rayaapp2

right... It appears my bandwidth has been exceeded this month on photobucket. Another thing to chalk up to the accidents. see if this link worksphotobucket album not sure it will. Anyway the goal now is to make like Bad Dog Z and fix my Monster 260ZR.

Alright so a bit more bad luck. My car was hit AGAIN! Parked properly at a curb on North Fremont st in Monterey Ca. I had to have the car towed home. There is significant superficial damage. The rear left quarter and bumper are toast. The rear left a arm and strut are toast. The front left fender, headlight bucket, side marker, and bumper are toast. Toast= beyond reasonable repair in my opinion. And 3 out of 4 rims are toast with tires. Guy in a 88 mustang hot rodded himself across lanes and into my Z using his left front to smash my rear and left side to smash my front as he ended up turned around the wrong way on the street. I came running out of my work yelling "WTF! ARE YOU F_ING SERIOUS WTF, F!" Then they guy almost took off again and I yelled "YOU BETTER PULL THE F OVER MOTHER FER!" Not my day. The damage is not un fixable. Ive totally fixed worse! So not those cars that I fixed were just practice right? So now I really have to determine the "Damage Threshold" here for the vehicle. So I need to call you all out here! Anyone within 500 miles of 93907 Salinas Ca that has a 260Z in stock shape or an rb25 swapped 260Z that is either listed for sale or has been appraised of value PLEASE send me your add or copy of your appraisal? This will help me out with the claims adjuster greatly. Please forward this request to anyone that might be able to help me out!

To be smog exempt you have to be a model year 1963 or older. Smog laws were introduced into legislation at that time dictating what manufactures had to have on the car to bring the car into compliance. 1964-1975 are bi annual inspection exempt. So we just dont have to go in for inspection every other year. So if it were to go down the road where I allowed them to total it I would have to go through all the inspections light brake and light as well as smog as far I as I understand it and that is where I would be caught in a situation where I would be sent ot a ref and he could not by law sign off on my car until it had a smog legal swap or was put back to stock. Thats just a nightmare. I am preparing my documents this weekend and Im waiting to hear back from insurance. I fired off a professional letter stating my intentions this morning to my claims agent. If they do not fall in line I will request their answer in formal writing and see what happens. So far the insurance has been on my side. And so its been in the past. I have to say I love my insurance. Its been the appraiser from the collision center thats been putting me on the defensive so hopefully the insurance continues to back me. Its what I pay them for. Thanks for the support guys!

Dropping in an L gata would be as much work as the RB swap itself. I would have to do a lot of fab work just to go back to stock. It would be easier for me to cut the vin label out of the bulkhead and transfer all the riveted vins to another donor thats still stock. And no the RB was not put through the Ca or Federal testing that is required to be smog legal. Ive smogged this car btw. Ive smogged this car with the RB and no cat. It definitely passes the early zcar standards. But thats possible because Im a licensed tech.

Yeah, Im not looking to salvage title the car. That will make more issues down the road. The whole process of getting the car cleared for public roads again in California would in fact lead to the revocation of the cars registration after undergoing the certifications needed. The RB swap being the sticky point with smog laws here. Im sure the brake and lamp inspection/vin inspection would go over fine though... woot! Unfortunately I bought the car with the intentions to part it out... and it grew on me. At this point I have a bit more invested than just money. I have to say it. It takes a special kind of person to intentionally get caught up in a 260z. It kinda just snuck up on me one day and I decided to keep going with it. The car is almost irreplaceable. I mean it could be replaced, but all the time and effort and dare I say dreaming Ive put into this stupid hunk of metal is just ridiculous and I wouldnt trade the car for much in this world.

So my car, a 1974 260z with a rb25 swap, was hit while stopped by an underage cyclist. My hood was open as I was manuvering into a position to jump start another vehicle. The cyclist hit me while riding down the wrong side of the road and not wearing a helmet(ca helmet law). The insurance has determined he was at fault and this falls under uninsured motorist. Ive taken the car into a local collision center to have the damage assessed. My uninsured motorist coverage is good for $3500. The damage is pretty bad since the cyclist was traveling down hill, weighed in around 230lbs and was traveling around 15mph. He sideswipped/t-boned my right fender and then flew into the hood peeling it off my front end. All and all Id say a good $2500 in damage with parts, labor and body related materials for paint and what not.(Hood, grill, rubber bumper backing, right fender, hood emblem, marker light, hood hinges, and right front center cap all need replacement/repair). The collision center is already asking to have my car appraised to determine its value. I have reciepts totaling over $15K. I have a log book totaling over $18K. This does not include my time as a certified technician at 80+ hours doing all the work. I would think that my car at worst falls into the low retail category below if it had a stock engine. Being that the car is now a classic with a rat rod style engine swap and a lot of hard hours I could probably have put the car on the market for between $15K-$20K. This is NadaGuides breakdown Pricing Original MSRP Low Retail Average Retail High Retail $5,364 $4,375 $8,050 $14,900 TOTAL PRICE $5,364 $4,375 $8,050 $14,900* Value Explanations Prices shown are retail consumer values and to be considered as selling prices. Trade-in values are to be determined by local dealers and are generally lower than values shown. Low Retail Value This vehicle would be in mechanically functional condition, needing only minor reconditioning. The exterior paint, trim, and interior would show normal wear, needing only minor reconditioning. May also be a deteriorated restoration or a very poor amateur restoration. Most usable "as-is". Some of the vehicles in this publication could be considered "Daily Drivers" and are not valued as a classic vehicle. When determining a value for a daily driver, it is recommended that the subscriber use the low retail value. Note: This value does not represent a "parts car". Average Retail Value This vehicle would be in good condition overall. It could be an older restoration or a well-maintained original vehicle. Completely operable. The exterior paint, trim, and mechanics are presentable and serviceable inside and out. A "20-footer". High Retail Value This vehicle would be in excellent condition overall. It could be a completely restored or an extremely well maintained original vehicle showing very minimal wear. The exterior paint, trim, and mechanics are not in need of reconditioning. The interior would be in excellent condition. Note: This value does not represent a "100 Point" or "# 1" vehicle *. * "100 Point" or "# 1" vehicle is not driven. It would generally be in a museum or transported in an enclosed trailer to concourse judging and car shows. This type of car would be stored in a climate-regulated facility. My intension is to use the money towards a paint job for the entire car. I have most of the parts needed to repair the car(of course they are all different colors so paint is needed). Since 2002 this sort of incident has occurred to the car 8 times. None were of this caliber. Its been little dents here and there. None of those incidents would have been found to be my fault and none of those were ever handed to insurance. Peeling my hood off was the last straw sort to speak. Im not trying to milk the situation here at all. I have a friend with a body shop that will cut me a deal if I bring him the parts. I had spoke with him only a month before this happened about painting the car already. So dont get me wrong here. My insurance is pretty cool about claims or at least they have been in the past. My wife nor I have been at fault for any accidents and the few things that have happened havent even occurred while we were driving. In the past they have taken very good care of us. Im hoping that continues. Anyway what I need to get down to here is what can I do to present the value of the vehicle to the insurance and or the appraiser to prevent them from trying to salvage my car. Will my log book and receipts cover me? In the end if they are unwilling to cut me a check for what ever the damages total comes to without totaling out my car can I just demand that they replace my completely custom car with an identical one? How does that work? Im fairly certain that it will not come to that, but I want to have my stuff in order if it does so I can fight that fight. The reason I have hesitation is that the collision estimator has requested that my vehicle be appraised as I mentioned above, and that tells me that she believes its not worth the money to repair or at least that she thinks that it could be up in the air and if I was not a car person and I saw my car I might think that as well. I have no reservations that she has no idea what an RB is or what the stock motor would have looked like. In fact I have done my absolute best to hide any fact that my car is modified to prevent any un needed tickets and to keep the car a sleeper of sorts so I can continue o enjoy the car on public roads. You would never know that the car has had the frame re-enforced, the suspension completely redone and modified for track, the EFI fuel system installed, the RB swap, or anything like that by just looking at the car rolling down the road or even parked. So Im open to any tips that may help me prepare for this. Currently Im waiting on the insurance company to contact the claims adjuster that will contact the collision place where the damages were assessed so they can get back to me about what I need to do next. Thank You Ray

Well I found the perfect way to have a really bad day. My wifes car was repossessed cause we missed a payment. So we are trying to get it back. That being the case I decided to put my series one 240z up for sale. Que today: I started up my 240z to go get gas so people could come look at the car as prospective buyers. I got the gas station and the car died and rolled up to a pump. After adding gas I could not restart it. So I had my wife grab the truck and a tow strap and we pulled it back up the hill to my house. After I took the valve cover off I found that the cam gear bolt loosened up and the cam gear was free spinning while the cam was stationary. 3 bent valves. So while I am checking things I have my 260Z next to the 240Z with jumper cables since I had been cranking to get the fuel back up to the carbs after I believed I had driven it empty. Im sitting in my 260z about to disconnect my jumper cable when I hear "OH NO!". This was followed by a 14 year old weighing 240 lbs on a bicycle comes barreling down the hill and thuds into my right fender and flys left side first into my hood peeling the hood almost completely off the hinge bases. I was stunned. I got out and almost cried, but had enough sense left to help the kid up and look him over. I drove him to his friends house up the street and dropped him off(where he was staying) in my buddies truck. I made a phone call to my insurance and Im hoping this falls under un-insured motorist. It was on a public street. So my daily driver has no hood, my 240z has a f-d engine and I my wife is driving my f250 diesel to work until we can get her car back from the tow yard. FML

Post #75 http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/72003-260z-rb25det-s2-motor-badazz-260zr-and-some-s/page__st__60 Im pretty sure the "Pull Up" resistor will work with the 280ZX tach. It seems to be a matter of finding the correct resistance to pull the voltage up enough to trigger the tach. If you get no other answers that is what I would try to do. Get an assortment of resistors and try them. Not sure what the deal is with the 78 280Z tachs in this thread.

Bonk I do not have audio on my computer at the moment so I have no idea what you said or what sounds you might have been having with that video. I have seen the ignition do that before though. Bet you, that if you had a meter that was really quick or a scope, you would see momentary 12v surges off-on-off-on-etc. When it happens everything starts to come on that is tied into the ignition obviously. Something to do with a bad fuse and how the RB ECU is wired in will cause it. Once you unplug the battery and plug it back in does it go away? Then you turn the ignition back on and it starts up over in an endless loop of turning on and off? I never figured out why it did that, but replacing the fuse for my B+ wires issue solved. Something starts to energize the relays when that happens and causes everything to come on through your ignition switch. Another thing I found is that unplugging the ECU will terminate the loop from ever occurring so its finding ground through the ECU! That is potentially bad. And with the surges spikes the current through the ECU and other attached devices if you have any. I think that is what may have taken out my FC Datalogit for my PFC ECU. I believe a current spike killed the onboard chip that housed all firmware for the FC Datalogit. Could have been a factory defect though. We will never know.

Since your a MAP system you should be able to eliminate the PCV completely and use the intake suction alone to draw fumes through a real baffled catch can and into the turbo intake stream. The air rushing past the orfice in the turbo intake will create the vacuum you need. No need to dump even more hydrocarbons down the intake with a PCV system at that point. A filter on the end of the valve cover works, but just to be sure you stay clean I would relocate the filter away from the valve cover a ways. But thats just my opinion.

and a really bad picture that makes it appear that the pan slopes funny I had to remove the sump pickup before dropping the pan completely, but when I was done modifying it I was able to install the sump pickup tube and then the pan. That was nice and clean(otherwise I could have had a gasket material mess). The pan clears the cross member and the bottom of the trans so its in good shape. I also noticed something interesting. In the morning my oil guage pegs as where before it would push like 80-85 psi on the stock Z gauge. When the car is warmed up the gauge reads 15-20psi vs the old maybe 10psi. So my guess is that I did something right and before the stock 200ZR pan and matching pickup were not adaquate in some way(posibly the height of the pickup tube off the bottom of the pan with only 5 quarts cap.). Its also nice to have 7 quarts of oil.

Dont know why you would get slammed for that? I can personally stand behind these cheap internet intercoolers. The China intercoolers being pedaled by cxracing, fastwayracer(EMUSA and all their affiliates), and OBX-R(and probably more) will work just fine. With one of the medium sized intercoolers and one of the larger GTR(R33/R34) style intercoolers Im seeing average 10* drops across the intercooler on the dyno which is great considering the value. The last one I bought cost me $130 and Ive seen them go for $80 or less on ebay. You just have a look around. I have had several stock RB25 and RB20 intercoolers and there is no practical way of mounting and plumbing them without hacking an S30 up significantly in the front. Just make sure that what ever intercooler you get to check for temperature drop across the tanks/core and in multiple spots. I was very suprised to find that much drop across these cheap ones. Ray

LOL Yes this can definately be described as INSANENESS. Its gonna be a while before its complete yet. Just in the works at the moment pending more funding. I had an incident with a road hump last Sunday that took out my pan and now I have reason to complete my project pan. I merged the 200zr pan with a front sump pan. I welded it up and checked for leaks I found a small seep and welded that up and then used POR-15 TSP US Standard fuel tank sealer to coat the pan inside and out. That epoxy sealer works great and is designed to work with fuels so it should hold up to oil. My only concern is that fuel tanks do not see 200+ degree temperatures. Ray

Oil Pump snout drive collar Just how little surface area drives the oil pump on any RB series engine... not much approx. 2 square mm on each side of the collared area drive the entire pump. This has to be the achilles' heal of the RB. This is stock. GTZ is making me a collar for the new motor below: CXRACING GT35 Turbo Kit CXRacing Turbo Kit GT35 as it came from CXRacing: Manifold modified so that turbo clears Z fender! My piping idea Turbo inlet should end up being 3.5"-4" and I need to figure out a proper MAF for this setup. And then I was bored and started cutting up front sump oil pans for fun. Doubt they will hold oil without seeping with those welds though.

Sanjeev aka GTZ has a roller on the end of his manifold for the cable. I mentioned that he should have done a double roller, one with a convex wheel and one with a flat wheel to tension and retain it into position. He hasnt gotten around to doing that and I think he is still unsure about that idea, but his cable pops off every so often. I copied RS-Speed's cable install on my own, but that puts the cable on the bottom of the manifold. I used the manifold studs to secure a bracket for the cable underneath, but it leaves very little room to adjust the alternator belt. The smoke will subside as long as you do not have an oil leak or gasket leak. Id bet you have residual oil on the manifold itself that is burning off. Even if you touch it with clean hands it seems you get oils on the manifold that burn off. Also most of these engines get the armorall treatment when they come over here so that also has to burn off. Good chance that the smoke is no biggy and the first real test drive that gets the temps above 800* will burn all that off. Your timing is in Base mode at the moment as well without the TPS plugged in. Questions, So what exactly was involved with that harness and what did it cost you. It appears that you sent them what you had left and they repaired it and built in your ECU connections? Is that correct? Or did they make it with a pig tail harness to connect the ECU harness into?

I believe bradyzq is stating all the things I would like a tuner to tell me when I bring my cars in. My personal experience is that in general the rb25det likes a fat enrichment in the upper rpm range under heavy loading. Like I said though I dont tune for a living, but I do have moderate experience tuning. Translation I am no expert! From what I do understand I would trust what he is saying. There are worse things than detonation at the AFR's Im talking about if its not done correctly. Every engine is different even if its brand new and the same designation and therefore might have different characteristics/tune needed. I have mentioned it before on this forum, that I do not trust most in car wide bands. I use it as a reference, but place little to no weight on its numbers. Over the years I have used gas analyzers and or the wideband on the available dyno to do the tuning and as I have mentioned I have noticed that the in car ones do not calibrate up. I broke down and spent several hours trying to make sure that the on board wide band was correctly calibrated, responding within 2ms, not biased in some way, that I indeed was dealing with a proper ground system, and there were no exhaust leaks. That was fun and the only answer in the end was that the in-car wideband was not completely accurate. All that over a .5 discrepancy. My personal belief is that even though the wideband sensor was placed in a spot that seemed to be optimal it was not sampling directly in the flow during all times and causing slightly erroneous readings. Personally I like to calculate lambda from a 4 or 5 gas analyzer that has a proper filtration system and has to be calibrated on a schedule to know Im correct and it obviously has to sample from a good source(not a leaking exhaust system). What I am saying is that he is giving sound advice. In most cases that kind of AFR will result in cylinder wall wash down. And for some RB's that may be the case. From my experiences with the rb25det on a dyno(again only moderate experience) I found that fattening the mixture up gained more power. Its very possible that a more experienced might very well be able to out tune my tune. Im getting great MPG out of my personal tune, but its not MPG that we should be concerned with. That is a by-product of an efficient tune on a an efficient vehicle. BTW, I dont know anyone doing 5 sec pulls on dynos other than non-tuners trying to get a max output number.

Damn! that's expensive for tuning! Within 120 miles of me there are a ton of these tuning places. Must keep the prices down. Ive seen tuning for $30 a run on your own, and I paid $295 for the last tuner to tune a car in San Jose(was for a Hondata'd Turbo Intergra that had to be programed from almost scratch if it makes a difference). Sacramento Ca has a lot of places too that are all under $400. Although Im sure thats not to helpful to you where you are at, but I would think that since your tune is already close that it would only take a few more runs to get it sorted out. Its not like starting from scratch again. A good tuner should be able to get you sorted out pretty quick and therefore it SHOULD not be another $700... Id expect $200-$300 max. More than likely less. Not that tuners shouldnt get paid for their time. Dont take it that way. But for that Id expect a flawless tune that took at least 4 working hours on the dyno. EDIT BELOW: If you need clarification on what I am saying read bradyzq's response below regarding a retune cost. I would agree with his response. The only thing I would argue is the 10+% excessive fueling. For stock to mildly modded(<300hp)RB25, going into the low 11 AFR's @WOT is not to uncommon under heavy loading. I am not a tuner by trade, but I do tune and I have a small amount of experience in this area including the RB25's. So take my input with modesty.

I found that 10.3 or so is the rich wall you dont want to hit and 12:1 is the pretty much the lean wall under heavy loads and WOT. Top of last 3 gears(5000+) is super critical AFR & timing. I found that 3rd with my setup will survive 12.2-11.9 AFR, but no such luck with 4th and 5th. I ended up bringing my AFR down to 10.9-11.2 on that whole part of the map. I also gained all around power in 3rd gear pulls doing this! 23 hp and 33 Torques. I ended up pulling back timing for the load cells that had to do with the 4 & 5th gear pulls. Its still not totally correct though. Sometimes I can get my knock warning to go off in 4th gear near 6000 rpms(you can image though how often I actually hit 6K in 4th though as there are not to many places safe and legal to do that).

You have neglected valuable information. You have RB26dett turbos on an rb25det. Let me guess, your still running the stock ECU? So Twins, Greddy style knockoff, and custom intercooler piping with a stock ECU? What is your boost set at? Any idea what your AFR is? My guess is that you are hitting a lean wall on boost and there is practically nothing you can do until that SAFC II installed to band aid it. You should be able to correct the fueling with the SAFCII, but your still out on timing. Make sure you install that SAFC II in a way that will not create new issues. Use solder, heat shrink tubing, and what ever else you need to get good connections. Deal with your boost setting Stabilize your AFR with that boost setting See if the problem persists Dyno tune it

Pull up resistor for the temp sender unit aught to fix that, just like the tach fixes for most swaps.

Item number: 230706083836 EBAY Oil cooled only, but Buy it Now for $130 Many more on FleaBay. Price is cheap enough that it doesnt really matter if it only last 30K miles instead of the rated 60+K Im sure you will find oil and water cooled ones if you look hard enough. Why mess around with the old housing with a crack and 4 broken bolts/studs in it. There are also a lot of used housing out there if a china turbo wont do for you.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you were able to get them 1 thread out and then they seized and sheared the bolts you may be in a pickle. There is a slight possibility with the older stuff that the shanks were just fatigued, but likely the studs started to strip in the threads and then seized. The expansion and contraction from heat cycling will distort the threads and when you go to pull them out they will strip on their way out. The ONLY thing that helps prevent this is a very good penetrating oil that can be applied while using that rose bud tip. See Exhaust Heat Valve penetrants for older engines for the most common stuff available. So my advise is to take it to a machine shop for a quote to remove and repair. IF you can buy another turbine housing for less then you have your answer correct? Good luck with the Heli-Coils. Maybe Thread/Time-Serts. Maybe. I measure 2100* F at that housing in indirect flow at relatively low boost levels. No you will not have an oil or coolant leak at the inner broken bolt head. You may experience long term issues with warpage and leakage of exhaust. I dont think the clearance on the back side of the turbine is small enough to create an interference between the housing and the turbine during a small warp like that with one bolt head missing. Just a thought though. More than likely it warps the other way anyway. Been a while since I overhauled one of those T3 units.

I have the FS5R30A. I just picked it up this weekend. Dont worry Im bringing it home to compare. EDIT: It appears that the bell are similar enough that you can notch the FS5R30A to fit the L series block afterall. Pics still coming when I have time. I know Im slow guys, but eventually there will be a few more pictures for comparison. I believe the biggest issue you will come across is $$$$$$$$$ for the FS5R30A. Cheapest ones you will find are around $400, but most of them on CL, ebay, etc are averaging a list price of $900+. Thats probably the biggest reason why. Though if we make out like the aussies and use the Z32 TT trans and make an adapter we'd probably spend less in the long run and make it more worth the effort, but thats just a lot of work and time when there really are better options out there(see JeffP's trans swap for instance). Ray

Its 11/22 and this began before 8/21 I just received word from FC-Datalogit "After investigation we think there is a pcb faulty likely a manufacturing fault. Usually there is no warranty once the unit is sold by the original owner but considering the circumstances I have decided to replace the unit free of charge." I sent them a thank you letter and Im feeling a bit better considering they've gone out of their way to replace the unit free of charge! I still would not likely buy another one considering costs out there comparatively, but at least I was not completely screwed on the deal. In the end FC-Datalogit came through 3 months down the line. I should have the new unit in 3 weeks or so from my estimation of how long it took to get there.

I must have missed something when I built this head then. I will have to re-check the line bore on the cam towers. Ive seriously changed everything else already.