rossman

The rear suspension is on hold until I can get Arizona Zcar's rear parking brake setup. Dave is working on it. He test fit it the bracket and caliper but the stock cable does not work with it. He needs to design a new cable. I disassembled most of the front suspension. The suspension parts are going to be powder coated and reinstalled with urethane bushings everywhere. I had an external wastegate put on my exhaust manifold and an oil return fitting welded on my oil pan. PowerFab Automotive in Houston did all the fabrication work for me. I dealt mostly with Nathan in the beginning. Once we got down to the specifics I talked to his welder (I don't remember his name). This is the way it should be. I like to talk to the guy who is actually doing the work. The work was done very quickly despite the fact that they looked very busy. I dropped the parts off on Friday around 11:00 and received a call that afternoon that the work was done. I picked up the parts Saturday afternoon. I'll probably have PowerFab build my down pipe and exhaust when it's time. And without further ado, here are the pictures. Nice short wastegate pipe and compact TiAl MV-S wastegate. PowerFab's wastegate pipe places the actuator housing about 1/4 inch from the block. Another camera angle Weld-on 5/8" NPT bung for the turbo oil return. PowerFab filled in a few holes that punched thru when I was shaving off bosses on the intake. I also carved back the manifold flange to clear the coolant bypass fitting over #5 exhaust port. You can see the temporary brass plugs in the head where the fittings will be installed. That's it for now!

I could have sworn your previous post said 10 or 40 micron before the pump. I must be seeing things. Regardless, I was in error. Aeromotive recommends 10 micron post pump.

Aeromotive recommends a 100 micron filter between the tank and the pump and a 40 micron filter before the fuel rail. Unless I'm missing something, Oddmanout is using the correct filters setup the correct way. http://static.summitracing.com/global/images/instructions/aei-11101.pdf

From the Aeromotive installation instructions:

Do a search on "spindle pin removal" and you will find more than you ever wanted to know about removing them. It ain't fun. I suggest making or buying a puller.

If you suspect the turbo seals are bad then just have the turbo rebuilt. As Oddmanout mentioned, turbo rebuilds are relatively cheap and easy to do. Do you have a restrictor in the oil feed line? Too much oil pressure can blow thru the seals. Is your crank case and valve cover vented? You mentioned not having a catch can. All a catch can does is catch the oil instead of letting it blow out into the atmosphere. Having one vs. just venting the crank case won't help. It is a problem if you have your crank case closed up. In that case it will blow gases and oil out the seals.

I've had good luck with Permatex Hylomar. It's expensive but worth it in my opinion.

Here's me. I go to Home Depot and realize that they don't have what I'm looking for. I realize I need to go to a REAL hardware store. I go to that store, find exactly what I need, plus several things I didn't realize I needed until I got there . While standing in line I look around. Everyone is dirty and sweaty, wearing greasy, holey shirts...I feel at home. Why did I go to Home Depot again???

Also, you might want to check out these threads. http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?showtopic=66719 http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?/topic/59330-300zxt-cv-conversion-problem-on-a-72-240z/page__hl__z31%20cv%20shaft

I don't think it's the norm but I have read that some people had to remove the caps to get every bit of room. I don't have any personal experience with it. I would guess it could make some sort of noise.

It looks to me like the CV shafts are pushing out on the end caps. The CV cage looks correctly shortened to me. Did you grind off the tips of the CV shafts any when you had it apart? How low is your car? I've read that extremely low cars exaggerate the problem. Some guys just remove the end caps, fill the MM adapters with grease and put a little sealant around the flange to seal it up. You might also want to remove your spring and cycle the suspension to check for binding. Side load on the differential will surely shorten its life. I'm going to take it one step further and install rear camber bushings to push the rear out a little farther. I hope this helps.

I've been working on the car a little bit since my last post. I tore down the front suspension and painted the front 280z hubs (need 280z hubs for the AZC brakes) I decided to get it rolling before I spend time on anything else. That has proved to be a challenge! The main problem is that I also decided to get a set of AZC rear parking brakes that Dave at AZC is developing. That's part of the problem. Dave is *developing* the setup. I tried to convince him to sell me the brackets only so I can move on but the won't do it. He wants to make sure the setup works before he sells it. I can understand that. Last time I talked with him he told me that the setup will need custom cables. All I can do it wait. It's no big deal, I got PLENTY of other stuff to keep me busy...on the car and otherwise . In the mean time I thought I would buy some other cool stuff . I got a set of Tokico springs, Illumina struts and strut spacers. I don't have any pictures but everyone knows what they look like. I also picked up this welded NISMO type oil pan from Johnc. Very nice quality. Thanks John! On my to-do list next is to finish up the front suspension. I need to paint the strut housings then reassemble them with the AZC front brakes. It should be pretty straight forward. Should be...

I would NOT recommend running the clutch without pins. The pins are there for a reason and it's not just for alignment. They transfer the torque from the engine in shear thru the joint between the pressure plate and fly wheel. I believe they are tighter fitting than the bolts so that they take significant amount of the shear load. My Fidanza flywheel only has 6 holes that line up with my ACT pressure plate...and 3 shear pins.

Thanks for the feedback. You guys are making me feel a better. I guess the main concern is corrosion. I suspected that. I was a little concerned about the springs taking a set being fully compressed. I'm going to assume Rebello used quality springs. So that's probably not a concern? Hopefully I'll get the thing running this summer and I won't have to worry about it anymore.

Hopefully I'm just being anal.... I received my L6 from the builder almost 1.5 years ago. All I have done to it is keep it in an semi-air conditioned garage (cool enough to keep the humidity down) with the ports closed off with masking tape. I did turn it over a couple of times to relax some of the springs that were originally compressed. There is no motor oil in the engine or in the pan. I primed the oil pump when I installed it but that was prior to turning it over. I am worried that letting the engine sit for so long could somehow damage it. Should I be worried?

Getting it oriented right is a no-brainer. The only issues I know about are surface shape and preparation. I believe a freshly machined surfaces are the best. People get into trouble when they hit the head surface with a abrasive pad on a grinder. That will give you an inconsistent surface. You want it as flat as possible. Those are there to line the gasket and head up with the block. It's not hard. I don't know how you can screw it up just by assembling it. Just make sure both the head and deck are smooth and flat. You are most likely to have problems with the head than the block.

I am no expert so like Woldson, I don't want to lead you astray. If you take it to a shop you might as well have them do a valve job too. I would ask around at your local Z club or HybridZ'ers in the area and find out if there is a shop in the area that knows how to work on these heads. Shops used to working on American push rod engines may screw it up.

I'm assuming that you drained the coolant and what is in the pictures was already in the cylinders before the head was removed. Soak up the coolant with blue shop towels and spray the cylinders down with WD40 to keep them from rusting. Use fine steel wool or scotch brite on the head's combustion chambers to remove the carbon deposits. Be careful, avoid scuffing the head sealing surface. Use your hands not a power tool. Inspect every mm of the head and combustion chamber for cracks once you got it clean. Take a long straight edge and check to see if the head is warped along it's length or twisted. It's best to use a machinists straight edge but you can use a square to get a rough idea. If it's anything but flat, you need to have it surfaced. Might as well check the block deck too. Is it my imagination or is the head gasket ovaled around the cylinders? If so, then that is an indication that the engine has had some detonation problems. Make sure the timing is set correctly. As others have said, your best option is to have a competent shop inspect and rebuild the head. If you don't want to spend the money and the head is flat with no perceptible cracks then you could try just replacing the head gasket. You risk further damage to your engine if it continues to dump coolant into the cylinders. There may be a crack that only opens up when the head gets warm.

Here are a couple of pictures.

I have a set. Sending a PM...

Will that thing fit an s30? It looks kinda tall.

Are you talking about the drive shaft input flange? It's easy if you have a impact wrench. Just put flange/differential in a vice, remove the nut, swap out the flanges and torque the nut. You might want to consider replacing the seals while you are at it.

Also you might want to ask one of the mods to move this thread to the L6 section. It's not S130 specific and you might get more help there.

Take the head off, clean it and carefully inspect it. Take close up pictures of the block deck, gasket and head and post them here. We can help. It may be obvious that the head has a crack in it. If it has a crack then buy a known good one. Or get a junk yard head and have it rebuilt.