Gollum

Yes and no. The stock ECU is DEFINTELY "non-exact" but that doesn't mean it's "not consistent". From what I've seen the ECU tends to be a bit overly cautious, but I don't have enough seat time at the dyno to tell exactly how closely it mirrors the profile of the stock cam. Obviously the more modern the ECU the tighter it tends to be, and straying as far as an aftermarket intake on most OBD-II+ cars will require a retune to reoptimize the curves. I just don't like giving out suggestions to members that could, in the end, be more headache than it's worth. Be warned of overthinking your goals. The Z31 ECU upgrade is a great idea, but it opens up a whole different realm of modifications you're performing. Now you need to find an ECU and do wire splicing, install the corresponding MAF, convery the dizzy with the right CAS sensor from said Z31, etc. For the time, cost, and energy you're not too far from being able to do a super cheap MS conversion, unless you can find a scorching deal from someone parting out their turbo Z31. That said it'd work with the stock T3 just fine. The ECU doesn't really care about the specs of the turbo, just how much air it's putting into the engine, and at what temp. You can usually get an OEM ecu to handle a much larger turbo with very little adjustment, while changing things like head flow will require immediate attention to the tune.

Nasty beautiful!!!! Thanks for ruining my pants man.

Yea I know, I never said he did. I said I do believe there's at least one, never said that was aux. I said ask aux because he knows who's done it, who's started, and who's finished for the most part. He's very up on all this rotary in z car stuff. I've talked to him several times in person about it as he comes to my yearly BBQ. He sold his setup I believe, and if I'm not mistake it's now running in a S30 somewhere. But I do believe there was another completed, or near completed rotary S30 somewhere else too.

The P79 A cam is definitely a sweet cam for a street driven turbo motor, but you have to remember, it has almost 10 degrees more duration, about a quarter tenth of an inch more lift (with might not sound like much, but consider how that affects time at low lift when combined with the duration), and the BIG difference imo, it has 8 degrees more overlap compared to the P90A M cam. It would run fine, but you just have to be willing to deal with the fact it won't be as good of a tune as the stock cam, and that tune isn't spectacular to begin with. You'll have to adjust either the AFM or fuel pressure because the fuel curve requirements will change, and that will leave the rest of the curve you can't optimize for as much percentage off as the difference between cam. So if the A cam makes 2% more/less volumetric efficiency at a given rpm, say 2,000 then your tune will be roughly that 2% off + variances in the stock tune. The stock tune will tend to be a bit on the safe side, so as long as the A cam doesn't make TOO much extra power anywhere below peak then you should be okay. The real issue arises though when you start raising boost. Say stock for stock the new A cam makes 4% less power at 1,500, which might be possible considering the differences. This might be acceptable at stock levels, as the only difference is that you'll be quite a bit rich when you punch the gas when cruising down the city streets in 4th gear (trust me, I used to use 4th gear for almost all my driving, I found myself that low quite often without ever having issues getting up to speed). But now let's factor in extra boost. Say you're running 14psi (about what you'll need to reach the 250+whp mark). Let's assume you tuned for the extra boost with a rising rate fuel pressure regulator, and let's assume you bought what 90% of people buy, which is the fixed rate type which are either a static 1:1 or 2:1 (meaning for every pound of PSI they add 1 or 2 PSI of fuel, respectively). Odds are that's NOT enough extra fuel for the extra boost, so you'll end up turning up the RRFPR to "work best for full power" which leads you to let's assume a static fuel pressure of 55lbs. Now when you're at 1500-2000rpm in 4th gear and you give it a little bit of juice you end up with BLACK SMOKE and fouled plugs.... No fun. It might just be a 3-5% difference in the state of mixture, but that can make just enough of a difference when you have zero control over the ECU map... Keeping the cam and head as close as stock as possible, will give you a better chance at getting the thing to run nicely at the power levels you're looking for. Remember, most that get to 300whp end up with aftermarket ECU systems for a reason. It's not that the stock ECU can't do it at all! In fact I encourage you on your endeavor. I like seeing people make the stock system work. I can just take some serious trial and error. Learn from the example I just shared, and get a RRFPR with an adjustable ratio (usually comes with disks you insert inside under the spring). And for what it's worth, I've seen ratios like 5-8:1 extra fuel per psi of boost be much closer to accurate in practical use. The lower ratio ones that are common seem to be more geared towards people that are only raising boost a few psi and need the extra safety net, and are usually installed on cars that are still mapping to where the boost is at. And on that note, the ECU takes an average of information cells, not just stuck right in it. It averages out from adjacent cells in the direction it came from and logically heading to, in order to give you a smooth fuel curve, not a jagged one. In an ECU like the turbo MR2, the stock map goes up a good 4 PSI higher than the stock regulator goes. This has the benefit of preventing failure in an over boost situation, but also helps the ECU average out the fuel when you're bouncing in and around peak PSI, because it's rarely a perfectly flat line of PSI information that the ECU is reading. My theory personally is that the stock tune on the L28ET is just fine to 10psi as long as everything is in good working order, but you probably won't want to live there for very long without an intercooler because the stock ECU doesn't compensate for hot intake temps very well.

Another thing you can try, before setting it on fire and pushing it off a cliff (wich WOULD be spectacular to behold), is to pull the starter and make sure it works find on it's own accord outside the vehicle. It's amazing sometimes what they pass off as "remanufactured" sometimes. Last time I bought an alternator I exchanged it three times before getting a decent unit, that's STILL charging a bit hot, but I just figured it was 5 times better than the others...

Ask aux, but I do believe there's at least one other 13b turbo S30 on the road, not sure if it's a 240z exactly, but that's kind of one in the same in my book. Best of luck though, keep us updated for sure. Take lots of pics, which is hard to do with greasy hands, so have a camera man (or woman preferably) on hand.

If you're not changing the EFI, do NOT change the cam profile, period. The more you move from the factory profile the more you'll be un-optimizing timing and fuel somewhere on the map.

As per above - you can double check ground again with jumper cables, just use the negative side to bridge a wire between battery and starter. If there's any difference, then you still don't have enough ground going between the two. Many guys on here just run a heavy duty cable for positive AND negative from the battery when relocating the battery. Double check that all your relays are coming on, hear the fuel pump? ECU won't trigger the starter if there's issues in the power system. I've run into this, where I forgot to hookup my fuel pump relay and my car wouldn't start. Also, when you checked your dizzy rotor position with #1 @ TDC did you VERIFY that #1 was at compression TDC by taking the valve cover off? Might be worth it if even once you get it cranking if it doesn't start.

I'm sorry if you took offense to what I said, but look at it how everyone else sees this play out. If you do ANY searching around here you'll see that I'm usually one of the people that IS willing to deal with spoon feeding people while everyone else just gives up on the beginners that don't know how to search. But to most of us this thread looks like this: New guy wants car, and wants it now, but wants it cheap. We give advice, tell him to either wait for a deal or broaden his horizon and that converting a later S30 to a 70-72 look-alike can be more cost effective. OP seems stuck in their ways, but then gets distracted and starts looking at other cars instead for the immediate purchase. We see this quite often and 9 times out of 10 the person never actually gets a S30 because of the time an patience it can take. Some of us here on the west coast have had multiple S30's with minimal rust, some of which were purchased well within your budget. I can understand not being eager to purchase a car in an unknown state, flying across the country, and driving it home. Though honestly you're not nearly as bad as some people I've seen, you don't really seem all that interested in our advice much. I'm very glad you didn't purchase that first car though, as that would have been a bad move. IF you stick around I do hope you post pics of your projects and share with everyone what you're up to. Just also keep in mind that all of us around here tend to have pretty thick skin and kind of expect the same. It's the only way a forum like this can maintain high standards of information. We're all going to step on each others toes from time to time, an I apologize for being a bit out of hand before. From where I was sitting you looked like just another passer-by that didn't truly seem committed to learning what we had to offer. I hope I was wrong.

If he's gonna give up that easily do we want to put up with him around here anyways?

I see two giant spaces that TURBOS would fill nicely... Sounds good though. It's gonna be loud though... should really think about adding turbos to muffle that sound a bit...

Go and look through all the DOHC L series threads, timing chain arrangement is always the #1 concern. Even with 1 fast Z's build, he states that the cutting up of the heads and putting them together was relatively simple, when compared to the timing chain setup. This gear arrangement is a fairly straight forward design, and keeps you from having to mess around with tensioner angles. It might look pretty and expensive, which it probably is, but it's also a "simple" answer to a complex problem. This is a great answer if you wanted to keep as many of the front end parts as possible stock. It's definitely not as much of a "shade tree engineer's" answer to this problem as it requires precision machining and knowing your tolerances exactly. Motorcycles use gear driven setups almost as a standard. You can also find gear setups for most american V8's on summit, jegs, and other part supplier's websites. My concern with them is wear. What will those gears look like in 100k? And what will that wear do to camshaft/valve performance? The beauty and danger of belt driven cams is that as the belt wears you can't perceive any power loss, just change it when scheduled and you're good. But overhauling a gear setup like that could be very labor and wallet intensive...

There's plenty of ways to find vacuum leaks....

You can get a good $200+ in steel recycling alone if you take your time to remove all the glass, plastic and such. If it has the manual steering rack, keep it + the x-member. Very rare for '81 though. If you can save the wiper motor without damage to the bushings (more difficult than you might think) I might be interested in it. $20+ shipping? PM me if you want. The ones I've parted out I end up throwing half of the car away. So many of the little bits just seem worthless to me to try to sell on ebay (like the window switches). These cars are extremely common still so most parts aren't hard to find, just hard to find in good shape. If a part looks shot, it's probably not going to sell very well.

Well if you're considering the VG you've probably already seen all these dynos, but Jason's dyno looks like this: He put a bit of work into an in-home garage porting job, using Ferra valves and schneider cams. Other than a non-stock turbo other than that the rest of the mods are all about fuel and how it's delivered. It's amazing what some people have gotten from stock bottom ends. I personally like how these motors make power. Some say they're worthless as their heads don't flow enough, and that's partly true, but that's why they make such a flat HP curve. The VQ will make more power much more readily, but it will be much more linear without so much torque fall off at the top. Of course torque really isn't an "issue" in an force induced build, but it's a difference that's worth considering. The L28ET CAN make 500hp, and isn't unreasonable when the correct work as been put into it. Of the nissan options it IS one of the more difficult options, mostly because it's just the road less traveled and will require attention to detail (which is true in any case you're almost tripling stock NA HP). The SR isn't a terrible option. Seems like many of them pop around 400whp but of course i'm sure it comes down to tuning. There's people that reach well beyond 500hp, and some say 500hp is capable on stock pistons, which seems dicey to me, but then again I'm not the one building SRs, so what do I know? The KA is about as capable as the SR when it comes to brute power, but of course the way it makes power is very different. almost half a liter more, head that will flow for the displacement, but a crank that doesn't want to rev high. One main downside is that the stock internals aren't quite as capable from what I've seen, and you're buying more parts out of the box but from what I've seen they're not really more expensive to build than SRs. The RB seems like the logical choice if you want it nissan and want it easy. More needs to be said? The road much less traveled that I'd love to see more of are the nissan V8's. The VH is plentiful and there's already manual trans conversion kits out on the market. Great motor but for your "goals" force induction is definitely a must, so you'll be making a custom setup no matter what. Same pretty much goes for the VK series, unless you can get your hands on a GT-1 racing motor. And onto the much more important side of this topic... Stock 240Z should weigh in around 2350 or so, but let's call it 2500 and FAT for a S30. Maybe you've added weight in the brakes and wheels, and put in a cage without removing a dime of weight... Even at that weight you're in the power to weight range that you're talking about a 675hp viper, a 825hp modern dodge challenger, or a 640hp 350Z... And that's all IF you make it heavy as a pig for a 240Z. AND that's IF you go with "only" 500hp. At 600hp and a realistic 2400lbs then you'd have a better power to weight ratio than a Veyron, and that's CRANK hp... So 500whp you're already at the top of super car power/weight ratio. My "heavy" 280Z which is much more difficult to remove weight in is already under 2500 pounds and that's still with a steel hood, full glass, and the big R200. I plan on running it without side glass, rear lexan, and a composite hood. Even with wider rims/tires I still expect to be well under 2400 pounds when I'm done. If I had a 240Z like you I'd be considering doing the subie R180 swap for a bulletproof LSD diff that will save more weight over the LSD R200 options. Personally, I'd recommend you shoot for 2200 pounds and 350whp, which should give you well over 400bhp and land you in a power/weight ratio that's still deathly fast. The beauty of those more realistic goals is that it really opens your world up as far as engine options. Now you can consider a NA VK either with some minor NA mods or the new direct injection version with 400hp stock. Now your turbo builds look MUCH more affordable as the main things that will need attention is the fuel system/ECU, not too much else. Now you're not looking at requiring a 275+ rear tire in a racing compound in order to get traction in 3rd gear... Now you could live without flaring the wheel well if you didn't want to. You mentioned wanting to do AutoX events, and no matter what with more than 300hp you're talking about a car that will be a SERIOUS handful any autoX event. Most of the cars there will have more than DOUBLE the weight for the HP. And remember, power/weight is rarely the main factor that determines weather a car is fast on a tight course like that. Even on faster road courses like Laguna Seca that still doesn't have much in the way of long straights pure power/weight isn't the winning key. It helps, and is a factor, but that's it.

Well Mack was talking about the MN47, or maxima N47, which is a different head than the Z N47.... Besides, most of the calculators are OFF, which is why Josh originally posted how to CC chambers and calculate compression, as it's much more reliable than a program on the inter webs.

No, he's lying to you. This thread smells like the trash to me...

And I'm working this weekend why?

Should add an EGR that's fed from air in the cabin...

Again, BAD INFO! Weights are VERY dependent on a multitude of factors. Without knowing what's included on a scale the number is meaningless. http://forums.hybrid...hts-definitive/ Now you have REAL info on what the L motor weighs. But we still don't know what was included with the VQ to weigh 330lbs. Flywheel? Clutch? AC? PS Pump? Wiring? Exhaust Manis? A lightweight L motor should be well under 400lbs in running condition. The weigh WILL go up though as you add things like AC, Power Steering, or an OEM flywheel. It's not uncommon for some OEM flywheels on motors to be WELL over 40 lbs, while you can get aftermarket flywheels that are under 10 lbs.... That's a 30 lb difference in ONE part. So even comparing a SBC to a iron block LSX you have to take into account things like flywheels that could very well be vastly different between the two motors, but can be readily changed. Also, if you want to really open your eyes, do some research on the weight differences between the LSX iron blocks and LSX ali blocks in block weight ALONE, not entire engine. The difference is minimal, and it's the largest piece of metal in an engine, yet people want to make the material such a big deal. IT'S NOT!

"Will not flow enough air"? Flow will ALWAYS increase in a logarithmic fashion in relation to air pressure. If an engine produces 100hp at true atmospheric then it should produce 200hp at 1 bar of boost, permitting that the intake temps are exactly the same temperature, which they rarely are. The A12 can produce over 100NA HP to the wheels, if the bottom end could hold it I don't see any reason 320 to the wheels with enough boost is so "impossible". Am I saying people don't lie on dyno numbers? No. I'm not sticking up for the shop saying their claims aren't inflated. I'm just saying that to think it's impossible is the same mindset that keeps people from being great and doing things that haven't been done before. In the world of engineering, just about everything short of perpetual motion is possible. On the flip side, the same shop has also built a 700+whp CA18 that went into that same chassis. More inflated numbers? Maybe, but either way they're a serious shop, not just shade tree tuners.

Love it! I've always said that if I had the money to get out of Z cars (whole reason I got into datsuns was for the cheap factor) I'd build a FFR Daytona. I've been a FFR fan since before getting into datsuns (10 years now, holy crap!) and my first love was always the cobra. And for the money I don't think you can do much better than a FFR kit. I've always wanted to tube chassis a S30 and do all sorts of radical stuff, but whenever I price things out I just cry. In the end I'd always end up spending what it would cost to just start with the bones I want, the daytona couple. Even with the added cost of IRS it still makes more sense than modifying the S30 up one side and down the other. And to clarify, I'm not knocking the S30 one bit, I love it to pieces. But many of us have these grand dreams which will most likely never become a reality. The daytona has served me well to keep my focus and keep the datsun what it is, a budget racer platform. Subscribed.

Correct! Sonic blue was available on the Base, GT, and Cobra in 2003 but not the Mach 1 or the Anniversary package. It's a righteous color for sure. Unfortunately OEM paint jobs tend to suck rather hard, and you could find quite a bit of orange peel on the mustangs (even the cobras sadly). I've seen the sonic blue color code repainted and it wears beautifully when done well with good clear coat. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. Sonic Blue is making a reappearance in the 2012 mustang though I think it might be a mid-year production appearance. But it HAS been announced by ford and will definitely be roaming the streets again.

In all honesty, the hartly is a deal at 30k. Find me another motor that will make 400 na HP that I can pick up and load into a trunk by myself. Does that mean its the best option for that price? Not necessarily. I've seen dimensions of the vg and vq and they're definitely shorter than lsx motors. That said, almost any v8 or v6 will be shorter than the l6. And THAT said, the l6 isn't nearly as heavy as other inline 6 motors like the RB. They also tend to be lighter than an all iron v8. So in all my confusion I've intentionally caused, nearly ANY motor can yield driving characteristics that most people would consider good, spritely, and forgiving. Suspension and chassis tuning is what it will come down to every time.