Gollum

You know you own a Datsun when: you own 5 cars, one of which you actually paid money for, yet it's the S30 that you'd like to keep. you spend more time measuring engines in junkyards than pulling parts. you keep a random assortment of macgyver knick-knacks in your car in case you need to perform road-side repair. you drive by moonlight alone, not out of choice... something falls off your car while driving and you just say "hush hush baby, you didn't need that piece anyways, look you're faster now" you can't find something in your car and assume it must have fell through a rust hole, and that's a valid assumption.

Talk about low back pressure! I'd love to hear that thing roar as-is without the extra pipe.

I hate to be the ignorant one here, but why should we be interested in putting one in a S30? (other than to say you did it, which is perfectly fine) I'm really no Nissan fanboy, though I'm sure I look like one to many, but the VQ swap can't possible be that much more money, in fact I'd imagine it'd be less, and I see no way in which the honda motor trumps the nissan. People routinely make 500+whp on pump gas in 350Z's (even here in CA with our crappy 91). They're just as light. Just as good/tunable of an ECU. Oh, and it's got better tranny options for us RWD guys

Yea, I'd do something off-angle, not so 90 degree feeling. Maybe two reds on the outside slanted bottom out, then the white inner slanted bottom in.

Directly pulled from SDS's website here: http://www.sdsefi.com/specific.html That's a 64 cell map for tuning AFRs to manifold pressure. Getting ITBs to run on speed density IS possible, it just requires having a "vacuum tank" or whatever you want to call it. Basically you just need a small box that's fed a line from one (or all) of your ITB(s) between the throttle and valve as a vacuum reference for the MAP sensor. IN FACT, according to extrudabody's website, their datsun ITB kit HAS a vacuum log on it already.... I honestly don't see the issue here. SDS also has accelleration tuning adjustment which should be able to be tuned for your runner length from TB to valve to ensure you don't have any lag as the vacuum catches up with TP movement. You will need to hook up a TPS, but honestly that isn't very hard, and should be doable by any reputable shop. And you'll need a TPS with either speed density (SDS) or a TPS Alpha N blend. Again, this might just be me, but it sounds like you are finding shops that are really good at what they do, but don't want to play in the pool outside of their experience. We're trying our best to help, and I can honestly say that this board is full of people that are DOERS and HAVE DONE. We're not a bunch of guys that only ever learned how to bench race.

When assembling ANY engine, it's just plain common sense to clearance the motor. It doesn't take much time or effort and the process is described in many vehicle's FSM. Sounds to me like someone pulled the head and didn't make sure the cam timing stayed the same and now you're left with the aftermath. To be safe, it's best to pull the timing cover and reinstall the timing chain per FSM instructions when you reassemble the motor. There's no special procedure that I'm aware of for flat tops versus dish pistons. If the cam was fairly aggressive that could be an issue, but from what you said that doesn't seem to be likely.

What model SDS ECU do you have? Garrett on this very site runs 400+whp on his SDS and has reported zero cruise issues, and he daily drives his S30, and brings it to the track on a regular basis. Any ecu with an adjustable map parameter should be able to have a good cruise AND WOT tune. The only way this isn't possible is if the ECU isn't tunable, which SDS is.... And again, OEM dizzy + MSD is fine for moderate street goals, and should perform fine under WOT all the way up to 7k and a bit beyond. It won't be extremely stable at the top of the RPM range, but it should get the job done without blowing anything up if your AFRs are close enough.

I can understand from a tuning shop's perspective why they want you to convert to haltech, but in all honesty, you'll be better off finding a shop that confident enough in their tuning abilities to tune what you have, not what they're used to. Even if the SDS you have can't be utilized to tune the ignition, you really don't NEED to unless you're running a pretty radical setup. An OEM dizzy should do fine to 200whp and beyond. Can you gain more power with programmable ignition? Yes. Is it worth it? Depends on your wallet. For me, an extra 5% or less even hardly seems worth 2k+ EFI swap.

I wondered the same thing at first, but knew I'd seen similar in motorcycle engines so I looked around and sure enough it seems that MOST high hp motorcycle engines using timing gear arrangements that are quite similar. Granted those engines go 20-40k between overhauls... I'd imagine that as long as they kept the gears well lubricated they shouldn't wear any worse than transmission gears, but I am quite curious how well they're getting oiled and what start up wear is going to be like on them.

Not an issue that can't be fixed imo.

If the car is THAT rusty, consider your long term goals. Now consider why you bought the car. Now consider what you LIKE about the car. If you bought the car for the looks, then maybe that's where you want to invest. You could at least get body panels down to bare metal and prime red for that money, but that's still a LONG way off from really "restoring" the body. Getting into FG or CF isn't cheap. Sure you "could" make a panel for $200, but consider the fact you're making a mold, curing that mold, making sure the mold didn't inherit any issues from the panel you pulled it from. Now you have to lay the piece out and then attach it, which can be a REAL process to get it to line up well, even as well as stock. This is a BIG project and to start to understand how big it is, buy a good book on composite body work. If what you bought the car for, and like about it, is the way it drives and the driving experience is king, invest that direction. And better yet, make sure you spend money on something that can be transferred to a different S30 down the road if possible. But for $200, my money would go either into bushings or tires, whichever is in worse shape. With the spare change left over buy some basics that you don't own, maybe a grease gun, chemicals (pb blast, loctite, fast orange and the like go a long way to making your garage feel like a real garage), or maybe a breaker bar and torque wrench. I spent almost $200 this January just on tools (christmas gift cards mostly). Those tools making garage time much more efficient and profitable if I look at it through the reality of the work I get done better and faster.

Maybe I'm the only one in the camp that doesn't really like the gated shifter. Granted, I've never used on personally, I just think they LOOK difficult to use. I'm use being able to slam the shifter from 2nd to 3rd and 4th to 5th. Most cars once you get use to the angle of pressure required you almost feel like you're pressing straight up with just that twinge of side pressure and it snaps over as you go up. I've always thought that gated shifters look like they'd be hard to shift quickly like that with. I'm also in the camp that just laugh at most muscle car drivers that seem to take ages to shift. Does any have first hand experience with gated shifters and have an opinion on them slowing down their shifts under "racing" conditions?

One of the issues you'll run into using a plate adaptor is that: 1) You just moved the injector further away without changing angle. Not instead of shooting at the back of the injector it'll be more aiming at the port wall. 2) You need to shim the exhaust as well since they share a mounting surface, so now you're looking at TWO plates, not just one. It'd be easier to either notch the ports on the existing head (not that much work in all honesty, and could be done for less than $50 worth of tools in your own garage) or have the intake welded up and modified to change the injector location and angle, which would most likely leave you needing a new fuel rail, and why not set it up for an easier to upgrade injector type, with an o-ring seal? I'd personally just notch the head with a die grinder if you're on a budget.

All the more reason to be skeptic. How long have you owned and driven the car? How long have you been having alternator issues? If the last alternator went out soon after having the PS pump replaced that's certainly cause to check over the work done.

Hard to tell what kind of oil it is if it isn't fresh. Power steering will have a reddish hue usually, while motor oils go from amber (clean) to rather black (dirty). But all oils will eventually look black as they spend time in the atmosphere and collect contaminants. I personally find it hard to imagine it's motor oil though. There just isn't much over on that side of the engine to leak, except the oil filter but that's a good 12+ inches away. That'd have to be some impressive oil flinging which would be dirtying the whole engine bay. By contrast the power steering pump is DIRECTLY above the alternator, hence why I suggested it first...

I still contend that the new beetle is a waste of steel, and thus a waste of resources. Doesn't that make it not-so-green? Such a waste of pollution...

Meh, the wide angle distortion, though artistic, doesn't lend itself very well for capturing details like you did tony.

Let me clear about my previous post, as it's in conflict of this statement that I half-agree with. The context of my last post was regarding an engine that's going to be replaced anyways, and also lower HP. I agree that checking wipe patterns is always good procedure and should be done, especially when changing to a higher lift/duration cam grind. But to play devil's advocate here, I'm 99% sure when these motors were originally built wipe patterns weren't checked. Granted, all components had to be QC'ed and made sure they were within spec before assembly. All that said, I personally feel that unless you're trying for a fairly hot setup (lets say 200+whp), then if you had a running P79 head (as example) and you pulled an entire P79 from another engine, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to number the cam towers and pads and swap over the cam, check valve clearance and be good to go. Yes machining the surfaces smooth again then doing wipe pattern checks and adjustments is a "good idea". I would never say it wasn't. I just personally don't find it "necessary" for everyone out there.

I'd just go to the local junkyard, find the best L cam I can find via OEM grind specs, pull the cam, towers, pads, and bar (if internally oiled) and call it a day. Swapping the cam + pads + towers shouldn't be more than a 3 hour job for the lazy garage mechanic with beer in hand. Finish it before 5 hours though if you tend to down your beers. Finishing in less than 2 hours could result to too little beerage and thus a dangerous next couple of hours as you start "fixing" other things on your way through the beers you bought. Don't go down that road. Have you seen the cars stuck on jackstands on this site? Exhibit A... In all seriousness, changing cams on these engines is easy as pie and donors are EVERYWHERE. I can go to the junkyard once every other week and see at least two NEW datsun L6 donors that have come in. They're THAT common, around here at least. My issue is that my local yard charges too much... Scrap steel/aluminum prices are really driving the prices out of the range that used parts should go for.

You guys make me sad I bought a PS3 as a media server... Instead I have a perfectly good blu ray media that someone unfortunately put GT5 on. What a waste. ...it does make a stellar media server though. Main thing that swayed me from that standpoint was that it's 100x easier to upgrade to a large capacity drive.

Checked the power steering pump/lines? It's directly above and prone to leaking. Almost all of them have oil stains on the top from the lid leaking, and it's not uncommon to see oil collection/staining on the lines where the attach at the pump. Good units, and will last forever if you keep their fluid level full, just leaky sons of guns.

3 days later and no video? What's wrong with you? I'm actually interested in this myself as well. I have a key that works in my door and ignition though the ignition fit is loose/sloppy (falls out even) but the passenger door has never worked with any of my keys. Then I also have a separate key for my hatch that seems to work nicely that I'd like to key the doors to. I don't have a glovebox, so no worries there, and I'll be ditching my ignition switch soon too. But hey, to get everything else to work on one key would be nice. I actually just swapped out my passenger door and putting in my lock I was thinking "what the hell am I even swapping this over for? It doesn't even fit my key..."

Hope this isn't a repost. Enjoy. http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DN4_THXK4nbY&v=N4_THXK4nbY&gl=US

If I wanted a built stroker crank I wouldn't despise the rust that much. If you wanted extra stroke you're changing rod journal sizes anyways, and you can just run thicker main bearings after getting those milled down. As long as you weren't running super high force induced HP (which I wouldn't on a stroker anyways) then it should survive the forces on the smaller journals just fine. And don't forget that smaller journals see less friction. But as a BUDGET stroker crank.... I'd pass by and try to forget about it.

Almost anything can get down bellow 2500 when you're running just a rolling chassis with an engine and a windshield. I'm talking NOTHING in the car other than what it takes to make it race legal (windshield, wipers, lights, etc.) Even at that weight these car's transmissions STILL act like they're made of glass.