Derek

So getting back to the original topic... I fabricated a hard line that was comprised of a retaining ring at the top with a pice of 2 1/2" OD intercooler tube at a 30 degree angle. I welded in a 3/8" NPT bung that I have a .625" vent hose going to. That goes down about 10" where I have a piece of 2 1/2 ID gas filler hose that has a 45 degree bend molded in. That goes from the tube through the car to the tank. So here is the deal. From the very first time I installed the VTS poly tank and the Resurrected Classics filler tube I have had gas fumes in the cabin. No leaks just fumes. I needed to pull the tank to make some mods to my in tank fuel pump and so I pressure tested it when I pulled it. No leaks. Made my mods and tested. No leaks. Back in the car. Gas fumes. I lived with it for months until I wanted to try a different pickup system. That brings us to now. After installing my filler neck I have zero gas fumes in the cabin. I took the old filler neck and you can literally smell gas on the outside if you put your nose up to it so I'm pretty sure that was the source of the problem. Derek

I'm in the process of fabbing up a hardline solution from the filler through the car with a 2 1/2" ID rubber hose from the hardline to the tank. Hopefully it will be a one and done for me.

Well that's news to me :) I was aware of one head that went to Japan but the last info I had on it was a picture of it on an engine stand at nostalgic 2 day at the mizukamiauto booth from like 3 years ago. They had rebranded it with their name which is fine by me since it's their head. I for sure wasn't commenting on someone's abilities. Especially someone I have never heard of. I was merely pointing out the inherent risks involved in the different approaches. When I first looked at doing the TL70 I actually started thinking I would cast the entire front section. Then I watched a couple of videos of what it took to swap it out and on the TL70 and it was not an easy task. You had to start at the back and work forward. So that meant realistically an experienced transmission tech needed to be involved. My path to doing a conversion is: Can you buy a brand new transmission at what I feel is a reasonable cost. If yes then can a person envision doing it in their driveway with readily available tools. If yes then I proceed forward. If a person has to source a talented tech then that is going to cut the sales down considerably. If you allow the end user to do the conversion it will open up a can of worms since no matter what, the problem will be the casting and not the sledge hammer they used to assemble it :) I think Godzilla and I have sold like 110 CD009 kits and I'm pretty sure I'm over 50 TL70 kits. With the addition of the TR6 conversion that is accelerating. I'm pretty sure my methodology is the right choice for the clientele we are appealing to. And now a word about tolerances. If you don't know what the design tolerances are from the original manufacturer then you are playing a guessing game on what your tolerances are. If you reverse engineer something based on one sample and that sample is at the extreme end plus or minus of the allowable tolerances then your part may be out of spec and eventually fail. This has nothing to do with a machinists skills and everything to do with their ability to reverse engineer something and the volume of samples they have available and/or the data provided. You can guess, and it may be a very educated guess, but you are still guessing.

So Here is my take on conversions and why I approach it the way I do. We take an Aisin TL70 and cut a non critical part (bell housing) off of the transmission. I leverage a factory cover to give me the precision I need to make it all work. We never open the case and none of the machining I do is super critical. On the Escort conversion they weld a new bell housing onto the existing case. I have no idea the process they use but the reality is adding that kind of heat to an already machined piece is asking for trouble. The one from S30 uses a custom casting that has to be machined to the same tolerances as the original. Without knowing Asian's tolerances this can be tricky. I firmly believe this was developed for the Nismo DOHC which is configured as a reverse tilt. I'm sure the thinking was let's make it fit the standard tilt as well. The TL70 I use utilizes a platform style shifter like the CD009. This allows me to put the shifter just about wherever I need to. This has opened it up to more vehicles. Case in point I've developed a 6 speed conversion for the Triumph TR6 and I'm starting on the MGB.

No they use a different method. 100% agree on my web site. I really do all of my sales of bell housings through Godzilla Raceworks and I let them handle all of that. It may soften it up. Honestly it never really fit properly. It's almost like they cut the section that goes on the tank too short. The other issue is I think it may have been leaching fumes into the cabin. I'm using a VTS poly tank and the first time I pulled it down I decided to pressure test it to see if I could find the source of the fumes. It was air tight. If I put my nose up to the filler neck I swear I can smell gas. I ordered some 2 1/2" ID filler neck hose and 2 1/2" aluminum intercooler pipe and I'm going to see if I can plumb a better solution.

Pretty much as the title says. Being replacement rubber I wasn't expecting much but I'm pretty surprised it happened after only a year of use. I had to pull my tank to make some modifications. I shook it loose from the bottom and didn't pay much attention to it since it was new. I went to put the tank back in and was shocked at the degradation. I'm not sure buying another from a different vendor would be any better as they probably are all made in the same place. I'm also not sure I want to keep using it. Me no likey gas leaks. My big fear is having it crack at where the hose clamp goes now that I have disturbed it. Also I have an in tank pump so it's not like the tank won't be coming down again.

I offer two different versions of my conversion bell housings to do the reverse tilt. One for the CD009 and one for the TL70. Most of the people that buy my head end up tilting them so I offer the bell housings to assist in that.

Hopefully it fit's better than the doors I got from resurrected classics but I would be super dubious if all the attachment points are in the correct position. On the doors I got the manufacturer was relying on the stamped dimples to drill and then weld the nuts on. There was no way a drilling/welding jig was used because of the variances from door to door. It seems overseas countries have figured out cheap stamping but not cheap assembly.

I'm still waiting on a response as to why it's my fault that the door latch holes were in the wrong place and the door panel won't go over the ledge. I will say the door weatherstrips fit great and the rubber fuel filler neck fit perfectly so you do sell good parts. Just not these doors. Keep in mind I reverse engineer items and create foundry patterns based off of that gathered data. That is my business. I also reverse engineer fabricated items and make them into castable items. So when I say these doors have a problem and when I say your QC is nonexistent and when I say they aren't using welding fixtures to locate critical weld in place nuts and when I say they aren't using drilling fixtures for holes in critical areas you can take that to the bank. Because people pay me to do this. I just happen to have a Z car and I'm also a manufacturer of parts for these cars. Max you keep stating how many items you have sold as a baseline to the quality of the parts. I specifically said to you in our first conversation on the phone, how many of the 30 door sets that you sold are still sitting on someones shelf. Have you sent emails out to everyone who have purchased doors warning them of potential problems or are you just kicking the can down the road hoping for the best.

Don't expect an answer that makes sense from Max on this. He has never addressed the structural problems with the doors and points to a rust repair on the fender as proof that my car was heavily modified. He never addressed the fact that the factory door panel wouldn't fit over the ledge on the drivers door or the fact that the holes for the latch were so far off. Here is a picture I never posted showing jut how close the ledge is to the window. And yes that is a scratch in my brand new ceramic tint. You can see there is no way that the door panel is going on. The mark that the blue arrow is pointing to is where the metal part of the door panel was hitting the door so it's pretty obvious the ledge is too wide.

That's why I finally threw in the towel and reskinned my doors. There was soooo much wrong with his doors that it got to the point where I just couldn't go forward. They became a time vampire.

I'd be curious to know if Max has contacted everyone that purchased doors to let them know there is a potential problem or is he just going to let people go through the same hell he put me through. Summit Racing carries the doors and as a long time customer of theirs I contacted them about the problem and directed them to this thread, No clue if it will get any traction but $1400.00 is a lot of money for me to set fire to. If I had purchased the doors through Summit I would be raising holy hell with them. The doors are back in their original boxes so if Max has a change of heart and wants to refund my money I sure would appreciate it.

Like me an expensive lesson. It's a shame that Facebook has basically destroyed the forums. It's impossible to warn people since there are 9 bazillion FB groups that deal with the S30 and I'm not going to go to the trouble of posting on all of them.

Update time. So I lost my window of opportunity to finish the car when the doors wouldn't work but I finally took care of other commitments and I'm able to get back on the car. I skinned my old doors and did a test fit on the passengers side. just as a comparison here is the first door Max sent me. And here is an aftermarket skin on my old shell. I think at this point it's pretty obvious that the doors supplied to me from Resurrected Classics are garbage. Max if you are still following this you really need to step up and refund my money. I'm not sure how much more I have to show you that the problem is on your end and not my car.

Well if you want to play numbers I received a total of 3 door shells from RC. Of the three 2 had catastrophic problems with 2 critical mounting points. The first passengers door with the hinge hole in the wrong place and the drivers door with the latch holes in the wrong place. The drivers door also has the ledge being too wide so that the door panel won't go on. I do a ton of reverse engineering of castings in order to design new tooling. Customers come to me with a part to recreate and my first question is "what were the original tolerances on the item". If you don't know that then it really is a crap shoot. So let's talk about the door shells. Nissan designed the stampings, hole locations and assembly dimensions to fit within a certain criteria. Those three items need to work with the manufacturing tolerances of the window movement mechanism, the latching mechanism the body assembly tolerances etc, etc. If you don't have that data then you need to reverse engineer a large sampling of items over several production years to develop your own targets. Or you need to redesign the part to work in a more tolerant way. Max said he slotted mounting holes. The problem is if the mounting surfaces of the tracks are in the wrong plane all bets are off. If you look at how Nissan designed the window mechanism they are relying heavily on the mount surfaces to be in the right place. Think about the overall size of the door and how just one of the mounting surfaces being slightly off could affect things. Hats off to whomever funded the stamping dies for taking the chance on this but whomever is responsible for engineering the actual assembly needs a spanking. If I was consulting on this project I would have strongly recommended using overseas for what they do best, in this case cheap stampings, and then onshore the components for assembly where you have much more control. And again I would have designed the door shell stamping to be more forgiving. So if I'm so smart why didn't I have the good sense to fully assemble the doors before I ever thought about painting them:) Sigh.