Papa Smurf~Build Thread

[firebush357]

Introducing Papa Smurf... My new 1990 L+





I picked him up in White Georgia for $250 with a bad motor.

After about 13 hours of driving I finally got him home and was able to get a picture of the Damage.


The next day I started pull stuff apart and found a nice pile of Gunk and Crude which could be why the engine failed so early in it's life.



This is all the pictures I have for now but here is my plans for this car. Take the B3 out of The White Turd (replacing with a b6t) and swap it into Papa Smurf since he is already plumbed for A/C with a supposedly working compressor. I am planning on taking the head off of this bad engine and giving it an amateur Port and Polish and then swap in onto the good block when I do the swap. I figure that If I mess it up at least I have a spare.

I also picked up a set of 14" Nissan 280Z wheels for a whopping $80 Friday night. There is only 1 that has any real damage on it so I think they will look great for wheels that are over 30 years old.

[ThisVelologist]

Stoked to see where this build goes! Great, great deal on both the car and wheels!

[firebush357]

Just ordered a set of 155/55/14 Achilles tires for just under $210 after shipping. I have only seen 1 other person run these size tires so I figured I would try them out. The website was showing that the 165/55/14's were 14lbs each and the 155/55/14'2 were 13lbs each. Probably won't make much of a difference but Papa Smurf will eventually be my Dailyish driver so and extra weight off of the wheels will help with MPG I would assume.

[ThisVelologist]

I've got Achilles 13" on my car and they are surprisingly excellent.

[firebush357]

I run the 165/55/14 on my White Car and I am really happy with them for the price other than the wobble between 45-50mph. Now that I know that is a problem I will talk to my tire installer and ask for a roadforce report and see if I throw them an extra tip if they can take the time and see how low they can get it to see if that will help with the wobble any.

[FestYboy]

Those 155s are going to be stretched on those Datsun wheels. And you'll want to either get hub rings for them, or pay insane attention to installing them by seating the lugs by hand first before torquing.

[firebush357]

Those 155s are going to be stretched on those Datsun wheels. And you'll want to either get hub rings for them, or pay insane attention to installing them by seating the lugs by hand first before torquing.

Yeah, I'm going to look into getting the Hubcentric rings for them. When I installed the wheels on my White Car I was very slow and meticulous when tightening the Lug Bolts and even put some WD-40 on the conical seat so that they would adjust to the correct position with less friction. It made a big difference from when I didn't take as much care putting them on the first time.

Our bores are 59.1mm correct? (Edit... 59.6mm)

(Edit) I was worried about them being stretched but I think they may be okay because I have the 165's on my 6.5" wheels (6.5" = 165mm) and the Datsun wheels are 6" wide (6"=152.4mm)

[FestYboy]

The 165s on 6 wide has a little stretch on my sport. Almost flush but not quite. And the 185s on 6 on Scrappy are just past flush the other way. I run Federal in 165. And the 155 snow tires on 5.5 Nissan alloys are flush as well (Achilles).

[radi8u]

Papa Smurf looks pretty solid! You southern guys have all the rust free Festys, bargain price too!!!

[Eaglefreek]

I've got 155/55r14's on 14x6 Isuzu impulse wheels and they fit just fine. 155mm=6.102".

[firebush357]

I ordered some Aluminum HubCentric Rings 59.6 to 66.1 from Amazon for like $15 so that should eliminate any play in the mounting process.

[Eaglefreek]

What's the offset on those Z wheels?

[firebush357]

I'm not sure, the website that I found the info on didn't have an actual number listed it just said that is has a Low offset. Someone on the Facebook group showed me a picture of them on there car so I'm assuming they will fit without a Spacer.

[Advancedynamix]

You definitely won't need spacers, low offset sticks out further. You may need to run a good amount of negative camber though. My 14x7 wheels are 15mm offset and require a minimum of 3 degrees of negative camber to fit inside the fenders. The car rides awesome with 3 degrees negative, so it all fits nicely.

[firebush357]

You definitely won't need spacers, low offset sticks out further. You may need to run a good amount of negative camber though. My 14x7 wheels are 15mm offset and require a minimum of 3 degrees of negative camber to fit inside the fenders. The car rides awesome with 3 degrees negative, so it all fits nicely.

I will probably run stock height on this car for a good while since I just purchased the rest of the stuff I need to have a complete set of the Advance Street Suspension for the White Turd. That and with the 155/55/14's I should come in about 27mm shorter than the stock 155/80/12's

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is having to pay insurance on a 5th vehicle once I get everything running.