Flak280z

Hey guys, my turbo conversion is running well, no reliability issues. Still running 8psi of boost. My spool is at around 3500rpm with max boost at 4500. A little laggy, but I think that's because of my ebay turbo along with my turbo being mounted on the passenger side. Would someone mind looking at my tune, and making sure everything looks ok. I don't hear any pinging on 91 gas, but just want to make sure. My timing is a little aggressive. Stock l28e engine, n42 block and head, 8psi boost, 370cc injectors. 10_10_24 Tune.msq

Hello all, just a reminder of my build, stock 78 280z 2.8 but with a turbo on passenger side. Running ms2, 370cc injectors, intercooled, 8psi, 3 core aluminum rad, stock clutch fan and shroud. Im looking at carbon fiber hoods and have come across Rs and Seibon. Have heard good things about Seibon, and mixed on Rs. Rs’ carbon hood is $1400 and has hood vents in stock locations. The Seibon hood can be had for $1000, but no vents. Is a vented hood needed? My temps are pretty good right now with the stock hood, in the humidity of this summer. If I went with my turbo exhaust is heat wrapped, but my header is not wrapped or coated. Should I spend the extra $400 to have venting, or can I get by without? I plan on p90 head swapping within a year to turn up the boast, might be better to vent.

Took the car out two separate times today without changing anything and I had no issues whatsoever. I'm not sure if messing with the pots "fixed" the issue or what happened. I'm going to monitor it over the next few days. Other than the car burning oil, it pull hard and runs great. My tune is in a good spot, nice and smooth. I have a zx close ratio paired with the 3.54 stock rear diff which allows for the turbo to stay in boost longer (Also better mpg when my foot isn't in the floor). I am hitting my 8psi goal easily now, and my turbo wastegate and blow-off valve are working as intended. Attached are pics of the new piping. I used the old 2-1 y pipe that was previously under the pan, I just closed off one of the Y arms as seen in the pic. I also heat wrapped the pipes after these pics. The exhaust is much simpler now.

I followed DIYAuto's instructions. You turn it counterclockwise 6 times to reset it and then turn it until it fixes the issue. Where do I probe the pot for voltage? I think the 280zx turbo dizzy is VR sensor.

I fiddled with the R56 pot today. I can get up to about 3-3.5k rpms before it starts losing sync. Do I keep turning the pot to fix this? It seems very random. When I turn it too much, it starts losing sync at lower rpms or just loses the signal all together. Is there a method to it, or is it just resetting the pot, and fiddling with it until you get the full rpm range? I bought from godzilla race works, and apparently they already installed a pull up. Would it hurt to add another? What dizzy wire did you pull up? Appreciate the help.

It’s the DIYAuto 24-2 Cas wheel for the l28et. I haven’t checked the pots, but have been reading about that on DIYAuto’s site. Godzilla raceworks installed a pull-up when I bought the ecu from them, but their ecu had other issues already, so I’m not counting out their faulty work. I will look into adjusting/testing the pots.

I did pick up a square port exhaust and fabbed up a custom y-pipe. Both sides under the oil pan are v-banded and sealed nicely. I am making around 6psi atm. Now the bad part, after doing the exhaust, the sync loss issue is back, and very bad. I am getting a sync loss reason #2, and extremely frequently, as in every few seconds. This makes the car buck very violently, and sometime stalls when at idle and it drops all signal for a second. The car is undrivable. I attached a tooth log of the issue. As a refresher, I have the DIYAuto Cas wheel 24-2 2024-06-21_12.32.27.csv CurrentTune.msq

Like I suspected, it is the exhaust not being completely closed causing boost issues. I reseated and clamped everything, and I can make around 3psi. Yes Brad, v-bands would be ideal. The issue is, there's no space to put v-bands how I have the exhaust now. I want the piece that runs under the oil to be completely removable, for removability and space reasons, just in case. I'm going to start looking for another set of cheap headers to chop up and combine to add a v-band, see picture for what I'm trying to do. On another note, I have a piece of "welders felt" between my turbo mount and the fender. It's not very thick, and does not seem like it would do much, but it is working pretty well to absorb and dissipate the heat. I can touch directly on the other side of the fender right after a 15 minute drive without it severely burning me. It's warm, but not burning. I'm going to throw a second piece between and pick up some ceramic washers like other suggested.

Not too much to report at the moment. I’ve been battling electrical problems from the leftover stock harness, slowly replacing things. Did the ZCarDepot alternator upgrade because my stock wiring stopped charging due to corrosion. I can’t seem to make more than 1-2.5psi of boost. I’m going to retighten all of my intercooler piping and make sure my wastegate is working correctly. currently running an ebay special, 8 psi spring, no boost controller. I’m assuming it’s my pre turbo exhaust piping that’s leaking. I made the piping that runs under the oil pan removable, so there’s just exhaust band clamps connecting the two ends. It’s probably leaking around those, but I’m surprised I’m not making a little more. Attached is some test drives after rewriting my charge circuit, I love the way these cars sound. IMG_7704.mov IMG_7703.mov

My oil pan gasket has started to leak a little bit. Last night, my oil dipstick also blew out. I check my pvc valve and hose. They both seemed ok, but I'm going to replace both regardless. Going to do a compression test ASAP, praying I don't have low compression after all of this. I really haven't even gone over 4psi boost.

Alright, I've been going over the harness the past few days, refreshing the grounds, making sure connections are tight. I have also been rigorously tuning, both manually and using autotune. My fuel pump issue has mostly resolved itself! I believe it was a combination of the grounds and the base tune I got from the map sticky. Car cruises very nice with good AFR's. A bit rich, but ok for now. It still happens here and there, and throws a sync loss error of 2, so I will still research into that. This car is quick!!!! I can only build about 4psi of boost atm, I think I have an exhaust leak before the turbo. Either way, with my zx tranny and the matching 3.9 rear diff, this thing moves. It chirps tires off the rip and will even twist a little in 2nd or third if I don't miss my shifts lol. I'm thinking about throwing my stock 3.54 diff back in, it revs almost too fast. Took her for some overpriced burgers yesterday.

Not a 12v supply. I mainly followed DIYAuto’s how to mega squirt post which said to use the same power source. Megasquirt’s db37 supplies the ground and signal wire for the dizzy

Spoke too soon, the fuel pump issue is NOT fixed. It still cuts out randomly. Throwing a multimeter on the power wire, when it cuts, the voltage drops from 14 to 12, not sure if that drop is enough to cause the issue, or if that is a side effect of the issue. I redid my main megasquirt ground on the block, and also made sure my relay grounds were clean. Wiggling the distributor wires had no effect and did not cause the cut. Neither did wiggling where the dizzy is spliced into the megasquirt power wire. I'm going to monitor the main relay's voltage to see if that's cutting. In other news, I copied the ve table and afr table from the map pin with similar specs and the car runs and revs well, except when the car shuts down for a second.

Good news, looks like I found my issue, the power does not cut and the fuel pump works perfect. My issue was the signal wire being loose on the DB37 connector itself. I also redid the power connection, but I'm not sure if that was contributing to the issue, I just redid it to cover my own wiring. With that issue out of the way, tuning is now my main priority, which is tough with these AEM issues now. I think the gauge is reading correctly as when it shows lean, it does lean misfire, and does bog down when it says it rich, but I don't trust AEM after your reply Madkaw and what I've been reading the past few days. I hear good things about innovate, which DIYAuto offers, I'll probably just pick one of those up. However, I am trying to make it to Carlisle import here in PA on Saturday, so I'll just have to tune by feel and sound. I really just need a drivable tune, not for power or economy. If you guys have any tips based on my fuel table provided, I would appreciate it. I know my afr chart needs to be worked on a lot, but that really isn't in play atm.

Looking at this picture, I have my dizzy wired as follows (Color on pic - My wiring): Red - 12v from shielded wire, Black - ground from shielded wire, White - Signal wire to ms, Green - Not used. Reading other posts from Chickenman, using the diy wheel flips the green and white connections, but when I put the signal wire where the green is, ms does not read any rpm signal? Wonder if this is part of my issue?

I have an AEM 30-0300 wideband installed after the turbo. It works well and passes tests to ensure it is working properly. The issue is, I can’t get it to sync properly in tunerstudio. Tunerstudio will only display 19.10 afr when on the aem 30-3xx wide and calibration setting where the gauge will display 14. The tunerstudio value doesn’t really change, and I have wideband authority set to 0 so it doesn’t change anything. I’m pretty sure have it wired correctly with power, ground, signal to pink, and heater ground. I do have the upgraded version of tunerstudio, but I haven’t been able to use tuner analyze because it’s not the correct afr reading. I redid my fuel pump ground the other day just to rule that out, and both power and ground connections were tight and clean. I’m pretty sure it’s something to do with the dizzy, as Zboi pointed out that I loose rpm signal when it happens. I’m going to go through that wiring today.

Got some good logs today. Seems like it's getting some noise. Although, what's weird is that tunerstudio doesn't always flag it as noise. Attached is a tooth log and composite log. Some pages of the composite log show it missing or not being able to interpret a whole section of the trigger wheel 5.csv 2024-05-07_11.43.23.csv

Megasquirt has it's own switched 12v. My circuit goes: Battery - Key on relay - fuse block - megasquirt. The dizzy has it's own 12v + ground from the shielded wire. What do you mean by another wire from switched? Are you saying the ecm needs 12v from the batt with a fuse, or switched power? I wired everything according to the attached pic.

Yes, that's the fuel pump relay clicking, and yes, the tach signal is coming from megasquirt. At the Dizzy, I have the power wire and signal wire connected, and then ground going to chassis. I have tried grounding at both the chassis and dizzy connection, both have the same result. I have noticed, in tunerstudio, I do get quite a bit of sync loss on the counter, however, tooth logs seem to be fine.

Wow, so helpful.... Obviously, this is new to me, and I'm working through it all on my own, besides the posts I've made where people were actually supportive and helpful. If you've even tried to read what my messages say and my other posts involving megasquirt, you can find the information on both my status regarding car, wiring, and megasquirt knowledge. I literally said in the message right before yours that knew it was off and running rich. I've since adjusted my fuel ve table as to where I Idle around 13 AFR and ~12 cruising. Attached is my tune and an engine log. At the end of the log is where my fuel pump started to cut out. It seems to still happen randomly, I can't narrow down when it starts to cut as it does it when decelerating, at idle, or when on the throttle. Maybe somebody can simply help look at my tables and offer some guidance. The car runs fairly good and smooth, so I don't think my tables are "way off". I can't blip the throttle at idle to rev or to downshift, the car just seems to sputter, so I know my tables need tuning, but they aren't undrivable. My main issue is this mystery fuel pump cut. Don't bother to waste my time if you have nothing to say. engine log 1.csv CurrentTune.msq Fuel pump cut.mp4

Something is controlling the fuel pump when it shouldn't, it is still cutting out here and there. I do have a pressure sensor in my bay, so I might have to run it to where I can see in the car. I also need to have the laptop in my lap to see if the whole megasquirt is going down during the pump cut. Maybe there's another issue with my ecu itself. It randomly cuts for a second it seems on deceleration (both with clutch in and out), and doesn't like when I get on it after slowing and coming out a corner. Other than that, it runs fine. Idle AFR is around 12, 3200 rpm afr is around 10.5. Running a bit rich, maybe that has something to do with the pump cutting out. Going to have to scour megasquirt settings to see if anything is enabled that shouldn't be. I loaded Cryngus' tune awhile ago and have tuned to where I am since then, so maybe he had something that I shouldn't have for my setup. Going to try to make it to Carlisle import show here in PA next weekend, praying it's not an ecu internal issue.

Some good news and bad news. Good news is, I think I solved my fuel pump issue. I had deceleration fuel cutoff at 95% and it had no way of taking away 5% of fuel, so I think it was just shutting the pump off. I’ll have to keep an eye out, it didn’t happen during my short test drive. Bad news, I think my ARM UEGO wide and is messed up. It never goes to full lean as it should, key on. it goes up, but hovers around 19. Also, when I start the car, it just goes to 0 (see pic). It sometimes jumps up to 3-4, but it sits at 0. TunerStudio won’t calibrate to it either, and just flicks from 15-19 during a drive.

We did it (finally)! We have lift off. Not able to hit boost yet, but I can drive it again. A weird problem I had today was my fuel pump relay would turn on-off randomly. This caused the car to buck, and when I backed off the throttle, it stopped. It happened both on faster acceleration and braking normally. Going to replace my fuel pump relay tomorrow and keep on tuning. Thanks to all you fine folks. I'll post when I finally dip into boost, and my msq when I get things running decently.

BREAKING NEWS: We have started. Redid all my injector wiring, even though it mostly looked fine, I think a few of my crimps were bad on the signal side, causing them not to fire. Did an extra nice job, and all was well. Still wouldn't start. Decided to rotate back to TDC. Turns out, the last time I set to TDC, I thought my dizzy rotor was 180 off, so I rotated the shaft 180. It was correct where it was the first time, so I actually made it 180 degrees off. Just moved my plugs and it started right up. Can't work on it however, as my oil pump gasket gave out, I think I overtightened the pump. Of course something else happens and I can't tune it today. Oh well, at least it starts now. Will take this as an opportunity to turn my shaft to the correct orientation when the gasket arrives tomorrow. Thanks for the help NewZed, you were right, exhaust stroke, not compression. Will post in my build thread over in the L6 forum when I get the timing dialed in tomorrow. Excited to hear the turbo.

OK, here's some good new information. When turning the key to ON, Megasquirt primes the system, and is supposed to do a single injector spray. NONE of the injectors squirt when they key goes to on. When cranking, ONLY injectors 5 & 6 spray, like I thought. This extremely lean situation would explain the engine wanting to backfire out of the intake here and there with ether and barely wanting to still even start on ether.