Gollum

Oh trust me, I know ALLLL about the hardware side of things, and what DX cards I'm interested in. It's one of the few areas I've really kept up on lately this last year. I think i'm gonna keep my AMD 939 for now though. Might see if I can find a NOS CPU upgrade eventually. Not sure if it's worth it though, the new quad cores aren't that expensive...

I feel ya man. This whole proprietary crap is what keeps me from buying systems or even recommending name brands to other people. Unless the company can link me to an online store that sells the very components I'm buying then I don't want thier computer. I want a motherboard built by someone who cares, no the lowest bidder. Unfortunately my PC is having issues as well. Been going steady for 2+ years, and now I'm just getting beeps on startup. No video so I'm thinking it's the graphics card. If so that'll be a GOOD excuse to get a new DX10 card. I used to build computers all the time, I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Whoa phil. Didn't know you'd spent any time in jail. We don't need to know that kinda stuff. I'm really curious as to what really happened. These diffs have proven strong enough for many other people. When was the last time you checked it's fluid level? Is it possible it's been leaking while driving? Any noises before hand like whining?

That's just wrong. My GF went to dinner last night and her sister (who's married) tried pulling the "hey guess what? I'm pregnant" april fools joke. The kicker is that she'd borrowed a positive pregnancy test from her neighbor. Well my GF didn't fall for it at all, as she was saying it with a beer in her hand. Her dad and step mother were kinda lost and confused. Once they realized it was a joke and all was good some other guys in the resturant came up to her and said: "Ma'm, is that your mini cooper parked out there?" "Yes" "Someone just ran into it" Of course she freaked out because the car is less than a month old... Car was fine. Just some guys having fun. Now THAT is funny. I agree that I wouldn't really enjoy having my # posted up on craigs. Funny? Maybe. But still wrong.

Daeron is right, you don't "need" injectors. There's very little you "need" in order to get megasquirt running. The main thing is some sort of way to measure air. I think you can even get megaquirt to run on the stock AFM (not sure on that) but why? You'll need either a MAF or MAP sensor and both have their pros and conds. One of the main upsides to a MAP based system is that vacuume leaks CAN NOT change you're fuel mixture. It also is metering air in the intake, so it tends to have a more instant measuring of how much air is actually making it into the chambers. MAF sensors are placed farther away needing more transient fuel changes. The upside to a MAF system though is that they're not limited to any PSI level at all. You can run infinate PSI on a MAF system and it's still gonna meter the air just fine. MAF sensors will only be good to X amount of air though, and as a general guidline engines produce X amount of HP for X amount of air, so it's common to see a MAF rated for X amount of HP (much like an intercooler). It's not hard to find a MAF that's supposed to be good to 500hp. This is just my theory after study, NOT experiece, but I personally think that MAP systems are safer for turbo vehicles, as their responce is much more instantaneous to the driving conditions. Another thing you might want since you're going to megasquirt, would be a different TPS. If you convert to the KA throttle there's a vertion that has both a throttle position switch and a throttle position sensor. The switch will work on the stock ECU, and the sensor will be better to use with megasquirt. Tons of this info is availbe either on the megasquirt section here, or on the megasquirt groups out there on the net. The stock injectors are good for quite a while though, unless your initial target is 300+hp. Otherwise I'd say stick with the stock injectors and see how they work for you.

:Raises Hand: "Guilty as charged your honor" Many of us have a habbit of guessing from time to time. I don't think edison made a light bulb without a few guesses along the way. But I stand behind the point of this thread entirely. Guessing when someone else knows the answer just steers people in the wrong direction all day long. Our information needs to be as clear as possible so that it's as effective as it can be. I for one tend to have a hard time lettings questions go unanswered. If I see a question, I'm inclined to share what I do know, even though sometimes it's very little. I also try to preface my posts with something like "I'm no expert" or "I think, but I'm not sure". Hopefully this has kept me from the wrath of the mods. I know the mods are busy, but if I was ever told to change my posting style or shut up more, I'm sure I could muster it. But other message boards suffer from this much worse than we do usually. People just spewing out something they heard and calling it a fact. This should be a message board built out of proven fact, not mythical fact.

Hmmm, the one I saw was definately VG. The most destinctive thing in my memory was the red OEM valve covers. Now I REALLY want to find the pictures again.

That it is... and boy, I'm smiling just comming back to this page.

The "injector fuel line fan cooling kit" you're talking about can be found on nearly any 280ZX in a junkyard. Very easy to find. I have two spares if you want them... I don't like them. They're ugly and don't do much good anyways. I'm not certain at all on this, but I think nissan added it to help heat soak after turning the engine off. With the intake right above the exhaust the fuel lines would get quite hot. I never noticed issues on any NA engine removing it, turbo maybe, but that's maybe. If this is the issue the car should still be easily drivable. Just will take a few extra cranks of the ignition to get going. Injectors will still sray fumes just as well as liquid... I'd suspect it to be a sensor more than anything else.

He already answered that. If I found that car for $250 I'd sell the dash and rear bumper. Then I'd have enough money to fund an engine swap. Simple aluminium dash wouldn't be hard to make as a replacement, and who needs a rear bumper anyways? Seriously though, get it running. Hopefully it'll be driveable once we do another bay area get together.

I'll admit, I'm not nearly as good as some of you guys. DANG impressive. Here's one that should be super easy, I just love the look of it is all.

I already looked. The search button doesn't like me today. I'm not finding it with any VG30 mid engine searching. It does exist though.

Just to let you guys know, I've been researching these motors and will continue to do so. Information is hard to come by, but I'll be asking my friends dad soon about the merc V8 engines (he's been running a european auto repair shop for over 20 years now and knows quite a bit about the ins and outs on these hard to work on cars). Seems to me they'd make GREAT swap candidates, once you figure out the transmission. Manuals aren't options in many of these cars, and hard to find on the ones that did have manuals. I havn't found a common tranny they all mate up to, again, information is hard to find. The main reason I'm looking at these motors is that though 2k seems cheap for 300hp as prox put it, I think they'll get even cheaper. I see plenty of late 80's mercedes at the local PNP where you can get the entire engine and everything needed to make it run for under $400, now THAT is cheap HP. I've seen some V8 cars, and with how many million luxury cars exist here in the bay area, and with the way people drive them they're bound to reach the junkyards is huge numbers. If I can find one of the M119 engines now, I'm sure there will be plenty more down the road. As long as I'm not trying to double the HP who cars what kinda performance upgrades there are out there for them? They make decent power stock and they're light motors. I've never seen many people scoff at 300hp stock anyways. Once I have a solid foundation of knowledge I'll be posting more details later, probably in a few months.

I really need to get my speedo working so I can at least have a GUESS at my milage. Right now I'm filling up every 4-5 days, and I commute about 20-25 minutes each way. I'm averaging around 75-80mph on the way to work. I drive a ton around town when I'm not at work. My commute is only about 60-80% of my driving every week, if not maybe a little less. If I had to guess I'd say I'm getting around 14-18 mpg. Possibly more but it's hard to say. I also don't think my O2 sensor is working. I still plan on getting this thing tuned well enough to get it to a solid 30mpg car. Might need some aero work to get there though. We'll see. Idealy I'd like to improve the aero and keep the weight down around 2500, and hopefully driving 70 won't be too big of a hit compared to driving 55-60. I don't think I could stand driving that slow on a road trip, or even commute.

Yup, been done just as The Woj said. VG30 using the maxima tranny. Swap looked pretty sweet. I don't think it's wise to consider a swap as radical as the pantera though. Just look at how wide and long that back section is, and look at how the cab sit more ontop of the front wheels. The overall cal just isn't laid out well enough for it. A small motor maybe, a huge V8... I'd consider that more stupid than cool. Just seems like a waste to me. I'd rather see someone fallow in the footsteps of the DuRocco (twin engine scirocco), but fitting an engine transverse in the front might be a bit hard, and require just as much work as putting a transaxle in the rear.

Ditto. He started talking about the better torque curve the RB30 gives him over the RB26 and I thought "aww, a man after my own heart, he understands power under the curve" and then the video cut out... sad. Awesome car no doubt. I'd love to see what it could put down once everything comes together for that perfect run (or close to it at least).

EWWWWW, PLEASE don't buy a behringer. Would you buy a hyundai or some other korean or chinese made car? (though I must admit hyundai has gotten a lot better in recent years, but that's not the point, think OLD hyundai) If you want something high gain but still cheap there are other options. Try playing the peavey windsor, it's a lot of fun for $300. There's also the carvin V3, which I'd planned on buying, but now own a new car. It's $900 for the head and I'd compare it to the other high gain monsters like bogner, diezel, engl and the likes. Tube amps do NOT do well when they're made cheaply out of inferior components. When a company like peavey is charging over 1k for an amp, you know it's going to be hard to beat that price for that well made of an amp. They make tons of their stuff in house, and have some of the best assemly lines in the guitar industry. The price is because of the components put into it, not just how much research or time they put into it. A 10k+ trainwreak amp is worth three times as much parted out as other amps because the stuff it's made out of it better built and harder to find, down to the resistors and capasitors. Behringer will be using the same crap you see at radioshack. Sure the amp might function, even be reliable if you're lucky, but it will NOT sound the same in any way. I'd doubt it even sounding good.

Ok, here's a decent pic. The section circled in yellow currently is how they're gaining the negative offset. Circled in red is what needs to move in order to get the offset we want while gaining dish at the same time. Hope that makes more sense now.

Happy birthday phil. Best wishes for you and the family.

Here's some pictures of the spring seat in question. It seems to have stayed seated, so I guess that's a good thing. Kragen didn't have a gasket, I'll check online tomorrow for a store on my commute that has it. Jasper, sorry if I came off as rude earlier. I was trying to head out of work at the moment and wasn't very tactful in my word selection. I know there's probably a leak out of the gasket, I understand that. What I find unusual is that I thought #3 and #4 cylinders on a turbo shared a combined opening and I found it strange that #4 would affect the leak noise, and #3 wouldn't. Am I wrong in thinking they're completely sharing a port opening on the manifold side? I know they're seperate on the head side, but the exhaust too?

The pictures are not of my head. They're simply pictures provided to me via braap. The noise isn't mechanical. I believe the tick tick tick of the "exhaust leak" is actually the sound of combusion with the valve not sealing correctly. I find it odd that I have a tick tick tick that dissapears when pulling the injector, and then I find an issue with the spring seat on the SAME cylinder. It's definately related if I had to guess. Too random for it not to be to me. I agree though, it doesn't sound like a mechanical problem.

I didn't take any pictures. I didn't have my camera with me. I'll be getting some tonight, in about an hour actually.

Ok, so nearly everyone who sees my car mentions the exhaust leak. I was taking a friend for a ride and as I pulled out of my parking spot a car's alarm started chirping and he said jokingly "wow, your exhaust leak sets of car alarms". The exhaust manifold was very loose in some areas so I tightened it all up to a good 20-40 pounds (hand tight, just guessing) and saw NO difference in the exhaust ticking. I'd noticed before that the tick tick tick went away when I pulled the injector clip from #4, so I knew something was amiss there. So I pulled the valve cover after just buying some feeler guages (nice 24 piece, I like it thus far). Started checking valve clearences, and most seems pretty close to spec, if anything a little tight, nothing that seemed way loose. So I started looking around for something, anything, just trying to find a hint to the problem. And I found it staring me in the face. Thanks to paul I hope to have my termonology right this time. The outer spring seat was sitting offset, and was even wedged into the spring itself. So while prying the spring up with a screwdriver and working the spring seat with another I was able to get it off the spring, bellow it again, and under the spring. I noticed a part of it had broken off, about a 1/8th-1/4 inch of it. I thought at the moment that these were "clips" not "rings" and now looking at the pictures that paul sent me realize that it's just plain broken. Pictures courtesy of paul (braap): After looking at pauls pictures I'm curious as to the condition of the inner spring seat, and I'm thinking it's probably well destroyed as well. When I started the engine back up it gave me a quick choke (might have been because I'd been bumping it with the starter to move the cam around) and then fired up, and the tick was still there. So either that didn't solve the problem, or the seat came right back out again. I think I've got a good idea of how to fix it, but does anyone have any advice on working on the valve springs without removing the head/cam if possible? Paul already gave me some good advice about keeping the piston close to TDC to keep the valve from falling too far. Do any of the common autoparts stores carry these spring seats?

Something I just noticed (maybe I'm just slow...) On the current prototype rims, because of the way the offset is created, you wouldn't need a huge bulging centercap in order to have a center cap that works. Because they're effectively leaving the lip smaller, the surface the center of the rim is nice and far away, and a flat center cover looks like it'd do just fine. With the next run having more dish I have a feeling that might not be the case, and you'd need some center caps like the OEM types, that stick way out.

Well regarding the AWD system... Ahh you know I'm just kidding. I think your best option will be converting the subie system to be RWD only. I'd imagine it'd survive a Z car's weight as long as you weren't putting HUGE sticky tires on it... Are you? (kind of a stupid question I know, it should be more a question of when) The only downside, isn't the subie transmission going to be kinda big and heavy being an AWD design tranny? One of my best friends just bought a STI (first year in the US, was that 04' or 05'?). I can't wait to get to his shop so I can see it on a lift. Thing MOVES amazingly well, though the motor feels way rougher than I'd have thought it'd be. Kinda nice though.