jeffp

Since you are using an rs232 connection, you may need to get a null modem, easy to understand explination: The RS232 port uses three wires 2,3,(7 I think) transmitt, receive and ground. If you have the transmitt and receive wires swapped you will not get any communication, but when you do the loop back like you did with the jumper it will work like it did. Make sure the ground is correct also as I have had a number of different gear not work because the ground wire was not hooked up. The ground sets the 0 volt reference for the laptop and the gear you are trying to access.

You may want to double check that wire. Typically the black wire with the shield and grey cover is for the O2 sensor. So at the ECU, the shield stranded wire around the black wire goes to ground in the harness. The black wire goes to the O2 sensor. The shield wire strand ONLY gets hooked up to the harness at the ECU end and the other end is left open. The shielded stranded wire is there ONLY as a noise suppressor. I cant remember to clearly, but I can tell you one thing, that gray shield and wire is not an active component in the harness, it is ONLY a noise suppressor so if you hooked it up you need to reconnect it to ground, and leave the other end open, making sure that it does not make contact with the other wire it is covering. I have the pinout to the ECU from the MAF, you really needto check to make sure the wiring is correct as I think you have miswired the MAF.

Ok since you are running the 280 harness you will need to add a wire to the harness for the MAF sensor. There is a wire to the MAF that applies 12 volts to the filament to burn off the junk that may have gotten on it. This is important as the filament is what is metering the air intake to the engine so having junk on it will mess up the metering. The MAF from Nissan is set to 2.2 volts @ 750 rpm. If you get a lower voltage then 2.2 volts the ECU will not be able to read the MAF output. This is critical also. Since you dont have any voltage at the output pin for the MAF at the ECU, I would suggest that you get the schematic and verify the wiring, if you need a schematic I can email you it. So atart there and see how it goes, I am not sure of your setup, but there are also other sensors that the 300 used that were not used in the 280 like the fuel temp sensor. Also you may find you have a parblem with the knock sensor in the 280 because they are a different sensor, but more importantly, the 280 inline engine is much more noiser then the VG30 engine, so that may be getting turned on when there is no problem with knocks, something to keep in mind when you get the car running correctly. The other thing that comes to mind is that you need to swap two of the fuel injector wires as they are incorrect for the inline six engine, not a real noticable problem, but none the less it is a fact. anyway check out that stuff and see how it goes.

The reason I ever thought about a different oil pan was for exactly what was posted earlier. When I am in it and going in a strait line the oil gets thrown away from the pimp pick up. The stock guage did not show this happening, but when I went to a good gauge I found this was happening. Under high boost the pressure starts fluxating from 75psi down to about 45psi so that is telling me that the oil is not making it to the pump. This is a bad thing! Even tho the pressure doesnot drop off all together, there is still air getting to the pickup so there are times the bearings are not floating the crank the way they should be, so what happens is excessive wear of the main and rod bearings, not to mention the cam towers, and the cam and the valve stems. So this has to be fixed, I dont want to destroy my engine so the comp pan seemed liked the best option. I have modified the pan to the extent that I lost about 2 quarts of oil, that leaves me with one extra quart of oil, the windage tray to scrape the crank, and the baffle with the trap doors. If all works the way it should my problem should still be fixed, and if not I will have to get that pressure resivore TonyD mentioned to keep oil on all of the parts all of the time. anyway, so saying no street car will have this problem is just flat wrong, and being the kind of guy I am I am not going to just let it go with a 10,000 dollar engine and turbo setup in my car.

The aluminum pan shown on this thread will not work from what I can see. The sump is to far forward and it will hit the cross mamber, but I would have to take some measurements to be sure. I hacked my pan to death tonight and it is looking like it will fit the car now. I just ran out of time to put it on the block to make sure everything is good. I think I lost about 1 1/2 quarts of oil capacity in the process, but it is still good to go and it is baffled and the windage tray still fits like it did before I started cutting the pan. I will get the metal tomorrow to use to install and complete the pan. Lucky for me we have metal benders at my work in the machine shop, otherwise I would have been real reluctant to do so much modifications to the pan. Anyway, I will keep everyone posted and get a pic of the completed part on my web page when I have completed it.

You are correct that the ECU does need modifications to get the higher Hp out of it. But, HACKING, I dont think so. That modification simply requires a resistor change to move the trip point of a differential amplifier in the ECU. The stock MAF requires a 2.2 vlot signal to the diff amp to operate. When the Ford MAF is used those parameters are changed so that the circuit will operate correctly. Then to get a higher voltage for metering 5.59 volts the resistors are again changed to get the additional metering. This is not HACKING, it is modifying the circuit to accomidate a different set of operating parameters. In electroniccs this is frequently done for various reasons, and it is all based on theory, not seat of the pants modifications, big difference there. So anyway, HACKING sounds so amature and little knowledge based I just could not let this one go JWT does not hack the ECU, they simply modify thr exsisting circuits to acheive more of the same operations.

I installed both JWT system in my car. the first was the sport 350 and yes I did have to go through the mods to get it in the car, but boy was there a difference off the line. My stock 280 system was a dog right off the line to about 2000 rpm andthen it seemed to have power. When I installed the first system it was night and day, the car responded so much better at the lower rpm's and the rest of the rpm ranges as well. But it was the low end that I really liked.

first off the thing that stands out in my mind regarding the sequential system and why it would be a better setup is that like most of you said it fires one injector at the correct time. This is a distint advantage when you stop to consider that all of the fuel, junk that is back washed theroug the port tends to land on the back side of the valve. Not a big problem, except that it will build up over time and you will lose power because the flow characteristics will change. For me that is a significant consideration. The second thing that I would like to find out more about is the potiential of the system in the way of max hp it is able to develop. I could Give JWT a call and find out what kind of power they are able to get from the unit. I do know that they seem to have hit a challenge getting the Z31 ECU to make power ovwer 500hp. I am not saying it is impossible, but it does require some circuit modifications in the MAF metering to do it. Also, since we are here in CA and our cars are technically susposed to be tampered with for smog reasons, would it be cool to have a 600Hp car that passed CA smog for that particular car. We would know it has a different fuel management system, but on one else would and the car could be certified by the DMV as passing the smog guide lines fot that car. So in my mind that is also deseriable. Who cares if you have a car and EGR if you are turning the power you want from the engine, and I am convenced that is possible with the correct setup and combination of parts on the car. So that is what is floating around in my head.

I thought it was in the rear, but now that you mention it, yes it is up front. I hate getting to the 3-4 screws that are under the pan sides. So strike that idea. I forgot, it's been a while since I pulled one off a car. Well, I guess I am forced to do the mod to this part. I think I have a good design in mind for it, now just to get it done. I dont like having the oil pan off the car to long. I could get some measurements and make a drawing for other guys that want to go with this part on their ZX. I was also talking to another guy here at work and I mentioned the aluminum pan. I think that pan is set up much the same way the comp pan is just not as wide, a deeper sump, but the length of the sump is about the same isnt it? That would have not been an option either, and a more pain getting it heliarched, and then you would lose a good percentage of the oil capacity. Is anyone running the aluminum pan in a ZX car?

I got to thinking about the Diesel oil pan, and it is in the maxima with the same cross member as the ZX. The Maxima oil pan does have the added sides for more oil, but it sure looks goofy. But then again it doesn't have the pickup box installed. I should have just built a custom pan for the car. I talked to one of my friends and he almost dropped his teeth when I told him how much I paid for the pan, and basically told me what an idiot I was for spending so much on an oil pan, and that I could have made it myself. I thought about it when I bought it and it was very expensive, but at the time the car was beating me down with all of the custom fab work I was doing and I figured if I could just buy something that fit and I did not have to make myself that was what I would do. So again here I am taking it in the shorts on a very expensive part that I have to mod to make work in the car. I dont mind it so much I guess. Like I told the wife last night, it will just make me appreciate it all that much more when I can get in the car and drive it again, it that ever happens LOL. So anyway, the Diesel pan may be an option for those of you who want a better oil pan and not have to go through all this crap to get it installed.

Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately that pan is almost exactly what I have. I can mod the pan to fit the car, but it sure is an expensive way to do it. I did notice the pickup is longer then mine seems to appear so I will check that out before I start cutting the pan. The pan is hitting the steering rack brackets, so if I cut a radious in each side of the pan around the brackets, shorten up the pan a little to fit up to the cross member in the middle I should be good to go. I am going to leat the engine down tonight and start taking measurements. The thing that I think I lucked out on is that the sump box is in just about the best place so if I can get by with cutting the sides down I will not use that much oil capacity and keep the internal box, and that is one of the main reasons I bought the pan in the first place. I got to keep the pick up emerced in oil. I did not notice that the oil was getting thrown away from the pick up with the stock gauge, but when I put a real pressure gauge on the car, I could see the pressure fluxuate when I was under heavy acceleration. Anyway, so just to let everyone know, the NISMO comp pan will not fit a ZX without modifications.

I took my oil pan off the car today to install the Nismo comp pan, and yes the POS will not fit the car. I called Nismo and asked before I bought that pan for 750.00 yea 750.00 for a pan I could have done myself. Now here it has been sitting in my garage for about a year and I have been waiting to get the sucker installed and it will not fit. So the question is, has ANYONE ever installed a Nismo comp pan on a ZX car ever????? If so what did you have to do to make the sucker fit the car??? I am sure it can be modified to fit the car, but if is a simple matter of changing out the K member and going with a manual steering configuration then that is not to much of a problem, just getting the thing out with the engine in the car is the trick. anyway, if anyone out there has experience with this install I would appreciate any info you could give me.

The one side poer is for a standard waste gate, so what ever your spring will hold is the most boost you will get. The top hole is used for a wastegate controller, and what this does is to vent boost to the top of the diafram to hold the gate closed after the boost over comes the spring pressure, then the controller comes into play and vents the boost to the top of the gate as need to acheive the boost level you select on the controller.

Hi Adam, I will wait for the bar and if it turnes out the way I like I will get the rear bar also. The drawing for injector fittings is completed, I just need to put in all of the parameters to turn the part. I was thinking of the easiest way to install a fitting and not have to worry about getting it tight, and did not want to hassle with an orientation issue, so I decided a 1/8" NPT type thread into the fuel rail would be about the best bet. The hole in the center of the fitting to feed the fuel will be .312" or 5/16 that should supply more then enough to the injector for which ever size you happen to be running. I still have to go and look at an idea I got from my VOLVO injector fuel rail. The volvo has the same type injector top and they have made a clip that holds the injector in the fitting. My MSD injectors have exactly the same configuration as the volvo so I think I am going to use the same clip to secure the injector in the fitting, in stead of using the rail to secure the injector in the fitting. I have it all figured out, I just need to get the time to get it all together. I have been working on all the other stuff to get the car going. I will keep you updated.

Well the stroked bottom end will get you more torque no question about that. The dry sump is a good idea if you have the money to spend and you dont want A/C Look in how to hotrod your L28 book by Frank and he has a vendor listed for the dry sump.

That part you are talking about controls the idle on a stock engine. If you had an intake off of the car you would see that the inlet/outlet which ever you like to look at it, are actually down into the main plenimum. The two relays with the vacuum diafram that are in front of the AFM on the bracket controls the operation of the part via vacuum. So basically it is the bypass air valve for the idle. If you look at the fitting on the manifold, you will see that it is like a PCV valve and it will only let air into the manifold and not the other way like under boost. When I installed my new system, I used the hole in the manifold for my bypass air valve. I did not rertain the one way valve in the intake.

Good job on the car. I was beginning to think there were about two or three of us out there who were doing anything with the ZX . Nice dyno numbers. How is the off boost performance? I have been going at a build for my car for about 8 months now, and FINALLY have all the stuff together to get it completed. What oil pan are you running in the car? I was noticing in my car that under heavy accelleration I was experiencing oil problems. The guage would start to lose pressure wich indicates the oil was being thrown away from the pickup. anyway here is my page and the stuff I have done to my car. http://www.angelfire.com/extreme/280zxt You may find some cool upgrades to do to your car on it. I have been working on my car for a long time and it is almost completed. Regarding the fuel rail, I have designed to recepticles for the oring injectors. I am going with the MSD 72Lb injectors to complete the build. The fuel rail stock is from arizona marine-speed. Good stock to start with. I can send you the drawings for the injectors that will screw into the fuel rail if you like. REGARDS: Jeffp oh P.S I really would like to know where you got that CUSCO shock tower bar from.

I took a look at what Gforce is doing with the tranny. Not bad at all, a little late for me, seeing I called them a while back and tried to get them to do a tranny for me and they would not even touch it. The funny thing is that I think is is ONLY because of the ford application that they even decided to go for it. The good thing is that with the Nissan version, their unit is almost identical to our unit, fine spline on the input, they can totally set up a Nissan unit with their gear set and be off and running. I also like the longer 5th gear with a .58 ration rather then the .750 ratio in the Nissan tranny. So who is going to install one of these bad boys????? I would like to see how they run. On my tranny, well it is now ready to go in the car. I ordered a special cut reamer for the pilot bushing to make damn sure it was to spec and that took a while to get. I ended up doing the throwout bearing slider myself on the lathe, and I am not unhappy about that at all. You can see the rest of the pics on my web page at http://www.angelfire.com/extreme/280zxt/page24.html I have pics of the new throwout bearing, the front of the tranny, the spicer parts and all that jazz. I am excited to get this thing back up in the car, the helicoils turned out excellent so I dont think there will be to many problems to deal with, but who knows LOL

I have completed an upgrade to the T5 in our cars. I am now about ready to install a Tremec TKO2 five speed tranny in my car. This is a beefy unit that will withstand alot of abuse. The mustang guys are running 9 second cars with them. I figure that is good for us also. The gearing is good and it is a close ratio tranny with fifth gear being a .82 overdrive. The T5 is .750 overdrive. With the tranny upgrade I am also doing a drive line upgrade with spicer 1310 universal joints, those should hold up just fine, and if not, you can replace them for about 12.00 The last component is the differential. I am mating the drive line up to a LSD turbo flange, and spicer makes the companion flange that uses a 1310 universal juint so the drive line will be beefy also. The differential is a Quaife unit R200 style with a 3:71 gear set. Quaife has an unlimited warranty on their unit with an unlimited power rating, so that should be bullet proof also, and if not, I get a free replacement. I am using the turbo CV half shafts, the stub axels have been shoot peened, and I installed moroso 26thread X 1/2"X3" studs for the lugs, with that I am running a set of 15X8.5 centerline convo pro's This combination of parts is about the strongest you can get for our cars. Now if I was building a strait drag car, I would install a custom engine plate, strengthen the frame rails around the front cross member then I would link the front and rear sub frames (cross members) and for the torque cross link the two. Then I would be easily be able to install a 5 point roll cage. strengthen the schock towers in the car, and finish it up with a Ford 9" differential with tubs. That would be a strong car that could be consistantly raced and not bend in half. anyway if you want to see the new tranny you can see it on my web page at http://www.angelfire.com/extreme/280zxt/page24.html I have pics of both the trannies side by side, and front views and the rest of the parts.

Has anyone ever contacted Gikkin to see if they would be willing to part with their drawings? I mean, if you are going to start this thing from the dround up, then whay not see if you can get their engineering drawings for the head. As I understand it, they have no intensions of ever building the head again.

You know it really is not that hard to do the machining on this stuff, but unless you have your own shop the machining costs will kill you. I have never looked at an RB head off the engine so I cant say one way or the other. The oil pump, well there is another matter all together, if you are taking the time to get an already made pump, then why dont you just design a new pump all together. You know the Nissan pump is not all that great, the L series pump or the VG series pumps. Thay run very low pressure at idle, and I have done things to get my pressure up somewhat, but not to whaer I want it. Yes my head is ported, but I haven't messed with the intake except to port match it to the head. There is alot of room for improvement in the intake area. I am also running a larger exhaust valve in the head so it does breeth better. Keep in mind iw was making those numbers with a stock turbo exhaust manifold. Now I have a header type configuration (that I am having to do most of the design work on to make it work on the car) and it is the log type configuration, but what is good about this manifold is that ALL of the ports and tubes to the collector are much larger. I will get much better folw to the turbo, with less back pressure and more evenly spaced across eack exhaust port. Being a turbo application, there is a little more room for error just because now you are going to forced air in stead of N/A application. Little misalignments, although are not ideal, will not make a significant difference in how much air/fuel you can stuff down into the engine. You will have better efficiency with good port matching, opening the port up, larger valves, and all of that Jazz. You know, if you want more flow out of an L series head thatr a few things you can do like going to a valve with a 7mm valve stem, in stead of 8mm, if you are really radical, you can shorten the valve guide and increase the volume of the port, so there are tricks that you can do to increase the flow of the head, the question you have to ask yourself is how long do I want this engine to last???? The things the old racers did to their engines didn't necessaraly promote long engine life, and they did not have to have engine life, they just had to win races however they could. I myself was considering 7mm valve stems, and I did contact ISKY to have them make me a set of retainers, locks, and shims to run a 7mm manley stainless valve. That would be trick, and it would work excellent. For the temp issue that seems to be a topic of dicussion, well there is a good solution to that one to, in stead of running the stock heat shield, build two with about a 1/4 spacing between the two, get as much distance from the intake as you can with the first shield, Jet hot coat the bottom shield, and that guys will cool off the intake significantly, problem solved for the most part. So then we are back to the flow of the head again. You see it is a give and take, give and take situation, every improvement will require an improvement in another area to acheive better results. So now that we have figured out the engine, what about the rest of the drive train, and the chassis of the car also. We are not talking about bumping the hp and torque 50-100 hp now we are talking about bumping the hp and torque by a factor of 3- 3.5 on a car that started out with very conservative hp/torque ratings from Nissan. How the heck do you hold the car together with all that engine under the hood??? I finally have a manual transmission solution, and a differential solution, but the freakin car is going to bend. so go figure, it all works together for a complete package, and you need the complete package to make a real hotrod of a car, not just wide tires. anyway some of my thoughts.

I am amking good torque with the engine 473 foot pounds @ 415 hp. I have the dyno results listed on my web page at http://www.angelfire.com/extreme/280zxt/page19.html I was beginning to work on the torque curve with the cam timing when I was stopped dead in my tracks when I found out the damper was out to lunch. I had no way of indexing the cam to TDC so that is when I decided to start the last of the upgrades. I was not sure if the cam was running out of breathing, or the turbo was just running out of air. I am running the cam about 4 degrees retarded right now, so I was going to put it up on TDC and see what the results were. I think I was running out of cam, and out of turbo, but I will find out what the real story is when I get the new parts installed and going.

I bought the HKS pump and it worked very well until I went to 4 Bar fuel pressure, then it wet all over itself. here is how you flow test the pump just in case you are interested. You will need a fuel pressure regulator to do the job, and you will need an air source to pressurize the regulator. Set the standard fuel pressure, 3 bar or 4 bar. 36psi, or 58.8psi then you abb the boost pressure to the regulator. Get yourself a gallon jug and run the pump with the boost pressure applied to the regulator for 1 minute. With that figure you will easily be able to calculate the flow rate per hour the pump can do at the pressure you setup. Like I found out, most pumps will flow well up until about 85-87 psi, once you hit 90psi most of them fall out like crazy in the flow rates, that is the big problem with running 4 bar static fuel pressure and then trying to get more then 20 psi of boost.

You are running the same setup that I am on my car. This pump you are talking about, what kind of flow rates will it do @ 4 bar with 25-30 psi of boost? I am really surprised it worked for you. I had a terrible time getting a pump in my car that would do the 4 bar setup and run 20psi plus of boost. I ended up going with a twin turbo in tank pump and that has worked for me, but what a nightmare getting that pump in my tank and working right, and still having an accurate fuel gauge assembly. I had to build a seperate box for the pump inlet, and run the return back into that box. The tank had the stock baffle, but the pump was having a problem with running dry. anyway, I might be interested in that pump you have in the future.

I spoke to Brian a few weeks ago regarding the trigger wheel option for the damper. We discussed the possibility of doing a rear wheel as opposed to the front mount wheel. For me the concern is in the event that a belt flys off or just dies while the engine is running. The trigger would be right in the path of the belt as it exited the damper and that could really mess up the triggering device. I am just think about the possible problems with the front trigger. You can do the front, and what I would siggest is to make a bracket that first is strong, and second that would house the triggering device, and finally run the wires from the device on the outboard side of the bracket. I was kinda hoping Brian would figure out a rear trigger wheel solution to alleviate that potiential of destroying the triggering device in the event something goes foul with the belts. anyway just something to think about when you start in on a new bracket.