cygnusx1

Kudos for taking on such a daunting project! The rewards will reek of burning rubber.

Period. End of Thread.

Holy Cow found the deal of the century for 18G wire. I actually think Home Depot is losing money on this one. Look for the dog fence wire. It's red wire 18G stranded copper. 500 foot roll for $27.00. It's thin for the heavy stuff but for the low current stuff it should be fine. The 16G stranded is 33cents/foot.

Good luck and speedy recovery to the wife. Make sure you are ready to bust your a$$ for a while. It's a big change but it's an amazing sense of pride. You will learn the real value of sleep. I thought I was tough when I was younger....ah I don't need sleep....yeah right. You will see. Imagine everytime you fall asleep somone yells in your ear. Try it for about two months straight. It's tough.

mcmaster wants $3.00 a foot! I am going to go to home depot....I think they are about 33 cents a foot for 16g. stranded.

I went to the autoparts store to pick up a spool of wire. They wanted $50 for a 50foot roll of stranded 16g. I vhad two rolls in my hand one red and one black, I left them both there. Where can I get cheap wire?

Test Suggestions: Where is all the air coming from that pushes up on the hood? Using no hood or fender vents: a) completely block the nose/grill. seal the air dam right down to the floor. c) run rubber fins along the bottom of the front framerails to seal them close to the ground. (keep "wheel-well" air from going into the engine bay). d) open a 4"h x 10"w hole in the grill. e) unseal the airdam from the ground.

I am not sure about de-i water, but never use demineralized water. Demineralized water is unstable and will try to yank minerals out of anything it contacts. The result is corrosion. This is heresay from things I've heard in the chemical processing industry. (Disclaimer: I am not a chemist so make sure you check with one first).

Heres a crazy idea. Look at the SDS side skirts. They turn in at the front of the rocker and stop at the TC buckets. What if you continued them so they meet up to a point at the bottom center of the lower radiator support? That should pull some air out of the engine bay and possibly decrease underhood pressure.

Funny, on the way to work this morning I was thinking the exact same thing. How is it that an "air catcher" spoiler on the tail of the car DECREASES drag. I was looking at the backs of cars on my commute and trying to visualize how the air flows off the tail of the car. I don't quite understand this either. It must have something to do with the way the air coming off the top of the spoiler, curls and releases the trapped air from the tail panel. Kind of like peeling a suction cup off glass. Based on this phenomenon, maybe we should try some small vertical spoilers to the left and right sides of the tail lights on the rear vertical edges of the quarter panels to increase the effect.

Another interesting peice of data. The big rear wing tended to add some side forces to the car, increasing with angle of attack. I wonder if it was slightly off centerline alignment?

After studying the data, I find myself most attracted to three columns in particular. Drag(lbs.) - Lift(front) - Lift(rear) Drag ranges from 342lbs. to 270lbs. Front lift ranges from 374lbs to -154lbs Rear lift ranges from 117lbs to -176lbs Those are some pretty HUGE ranges. It looks like we really can't change drag too much but we definitely can effect lift. The good news to me is that almost nothing you did in the tunnel made the drag dramatically worse. Even by adding a decent amount of downforce, drag didn't come into play. Basically, the front of the car is where we need to spend most time and the rear of the car is pretty easily addressable. VERY VERY nice work guys. I can't wait to get into more details.

One thing that needs to be understood. Think of a "ball" of compressed air as part of the car. With the windows down, the air fills up the car interior with a mass of air. Once that mass reaches it's static point, it won't allow any more air in. It will force the approaching air to go around. If you allowed that air to escape through the tailgage, now you have a flow problem where the air has to turn, enter the window, turn again and squeeze out the hatch. This may worsen drag. The same principle applies to the nose of the car. You want to stall a big (smalller is better) ball of air against the nose of the car to force the oncoming air around. Preferable over or around the car and not under. Think of it as an air-dam made out of compressed air.

Wow, see, I'm the type of guy that would not have put in the swing up doors. He obviously is very, very, skilled.

WRX has about 200whp for 3200lbs. (lots of driveline losses for the AWD) My Z has 265whp for 2600lbs. Big difference.

Since my Z is undergoing electrical surgery and it hasnt seen the light of day in a while. I thought I would post a pic of my daily driver. Bought it new in July 2001 from the dealer with 17" BBS wheels. It's a very early 2002 WRX. It was one of the first to hit the streets. It has 103,000 miles on it and it's as good as the day I picked it up at the dealer. I added a piggyback ECU, a catback exhaust, and a boost controller. It makes about 265 flywheel HP. I love it. I did a 0-60 in 5.1 seconds with a full tank, 2 people, A/C on, lights on, in the pouring rain, using a G-Tech. It feels slow compared to the Z but the WRX can go anywhere, anytime.

OK did some wiring today. I ran 10gauge power and ground leads directly from the battery to the ECU center under my seat. I also did all the power and logic wiring for the ECU control board. I am taking this opportunity to replace the battery with a reverse polarity Optima 34R. That's why you see my positive lead on the negative post of the battery (temporary).

I run stock turbo oil lines too. No restrictor. Mine only burns oil through the valve guides and a tiny bit past the rings. Normal wear.

John, The 76 splash pan bolts to the bottom of the radiator support and to the engine crossmember. It also bolts to the frame rails along the sides. It has a few holes in it for the swaybar to pass through and to drain the radiator. It pretty much seals from the rad. support to the crossmember. The original front valence was actually much closer to the radiator support. If you take that into consideration, it would seem likely that Nissan was trying to prevent "grill air" from going under the car. On the other hand, the 76 used NO hood vents.

It seems like everytime I do some work, I need to go shopping again! Sometimes I wish I lived in a McMaster warehouse. It looks like you are well under way too. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. Keep us in the loop.

Thanks Pete. Wiring oficially begins tomorrow after work. Hopefully I can get at least ten hours into the car this weekend...before Mother's Day.

Maybe the bearing in the turbo is still good but the seal is bad?

OK I bought all the wiring, connectors, shrink tubing, fuses....here are the diagrams I am going to wire to. There is a GROUND diagram and a POWER diagram. I also included a trace diagram of the 76Z Fusible links. I was thinking of pulling power through one of the fusible links for the MS-II system. Which fusible link circuit would have enough capacity for the MS-II if any?

I wanted to ask about the tach hookup to my 76Z tach with MS-II using the 83 turbo system. I think I figured it out. The 76Z tach originally was wired directly from the negative coil post, through the factory inline resistor under the glove box, and to the tach. I figure nothing should change with MS-II. Just run the wiring exactly how the factory had it. (-coil)---->resistor---->tach. It should work fine.

I've got my share of bumps bruises scars and broken bones. I started BMX in the early 80's freestyle, ramps, racing and moved into MB. I am now older and wiser. I've done some stupid things on bikes. We were building wooden ramps and quarterpipes in the woods back in the late 80's. Things have certainly evolved, including me. You won't catch me doing that stuff anymore. Nice video. Even bigfoot caught some action!