BLOZ UP

The Pegasus ones aren't bad looking. And really, as long as they don't shake or fall it will be a massive improvement to my effectively nonexistent mirrors now. Those other ones, I'm not too sure. Also, although I think my doors have already been drilled for my current mirrors, I'd prefer not to have to modify them anymore for them. Does anyone have the flush mounts? Do they require anything crazy?

Drove the Z to work and back, and tuned it. I've been tweaking the cold starts and they are getting better--although it occasionally kicks back, despite having really low timing during cranking. I'll have to double-check the timing with a light just to be sure. I've also reduced the accel enrich a lot, as that was a tad too rich to the point of misfiring occasionally on hard accelerator pedal changes. The engine is responding very nice. Might take it to the dyno soon. However, my suspension seems a lot "looser" and shaky than I remember, so I'm going to have to go over all the ball joints and whatnot. Also, my fuel pump is making really, really bad noises occasionally. Hrmph. Time for that fuel lab pump and a new filter I think. I ordered a Sparco seat mount, slider, and hardware. I was going to try and fabricate something with the stock slider, but this just makes things a lot easier... and probably safer. I will need a harness bar, or at least a nice harness attachment mount (the rear strut tower/seat belt point doesn't seem bad). That I can make. I have some 1/8" steel left that'll do the trick.

My ZZZAP came with crappy MSA "Racing Style" mirrors. They wobble and fall all the time. I've tightened them a few times now, they always end up coming loose. It's not safe, I really want something I can 'set and forget', so to speak. The MSA flush mounts look like the best option. They also look better, IMO. Opinions?

Welp, I signed up for a MSNE autocross but couldn't make it. Stayed up late wiring up the trailer harness, getting the wheels and tires on the trailer, only to give up after remembering there were a bunch of things I needed to fix before I really felt comfortable driving somewhere, much less racing. So, today I fixed a bunch of those things: Fixed trailer wiring Fixed bright indicator Weatherpak'd speedo analog out for megasquirt, and brights indicator, and put back in car Attempted to add oil temperature sensor Put stock driver seat back in The trailer wiring is interesting. I got the tails and the left turn signal mixed, so the entire trailer lights were flickering when you turned them on. Fixed that, but then I'm running into issues that I'm almost certain are caused by the voltage leak from the tail lights into the turn signals in the Z. I haven't figured it out yet, but I have learned a new facet of the problem. The problem is that whenever my tail lights are on, the turn signals (at least the rear ones) come on very dim. Even the LEDs in my speedometer are dim. Today I noticed that it also happens if I press the brakes. So current is leaking to the signals, somehow. It doesn't happen in reverse--the brakes/tails don't light up at all when the signals or hazards are on. So, if the trailer is hooked up, this results in the signals not operating well at all. They are barely noticeable. With the tail lights off, though, it works fine. Otherwise, I cut some 2x4s for the trailer floor, and placed them on the forward part of the trailer. The slicks only fit standing up, and have to be strapped in. However, I really don't like it and would rather fabricate some way of holding them in, so I'm not just relying on straps. I got a short drive in and used autotune, but I couldn't tune much because the car wasn't really warmed up. It was about 10 degrees out, and the car wouldn't get much hotter than 70, which makes sense since that's right about the thermostat's fully open temperature. Regardless, the table was leaned out quite a bit, and the car drives really well. It's pretty quick, too. 1st gear is useless, and I don't have traction above 3000 RPM in 2nd. I'm not sure about 3rd gear, I've been going easy in it to avoid going sideways at speed. Here's the temperature sensor for the oil. It's too long though, I can't even get the threads in. I might jury rig some fittings, ugh. Here's my RV power connection, connected directly to the battery. There's a 50A inline fuse on the +12v line. I'm curious to see, if the trailer is hooked up with it's own battery, if it can handle the starter current. Probably not. Not pictured is my ghetto trailer light adapter hookup. I rigged some spade connectors into the tail light plugs rather than hack up the stock harness. It will just dangle out the hatch as there's no more room in the drain plug at the rear of the spare wheel tub. In order to fix the bright indicator, I had to pull out the tach. Ugh, there's a lot of crap wiring in here. So I wired this up totally wrong the first time. Not sure how I managed to not look at the FSM, it's pretty simple. If I haven't explained before, the relay is needed because the brights indicator on my Speedhut gauge is grounded through the gauge. The stock one receives +12v whenever the headlights are on (R wire, pin 30 and 85), and then grounded (through RW, pin 86 on the relay) when the brights are on. So, this relay switches the +12v of the indicator (BW wire to gauge, pin 87 on relay) on whenever it is grounded.

Read it again. CHTS stands for "Cylinder Head Temperature Sensor".

Yeah I'm still undecided. I've hit a lot of bugs and issues. It's like a couple weeks old though. I'm not putting too much effort in it.

Anyone on there? I'd like to add a bunch of Z people. I think this link should work: https://www.wheelwell.com/profile/54f4a08f5e32b34131dc8dff/garage

Looks like he let it sit for 18 years uncovered.

Check out Z31Performance.com... might have to register to see anything but I recall seeing photos off rebuilds. Also a facebook group (Z31 Peformance). Some guys have even made replacement clutch discs and doubled up the number of discs to increase break-away torque. Diffs aren't so bad part wise (unlike a transmission), but accurate torque values are crucial when reassembling.

Besides finishing the trailer bumper mount, I made a major adjustment to the fan temperature threshold. In the back of my mind when setting up my red Z31 with megasquirt (the same VG30 I later used in this car), was that since I was using the cylinder head temperature sensor instead of the coolant temperature sensor, the tune would be off. I'd need to account for the CHT being higher (probably a fixed offset) from the coolant temperature. It took me, let's see now, 6 years or so to get to this. I decided to turn the car on the other day and while it was warming up I would take measurements of the coolant (via the silicone hose attached to the upper intake, which is the outlet) and the CHTS reading. The result is this graph: The car had been running for a couple minutes at the beginning and the thermostat isn't quite open for the first few minutes. However, once it is open and flowing the temperature difference is more-or-less constant, as I had hoped. The average is 15 degrees all inclusive, and almost exactly 10 when open. Now this isn't exactly scientific (all the aluminum in the engine bay throwing off my IR thermometer, etc.), but it gives me a good indicator that my fan threshold (at 85 degrees Celsius) is way, way too low. You can see the fans kick in at x = 15 mins. The coolant is no where near the 100 °C operating range of this engine! And I ran this car all last summer like this, even in an autocross.... Sigh. Oh well, it explains why it accepted a whole lot of timing, why the fans struggle to get the temperature down, why my fuel consumption is through the roof, etc. Speaking of which, just at idle my injector pulsewidths went from ~2.2 to ~1.7 ms. That's about 30% fuel savings, and that's just at idle. My timing also needed adjustment. The changes even tweaked the exhaust note for the better. After disabling the fans and keeping an eye on the coolant temperatures, I settled on a CHTS fan threshold of 108 °C, which is just about 100 °C coolant temperature. The fans can cool the car off in about 30 seconds now, greatly reducing their duty cycle.

I took video instead of photos, and it will be a while before I can edit it all together. Got a used Sparco Torino (R505, IIRC) seat and G-Force 3" 5 point harness (will likely not attach the 5th). The seats dirty and black/grey instead of all black but it was a pretty good deal. It's going to be a tight fit. The 280Z seat swap (and other) threads were right. That damned cat hump makes things harder. But I'm going to try and avoid hammering it out. I should be able to fit the seat with some adjustments to the rails. The stock seat rails are about 3/4" closer together than the Sparco holes. They are also much short (2-3" or so). So, I'll need some type of adapter. Planted sells one to the tune of $140, but it shouldn't be hard to fabricate something to do the same for a lot less money. With the rails bolted to the seat, but not the car, I measured the Sparco against the stock seat. My main concern is vertical space, so I measured the distance between the roof (the sunroof frame, actually, since mine has one installed and it's what my helmit hits). The Sparco leaves 33" at the butt (rear, lowest point) of the seat, 31" at the front. The stock seat is 33" and 35", respectively. Now, I'd like to be lower than the stock seat when all is said and done, but at stock height is my limit. The problem is that the seat needs to be raised to fit correctly. It is very close to fitting as is, save for the side bolster which hits the door. So it needs to move about 1" to the center of the car. To do this, the hump needs to be overcome. I plan on adding washers/spacers to move the seat up. The hump merges into the transmission tunnel the higher you go, so this should leave me some room to move the seat over.

Me testing out my new trailer.

Blipshift has brought back their Z shirt with a Mr. K quote: http://blipshift.com/

Enkei Apache IIs 15x8+0 205/50 Hankook Ventus C71 compound. Slight stretch. Actual section width is smaller than I anticipated. Might be able to run 225s.

One of the four wheels arrived, yay. \ So, the stretch is about what I expected. Which is not much: Also, my 2-1/16" gauges arrived: Now if I can find my old 3 gauge bezel I can mount them in place of the radio easily. Here's the wheel on the trailer. Not sure I can fit 4 of them within the frame. Lots to do before the April events.

So, weather turned out nice this past Sunday despite getting 5 inches of snow a day ago. I finished drilling out the remainder of the LED holes (I decided to skip 2 amber and 2 red LEDs for now). I installed the fender amber LEDs and just 2 rear ones. Spent a lot of time wiring all this crap up. Done! But it looks like the sides of the tail lights don't have any bulbs. So I took it and the incandescent version apart. Hm, how cheap: Welp, maybe that'll be a future upgrade. So with these LEDs, it was a lot of work for little payoff. But I suppose most of the work was just routing the wiring I'd have to do anyway for the tail lights. Here it is with the left turn signal on. In the day, the tail lights are barely visible--and probably not visible at all from the height of your average car. So the LEDs definitely make it more noticeable, so you can't complain about that. Next up is some kind of flooring and/or a switch panel and the utility items.

We'll miss you. http://startribune.com/world/293146791.html

They can also do custom stuff they don't seem to list on the website. They added a analog speed output wire to my GPS speedo for me. Now I can have speed input to my ECU.

That seems incredibly close...

You can go as fast or as slow as you want. Just have to watch out for everyone else!

Wheels are unpsrung weight, and have rotational inertia. So even small drops in wheel weight brings relatively large benefits, and vice-versa.

I have 225/50/16x8+0 all around (Bridgestone streets). The front's don't rub at all*. The rears required rolling the fenders but are now fine. A slightly negative offset and you might be able to keep the fender lips straight. Also, be aware actual tire widths vary a lot between makes. *OK, maybe I heard it rub once or twice hitting a bump at full lock

First, I wasn't complaining about DIY at all, just the MS developers. Second, my mistake. I was wrong about the MS3 code not being available. Third, I've calmed down. MS is still a great a great ECU at a great price. I was just whining about being ignored on the MS forums. And I forgot that companies offer MS3 with support, so my points are somewhat moot.

Welp, placed an order for some Enkei Apache IIs wrapped in Hankook Z214s (C71 soft compound). They aren't exactly "race" wheels but I plan on possibly replacing my current XXRs with them. Although now my car will drop by about 1.3" (!), if my calculations are correct (225/55/R16 to 205/50/R15).

I think he subleased that place out, yeah. I haven't been there in 2+ years. Take it to Gas Monkey Garage ...