CU Zcar

Didn't the Roadster 5spd's have a separate bellhousing? I thought the conversion to let you use one in the 240Z's mainly consisted of a new bellhousing, though I suppose it could have been the whole forward section of the tranny (from the center bearing plate forward)? But that tranny there looks just like the 5spd my Roadster-owning friend has been trying to sell me, especially the funky output flange. No driveshaft tho :-/ I'd have to find one or have one made. Didn't some of the Nissan Comp 5spd's have a 1:1 fifth gear?

I've seen some bad indications about using water with Nissan engines, all from zcar.com posts though. I dug up one: anyone using water injection? n/m You want to skip to about the fifth posting. There were some more but the couple I looked at seemed to be referencing each other. Anyway, the gist seems to be that Nissan puts some copper in their head alloy, and the aluminum and copper corrode or leach away or something differently causing pitting, leading to worse detonation and ruined heads. I'd think you'd have to be using the system a lot for that to happen though...I mean, you get a little moisture in your intake just from driving in the rain, or high humidity. Heh, I miss the days when I had time to keep up with several boards...

bastaad525- I'm running a stock ZXT pump, FPR and injectors, and at that it's a mismatched set - four are the ones that came with the engine and two from a friend who bought them for his N/A car but doesn't need them yet (they replaced two of the orig. set that were leaking from the injector body!). I'm actually about to replace all of them with a set of 24lb/hr Ford SHO injectors so I can return my friend's injectors, 24lb works out to about the same as 260cc. I hope So yea it's all stock, along with the DP and I have a 2.5" exhaust and glasspack as well. No other muffler though. I'd guess your leaning out would be just due to the extra boost, or maybe your pump has seen better days. You sure your fuel filter is clean? That or the fuel damper would be the only things I could think of causing a restriction, unless your car just decides to run the injectors less for some reason or has a kink somewhere. As for the ping, maybe I'm just hearing things (?) I'm always scared when I hear something like it. But a friend of mine offered the suggestion that he's seen cars ping from being way-over-rich like mine. He's got more experience than I, so I can't say I disagree with him that it could or couldn't happen. I'll get the right plugs in my car and fix my timing and hopefully my fuel sometime and I'll have to see what happens Lastly, my images are visible cause I'm hosting them off-site, I have some web space that my school gives me. Even when I'm logged in I sometimes have trouble seeing people's Gallery images so I just by-passed the whole thing and linked to my images. Some ISP's give all their users a little space on the web, you should check with yours and see if you have some and where to upload to if the Gallery continues to give you trouble.

Excellent, thanks.

Where is timing supposed to be at idle for the 1983 ZXT ECCS? I read an older post suggesting it was 24deg BTDC, which would explain some things about why my car runs like crap I think I'm running a lot less...seems I tried looking it up but I only have a Haynes manual for the '83 and an FSM for a '78, and I probably didn't even look at the '78 manual. I think the Haynes just said "don't mess with timing" but maybe I missed it there too. I guess I'd need to get it to idle down around 800rpm though to set it huh? Also read that the 24degrees drops to 20 just off idle.

Figured I'd chime in with my dyno runs for comparison. I can't see bastaad525's sheets but from the descriptions, my car is doing a similar dive into rich a/f's. Posted below are my hp, then a/f, plots from the dyno. BTW I did this as part of my Z club's dyno day, we each got 2 runs on a DynoJet for $35. Real cheap place but there's some bad to go with it, my friend brought his new MS Protege and ran over a brake drum doing a load of damage to the valences/sideskirts, and he learned upon talking to the proprietors about it that they have no insurance (!) I'm glad we had no mishaps with cars up on the dyno itself! I dunno if I'll go back there, they didn't have a good fan in front of the car either, got really hot... anyway: Analyze away if you like I'm thinking the torque dip from 3-4k is either the over-rich condition hitting its worst, or some issue with my fuel injection (using most of the 83 auto ZX ECCS) which I still need to further sort out. Or maybe there's a little bit of boost spike occurring that I didn't notice. The car is stock except the threaded WGA that came with the turbo, it tends to boost to about 8psi. There was also a little pinging evident towards the end.

D'ooh, I need to read more threads before posting after a several-month hiatus. I posted this in response to the injector thread: If I read correctly, some of you question whether the AFM flapper is maxed out in a stock Turbo car past a certain point? It would (should ) not be difficult to isolate the signal out of the AFM and put a low-impedance voltmeter -for example, a digital one- on it and just watch it as you drive (assuming the computer is reading output in the form of a voltage across the varying resistance representing flapper position...I haven't studied how this works, perhaps it's a current). This sort of investigation is what I intend to do before I start trying to modify my fuel system so I know what I'm dealing with. My car runs pretty much off-scale rich across the board according to the WBO2 readings in my dyno results, so I know I can pick up some power by getting things first sorted to where they run correctly stock. Sorry if some of this is a little OT

On the stock FPR's, all they do is maintain fuel pressure 37 (or whatever) psi above manifold pressure, correct? I don't think the unit particularly cares what the difference between the manifold and local atmospheric pressures are, so it makes sense at least to me that they aren't any different between turbo and n/a applications. If I read correctly, some of you question whether the AFM flapper is maxed out in a stock Turbo car past a certain point? It would (should ) not be difficult to isolate the signal out of the AFM and put a low-impedance voltmeter -for example, a digital one- on it and just watch it as you drive (assuming the computer is reading output in the form of a voltage across the varying resistance representing flapper position...I haven't studied how this works, perhaps it's a current). This sort of investigation is what I intend to do before I start trying to modify my fuel system so I know what I'm dealing with. My car runs pretty much off-scale rich across the board according to the WBO2 readings in my dyno results, so I know I can pick up some power by getting things first sorted to where they run correctly stock. Sorry if some of this is a little OT

While the SR20 is newer than the CA engines, I don't know if you can say there is more technology involved. On an S12 (aka 1980's rwd 200SX) forum the debate between proponents of these two engines got pretty heated. What I gleaned from them is that both are great engines, but the SR has a lot of hype that goes along with it (and perhaps larger price tags) while the CA is lesser known but is probably more bulletproof. Also, I'm under the impression that the CA actually had "too much" technology (two sets of intake runners?) in it and that the SR was introduced to make similar power while costing less. A near-quote from their post was that mod-for-mod, the SR will have the edge over the CA until the SR breaks, and then the CA has farther it can go on the stock internals. Of course, your mileage may vary If I had an S12-13-14 (and every now and then I wish I did) I'd probably go with the CA, gotta love the underdog. That's if I didn't turbo the KA instead...

One thing to consider on the V8 cars is that the Chevy swap is far better documented than the Turbo swap, even if the Turbo is mostly bolt-in hardware-wise. I mean, there's the JTR book and several mount kits for V8 people, which removes part of the trouble of mounting the engine. By comparison, this page and the IZCC page are about the only resources I've come across that go into any detail about the turbo swap, and there's nothing in print about it, to my knowledge. Problem is that it's probably considered too simple to write a book about? To the average gearhead I'd think plunking a carb'd V8 in and getting it to run is probably easier than tracing out the EFI diagrams to figure out what connections need to be made between the Z and ZX harnesses...even if there's just a few, I guess some people are afraid of electronics. Then there's probably the attitude that if you're going to go through the trouble of a swap, why end up with the same engine that just has a turbo when you can drop in a bigger engine with all the accopanying aftermarket support... I for one like the turbo swap, and if there's less people who feel apt to do it that makes it that more exclusive a group to be in the only other early turbo Z I know of in my area is Bob_H's new car, and it's only here temporarily if I understand right. Someday there will also be a 240Z owned by the guy I sold my other parts engine to...

Remind me to never, ever post a picture of my engine compartment. My car works, mostly, and that's about it I'm not sure I'd want to see someone else with their setup as ghetto as mine on the road. And certainly not because they listened to me on how to get the swap done

My car was running like crap and I traced the problem to a vac/boost leak through the popoff valve. The "right" way to fix this would be to just remove the valve and put a pipe plug in the hole, but I didn't have access to such high-tech materials at this late hour. So, I made do with what I had: Alabama chrome to the rescue! Don't worry, it's only to get me to and from school/work for a day so I can go buy myself an appropriately-threaded plug

My heavier 280Z (2920lbs with me and 3/4 tank gas, before swap) with a stock 83 280ZXT engine ran a 14.5@95 on big balloony 205/15/70 touring car tires. (though the PO of the 280ZX put a threaded WGA on it and it does tend to run about 7lbs of boost, I was thinking that's about stock but unsure).

I had this discussion with a friend who found his Mazdaspeed Protege controlled the turbo with manifold pressure vs. compressor outlet pressure. We decided that running the wastegate off manifold pressure was probably a good idea because there are conditions when manifold pressure is lower than compressor outlet pressure (i.e. when the throttle is only partially open or shut) but it might still be desirable to have the turbo spooling vs. having the wastegate open. We were also thinking about when you shift, the manifold is under vacuum and that should keep the wastegate shut during the shift, maybe helping the turbo to keep spooled just a bit. I'd need to install a BOV to benefit probably (still running w/o one) but his car of course has one (well, a CBV anyway). Did that make any sense?

You're right, it said "not authorized" to me too. I logged in, clicked on your "Profile" tab, and got to your personal gallery that way. You weren't kidding about that picture being fuzzy I've never seen a Dial-a-Boost in person, maybe someone who has can recognize it from your pic. You could try to get some more light on the controller, maybe from behind the camera or more directly above, it's clear that your cam has a hard time with dark images. Some more light at the right angles could bring out some more detail.

You could post a pic to your HybridZ gallery in your profile.

It's probably small enough to lay on a flatbed scanner too. Scanning small objects has often worked pretty well for me in the past. If you don't have a scanner either, this doesn't help though maybe you could find a friend that has either a digicam or scanner?

Does it have a knob on it? Maybe it could be a "Dial-a-Boost" which is the MBC Motorsport sells. I was never very interested in it cause it cost so much (I'd rather build my own MBC out of hardware store stuff or similar) but I got the impression it was made of plastic. As long as you mount the body a little ways from the turbine housing/downpipe to avoid concerns of melting, I think it would be fine though, especially if it looks like a commercially-designed piece. Just my $0.02 though Maybe post a picture of the item here, maybe someone can identify it for you.

OMG dude that car looks beautiful in those pics! And I hate you now, I've always wanted a set of those Enkei-mesh style rims... Enjoy!

Oh haha I thought you were putting the car down in some way compared to a Z...like Z snobbery...completely missed your point. I see it now and you are probably right, there are very few parts for S12's that a Zcar owner would be interested in. In fact I am sure the Z31 has better aftermarket support, at least here in the US, I've never seen a part advertised for an S12. (haven't looked either I guess...) I was just trying to say that they're not bad cars, in fact I'd like to have one perhaps someday.

I'd heard the chassis was very similar to the Z31 300ZX and that they had the single cam VG30E. The S13 as I understand it has a rather sophisticated multilink rear suspension (i.e. upper and lower links) while the Z31 (and I'd assume the S12 200SX as well) has a single semi-trailing arm rear suspension. Check this out: http://www.club-s12.org/main/FAQ/partslist/200sx%20Parts%209.jpg See the suspension section on the left. See their main page as well...they have a forum too apparently, that could be the best way to find out more about those cars. Not sure what you mean by that, if I didn't have my Z I'd be in the market for any of the S12, S13 or S14 series cars! I'd probably get an S13 now while they're cheap but still have huuuuuge aftermerket support (suspension-wise), and nearly bolt-in JDM engines are plentiful and cheap as well. I actually got about halfway through convincing myself to buy an S12 Turbo about six months ago...they're so neat, and look a lot like an AE86 but I could stay true to the Nissan brand.

I've heard people talk up Hammerite before, I might try it next time. I won't use truck bedliner under a car again, I put some brush-on stuff on a frame rail repair and half of it has been stripped off or is hanging in tatters. It didn't make a smooth coating so you wouldn't want it, anyway

Does the 91 Maxima have a 4x4.5" (4x114.3) bolt pattern? You could be a pal, 72datsun240z, and pop your dad's hubcap off and find out for us those are pretty snazzy looking. Is that a 280ZX they're on Cuban? I'm surprised the offset worked out. FYI Enkei makes a huge number of wheels for other companies, it's possible they made OEM wheels at some points.

I'm pretty sure you are right, I think I once read that Grade 8 bolts are weaker than lower-grade bolts in shear for example.

I have run the 195/60/14 Azenis RS tires on my 78 on 14x6 (and 14x5.5) rims and don't have too many problems with ground clearance. My car is on Tokico 1" lower-than-stock springs. My exhaust sometimes scrapes going over big speed humps or when pulling onto a main road when there is a sharp change in the road's angle, but that's more the exhaust's fault, it is poorly hung. It also puts the speedometer about 5-10mph high at highway speeds, i.e. it has the effect of a slightly higher numerical gear ratio, I consider it a good thing since I like drag racing and autocrossing (low speed and off-the-line stuff). I highly recommend these tires, and they're cheap too and have extremely stiff sidewalls for their height. The compound of the tire you choose is probably more important than a 10mm or 20mm difference in width...though that goes as much for performance as it does for how long they'll last