Tony D

I can tell you what the BAR will say: "Engines not type certified for release in the USA or within the CARB jurisdiction will have to be made compliant before certification will be granted." Why do I know this? Because I tried to get a late 68 production L24 (from Japan) certified for my 73 240Z. As it was not an engine originally manufactured to US Specifications, I was required to install all applicable emissions controls for the year of the VEHICLE. This was in an attempt to utilize the Pre May 84 exemption for predating engine swaps... As you are swapping in a NEWER engine, you would have to comply with the required emissions equipment for the year of the ENGINE in your older chassis. The catalytic converter is NOT required, though as it is (for some reason) considered a CHASSIS item, and not an ENGINE item. What this means is that you may have to use Motorex to Certify the RB26, as they are the only recognized CARB converter to do that right now... Next year that changes, and "self certification" can be attempted. I don't want to scare you off, but it really is not that hard if you CAREFULLY select your year, and KNOW what the engine is required to have. Most J-Spec motors have all the required bits, so it will pass the visual. Wether it passes out the tailpipe is another question altogether. This was common in early SR20DET swaps into 510's when there was no rolling 30 testing exemption. Now remember, an early car is exempt from TESTING, and not compliance. So if you do the swap, and are exempt from testing, how will anyone know that you accomplished the swap in the first place if you are not smoking and nobody calls you in to 1-800-CUT-SMOG? I hope that last paragraph made the whole point clearer...without the need to make a blatantly illegal statement.

with the heater OFF, you have full capacity in the cooling system. withthe heater ON, you MAY reduce the capability of the system to reject some heat IF the coolant coming OUT of the heater to the return line is HOTTER than the coolant coming into the inlet from the bottom of the radiator. But it shouldn't make that much difference. You CAN block those passages though, AS LONG AS YOU KEEP A RECIRCULATION LINE IN THE SYSTEM! You need SOME way to recirculate coolant to the inlet of the pump while the enigne is warming up and the thermostat is cold. Otherwise you can cavitate the pump something fierce, and cause all sorts of uneven heating. A GREAT compromise is to use the thermostatic valve from a late 240Z or 260Z in the bypass line. This valve stays open until it reaches 176 Degrees F, then it closes. This stops the recirculation line altogether to let all the coolant go from the (by now) open thermostat to the radiator. Notice this is on smog engines where they needed all the cooling they could get. Open bypass when cold, closed when hot. With the L28, there is simply a 3/8" line that bypasses all the time. But the mixture control is temperature compensated, so it really doesn't matter there, eh? Hope this clears it up. My personal preference is to run Water Wetter to make sure there is no spot-boiling back in the rear of the head (which is where they put the head temp sensor on torbo cars...hmmm there's a reason huh!). This is also the reason for placement of the ehater hoses too---you get the absolutely hottest water from the hottest part of the head as quickly as possible for quick heat when starting from cold. You can decrease warmup time by increasing the size of the bypass hose, but must temperature control it to close once up to operating temp so you don't recirc too much and overheat. Cheers!

I posted this where you posted this before... I hope you didn't loop your 5/8" heater hose from the head to the return line. If you did, and you have a thermostat that is stuck, or even slow to open, you allow a dangerously large recirculation line to remain open, so that the waterpump circulates coolant into the head, then out the BACK of the head, right back to the inlet of the pump! THIS can cause the steam buildup you expenienced, also. Most people get away with the loop because they kink the line and through dumb luck cut the flow off. But if you are anal (like someon who will remain nameless...), and made a nice loop of free-flowing 5/8" line, you set yourself up for a mobile boiler setup! Remember, the return from the heater core is supposed to be COOLER than the coolant that came out of the head, so recirculating a large ammount would not be a problem. But letting hot water that came straight from the hottest part of the head to be directly recicrulated to the inlet of the waterpump will cause a shunt of the radiator, and it will just recirculate until you boil it out, or blow the radiator cap. Plug those hoses with a couple of sparkplugs and see if your heating problem goes away! I posted this here cause it doesn't look like you came here yet to read the replies, and at ZC.C it looks like you already jumped the thread to check out the suggestions proffered there---and you mentioned your heater hoses being disconnected, so I thought.. hmmmm!

the turbo manifold and ignition components on an L20ET are identical to the L28. The turbo has a .43 ar as compared to a .63 for an L28. I ran an L20ET exhaust manifold on my L28 for years, and eventually put an L28 turbo onto it with no problem. The L20ET intakes are smaller (runner size) so I would go for an L28 item, but the hot parts are the same. With Megasquirt-n-Spark you would be in business! Just get the L28 manifold for less intake restriction. Come to think of it now, I am actually hanging my L20ET manifold on an L28ET out of an 81ZXT, with an 82 ZX N/A Manifold (P82, non-EGR), and a 91 Stanza Throttle Body (60mm) What you have to do when using a N/A manifold on a Stock Nissan Turbo Exhaust Manifold, is to relocate the PCV valve underneath the plenum about 2" closer towards the throttle body, or reclock the turbo so the discharge is more horizontal. Otherwise the discharge piping will hit the PCV fitting. I plugged mine with a dryseal plug, and simply drilled-tapped-and reinstalled the stock PCV Valve Assembly in the same position it is on a Turbo Manifold. Easy, actually. Cheers, and good luck in your conversion!

All hail me, sharkie the magnificient, spouter of innane and usless information! All bow and give praise and hommage to Spouter the Great! It's easy to remember all this crap if you have one of each of the models in question....LHD and RHD that is. 71, 75, and 78. S30, GS31, and S130.

Hey, thanks for the link, man! It's bettern' a poke in the eye with a stick. Check out those itty-bitty intake ports. For the price, I'll not complain. Hopefully this thing will have more combustion chamber volume than the E30 head currently on my L20A. I would like to build the L20 Turbo with a flat top, or semi-dished piston top if possible. Using the L24 head, I was looking at pop-tops for even 8:1 compression with those dinky bores----though the ports probably wouldn't have needed any port work! LOL I'll bid sometime tomorrow or Friday morning before I take off for Lake Havasu with the Z-Club for the weekend.

Skip it! The valves are much smaller than L28ET, and the combustion chamber is sized for similar CR as the L28, but for a 2-litre engine. If you have one of these heads, or access to one, e-mail me off-list. I am actually building an L20ET for a project, and would welcome a proper head for comparison rather than trying to adapt an E31 which is the closest I can think of for L20 Turbo application. Better yet, I really whould try and find a complete late-model L20ET and go from there, rather than rebuilding an L20A for turbo application.

yup, the LSU 4 is a WBO2 sensor. Like most electronics, the prices fall as technology advances and new parts are made. Megasquirt Inventors Bowling and Grippo are currently testing the LSU 4 against some pretty stiff competition to see what kind of tracking and response they get when they incorporate WBO2 into the UMS project.

Teh differences in FairladyZ and US-Spec Vehicles can be fairly easy to spot. Othertimes not. For instance, on S30's on of the quirky JDM requirements is that FLARES are kept in the vehicle. On the passenger's kickpanel, under the dashboard, there are two black clips for Nissan-Flares in little red plastic tubes. Of course the dash is RHD, and on a standard Fairlady Z, you will have an L20A six cylinder. Only the Fairlady 240Z had the L24. After that, until the advent of the ZX, all FairladyZ's had the 2-litre motor. A ZS model will have less jute and sound deadening (also may have no clock, or radio with bitchin' blanking plugs instead...) and will have plastic mats throughout the vehicle except fo the diamond vinyl on the tranny tunnel. The doors have none of the reinforcement that started in 73 in the USA, and starting in 76, the Fairlady Z-L (Luxury) was available from the factory with POWER WINDOWS! In-Dash Air Conditioning was available from day one with the Fairlady Z, unlike the Us spec vehicle which had to wait until 74 to get a Factory in-dash cooler... The Hood Emblem, Horn Emblem and Quarter Pillar Emblem are all simple "Z". No "Datsun" anywhere on the vehicle. On later S30's they had the "NAPS" on the left corner of the hatch which stood for "Nissan Anti Pollution System" and they had catalytic converters starting in 76---and actually had CLEANER emissions standards than California in those years, all the way through 81. A 79 Fairlady ZX (or 78 for that matter) will have an O2 sensor in the exhaust whereas US market vehicles didn't have them until later. Also, an interesting quirk on the S130 ZX style Fairladys was the two-barrel throttle body. The primary throttle was about the size of a dime, and you ran on that up to about 3000 3500rpm, with a progressive linkage. This was GREAT for fuel economy, and whn you tripped the second barrel, it opened WIDE for power. Interesting. Though kind of upsetting when you are used to a bigger throttle body (60mm SX style! ). The ZX cars also had a stepper-motor idle control with no cold start injector and different control of the EFI. There was no 280ZXT there, only an L20ET for the turbo. It was popular in 89 when the laws changed to swap L20ET's into L28N/A cars to get the tax breaks inherent in the 2-litre tax class in Japan. The ZX's had odd options, and interior colours not available here in the USA. There were five-speed available from day one in all models, and LSD was an option in the same time frame. None of them had rear clearance markers on the quarterpanels. The signal lights in the front and rear were amber instead of red like US models, and there was a switch on the console to allow you to illuminate parking lights (spearate cirtcuit) on either the left, right, or both sides of the car, without having the light switch on at all. This is a quick overview of the differences. There are more subtle stuff but it's late, I'm tired, and I'm going to bed now!

The dimensions on the RHE7 Impeller Wheel look suprisingly similar to the IHI stationary air compressor package they tried to market here through Cooper Turbocompressors. ("An adaptation of IHI's successful Internal Combustion Turbocharger Technology" was how it was presented!) That was a bitchin' little air compressor. Two stage, tilting pad bearings, 120,000 shaft speed driven by a variable speed DC motor running at 7500 rpm through a step up gearbox. 110 or 100 psi models were both available with Titanium Impellers.... Never made the grade, primarily due to the inability of the Japanese to adapt the control system ot a constant-pressure variable flow design. They were On-Off modulation, (load-unload) which just didn't suit the needs of a small compressor installation.

Good to hear you're on the road again! Albiet slightly slower, but at least you are boosted once again!

Something is working. Cranked it today, and actually got spark. Amazing! Now I have to put everything else in to the car (like interior, fuel tank, fuel pump, radiator, etc!) and wait for the "big day" when I can actually hear it run, and not just fantasize about how great it will sound...

Xander, the big determining factor on interchangability is wether or not you have an external striker mechanisim on the door, or one that is inside the door. The Fairlayd Z's had the same mechanisim from day one to day none in 78, so their stuff is all interchangable. I suspect the bodies of the Euro 260Z should be similar to the Farilady Z, and you might be able to get away with 73 or 74 doors. Good Luck in your search.

actually, the throttle plate in front of the compressor would lead to hellacious surge problems on lift-throttle if you throttle it shut while the thing was still under boost. Thisis a phenomenon that occurs in centrufugal air compressors in industrial applications, and they use very sophisticated blowoff schemes to keep the throttled inlet of the turbo away from the surge line. Butthen again, that is for fixed-speed turbines. On an automotive application, the variable speed nature would probably negate the surge problem. With the throttle shut, the compressor wheel would be playing in a vacuum (or near to it) and with no load across the compressor, should coast down slower that it would fighting boost before the blowoff occurs to the front of the turbine (the way most people set it up). With a properly adjusted compressor bypass valve, even a slight lifting of the throttle will lift the bypass---and no slowing occurs. Basically, I think the only setup with a throttled turbocharger inlet would be on diesel engines, and that is for shutdown/emergency shutdown.

I have finished wiring the interconnect cable on the 260Z Project, and the test on the 81 CAS will probably happen Sunday Afternoon if I can get all the stuff downloaded to the ECU, and verify all the connections one last time. I ran across a strange quirk. I know Moby's instructions call for having the MS in the same configuration as set up for the Stimulator. This I would assume means Pin25 on the MS (Engine Ground for XG1 Jumper) would go to, obviously Pin 25 on the Relay Board, and the S1 terminal would be jumped over to Engine Ground. Simple, huh? Not if you are like me and went ahead and USED S1 through S5 as Hot and Ground for several other items that needed to be driven off the Fuel Pump Circuit. I'd jumpered S1,2,3 together under the board with wire, and then over to Terminal 5 Fuel Pump Out, and S4,5 to Engine Ground. This allowed me to run the Fast Idle Heater, as well as the O2 Sensor Heater from S1 and S2, with S3 as a spare Switched Hot, and I used S4&5 as Ground for the aforementioned items. So what to do with Pin 25, which is board-traced to S1? I took it out on Pin25 from the MS, and transposed the same wire not to Pin 25 at the Relay Board, but to Pin 7 (general engine ground board-traced). I hope to Gawd this works. None of the jumpers that were supposed to go to S2, 3, 4, &5 were run from the MS box, but spares exist in the bundle to connect them if I need to do that. Questions is... do I need those jumpers, Moby? Anyone? I wire the Bootloader Switch tomorrow morning, and start downloading the files needed for the test.... Will read the Sticky once more, and see if I am missing anything, and keep my fingers crossed when I do the power-on and spark check. After almost two months we should hopefully know if the 81 CAS is compatible with the system as connected for an 82/83 CAS.

I would be tempted to say heat soak myself. My 75 does that after I stop and fill up for gas after driving for three hours at 80+ across the desert. If I keep going and keep air moving through the engine bay, all is fine. Have you driven the car with a fuel gauge (this will sound/look kinda stupid) taped on your windshield? I did this to determine that the fuel pressure was just jmping all around (bubbles in the rail) and stayed that way until the cool fuel worked it's way through the hot section of the rail, and pressure came up/stabilized. What I rigged for my long desert trips is a bypass so I can hold the fuel pump "on" for 15 or 20 seconds after a hot-soak episode. By pre-priming the fuel rail, my troubles went away all together. All it took was making sure the rail was up to full pressure and no bubbles were in the line before I cranked the car for initial fire. This may not be what you are experiencing, but the gauge will at least tell you what, if anything, your fuel system is doing when very hot. The I/C WILL add heat to the engine bay. If from nothing else restriction of flow over the radiator. A fan to circulate air after shutdown may help (like Nissan did). I run a 160 Chevy Thermostat in the car, and in general the car runs at 170 when fully hot which is close enough for stock ECU to turn off almost all of the cold enrichments. I still get 22mpg on my 75 while driving 80+ towing a small trailer, so it's not too rich! Good luck man, I know I didn't answer your questions directly, but thought this might help.

I was in the same situation as you Baastaad! I didn't want two ECU's running. Then an 81 turbo engine landed in my lap, and I had a 260 with no motor... So I was going to just slap in one of my MS units, and go with a conventional BTM on an MSD6A. Then the MS-nS was revealed to me, and my mind was made up. I recall it was only the second week of December when I said Id' try it and let Moby know if the wiring did work on the 81CAS the same way it does on an 82/83. Now, being anal about wiring and shrink wrap elongates the project, and replacing bolts cause their dirty, etc etc etc has made the job go long, but the wiring of the boxes would have taken maybe two days in the driveway if I'd had an already running 81 setup in the car. Were I to do it again, I would parse the OEM harness, as it has a lot of good parts and is already wired nicely. The MS took me 5 hours start to finish to solder together. The relay box about 45 minutes. Case mods for everything took another hour, and a lot of that was figuring out how I wanted to do what I needed to do. But in the end, you have totally tuneable EFI and Spark. With the ability to incorporate WBO2 control! For that I figure it's worth it. When I do the TBI 260Z, I will be buying a new 82/83ZXT CAS, and replacing the distributor currently in the car. I will then have MS-n-S running fuel and spark in the 260 which from external cursory glances will look stock... Muahahahaaaa how big of a cam can I run again and have a smooth idle with EFI..... "Yeah, it's stock. Yep, those are the factory Flat Tops. Yes, the AIR pump and AC work, don't you see the belts on them?" Muahahahahaaaaaa...

That's how you should approach it. Get a good pressure gauge, as trimming the rising rate can be a bit tedious. But on standalone, you say "bin at 2000 to 3000 rpm 5% less fuel", "bin 5000 to 6000 10% more fuel" one of the GREAT advantages over carburetion and older EFI systems.

The clutch and brake pedals are NOT the same as the LHD units, as the bend in the long part of the pedal still points so the pedals are centered in the footwell. LHD pedals on the right side of the car do not put the pedals in the proper positon.

Ain't gonna be Moby! He already has programmable spark and fuel in the car using Megasquirt-n-Spark for a reasonable cost. Hell, for the two or three hours spent tuning the car to run right, you may not even FIND all the Z31 conversion parts in the JY! Tuning is not that big a deal, especially if you have a dyno access with an AFR readout. Most with MS are running in a few minutes, and driveable soon thereafter. Usually within 2 hours of seat time tuning you have a vehicle that runs at least as well as stock, but with better fuel economy! And when you add boost, or injectors, or intercooler, you simply retune by tweaking the effected bins. Not so easy on a Z31 ecu...

similar curve... the AFM goes wide open, and after that, the ECU is on the assumption that thethrottle is WOT, so it's basically calibrated to the HP Peak way "safe rich" and that is good enough to hold the engine waaay past redline at the stock boost. At 10psi, it starts getting ragged towards the big end. At stock boost, take a look at your AFR at 6500 under full boost (stock boost remember!) Yeah, this is somethign to do with the capabilities fo the chip in the ECU---probably saving memory for other calibrations due to emissions. This is the tradeoff made for most GM vehicles---way lots of code for emissions stuff, very little in actual code for the actual fuel map. So having a map that only goes to the hp peak at the point the "emergency relief valve" lifts is fine, as even though the engine revs above that point, at 11:1, the leaning outthat will occur between 5500 and 6500 will not blow the enigne. Follow? This, BTW is the same thing JG Engine Dynamics knew 10 years ago. His comment to everyone with a J pipe was "don't go over 10psi, you won't get any more HP" It was his conclusion then that the map was stopped at 10psi/5500rpm and anything beyond that was iffy... We all seem to be confirming that now, all these years later...

I should have clarified, stating that by "maxed out" I meant the pulsewidth hits a stopping point in the map, and stays level from that point onward. Mazda does this on some systems. Rpm and pulsewidth maps go up, up, up then just stay at the last setting as rpm/boost rises off the maps. Very dangerous, but if you don't go below say 13 or 14:1 by the time the engine redlines, it's a cheap and simple way to cut costs. The N/A computers were analog, and from what I understand they will keep going up on the map linearly until redline, and this is why some people prefer the N/A computer for the turbo application when tweaking things. I agree, the flow from the 270cc stock turbo injectors should support WAY more than 200HP, but only if you have the fuel flowing through the orifice through either pulsewidth increases, or fuel pressure increases. I was kinda rushing when I typed it, hope this makes more clear what I was trying to convey. The Z31 ecu has a more-better mapping than the original ECCS that came on the 280ZXT's.

i can't speak to the richness on the bottom end other than to say the pressure rises quicker than the engine can rev, and it gets rich. As for the top end, it's due from what I have deduced (and others correct me if I'm off) as the injectors are just about maxed out anyway. This is why the RRFPR seems to tweak the engines a bit on the top end keeping it richer up top thant stock. More fuel pressure, more fuel. Oh, wait, you already know about that! LOL

HEY HEY HEY! Re-Read my post! I didn't run the line back through the vapor tank! I ran it into a fitting that is in the side of the filler neck. It is a brass iftting I screwed into the filler neck (looks a lot like the factory turbo return line setup on a 66 Corvair Corsa Trubo)! I don't even HAVE a vapor recovery tank on my 73! I have the upper fuel filler neck from a JDM Z432R which has a simple 1/4" hose that vents the tank overboard so if you overfill it, it spills to the ground. The fuel return fitting is below that, with a little 3" nub of copper tubing soldered into it to direct the returned fuel back down towards the tank properly. I have filled it over the return and have had no problems with fuel "backing up" All you are doing is creatinga circulating flow, not actually building pressure in the tank save from thermal expansion, and that's why the tank cap and vapor tank are vented at 3" h2o....

Oh, it's even better than that! The switchable narrow band output is user configurable for any AFR. So if you aren't running a catalyst (on an early vehicle for instance) there is no need to stick with the catalyst-dictated 14.7 AFR, and you can configure something more along the lines of 15.8 and REALLY see an increase of gas mileage during cruise! Cooooool!