mtcookson

Heh... yeah, especially with all of the rust in my Maxima. There's enough rust to make it not worth restoring... I'm actually considering getting another rust free Maxima just due to how much rust there is but with the project I want to undertake there's a chance this one might work out. Its definitely going to be a lengthy project though. I'll definitely put some pictures up and such if I do go the aluminum route.

I bought one for around that price and am very, very happy with it. Being a beginner, you just set it and forget it. My only concern is getting too used it and not learning the correct settings There's been some cases where I've had to adjust slightly for the metal I was welding on, but just due to personal preference. So far it has worked perfectly every time using its auto settings. I'm going to try some thin gauge body metal very soon to test the lower end of the settings. I don't have any doubts it'll get the job done though, especially since doing the body metal it'll just be spot welds. I think you'll be very happy with it.

Absolutely incredible! Keep up the awesome work!

I would definitely take a Haynes over a Chiltons, that's for sure. Kind of funny though, the Chiltons is printed by Haynes. Anyways, yeah the Chilton Z31 book I had had wires in the vacuum diagram... that pretty much ended it for me right there. Haynes will definitely help you out in a lot of areas but down the road when you start getting deeper into the car, definitely think about getting the FSM. My major issue with the basic repair books is it covers way too many models in a single book... that just causes way too many issues.

I believe most people use http://www.photobucket.com to host pictures. Once you get them loaded there you can post them here using this code, leaving out the asterisks (*): [*img]http://www.whateverwebsite.com/yourpicture.jpg[/img*]

10w30 is always a good choice. The owner's manual should list what oils should be used. Be sure to change the oil pretty often as the turbocharger definitely reduces oil life. The 3,000 mile standard is good to go by. I personally use Castrol GTX 10w30 in the majority of my vehicles including my Z31 Turbo and Maxima with a Z31-T engine. Brand is really just personal choice most of the time. The dip stick is on the driver's side, around the intake pipe if I remember correctly.

This should be what you're looking for http://www.trademotion.com/partlocator/index.cfm?action=getLocator&siteid=49&chapter=AMA620&appSectionid=23&groupid=10047&subgroupid=20042&componentid=60612&make=14&model=M30&year=1990&catalogid=1

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend running a larger turbo like that Holset for a low boost setup as it would be out of its efficiency range. Not that it wouldn't work, its just that you could run a smaller turbo that would be better in its peak efficiency range for the boost you're running and at the same time have quicker spooling for even better low end. If you're planning on going for a lower compression, high boost setup down the road it wouldn't be a bad idea to go ahead and get the larger turbo so that you aren't wasting money but if you're just wanting to keep it relatively stock, go with a smaller unit. That's the way I'd do it.

Yeah

Yeah, it sounds like its about as optimized as it can be. It could be the design of the controller itself as I know some do better than others. I'd say electric would probably be the only good way to really get it smoothed out, like said above.

Yup, you got it. Being a manual controller they tend to cause surge like that when the signal lines are somewhat long. Being in the engine bay they should be relatively short. Is your signal coming from the intake manifold or the compressor housing?

What type of boost controller are you using? If its a manual boost controller, where is it located?

Awesome, good info.

No, no... not at all. You have it exactly right. I'll probably take it to the track a lot, but nothing like getting into a lot racing with it (with the mods done to it, it probably wouldn't even be allowed in the majority of the classes). If it were a decent amount of savings, like say 50 to 100 lbs., I would probably do it right away. Being a 4-door I'm sure there's a decent amount of weight there but that's what I need to find out first. If nothing else, I'm wanting to build a Z32 race car so I'll probably mess around with it on that since I now know it should work out pretty well.

If he did, I would think he would need to list it as B stock... but I'm not sure. Were all of the modifications done to the housings? If so, you could just swap the housings to the better center section. Another thought is if its dry there could potentially be more shaft play since it rides on the oil... however I'm not sure if Holset's measurement specs are supposed to be done when it has or does not have oil.

That's the only thing I fear, lots of work for minimal gains. I do have to do some cutting of some other areas so I'll probably weigh the metal in the process and see if its worth doing weight wise. Thanks for the input so far!

I still need to get a plasma cutter myself. I'd probably be making all sorts of things if I had one of those. What's really bad about those forums is if you try to talk about doing anything that requires anymore than bolting on... they'll flame you to no end. A few of the guys will be like, hey that's awesome and such but yeah... I don't go there very often at all now.

May be a dumb question, may be a good idea... I have no clue. In an attempt to make some of my project cars lighter the idea of replacing the steel floor pans with aluminum came to mind. I was thinking something along the lines of using some flat pieces of aluminum to replace the floor pans and adding some strength to them by either supporting them with aluminum flat bar or maybe aluminum tube. Likely use adhesive and rivets or bolts to tie them into the stock steel frame rails, if that would work good. Like I said, I have no idea if it would be a good idea or not or if it would even save all that much weight but if it could and wasn't a bad idea I wouldn't mind giving it a shot. My only concern is just making sure the aluminum can handle the weight and such of the stuff inside but also whether it will handle the loads from the car twisting and such or if it will just make it flex even more. I was thinking about trying this out on my Maxima since I have a lot of rust repair to do on it, it wouldn't be too bad to do since I'm already working on those areas a bit. The Maxima, weight wise, really isn't all that bad for being a sedan but it could always be better. If it did work I'd even think about trying it out on my Z32. I figured this would be the best place to ask as most of the other forums I frequent usually don't know what the term DIY means. ...so what do you guys think... yea or nay?

I'm searching around a bit... but from what I've seen at the Z32 forums, its not likely you'll find much for those engines that requires any DIY work. It almost makes me sick going to those forums, the majority only buy stuff that's already made for the car and never do much of anything themselves as far as fab work goes. Not that it is a bad thing nor does that cover all of them... but the majority. Coming from cars where pretty much any mods were completely DIY its almost hard to buy stuff like that when you can do it yourself cheaper most of the time. Anyways, like I mentioned, I'll keep an eye out for some and let you know if anyone does indeed make some.

Ahh, ok... I don't doubt that you can make a lot of power with one of those cores, I just wonder how the efficiency would compare to one of the up/down Treadstone's. I wouldn't doubt it at all that the Treadstone would be way more efficient due to the design alone, which simply means more power. It would make more power per lb. of boost basically. I'm not sure on the cross member, I can't really tell much from the picture. I don't think there's really any standard size used... I think its basically whatever fits that will work/flow enough for your application.

But if you did mod the ecu it could be potentially optimized even more if you wanted to venture into that.

But we're talking about Z's... not S2K's...

That's the thing, those Treadstone aftercoolers aren't a grand, they're priced very well. You can spend around 100-200 or so for a Chinese aftercooler, 200-400 for the Treadstone unit.... that's marginal difference for a very nice aftercooler.

That's actually very well priced IMO. You could probably find a cheaper one on ebay but its likely not going to be as good as one of these, especially if comparing to a standard side to side aftercooler.

Sounds like is uses the same FS5R30A that comes in the 87+ Z31 Turbo.