73 Turbo Revival

[Doc Hawk]

Here's my first Turbo Z car build thread. I've helped build one in my garage, but only as a helper. It's different when it's yours.

 

 

I purchased a 73 S30 with 90K miles in non-running, mostly assembled condition for $2000 this spring. It came with the following:

 

ZX F54/p79 w/new Ishino head gasket installed, 160 psi across the board

Dished turbo pistons

T3/T4 turbo .63 /.60

IC piping in 2.5" and eBay intercooler

Nice BOV (forgot which brand)

NA cam

N42 non egr intake

440cc Supra injectors

Pallnet fuel rail +1 extra

240sx throttle body w/spacer + 1 extra spacer

ZX I/R alternator

MegaSquirt 1 on 3.57 board

3 row aluminum radiator + 1 extra

Electric slim fan + 1 extra

3.90 rear end

5 speed trans

AEM wideband sensor & digital gauge

Laptop with Tunerstudio

All new urethane bushings except the diff mount and tc rods

Rear strut tower brace

Spindle pins replaced with aftermarket

Fair interior (no holes, nothing conspicuously missing)

1 year old quickie spray Mopar 70's Sublime Green body (jams and interior remain yellow), flat black vented 280Z hood

BRE spook airdam and MSA spoiler

 

Here are a few pics of the car from earlier days... much the way I received it, but prior to disassembly.

 

 

 

Problems and Progress

Turbo and piping were out of the car, long block was in place, and a few turbo parts were missing. I had to lean on the prior owner a bit, but eventually all the parts made it along with the car. Took me about five afternoons of parts shopping and wrenching to design a new intake and piping system and install it, get the turbo in correctly, and sort out the oil lines and fittings. I went with 2.5" for the intercooler piping, using some of the original pieces.

 

The previous owner had set up the intercooler piping to go from the turbo directly to the IC, then looped back across the radiator before entering the throttle body. I didn't like that because it took the air you'd just worked so hard to cool, and then ran it most of the length of the radiator almost in contact before getting to the motor. Now, the piping goes from cold air ram intake in the front of the car to the compressor, then out across the radiator with a standoff gap, then into the IC and straight out into the intake.

 

The MegaSquirt install was kludged in there with wires leading everywhere and all possible shortcuts taken (bare wires stuffed into fuse clips to piggyback off stock fusebox for all EFI power leads, for example). Worse, it was running fuel only, with the distributor physically locked at about 20 degrees of advance all the time. No tables, no spark control. Very odd - I could not figure out how that would work (more on this later). For a while, I considered running the distributor locked like that, and adding tables. This would have worked according to The Internet, but I didn't feel like messing with it.

 

I completely rewired the MS unit and the EFI wiring to run through three relays, and swapped in an optical '83 turbo ZX distributor enabling the MS to control fuel and spark. It's funny, looking at that last sentence, how easy it is to condense and trivialize many, many painful days of searching, soldering, troubleshooting, configurating, and kicking rocks into one tidy sentence). The car now runs on MegaSquirt and I am in the process of tuning it with the TunerStudio automatic tuning feature.

 

One thing that was strange is that, even though the prior owner was not running spark control, he had the ignition control module (which solders into the MegaSquirt board). Not sure why he had that but didn't use it. There was also signs of soldering as if he had hooked it up, but it was not hooked up to work when I got it.

 

There is a chunk cracked out of about 20 degrees of the water pump belt guide in the harmonic balancer. That'll need replacement. Looks like someone bottomed out the block or ran into a rock.

 

The front cover lower edge is chipped or cracked, causing an oil leak. That'll need replacement, and it's an annoying task. Guess a timing chain kit is in my future.

 

Heater core was bypassed but the coolant line was looped from the back of the head to the outlet hose, allowing coolant to bypass the back of the head. The prior owner suffered from the common misconception that looping is required, but it causes overheating (more on that later, too). Blocked off the lines and all is well.

Coming Full Circle

As is often the case, this Z has come full circle to HybridZ. As I was searching for solutions to some of the roadblocks I encountered with MegaSquirt, I came across posts from a guy named Yetterben, who has this avatar:

 

 

Dude, that's my car!

http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/89832-the-start-to-something-awesome-2/

 

So I've enjoyed several hours of reading Ben's posts, looking at his trials and tribulations as well as his victories. This has been a huge help - with the benefit of documentation, many of the kludges and rinkydink bandaids one finds on a used project car now have stories behind them, and they make some sense. Those head scratchers you always find now have answers to the "why in the world did he do that?" question.

 

Next up is building an exhaust, hooking up the ebrake, and installing some seat belts so I can go drive and tune this baby! It's nice to have a Z in an engine configuration I haven't built before. I have been on a quick cruise, and the turbo is no slouch. It makes lots of white smoke at the rubber end!

 

More soon...

Edited August 9, 2011 by Doc Hawk

[Doc Hawk]

Just a clarification on ownership: Yetterben is in WI, and sold it to a guy who had it shipped out here to the West Coast. That guy had it for perhaps 6 months before he gave up on it. Comparing the photos Ben posted to what I received, I think much of the strangeness that I found was done by the intermediate guy.

 

Ben did struggle for a long time to get his maps to run smoothly and reliably (and he blew up two motors). Having added spark control, I can say with confidence that other folks' input in his threads was accurate: 20 degrees fixed advance across the board does not make for a well tuned motor. It seems very happy now.

Edited August 9, 2011 by Doc Hawk

[Pharaohabq]

Pretty cool thread. IT's awesome to find the History on our cars. It's not many of us who have shared most of the life of our vehicles. I know mines had some hard times in the past, and suffered through them like a champ, but a little worse for wear. But as any trooper, it's soldiered on and now it's getting it's ressurection/spa treatment it's much deserved. This is by no means retirement fun for it, but mainly a good vacation of pampering and rejuvination. Our S30's deserve some attention since it's such hard work garnering the attention from everyone else.

[neotech84]

WOW all that for 2k! GREAT FIND!

 

Hope you enjoy it.

[Perfect240z]

Wow... That's freakin amazing! I wish I could find mine on here like you did.

[yetterben]

And i am back.......from outer space....... Nice talking with yah Dave do her right. Mike was supposed to sell the car back to me as per a written contract i have here in my hand but meh whatevs. Glad it went to you. Shout out to TOnyD Big Phil keep it real.

 

Mike was the type of guy who had more money than time and for sure brains. Car left my house running good. Not optimal but it ran good on 8psi. Somehow ins hipping the non english speaking guy fucked it up. Mike ended up suing the moving company and won. How much eh got i dunno. Its a shame the suffered this fate as i spent my life on this car. Those who remember the long late night phone calls will testify.

Oh for the record this is how the wiring left my house

 

Love that Dave stole all my photos from my Photobucket...lol i dont care

 

There is a few videos of how it ran at 8psi and 50% throttle the day before it left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 9, 2011 by yetterben

[Doc Hawk]

Welcome back, Ben! Great talking to you today. She's in good hands.

 

(And thanks for the photos).

Edited August 9, 2011 by Doc Hawk