Garrett76Zt

i know, its crazy! These guys are the best there is. Still hard to believe my car is running already.

You guys will never believe what happened this week! I am not making this up. My turbo setup has been up and running for a couple of weeks and I wanted to bring it up to Zgad's house for some tuning/dyno time/track time . . . so i took the car up to Orlando (2hrs from Sarasota) on Wed morning. WED: 10:30am- Got to Mikes house and we started tuning a bit on the street. The car feels sluggish, no midrange torque and boost comes on really slow. We tune for a few passes and then we begin to loose boost. only make 9 psi, then 7 . . . We heard a wierd "pop" and then every time we got into boost there was a very strange "supercharger"ish whine. But the car still drove decently well and we were at a steady 7 psi and we were late for our dyno appointment . . . 1:00pm- We arrive at the dyno. Strap it down and no matter what boost controller was on the car, electric or manual, the car would only boost between 5-7 psi. On a mustang dyno, we were getting 200hp consistently. Obviously something is wrong with this picture. Mike was able to do some great midrange tuning which brought my torque numbers back up. But something is wrong. 2:30pm- Car is off dyno and idling at 1400rpms! What the . . . Mike and I begin to put things together and sure enough when we got home there was a large vacuum leak at the manifold. Ok so we turn some wrenches the rest of the day and get the car back in tip top shape and go out for a spin that night... 9:30pm- Out to dinner, car is at a healthy 13psi with AFR's very nice and the car really moves out! Felt very strong for only 13psi. Go to bed very happy! Thursday: 9:30am- Wake up and spend some time wrenching on Mike's car in the morning but my fun is over and I pack it up to leave for home. 2:30pm- I'm about 30 miles from Mikes house when I begin to notice a noise. Starts as a light tapping noise when I give it a little throttle. It gets louder. Crap i thing i have an exhaust leak, gasket blew or something. Within about 30 seconds it becomes verry apparent that its a much bigger deal than that. Its really loud. I yank the car off the road on the side of the interstate. Call mike up and tell him its not good, i think the motors gone. 3:30pm- Mike arrives at the scene to confirm that there is some major bottom end knock happening . . . Triple A is called to get a tow back to mikes house 5:30pm- Triple A finally picks us up. Meanwhile Mike has been on the cell phone non-stop. I'm thinking, I'm only 2 hrs from home I can call a friend and we can rent a trailer and tow my car back to Sarasota . . . . OH NO . . . .Mike gets off the phone and says," OK heres the plan!" A Posse of hybrid Zer's has been assembled and the plan is to have another motor in my car in time for me to be back on the road the next day! 7:00pm- Car is back at mike house. His wonderful neighbor Jimmy, lets us use all his tools and his garage. I begin the process of pullin the motor out. 10:00pm All showered up and ready to hit the sack. The motor is just sitting on the mounts, its ready to get yanked first thing next morning. Friday: 7am- We are in the car and headed for Merrit Island where Rick Bowers and Ken Jones have their shops setup. Ken Jones is the one gracious enough to donate a spare N42 L28 to the cause. . . except its still in the parts car . . . 9am- We start yanking the motor, making decisions as we go. What we will reuse and what we will replace... in the end we leave with just the N42 short block in the Back of Ricks Pathfinder . . . Thanks Ken! He gave me the motor for free! MEANWHILE: Jaymar came down from Jacksonville and is working with Jimmy back on my motor, pulling the manifolds and the head off my blown motor. 12:30pm- Back at Mike's. The craziness begins! We clean up the new block as best we can and begin swapping parts over. We reused the following parts off my motor: P90 head/ARP studs w/ new gasket Oil Pan w/ new gasket Oil Pickup w/new gasket Crank Pulley Exhaust Manifold/ Turbo setup w/ new gasket Intake Manifold Alternator Thermostat Housing Lower coolant port w/ new gasket Oil gauge sensor pickup Crankcase breather Sat 1am- We finally fire up this mystery bottom end and it purrs like a kitten! I mean after it got nice and warmed up it sounded fantastic! I basically packed it up and hit the road at that point, Got back to Sarasota at about 3:30 am this morning. Car ran like butter!But I'm very tired. So I still have my bottom end to go through but it looks like the turbo sucked in a piece of rubber of the K&N filter which in turn munched the compressor wheel, sending pieces of wheel into cylinders 2 and 5, which pitted up the tops pretty well and scored the walls pretty bad, which in turn killed the connecting rod bearings, since I pulled a palm full of copper shavings out of my oil pan. I could move the pistons back and forth in the cylinders by finger! Piston Slap bad! Hopefully i can still reuse some of these Ross forged pistons, I'll know when I yank em out. Another trip to Orlando to get the block back . . . . What a week! BIG THANKS GO OUT TO: -Jimmy for letting me work in his garage for two days -Ken Jones for donating the motor -Rick Bowers for lending a hand and haulin the bottom end from Merrit Island -Jaymar for turnin wrenches and being the whipping boy if anything ever got lost . . .."Jaymar!!" hahaha And most of all to my good buddy Mike Gadwaw (Zgad) for being more friend than anyone could hope for in a situation like this! Thanks so much! HYBRIDZer's ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man am I glad to hear it . . . I hope he has enough water and food and whatnot . . . several of us were worried. Still anxious to hear from him directly to see if anything can be determined about his mom . . . .man this whole thing just sucks!

Thats it! That is the solution to so much heat soak on our L motors!! Yes!

Is this the part where I talk about mudholes and what not?

Yeah scottie, Mike said there may be a few of us doin some shakedowns up there on Wed night. Either way we should definitely all meet up. The car gets dyno'd at Central Florida Turbo at 1 pm

sure thing! Car goes on the dyno again on Wednesday in Orlando. Zgad and I are gonna get some tuning done and what not.

I have the ACT 6-puck. It hooks up fantastic, no slip. its a little chattery at first. I would suggest you get the sprung hub 6-puck. Mine is unsprung and liveable. I would definitely get the sprung version.

No doubt this is a heavier tranny. This is the same tranny that is used in the RB25 turbos. it is a much bigger tranny. Who do you know that has made big HP with a KA tranny in a z? I'd be interested to see some actual numbers. Yes there are several guys making 400hp on KA's. only problem is they are making far less torque at 400hp than an L setup is going to at 400hp.

Ok! Just got into Sarasota. Made the trip with no problems! So today I spent the first half of my tank driving in somewhat hilly areas and then later on i got caught in a little freak rain storm so i turned the defroster on full blast . . . which i forgot to turn off so that was on the last 150 miles. . . even so the car got 26.04 mpg . . . not too shabby.

not sure where you are located but, you should check out http://www.tougefactory.com These guys are good friends of mine and they know the SR platform front and back. They do SR swaps all the time into 240sx's and i have my hanging out over there alot. I'm sure they would love to do this swap. Talk to David and tell him Garrett told you to call. These guys are located on the north side of chicago. They do hands down the best work when it comes to SR swaps anywhere in the midwest. garrett

Well we're taking our time getting out of Atlanta today, but I tried to get an estimate on yesterdays drive. Like I said I was driving somewhat aggresively through some twisties, up and down some hills and I'm still gonna get 400 miles to this tank. So I think yesterday was in the 26 mpg range. Like I said we'll see what today looks like for mileage. Nothing interesting on this trip so far . . . Yesterday a pair of g35's stradled me on the interstate . . . made a couple runs and it turns out they didnt want any of it! HAHA. I guess its not cool gettin smoked by an old Datsun.

I run EGT in car and have a nice liquid filled Fuel pressure gauge on the rail.

Well Rick i made the changes you recommended and it seems to be working great! Although i was in the mountains today and I wasnt exactly driving conservatively! HAHA. Tomorrow I hit I-75 to Fl so it'll be nice and flat, I'll get some new MPG numbers. The only time that i get EGT's above 1400 is when i go part throttle Accel above 80 mph. It gets to like 1500 when im at like 5 in vacuum or so. If I floor it, I get plenty of fuel and EGT's drop back below 1400.

Gabe! You traitor!

I can just imagine your avatar sayin that too!! HAHA

yeah i just broke mine the other nite. stupid design for the power plug!

BOTH! Wideband is a nobrainer but once you have an idea of what EGT=what AFR you can put the wideband away and keep an eye on the EGT. Wideband is awesome for getting tuned, and the EGT is a great way to monitor I think. Although Thagard tuned soley off of EGT when on the street from what i understand. Wideband is a bit bulky and if its not mounted can get annoying after awhile. Tune it, unplug it and use the EGT. Just my .02 cents

Antman . . . The motor is bored 80 over . . . so 88mm pistons (forged), 240 Z rods, but no diesel crank. So its just bored but not stroked. So i'm in Nashville and headed to Atlanta tomorrow. The Z is getting pretty decent gas mileage . . . 24mpg. Fine . . . . Fine!!! I had the crank pulley off multiple times this winter trying to get the sds magnets straightened out. Well . . . I guess the last time it went on I forgot the washer!!! So it was wiggling and the sds didnt like that and started the misfire issue. At least it was a quick fix, but i feel like an idiot. Oh well, Car runs good now!

Just want some input on my cruising MPG. At 80 mph with KA tranny and open 3.9 R200 and 235/45/17's im at a whopping 2700 rpm. This is about where i cruise. Today from Chicago to Nashville i got 24 mpg . . . and i think i can tune it a bit better . . . you tell me. AFR's while cruising are in the low 14's typically. timing is between 30 and 32 depending on exactly what rpm im at. And EGTs are around 1350-1375ish. my off throttle goes rich for some reason before going lean . . . . just tuning i guess. Can I change anything to make it better? does advancing timing increase gas mileage but also raise EGT? Just curious. Input? Garrett

ROCK ON MIKE! BTW the NA and TT versions of the z32 trans are identical except that the starter is slighly repositioned to clear turbo's, same internals. count me in!

We all know that we can put KA trannies on our L28's. We all know that SR trannies are the same as KA trannies just with a different bellhousing. Well here you go, this is a z32 trans bolted to a SR block! Ok so there is a company that is doing this swap, you give them your Z32 bellhousing and they make it fit your SR or KA. So we know there KA and SR are very similar bellhousings to the L28. So why not send this company an L bell and a z32 bell and have em fab it up? Tell me why this wont work?

BOO Alex!

OK car is fixed. but i'm not telling what it was cause then my stupidity would be revealed. So lets just say the car is fixed and i'm stupid . . . there.