Dat73z

I feel like I've had this vehicle long enough that I've stripped the car down to a shell and rebuilt it with all new components 3 or 4 times at this point 😂. Kinda like my buddy, his s30 is like an airframe that keeps getting stripped down and rebuilt. When you do the RMS make sure you use a RMS tool. I used to always knock them in by hand but the proper tool makes it so much easier and foolproof. Also inspect the side seals.

Yeah really looking forward to it, everyone I know locally who runs the setup only says good things. This AM I had to get under the car to unplug a few things so I performed a quick undercarriage inspection. All looks good and bone dry and it seems the RMS was the leak culprit. Hopefully it stays that way until the next major service

Just a quick update, it's been a busy week but I think I've figured out a few more pieces of the build. After some more measurement I decided that my existing T3 brakes are just too large for the wheels I want to run. I like the setup but the brakes are absolutely massive. So I stopped by ZCarGarage which is down the street from me and purchased their StopTech street setup with the ebrake. Unfortunately it sounded like it may be a couple months until the kits are back in stock. My wheel builder has worked with Rob and ZCG before so perhaps I can measure a wheel on one of their shop cars, I'll need to call and see. For the electrical harness I still havent decided what to do about that but I started tearing down the interior so maybe once I unloom the main harness and get a good look at it I can figure out if I want to replace everything or repair it. This would probably be a good time to put in the new headliner I've been putting off since last summer. In the background I've also been doing some random welding and fab work for some friends like the L series -10 block vent.

This AM I finally had a few mins to work on things a bit. I started off by firring up the car and letting it idle up to temp for a couple of fan cycles to get an idea of where things are at before I start tearing things apart again. There is definitely a slight carb imbalance which I'll attempt to work out a bit more this go around. My fuel pressure sensor read 3psi for a while then my FP warning light went off again to 0-1psi like I saw yesterday on my short drive while the mechanical gauge read 3.5psi. So I'm assuming this may be electrical related. Hopefully I get start tearing into the dash later today. 20230312_084853.mp4

Tonight it finally stopped raining so I grabbed some moving blankets to prepare pulling the interior again. Out of curiosity I plugged the battery in and keyed the car over. It fired right up on the first crank so I took it for a quick spin around the block. My electronic fuel pressure gauge is out and reading 0-1psi while my mechanical in the engine bay showed 3.5psi so I stayed out of boost to play it safe. I need to gut all of the electrical and go through everything so that will be my spring project.

@DuffyMahoney Yeah, we're super excited- he was born just a couple weeks ago so we're waiting to pick him up at 6 weeks or so. Just a quick update on the turbo build, I realized life was getting too crazy so I decided to take a couple week break. My life is way less crazy without project vehicles, that is for sure. My wheel builder texted me for an update on the measurements and I totally unplugged/forgot. Later today I'm planning to pick up a moving blanket from Harbor Freight and start the dash teardown along with figuring out the barrel measurements around my chassis/suspension.

Thanks @240zturbo, and this is why I love HybridZ and continue posting here even in a time when everything has basically moved to FB, IG, etc.. Lots of concrete info on here from people who have actually done this whereas it's hard to separate the opinions from real data on social media.

A quick update on the build. I've been pulling 80hr weeks at work and just haven't had the time to touch the car, and also my wife wants to adopt a dog this weekend lol. But the plan is to start pulling the dash. I think I need to get a moving blanket first or something to lay down on the floor to not ruin the dash as the last time I had to off was a few years and a few houses ago to install a new dash skin.

@240Z Turbo how much boost were you running on that setup? Thanks for the tables that's a helpful reference point and yeah I'd like to have some form of knock detection. To be clear the 30/32 value is all in without boost retard and I pull ~1 deg/lb of boost so it's closer to 20deg all in at 7k @10psi. I'm also running 91 pump and looking at meth injection since fuel availability and costs are issues for me.

Hey @240Z Turbo it is apparent you have a lot of experience with this so thanks for posting the info. I was actually afraid to add timing towards redline as I wanted to get the car on the dyno first to baseline and go from there so I limited my timing at 7k to 30/32 degrees. Lots to process and I'll dig into it over the next few weeks. The car is likely going to be down again for the next month or two as I come up with and execute a strategy to modernize all of the wiring. I'm still at the point where I'm pushing things and they fail so we rebuild/tune it back better until the next weakest link fails.

Tonight I wrapped up the evening by assessing where to mount a fluid reservoir for meth injection. I'm thinking maybe the washer bottle area would work but I'm not sure how much volume I'd need. In front of the rad support is crowded and I'm not sure if I want to go in the fender well or trunk. Ideally I'd do one fillup per tank of fuel so more research is required. I'm thinking I can weld up an aluminum or stainless tank in that area that could hold at least a gallon.

Since this is in the turbo forum, I've been trying to keep this thread turbo specific instead of a full build thread and most of the sidebar projects I post are generally things triggered by or affected by increasing the pwr/trq output of the s30 platform with the turbo. One thing I have been working on/struggling with is increasing traction as the car would spin at full boost 60mph on 225 rcomps. So I want to go 245s or wider street tires. Tonight I started back in the quest for for traction. One struggle with my chassis in particular is how the car was assembled. I am also still running a close to factory setup and I know there are 8.8 setups out there now and more that give a lot more clearance but I'm working with the corner I built myself into over this past decade. So far as I can tell, with the way the chassis was welded on the assembly line certain things like the rockers and suspension mounting points are off left to right. I've seen this on over a few dozen s30s over the past few decades, no two cars are exactly the same. Perhaps my car was built on a Friday 😂 So what that means is I'm measuring everything from the DS which has 1/8-1/4" less clearance than the PS front/rear. A small detail but something that needs to be considered when pushing things on your setup to the limit. The clearances were actually tighter but as I posted earlier in the build I set the stage for this next phase by dialing in more negative camber and moving the spring perch height up.

@madkaw there is a relay and 30 amp fuse. Ignition on triggers the relay and the fuel pump green wire gets power direct from the battery. I think I should have an hr or so later tonight to finally start digging into this. Although I may use the time to finish measuring out for my new wheels so the builder can start the build process.

@240Z Turbo apologies I missed your Q on timing. The 123 ignition has a MAP sensor. I pull roughly 1 degree of timing per psi of boost and target 20 all in at 1 bar. I can also control vacuum advance off throttle through the MAP. It was smooth all the way to 7k+ and also through the dynamic driving range before the mechanical failure (crank pulley walking off). This time I never got to redline as I was retuning for the off throttle lean surge before the electrical failure. Edit: I am also assuming the lean surge was caused by overadvancing under vacuum as pulling 3 or 5 degrees of timing resulted in AFRs dropping from 17 lean to 14 before the electrical fire. I added the timing because unknown to me the crank pulley was walking off and resulting in losing timing and shooting fire when unloading the motor. But that was the last data point I got before the car went down yesterday.

@240Z Turbo here is the configuration. The fuse which is a 30amp didn't blow. I want to say I used 12 gauge for the subharness. Maybe the original wiring was only rated to 20 amps. Not sure, I just need a solid day for this car in particular to really dig into it but my schedule just sucks for building cars for which this is one of a few vehicle projects I have going on concurrently.