cygnusx1

Screw a mechanical pressure gauge into the side of the block where the sender goes and take some readings. That's how I determined my sender went bad. My dash gauge reads about 3/4 up when cold and 1/2 when hot while driving. At idle, hot, it runs less than 1/4 on the gauge. The engine burns oil but runs awesome (does not affect oil pressure). Ask EvilC with his LS1 that thinks my old L28ET might be quicker. Waiting for EvilC to read this.... Seriously, your engine is probably FINE.

If you can swing it, the generic harness from DIY Autotune works great. I had to run additional wires but that's because of all the additional bells and whistles I added. The harness is color coded and each wire is printed with it's function. Sell the original EFI harness on ebay if it's still good. In my case, I sacrificed a 280Z harness and the 280ZX harness. I cut off and reused some of the connectors for a clean looking swap.

I remember glowing my turbine housing when tuning. I remember it glowing when it was lean and when it was rich. KTM, I wasn't trying to counter you, I was just trying to accentuate that it very well could be the richness at the top of his map that destroyed the Big Phil turbo.

Thus melting his turbine bearing from excess fuel being spit out of the combustion chambers.

Look closely and you see a blue cone air filter. It actually rests on the A/C compressor. I made a small shield on the back of the radiator to keep hot air from the rad. blowing right into the air filter. It's a 3" double cone washable air filter from ebay. I think it was $10.

If I remember correctly, and someone on here will certainly back me up or correct me, running rich will glow your turbine housing. That could be your whole problem. I know that lean makes high EGT's but dumping fuel into your turbine will turn it into a jet engine headed for meltdown. Tune the upper part of the maps or at least lean them down.

Sit back and cover the Z for a while. Sometimes you need to get out of it for a while but don't sell it. A 240SX is NOT an S30. If 350HP and 400ft-lbs isn't enough, then go with a crate V8 and you might even be able to use the megasquirt to run it. Don't sell. You wil miss it in a week or two.

Try contacting a place that cleans and tests injectors. I had the pintle caps on my ford injectors changed to the foreign style pintles to fit the factory Z manifold. Maybe they can put on pintles that work with a 14mm bore seal. It was very cheap to do.

This might be the weekend that my son learns to walk so I will be spending the whole weekend with the family. I plan to take the Z out and use it at least once a day for running errands around town. I'll probably show up at the regular Saturday night local car gathering at McDonalds. I also plan to test fly my newly built RC seaplane at the local lake. Hopefully I don't dunk it! The weather is looking PERFECT! 60-80 and pure sun for four days in a row! Maybe I'll lay in the hammock and have some BEER too.

I am a firm believer that small details are the key to a project's completion and personal satisfaction. Often, I see cars that are awesome projects but there are signs of lack of attention to detail. Crooked gauges, a wrinkle in the carpeting, a skewed radio face, or a peeling sticker. My recommendation is to a take few minutes, a few beers, basic tools, some good backround music, chill out and search for out-of-sorts in the car. 9 times out of 10 there is a cheap and easy fix for these little details right in front of you. To some this may be low priority, but as the large priority items are completed, don't lose your focus too soon. Go hunt down some details. I use the method as a way to relax and wind down from a big project and finish it off with a brisk drive in the car. Your console cover is a perfect example!

Another shot.

Based on my experiences with VW's in my family and friends circle ( about a dozen VW's of all vintages), I have seen a rash of electrical problems, rattle problems, clunk problems, and quirky brakes. I have never seen one disabled or stranded, but I do hear a lot of complaints to those problems I listed. My opinion, based on experience, is that they can become quirky cars with small problems, and frequent unplanned trips to the dealer even at low to middle mileage on the odometer. If that doesn't bother you, and most VW fans aren't bothered by this stuff, they are cars that will go for many miles and probably won't ever strand you. Choose wisely. Sometimes the most reliable cars are just too boring. I understand that too.

LOL....Light and ugly wins! Look at the silver one and note the rear flares. The top of the flare is about lined up with the bottom of the side window lines. The yellow one is much less agressive in that area. The fangs in the silver one lean back. The mouth on the silver one ends right under the inside of the headlights like the S30. The yellow one's opening goes too wide. The front bumper/hoodline crease carries around the corner on the silver one. It dissapears in the yellow one. A lot of this could be lighting and fiction but these details are what makes the silver one nicer in my mind.

I don't doubt Tony D or your advice at all but I tried covering up my oil cooler with cardboard and there was no difference. Besides it's a pretty small cooler and I can't see that dragging the water temperature down so quickly. The temperature gauge will go from normal to 1/4 cold in 1 to 2 minutes of low load cruise. The gauge works. I tested it with a thermometer. To me it seems that cold water from the bottom of the radiator is getting to the gauge sender.

I'll take slightly heavier and pretty over slightly lighter and ugly any day, but that's just my opinion. The silver one is hot, the rest are fugly. I brightened up the leaked photo of the silver one:

I was going to test it last night but didn't get to it. I will definitely try it one night this week and report the results. I can't think of any other reason why the engine would run colder than the thermostat considering the thermostat was replaced and then tested.

REVIVAL of an old post with a possible culprit and solution! Tony D, I think after reading all the posts about cylinders 5 and 6 being hotter and coolant bypass information I realized whats happening. Without the hot water hose that heats the throttle body and fast-idle air actuator, you get no bypass at the thermostat housing. This will cause the water pump to force coolant past the thermostat and into the radiator when no additional cooling is required. (ie. light load, mid and high rpm cruising.) Tonight, I will reconnect a hose that runs water from the thermostat bypass fitting to the lower inlet on the passengers side. I bet the problem of cold running goes away. Another loose end in the Z tied up!

Holy moly, I think I solved a mystery by reading this thread. My car tends to run either perfectly normal temp or way too cold. After reading this thread I think I discovered why. When the thermostat is open (hot engine under load), the cooling system is working at keeping the car at a steady temp. When I drive the car with low loads but medium RPMS, the car runs cold. (thermostat checks out fine in a pot of water). Probably because I blocked the old throttle body cooling line which used to double as a bypass. So my waterpump is pushing the thermostat open and overcooling IF my heater valve is also shut. Did I get this correct? Could I have a symptom of improper coolant bypass?

As a matter of fact, the EXIF data is still embedded in the photo. Unfortunately the photographer didn't load his name data into his Canon 20D so he remains unknown. That's the first thing I did when I bought my 20D. He did use Photoshop CS2 but that doesn't mean it's fake. Orientation of image: 1 File change date and time: 2006:11:20 14:57:11 Image input equipment manufacturer: Canon Image input equipment model: Canon EOS 20D Software used: Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh Person who created the image: unknown Exposure time: 137 F number: 5.6 Exposure program: 1 ISO speed rating: 100 Shutter speed: -7.09803 Aperture: 4.97085 Exposure bias: 0 Maximum lens aperture: 4 Metering mode: 5 Flash: 16 Lens focal length: 24 Focal plane X resolution: 3959.32 Focal plane Y resolution: 3959.32 Focal plane resolution unit: 2 Custom rendered: 0 Exposure mode: 1 White balance: 0 Scene capture type: 0

I doubt that's photoshopped. It looks like a 1 or 2 minute exposure at night illuminated by the moon or distant lamp post. Shadows would appear as they normally would.

One of the best things I've built so far is our 16month old. They are a ton of work and dedication but the rewards are the definition of priceless! CONGRATS!!!! He is one handsome boy. Our guy came in two weeks early and has been growing like a weed ever since.

It should very well be a sticky but I think someone should go through and summarize it before it's a sticky. I would suggest creating a new thread that summarizes the findings with the theories and pictures and a link back to this original thread. Not that I'm raising my hand or anything.

I made the same point a few years ago. Why is there not an octane police! It's robbery. My WRX is highly sensitive to octane. It dramatically pulls timing if I get a bad tank of gas and it happens very often. There is a flaw in the early WRX ecu that pulls timing for knock, but very, very, gradually gives it back over a period of days. Whenever the timing pulls, I reset the ECU and perform a procedure to get the max timing advance again. It feels like about a 25HP loss. The reset lasts until the next bad tank. It's a very pronounced power loss that I attribute to getting rooked at the pump.

He is right. Sometimes HBZ loads realy really slow. Sometimes it's super fast. On the slow days, it seems to hang at the google servers and then snap onto action after it does the google stuff. Something about arctic.google.ads... or something like that.

LOL. Thanks. The toupee is to keep the UV off the dash. I also really like that it reduces the glare a great deal. No cracks in my dash yet and I try to keep it that way. I would love to flock the dash someday rally-style. Yes, I said flock...