cygnusx1

I cant wait to see the photos!

Anyone here? I drove past you in the opposite direction this morning on RT158 around Kill Devil Hills. I was on my way home to NY. It looked like a white 240 with white air dam and white rear spoiler. Looked nice.

This brings up a good point. One thing I have learned in life. You can be lazy, if you are smart-lazy. In other words, don't ignore squeeks, rattles, clunks, oil drips, fuel drips, strange smells, and other things in the car. Spend a minute to identify the source. Once it's identified, you can decide to ignore it, fix it now, or fix it later. I handle these by grouping them into weekend projects once enough have accumulated, unless they are serious. Like a cracked oil filter! Fix it NOW.

A few of the shots I took out here on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Straight out of the camera. Haven't had the chance to post process the RAW files yet. Devil's Hand

I actually used the stock heat temp sensor instead of a water temp sensor. Nissan did it this way so I figured I could too. It seems to work fine. It fluctuates a bit more with engine load than I figure a water temp would but you can tune out the fluctuations in megatune. It really only serves the purpose of warmup fuel curving. Once the engine is fully warmed, the sensor really does nothing but sit their and tell the ECU that the engine is fully warm. I have all cold enrichments set to 100% by 160deg f. If you do use the head temp sensor you can add its values into megatune. I calibrated mine using boiling water, ice, and room temp.

I mounted under the drivers seat. My Z has the plastic panel under the glove box also. That spot would work but I chose to use the original harness pass-thru hole on the lower left firewall so I decided to keep everything on the left side. Make sure you have enough wire in the pre-made MS-II harness unless you are making your own harness. Most of the sensors, coil, and dist. are all on the left so I figured it was easier to keep it all on the left. The only wires that went right, were the power, ground, and head temp sensor. Good luck. -Dave

I will be traveling home via the Chesapeake Bridge-Tunnel and Lewes Ferry to Cape May, NJ. We have our little guy, "5-months" with us so we will probably be making only unplanned stops. One of these days I will get down there to VA for a Z event. -Dave

Take a look at my thread on "Installing the MS-II" in the megasquirt forums. I have photos of my relays and everything else.

I am in Avon, but I'm going to Ocracoke for lunch tomorrow at Howard's Pub.

So here I am, sitting on the third deck of our rental house gazing West into Pamlico Sound. The low pressure system that just left Florida is pissing on us and the wind is just begging the boldest windsurfers to call in sick. I have been coming down to the Outer Banks for many years on and off. Initially, I came down here with high school buddies to go windsurfing and drink. Now I am down here with my family to relax and left the windsurfers back home. I remember back about 15 years ago when my friend Jerry and I decided that the best of our vehicles to take from New York to the Outer Banks was, my then younger, 280Z. We had my dad machine up a roof rack for the Z out of aluminum tubing with stainless drip rail vertical clamps. It was a peice of art fit for the Henry Ford museum. Jerry and I strapped three windsurfer boards, five sails, three booms and two masts onto the rack. Can you picture it? It looked about as graceful as a pig on iceskates with a monkey on its back. In the hatch, we packed enough camping gear for a week, including tent, stove, propane, clothing, beer, cheese, and crackers. The drive was phenominal. The Z was flawless all the way down the 12 hour trip. I remember Jerry, who was building a Z at the time also, commenting on how my Z ran so well. We got here and picked a water's edge spot to pitch the small tent at Frisco Woods campground. Overnight, a Noreaster surprised us and we woke up before sunrise to a steady, 60 knot cross onsore wind blowing off the Pamlico. We had put the tent up on a small sand pile about three feet above the waterline in between a few small trees. The relentless wind had reshaped the tent overnight from a dome into pretty much a teardrop shape. If we hadn't been in it for ballast, the tent with all or crap in it would have been blown away. Being very creative, we scrounged up three 150lb wooden picnic tables and tied them on edge in between the small trees just upwind of the tent. They worked perfectly as wind shields for the tent and for the propane stove outdoor kitchen. We were all happy to get in some primo sail time in epic conditions for a couple of days. The noreaster never let up for days and we started to notice after the second day that the Pamlico had gotten into the habit of a one way tide. The tide would come in, and the tide would come in. It just kept rising. The third night, the weather got particularly nasty so we decided to scrape loose change out of the Z and go for dinner. We stayed in the restaurant as late as we possibly could for the price of a cheeseburger. It was warm, dry, and had solid walls, food and drink. We were NOT leaving. Eventually it got time to go so we headed out into the dark, driving, gale with the Z. As we turned down the campground road to head down to our sand pile "house" at the beach, we were shocked to find a road that now ran right into the Pamlico waters. We were still about 100 yard in the woods from where our tent was and we were stopped by waves. I managed to back the Z out into a raised area of land and shined the headlights out towards where the tent was before. It was still there, completely surrounded by the Pamlico sound in the dark. Jerry rolled up his pants and trudged through the water ahead to check depth. I followed behind him in the Z. The salt water was about half way up the rockers and the sea spray covered the car, as we made our way as close to the tent as possible. I got out and we yanked the wet, sandy tent with all of our wet bags, and sleeping gear out of the ground and manhandled it ALL into the Z hatch. We then drove it all out to dry land and spent the rest of the week drying it all out. We resorted to parking the Z with its nose up a dune so that we could pitch the seats back enough to lay nearly flat. We lived out of the Z for the next four days and got some more great sail time. Those are the days that seem like you'll never want to repeat, yet somehow, looking back, it all seemed like a good time. And it was. Yes, it's still the same Z I drive today but now I am in a 5 bedroom private home on the water front with ALL the amenities.

Thanks. BMW 318 Seats. Recaro/BMW made. Simple home made adapters.

Photos: I am still working on the maps but it runs great. I posted the latest maps as of yesterday in the MSQ sticky thread.

Running very well. No surge, AFR's from 11.5-15.0, good power all over, good mid end torque, very smooth down in the low RPM's. This was tuned using several iterations of AutoTune, VE Analyzer in MegaLogViewer, and manual map smoothing. I increased the ranges of the kPa from 20 to 220 on all maps and datalog-street-tuned it to 10psi@6000rpms. The max boost achieved during the drive-tune was 15psi. NOTE: I cannot safely gaurantee that this is good for more than 15psi and 4500 RPM. Timing map is very aggressive and I am not going to push it any further without a dyno and knock sensor. It is NOT a dyno tune, it is a street/driveability tune and runs very well. Here is the msq 7/12/07. My specs are in the post above this one. -Dave Here is my current AE setting dialog: Aggressive Tune 5.zip

Darn I was about to donate but now I don't have to. I just put a peice of masking tape over the ad corner of the screen. J/K Dont get all bent....I am spooling up my Paypal account right now.

I was at a show last night and crawled around under a Ferrari F355. I was surprised to find that the grill in the nose was open to the ground. There was no pan. It is similar to the Z. In other words, the air goes in the grill and then goes underneath the car. It did not look like any attempt was made to keep that air from going under the chassis.

!!!GO TO NEXT POST FOR MY LATEST MSQ FILE!!! MY CURRENT, RUNNING DECENT, SETUP 5-30-07 ---------------------------------------------------- MegaSquirt-II Engine Management System w/PCB3 4-bar Mapdaddy Dual Bar Sensor option Re-Jumpered for Stock 83 Turbo Distributor and Coil. http://diyautotune.com/tech_articles/how_to_megasquirt_your_280zx_turbo.htm CODE v2.6 ---------------------------------------------------- Stock L28ET Intercooled 18x11x3 with 2.5" pipes 15psi boost Ford Lightning High Impedence 42# Injectors (440cc) Stock FPR Walbro Pump TO4B "SUPER-V" trim compressor 2.5" Exhaust 240SX TB and TPS GM-IATS Stock ZXT Head temp Sensor LC-1 Wideband O2 sensor (currently disabled for rough tuning) Stock ZXT Idle air controller. ---------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This is seat of the pants tuned! !!DO NOT TRUST THIS WITH YOUR MOTOR AT FULL TILT!! ---------------------------------------------------------------- SEE NEXT POST -Dave

When I finished installing the MS-II and my wife saw the Z move again after three months of me tangled with wires, she said she was proud of me! I think she was just happy that I could now resume a normal fatherhood. Unfortunately, I haven't told her about tuning yet OK Moby that motor looks like a beast. I am running a blend of MAP and TPS for accel enrichment. It seems pretty good. In fact, the blend seems better than just TPS. I did not spend a ton of time tweaking the TPS Accel parameters though. I just added some estimated MAP values, blended, and throttle response got better.

Pete, I've got Matt Cramer working on my issue now about the powerup. I had the same symptoms on the bench. The MS-II does not like to boot up unless the Megaview or the Laptop is plugged into the output. The laptop is on battery, the Megaview is on the Main Relay. I bought MS-II pre assembled, added the 4bar dual MAP sensor, and did the jumper mods to run the 83ZXT distributor. I am running injectors 1,2,3 on BANK1 and injectors 4,5,6 on BANK2. This is how it works out alternating the firing order. FIRE: 1-5-3-6-2-4 BANK:1-2-1-2-1-2

Actually you can run almost the entire brake line inside the cabin under the center console where it is well protected.

Damn I got ripped off....I got my Turbo ZX for $530. LOL. I like yours much better...waaay nicer than my $530 ZXT 2+2. They really are nice daily drivers though. What are your plans for it?

Yeah the roads in my area are awesome Z roads. They wind all over the place and up and down. I went out tonight and REALLY appreciated the cars performance. A HUGE skunk jumped out in front of me about the size of a medium dog. I basically had about 1.5 car lengths at about 50 mph downhill to do something so I threshold braked and aimed for his tail. I felt the rear get light and knew that it was either steer back now or spin off into the trees. So I pitched it back the other way gently to keep the rear end behind the front, let off the wilwoods a bit, and just caught his tail with the air dam! Whew. All my work appreciated in one moment. OK back on topic....I had a slight problem with the MS-II tonight. I went to start the car and the fuel pump didn't come on. I tried a few times and the fuel pump relay was not coming on. I assumed it was a fuse. I pulled the seat to check the circuits and everything was fine except that MS-II was not grounding the fuel pump relay....well actually I discovered that MS-II was not even powering up, even though it was getting 12 volts. I hooked up the laptop and bingo the MS-II turned on!? Everything was fine. I remember reading somewhere that other people had this problem of MS-II not switching on unless it was connected to a laptop or the Megaview. Matt Cramer, can you shed some light on this? moerex, I am using the stock zx regulator, bosch 42# ford injectors, idle fuel pressure is about 36-38psi. It idles at about 29Kpa of manifold vacuum. My ReqFuel is set to 9.0, alternating, 2 squirts, idle VE is around 50.

1) Dont use the 02 sensor yet. Wait until it runs OK and then later fine tune with the WB O2. 1b) Confirm all the sensors are properly talking to MS one-by-one. Use the Stim board to make sure MS is working right. 2) Make sure MS Timing shows the same as a timing light on #1 cylinder. 3) Make sure you have no vacuum leaks and check your idle stop screw and your idle air control, if you are using one. 4) Raise/Lower your ReqFuel or VE cell with the engine idling until it smooths out. Good luck

That is kind of like a throwing dart. It keeps itself stable...or reluctant to turn (understeer).

Thanks guys. Pete, I am thinking of putting some damping grease into the bore of the BOV to make it react a little less "nervous". I am not sure of any bad side effects of the grease. It's that ultra thick stuff that gets used on sway bar bushings. My only concerns would be that it would need to be cleaned out once and a while due to dust attraction. Also, would there be any BAD chemicals in the grease that might hurt the O2 sensor? -Dave

If you are on a track you will want to adjust it as conditions change through out the race....on the street, you can just about set-it-and-forget-it....unless you are like me and can't tweak enough. I mounted mine in the ashtray pocket.