTW). It is a T25 inlet, internally wastegated of course. You would need a T3 adapter plate to bolt up a Holset, and the only internally wastegated Holset you are going to find easily is the HX35W (early 2000s Ram) which has a 12 cm^2 hotside. That is pretty fucking big for a 4 cylinder. The Evo IX stock turbo has a 10cm^2 hotside. The factory spring pressure on the HX35W is about 14psi depending on model year.

The H1C on Jeepman's Ram will not work without an external wastegate, which will dramatically increase your costs. If you want cheap you may be able to get a 16G and use a TD05 --> T25 adapter plate. I would say use like a factory 240sx turbo but those are pretty damn small.

[Edited on February 24, 2009 at 2:51 PM. Reason : .]

2/24/2009 2:48:17 PM

HY35 is also internally gated, 9cm housing...also HY and HX have both been used on 2.3 engines

2/24/2009 3:08:55 PM

just get 69 to give you the pinouts/diagrams for both from alldata. you should be fine doing it, you put an rb in a s14 a while back, right? it's not like ford's eec-IV is that complicated of an fi system.

Quote :

"chevy 5.3 = dumb idea for 92 mustang "

whatever. everyone knows lsx > all.

2/24/2009 3:10:41 PM

^^AGREED the hy35 might be a prime candidate with that 9cm housing.... my next suggestion is a 12cm hx35 or wh1c (both internally gated, iirc)

2/24/2009 3:47:05 PM

Again, as I said, the only internally wastegated Holset you will find easily is the HX35. The HY is pretty hard to find used, even externally gated... I have never seen an internally gated one but I'm sure they exist. But I guess if you have enough time you will be able to find one. Either way, you will need to have enough fuel to meet the requirements of whatever the spring pressure will be, which will likely be 14psi or more.

As far as the wiring goes, if you really want to make your life easier, build an adapter harness on the bench. Use the dash harness connector on the Nissan engine harness and solder it in to the dash-->engine harness connector on the 2.3 dash harness. In that way you won't have to solder under the dash and you won't have to hack up your Nissan dash harness and 2.3 engine harness into something unrecognizable and nearly unserviceable.

I'm not sure how difficult an RB swap is into an s14, but swapping between makes has a larger potential for complications.

[Edited on February 24, 2009 at 4:14 PM. Reason : .]

2/24/2009 4:09:25 PM

http://competitiondiesel.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44312

this dude's got an hy35 that needs a wastegate actuator, $200

2/24/2009 4:46:35 PM

Quote :

"I'm not sure how difficult an RB swap is into an s14, but swapping between makes has a larger potential for complications."

i've never done that swap either, but i'm sure there was likely an equivalent if not much more extensive amount of wiring involved. switching between models is just as much of a pain as brands in most cases.

plus, as i mentioned above, ford's eec-IV is pretty much some of the most basic shit out there for fuel injection in terms of wiring it up. i mean, think about how widely swapped 5.0's are into things. iirc there's only like 4-5 wires that require routing to external sources (besides from computer to engine). a ground, fuel pump, batt 12v, ign 12v is what i remember off hand. there might be one or two more at the most.

integrating the nissan guages to the ford stuff is the only thing that i can see would be any sort of challenge, but it sounds like he's planning to put the ford cluster in the dash so that's that. everything else that's a part of the nissan chassis harness for lights, hvac, etc. will obviously stay intact. honestly, the wiring would be the least of my worries in this particular case. the fabrication will be the biggest headache, and even that shouldn't be rocket science here assuming he's got some basic skills/equipment.

2/24/2009 4:51:39 PM

I had an HY35 that I sold about 2 weeks ago for 75 bucks needing to be rebuilt..really aren't that hard to find, just check ebay and diesel sites...but in the end, its up to you and what you want and meets your goals, as I think the HY35 will do that well

2/24/2009 7:37:21 PM

if you are interested, you can send me the entire stock nissan harness and the ford engine harness, and i will build you a clean working harness ready to plug in and run, in my spare time free of charge. i am the king of building these efi harnesses from scratch, i wanna see this bitch run

i made an entire harness for a 4.3-5.7 swap with 3 different year compnets, and a clean made from scratch harness for slravene's yota including circuit breakers, switches, whole nine yards

plus various other random ass shit

2/24/2009 8:08:17 PM

I want AOD conversion

2/24/2009 9:56:59 PM

what the hell for? screw that transmission.

2/24/2009 10:28:45 PM

I would use 2.3 Turbocoupe parts since they are cheap and easy to find. If I remember right, '85&'86 5spd cars had the .63 a/r T3, which is capable of the power you are looking for.

Quote :

"I will cram that in the nissan in the most niggardly manner possible... "

lol

2/24/2009 11:03:29 PM

speaking of, there's a complete running/driving tc on horsepowerjunkies.com right now for cheap for anyone that cares.

[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 12:33 AM. Reason : ^damn it, i keep forgetting you... sorry, sending pm]

2/25/2009 12:33:07 AM

I want another gear. I just changed the diff gears but it's still turning too fast. Also my truck isn't cut so it won't ever see anything too serious

2/25/2009 10:00:24 AM