ZR8ED

Sorry but the graph looks a bit crappy. I photocopied the original and I needed to darken the lines with a pen so it would show up better. I do not have the af graphs in my possession. I'll have to see if the mechanic has them. They had lots of trouble with the graphs with the a/f. the graphs I do have of them, they are scaled too small to really get a good idea of what was going on during the run. More to come.

AND actually brings his own car. AND its a Z! AND its actually his good Z! (well at least his longest owned) Well I made it to my first dyno session with my VG30ET powered 1978 280Z. Some stats for those who don't know. stock VG30ET internals from a Jspec 1988-89 engine. Hybrid t3/t4 turbo Volvo i/c 3" ss downpipe and full exhaust. 60mm throttlebody 2.5" i/c pipes Turbo xs BOV and manual boost controler 370cc inj upgraded fuel pump adj fpr Modifed ecu. Well I didn't have time to upload pics yet, but I do have some numbers. We did 7 runs, with no adjustments. We were there to get some numbers, not to tune. The car goes into winter storage on Sunday. We only ran the car to 5000rpm on each run, because of uncertainies about air fuel ratios throughout the powerband. The power curve kept increasing at 5000rpm, so we were pretty sure It would climb a bit further. hp and torque came on strong by 2200rpm. The curves looked very good. I have some lean spots that need work. Lots of tuning to go.. The numbers acording to the dynojet 300 RWHP 351 ft/lbs of torque @5000rpm (best run) Not a bad way to end the season.

You still need the front crossmember. The n/a mount on the drivers side, interfers with the turbo. Not just a little bit either. The turbo clearly sits where the n/a motor mount is.

Whatcha Asking for it? I have never ever had a problem selling an LSD diff. Less than one week each time. If its too cheap, people as whats wrong with it, and if its too much, they wonder whats been done to it, but it may be priced out of the "casual zedder's" budget. Serious inquiries only! hehe

Well I have a spare unit from another 88 300zx, n/a model. Maybe I should install it and give it a try first? It works fine once warm, it must stick when cold. I few light taps of the hammer does a wonderful job. Must look pretty fun to passersby to see my get out the old hammer to fix my little baby. hehe

Jon. That happend to me. Stock mount, no diff strap. VG30ET pushing 9 psi on a hard launch on the drag strip. The diff mount broke, lifted up, hit the tranny tunnel, and ripped off my E brake parts in that area, and pulled on my ebrake fully on both wheels. I still managed a quarter mile time of 14.7 hehehe Scott

Well if you swap in a VG30ET, your going to need a bit more than just the engine. you need the front cross member from a turbo car. The motor mounts are not in the same location on an N/A car. You will likely need a turbo ecu, and you will end up with some left over wires on the engine and the stock n/a harness. It does work though. VG30ET's are not intercooled, so you don't have to worry about that right away. A stock turbo engine will be a huge and noticeable difference from what you have now. Turn up the boost a few psi (no intercooler) add a 3" mandrel bent exhaust and a nice high flow muffler and cat (if required where you live). Wala.. More than enough hp for most people.

Thanks GrayZee. The turbo will not clear the steering shaft or the frame. I had to move both. When I did this, I had to consider the reinforcement of the compression rod as well, as this part of the frame was chopped. As far as rear placement, my motor is about 1.5 inches away from the firewall. I doubt I could have moved it further back, and the further back it went, the more interference there was with the steering. I am very happy with the fore-aft placement of the engine. Also considering that the motor mounts are on the frame rails now, and that area became extremely critical to make sure it would not fold under the weight of the engine, or under heavy braking and cornering, and make sure the steering would work smoothly, and not bind, or have flat/heavy spots in the steering. That is with the stock turbo...put on a larger turbo, and it gets worse. The alternator had to have a custom bracket made as well, so it would clear the frame rail. I had to use a smaller oil filter, because it doesn't clear the frame rails either. The motor can't sit much higher to clear these things, or it will hit the hood. The stock hood latch is long gone as well, so I could fit the motor back far enough. I also had to modify the stick shift to get it to fit up through the stock hole in the tranny tunnel. There are several other things that needed work to get it to fit, but I don't recall them off the top of my head. Scott.

Well my idle air bypass is definately not working all the time. I started the car yesturday, and the car would not hold idle, it jumped back and forth from 1300rpm to 2000rpm back and forth, back and forth...very anoying. I got out the first tool that I thought would work. My hammer. I lightly tapped on the soleniod, and the idle immediately settled out about normal. I had the idle set before to idle at about 1500rpm cold, and 1000 warm. It has not done this the last 3 times I have driven the car, so something is defineatly up with this idle bypass. I got out and adjusted the throttle plate screw, and brought the idle down to a more reasonable level and took the car out for a run. The car ran MUCH nicer. AFR's are much nicer in the mid cruising range. 13.5:1 I drove it for about an hour and the car ran very nicely. @15psi the tires start to spin in third gear when rolling hard on the throttle to WOT. That is LOTS of fun. I think I'm going to remove the entire idle air bypass and plug the line from the i/c pipe that fed it. What a PITA! Good news though. I am scheduling a dyno date before the car gets put away for winter. I hope to hammer out a time later today. I'd really like to do one or two pulls just to see what it can do, and so I can make plans over the winter to fix what ever needs fixing. Its been lots of fiddling with what few adjustments that I have, and just taking my time that has gotten the car back to running this well. It doesn't appear to have been any "failure" that caused this, other than some bad grounds possibly. I may have been tuning the car with some bad grounds, and now that it is working properly, I've had to retune my settings. At least that is the only reason I can think of for causing this much grief.

WTF?? Just read it in a GM Propaganda newsletter. John Heinricy drove a GM performance division and Powell Motorsports prepared Chevy Cobalt SS at Buttonwillow Raceway Park, and bested the Legendary Skyline, and A nitrous charged Volkswagen jetta by more than 7 seconds Speed channel's street tuner challenge was the host. ????????

It has been done already, there is extremely little info about the details of the swap. It is costly, requires lots of modifications to get it in there and its a tight fit. But mostly requires lots of time and talent to get it in and working right. If its not installed correctly, you will mess with the handling, balance, braking ability, or be just downright dangerous if short cuts are taken, poor materials or poor design of hand fabricated parts. I say the dangerous parts because I doubt you are going to use this car as a grocery getter, and an engine ripping itself off its mounts at speed can be a lethal problem.

Nothing wrong with a vg30et. Intercool it, add a boost controller, add an adj fpr, and run a 3" exhaust, and bingo 300hp is there! Want more? Upgrade the fuel pump (on z31's), add a larger turbo, add larger injectors, and an ecu to handle them, and wala 400hp is easily attainable. Want more? Port/polish heads, polish/balance, nitride, shotpeen rods and crank, get some forged pistons, make sure she is mechanically perfect, crank the boost and try and shoot for 800hp! Or use the vg30dett, and brag that you have a vg30dett! other than that, its all good!

This swap has been rarely attempted due to the costs and amount of modifications to get the engine to fit into the engine bay properly. This is not a cost effective swap. I did the swap mostly for the "geewiz" factor, and I could have had a v8 for 1/4 of the cost/effort. Check out my write up to see a bit of whats involved. http://zacksz.homestead.com/projectboost.html Scott.

Ok here is a question. I have a mallory adjustable fuel pressure regulator with a vacuum port on it. I am running it on a boosted VG30ET engine. I notice a slight lean condition when transitioning from cruising to WOT. I am running rich at cruising 12.5:1, and 11.5 at WOT. It leans to about 14:1 as the throttle transitions. Here is the question. my regulator has about 24" of hose for the vacuum signal. The factory unit was on the manifold, and used about 4" of vacuum line. I was thinking that the extra distance is causing a delay effect. Kinda like the difference of using stock brake flex lines, and using the ss braided stuff. Anyone ever see this happen? I plan to test this with some copper pipe if i can find some and see if i get a quicker response for additional fuel. BTW fuel pump is high pressure mallory unit, with enough capacity for my needs. Any ideas? Thanks, Scott.

Ok the car is up and running, and I have been getting it to run better and better as I work harder on it. Ok new update. I have since added a helper spring to the turbo wastegate, as I could not get more than 12 psi (14psi spike) since I have added the 3" exhaust system. Now I can run 17psi and it settles in around 15psi. MUCH faster now. Ok. I'm still only getting 12.5- 13.3 afr's while driving. I can get 11.5 afr at WOT at 17psi. I do notice that in the higher gears, I go from crusing at 13:1 afr to 14:1 as I roll up to WOT, at which point the afr's go to 11.5:1 and all is good again. I still have a on/off feel with the throttle with in town driving. Someone suggested I am not getting into closed loop/open loop??? I should have very good afr's (14:1) while idleing or just off idle driving. The car feels like it wants to decelerate (17:1 afr) or accelerate (12-13:1 afr) keeping at a steady throttle is no easy, and sometimes the car will chug slightly as I do it. (ie in stop and go traffic and driving slowly in 2nd gear). While coasting the afr's stay pegged at 17:1 till I slow down considerably, and you can feel the car kick in and coast smoother (slowing at a lesser rate..like coasting with the car in gear and then taking it out of gear) at this point, the afr's go to 11-12:1 till the car is slowed down or I put my foot on the clutch to come to a stop. then the afr's go to 12.5-13:1. I'm not too sure what to check to test this out. BTW car pulls like a freight train at 17psi in 3rd!

Thanks everybody. One spring added, Then turned the boost controller down a bit for safety, and Wala! 17psi! Now I can dial my boost where needed for finer tuning. The helper spring worked perfectly! Thanks!

As the title says. I'm trying to get 15psi from my hybrid turbo, and I'm having troubles now that I put on the 3" exhaust. At 2.5" I could easily get 15psi of boost. It would actually spike 17 in higher gears and settle into 15. I have my manual boost controller turned all the way, and it is not hitting 15psi. I can spike 14 but settles into 12psi in 3rd gear. I assume that I have increased the flow so much that my wastegate can't hold itself shut? Am I going to have to put a helper spring on my actuator arm? My boost controler is made by TurboSmart and has been on the car for a few years now. Electrically the car has been verified (harness and sensor check last week) The car runs strong, and my air/fuel ratio is near 11:1 at WOT...(I'm still tuning the afr's. High 12's and low 13's while driving. Timing is stock at 20 degrees. FP at about 27 at idle (vac pulled and plugged) List: 1989 VG30ET engine t3/t4 hybrid turbo SVO injectors modded ecu 3" ss mandrel downpipe to the muffler jacobs ignition.

Well Nissan-Fan, if you have access to what you say, then why don't you drop in a Toyota 7mgte? easy to find. lots of performance goodies, and no more difficult to wire than the L28et. OK OK you'd have to fabricate some motor and tranny mounts, but if your talking sr motors, then motor mounts should not be an issue either. my 0.02 cents.

Ok another update. MORE boost. I cranked the dial a boost under the hood (to save my engine and myself ..no cockpit adj for me. hehehe) I don't recall turning it back very far, but I have had to crank the dial 3 full turns to get from a solid 10psi to a nice 12psi in lower gears and 14 in top gears. I still have some adjustments to go, and going slowly is better anyways. At least to keep track of each adjustment made. I go out for a cruise with some 7mgte powered MkII supras. ok. The car is running much better. We had some fun with a Buick GN.. I guess he thought he would stomp some rice!! NOT!! we all waxed him.. even by me, and I was bringing up the rear!! air fuels are still good, at full boost, air fuels are good as well. It looks as though I just need to get the car out and drive around with it. I'm going to crank the boost abit more and get it back to something around the 15psi mark. I am still not able to spin the tires when rolling into WOT 3rd gear, but I think that is due to my new suspension settings. The car is hooking up very strongly again. I am feeling pretty good again, about working on the car. Confidence is back up after doing all that rewiring and then balancing my fp/timing/idle/idle bypass. The only complaint I have at the momement is intown driving. The car either wants to coast or accelerate.. those very fine throttle adj have a "herky jerky" feeling to them, and my air fuels jump from rich (as I touch the throttle then it settles out), to full lean (17:1) as I coast in gear.???

A friend of mine and myself were doing a resto on his 240. It was in a previous life, a show only car that had seen way too many years of neglect. So we started to strip it down. (paint looked pretty good.) So we pull off the hood, and the two of us could barly lift it off!!! It had 3" of bondo to make this wicked looking power bulge. The 3-4" flares were solid bondo. The rear bumper styling was solid bondo! There must have been 500-700 pounds of bondo! No wonder the suspension was near flattened out!!

Oh and its ZR8ED. I didn't buy "Z rated" rubber for nothing! hehehe jk

Yes my car is a street car. My front belly pan pictured above (before new paint) is level with my front cross member and mounts to the bottom edge of the fibreglass airdam, (not the plastic black strip.) I have verfied NO lift issues with the front end and I have seen the high side of 140mph. The rear is not fully tested, as I have not had the car above 120mph since. No negative effects have been noticed. My rear diffuser when the car is parked. starts parallel with and the same height as my rear control arms. It then angles up at 7 degrees to the back of the car.

update. Adjusted the tps. I still have a stumble from 2000-2500rpm when slowly increasing the throttle (neutral in the driveway) Long story short. Car idles at 12.8:1 air fuel, fp 27psi (vac removed and plugged) idles speed at 1000rpm. idle bypass screw all 3/4 way open to bypass air past the throttle plate. (factory equipment bypass) The car drives around in the 12.5-13.5:1 air fuel. goes to 11:1 at WOT, and goes to 17 under decel in gear with foot off accelerator I reset the timing to 20 degrees, lowered the fuel pressure 3-4psi, and opened up the idle air bypass 3/4, and lowered the throttle plate position (adjusting screw) to get to this level of performance. I need to run the boost higher and see the air fuel ratio before I adjust the fp any more. we'll see