Gollum

Love the DIY air system! I must have at least 3 of those injector coolers lying around...

Instead of starting a new thread I'm going to bring this one back, since this is the topic it's regarding. So I still have this wonderful N42 sitting here, and every day that goes by I realize I just don't want to get rid of my S130. And to make it so much worse, my smog buddy whom I grew up with had gone into a different avenue of mechanical work, but is now doing smog again. And now he's training my brother to get his license as well! So I won't be in short supply in help getting my cars to pass. This winter then I'll be building up a motor with my parts on hand with the N42 and turbo block. Should get me compression over 8:1 and enough grunt to get me around. The tough decision still is this damn fuel injector issue. I either have to grind the head to fit the stock EFI manifold, or I have to convert to a carb'ed setup, or go with a custom manifold. None of these options sound all that appealing to me honestly. I'd love to make a custom manifold, but I don't want the added EFI costs on top of that. The carb options looks really good, but they're not exactly cheap either unless I just want to hunt for some junkyard SUs and rebuild them. Taking a grinder to the head just seems like such a waste as the head was freshened up by guys that know a heck lot more than me about these engines. The other option would be to find some flat top pistons and rebuild this turbo block and put my spare P90 on it. The head could use some love though, and I could have it shaved while getting it cleaned up and looked over. I'm not looking for a 250+hp hot street motor, just something to get me around (even 150 at the wheels would be more than enough). Might spring for a nice header and exhaust down the road. Keeping it simple should keep costs down, but the benefit of keeping the stock EFI setup would be saving the money spent on the rebuild, pistson, and machine shop work I'd be having done if I shop around enough. On the same token though, I really don't like the stock EFI and have only had problems with it concerning my S30. So maybe going carb'ed might be the better option for me, if I can score a good deal. As always, any input is appreciated. I've got all summer to figure this out. In the mean time maybe I'll try my hand at fiberglass this summer and shed some weight off this baby.

Yea... That'll work. Keep the posts coming!

Oh, and on the octane note, I'm still running the OE ECU in my L28ET and I run 87 KAMIFORNIA gas. Probably more like other states 85 octane if they sold it. I get away with it only because I'm still running stock boost levels, and I rarely run the engine hard long enough to get the engine heat soaking. If I did then detonation would be a problem on such crappy gas. Going with SU's might be better if you're going for max power, because they can flow more air up top, but the EFI offers nice driveability and more worry-free driving. For the power levels you're looking at, I'd start with the stock EFI since you have it, and see how you like it.

The front half isn't bad, and the rear half isn't bad... but all together it just looks fugly to me. I can see that it's "well styled" and that people might like it. But it just doesn't do it for me. I'd rather have a more hardcore ferrari, or if I wanted something practical I'd get a STI Wagon.... Everything is always a compromise, but I fail to see where this car's compromise has an audience. Redo the happy face, cut out the rear two seats but keep the wheel base the same, make it MORE like the roofline of a austin, jag, daytona coupe or what have you and I think it'd have a market.

No, it's because we think your user is a troll of John C or grumpyvette or something.

The good news is that the system for finding the offending shops is getting more and more automated. Not only has this helped some of the shops be a little less suspicious but it also means that the blatant offenders get caught easier. BTW, on the topic of smogs, anyone here the news about the possibility of the dyno's not being used in OBD-2 cars soon? Might make me interested in some newer cars finally...

It all depends on the differences between the FWD platform and the RWD platform. If they use nearly or identical blocks then it'd be an easy swap. The challenge is that many times companies change some things here and there to make the motor better suited to their drivetrain application. Those are details that few here will probably know about, and you'd be needing to talk to some people with experience with those engines.

Dang it!!! Nevermind... it uses a 90 degree split pin spacing, not 180 degrees. Why would they do that for a V4?

WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!! If they actually keep the transmission as a separate piece of equipment like it looks like in the pics I'm ordering two!!! Flat plane crank V8 anyone? The main thing that's stopped me from pursuing designing a flat plane crank out of a bike V4 or ever V-Twin is that all of the interesting motors have intergrated transmissions, and would thus be a bit complicated to mate together and to a transmission. The lower rev range of this would be perfect for widely available transmissions.

I think this has all been well covered, but as much as I think the MN47 combined with flat tops has some killer potential it sounds like it might not be for you. EFI is certainly wonderful, and programmable EFI is a must for anyone wanting to do some hot-rodding, like you're wanting to do. My advice would be to either bite the bullet and go for megasquirt with a hotter cam, or instead sell the head and get a P79/P90 and take the money you'd spend on megasquirt getting the head worked over a little and maybe get some decent carbs for the sucker. And in both those scenarios dyno tuning should be on the to-do list. In short, only use the factory ECU if you're shooting for factory horsepower, in which case you should go with a factory compression combo.

Hmm... I don't proclaim to be an evo expert, but there's several 1000+ wheel hp evos out there, and I wonder if they're using the stock iron block, or a custom aluminum block like that. Seems strange that so many people would go through all the trouble....

Well the weather was decent today. Cold, but dry at least. So I finally got out there and changed the fuel rail, took about 45 minutes or so taking my time. And surprise surprise, the engine is running a ton better. It coughed a little bit as the injectors were getting used to being used again, but after a short engine warm up it was revving better than it has yet. So I took it for a drive and WOW. Pulls strong all the way to redline again. Yay! When I pulled the vacuum line off the FPR before it didn't spit fuel, but the engine was running. This time the engine had been off a good couple of hours and the FPR spit fuel. Strange eh? Existing problems still: Engine is backfiring under in gear decel, and I still can't get the motor to easily rev up heel-toeing between shifts. This might be TPS wiring, but I also noticed that off the line the engine wanted to die again, probably due to the AFM having been tweeked to make the car drivable. So I've put the AFM back a bit so it's still a little loose, but closer to where it should be I think. We'll see how that drives tomorrow. Overall that seems to have been the BIG problem that was making other issues completely masked. Now I should be able to troubleshoot the other issues better.

That's really what I'm not getting about your argument hoov, the VG requires almost NO WORK to get to 300hp. It's about equal in what's required at that level as a L28ET, and those dominate these forums as the luck buck king to the 300hp mark. Doing something "right" is always subjective to the person and their goals. And my counter point to your argument is based off of what people ACTUALLY spend, not on what we can dream to spend. Even people here on these forums spend quite a pretty penny building SR motors. Just because there's lots of availability for parts doesn't make them cheap motors. It just means you have options. The core items of making power on any stock motor are always going to plague ANY motor. Such as: Wideband Injectors Propper ECU tuning capability Time to tune it all the best it can be All of us here know that just throwing parts together doesn't make power. There have been guys that have gotten very impressive results just by taking their time and doing something meticulously and maybe thinking outside the box. Like the guy who made over 300hp on stock turbo ZX injectors by running multiple fuel pumps with over 100psi fuel pressure. Building a cheap motor isn't something always inherent to a motor per say, but rather a mindset of the builder. And I personally believe (which people are allowed to disagree with) that the VG is a good route to go for someone who's practicing the art of budget HP building. The SR isn't a bad choice either, but the low buy in for the VG makes it specially appealing as plenty of people have made over 400hp on stock longblocks. What really cracks me up is that you made comments about onesickZ's car and he himself corrected you about what he said and you still haven't acknowledged that correction. That's the truth man, people like him HAVE build HIGH hp VG's for VERY cheap. He CHOSE to have it rebuilt at tuned by someone else AFTER he'd already proven the motor capable, not the other way around.

True'r than true. Many people get really caught up in the whole weight balance thing and forget that an integra type R's only handicap at a track isn't it's handling, but it's limited ability to put power down being a FF platform (which still isn't bad with the right setup). That car is over 60% front biased if I recall correctly and handles great. So do well prepped CRX's which again, have almost no weight in the back. Porsches have insane rear weight bias and can still be made to handle like a dream, and do well enough from the factory from most accounts. Point being, setup is far more important than weather or not your engine is 350 or 450 pounds, or three inches farther back. And that's where the SR can really shine. It's a fairly easy and affordable swap that doesn't have many downsides. People often say - cheap, fast, reliable, you can only pick two. But what most people don't think about is that those are ALL relative terms. Cheap... compared to what? On what budget? Fast... Compared to a stock Civic or a Zonda? Reliable... Compared to a stock 30 year old Z, or a 90's Honda? So all three of those factors are "meters" in a sense. The SR does well in all categories. It's not the budget of the budget, but for how much power it can make, while being light and compact, and being reliable enough it's doesn't break the bank. The are other options out there, but it's a good one to consider if you're wanting a swap that makes the car easy chassis-tune to handle well. That said, the L6 motor is a road well paved and the setups have already been done time and time again.

I'm planning on going megasquirt soon enough, probably next winter. And a LM1 is part of my budget for it. But I can't really justify it right now where I'm at with the car. I got it running a bit better today, to where it only hiccups every now and then if I'm cruising bellow 2k. I measured the CHTS at the ECU and it's showing about 10% high, which should be slightly rich, but it's still close to FSM specs. I'm about 95% sure it's not a PCV related issue, and I'm about as sure that I don't have a vacuum leak. The PCV wasn't even hooked up when I got the car 2 years ago, but now I've got the valve cover going to pre-AFM (so if anything it'd be causing it to go rich) but the lower block opening isn't hooked up to anything, and the PCV valve has been removed and has been replaced with a plug. Nearly everything on the intake has been plugged. The only think left on it is the FPR and boost gauge. And just for good practice I checked it today and couldn't find any leaks. All that being said, I think I've concluded that my compounding issues have come down to poor electical signals and me futzing around with the AFM too much. I think my grounds are in poor shape, and that's lead me to having the AFM way out of adjustment. I'm going to work on some grounding solutions tomorrow and then see how it runs and adjust the AFM for how it runs at that point. If the car runs alight but the AFM seems extremely loose then I'll have to keep looking into it, but I have a feeling that after it ran so well today it's going to come down to making sure all my electrical connections are 100% perfect. It wasn't pulling 100% clean WOT from low RPM, but it's certainly workable from here. In conclusion I think something that's mucked this thing up from the beginning was that the car didn't run well at it's first start with the new head for many reasons, and I'd been adjusting the AFM trying to figure out if it was lean or rich in certain conditions, and I've adjusted it so much now I'd almost forgotten where it should be in good working order. More to follow soon enough.

Finally did some more troubleshooting today. Checked the CHTS and it's maybe a little low in resistance at low temp, but at operating temp it's right in the middle of the graph in the FSM. So it seems this part should do the job well enough. I cleaned the AFM traces with alcohol and when I was running it again I was noticing it couldn't be the AFM because when I move the AFM open it very consistently richens up and runs smoother, not erratically as though the traces are bad/cutting out. BUT!!! I noticed that if I pull the vacuum line from the FPR that NOTHING CHANGES.... Idle doesn't change at all, full throttle doesn't change (though it shouldn't) and light throttle doesn't change a bit... Bad FPR? I'm gonna change out the whole fuel rail for one I have sitting around with another set of turbo injectors and different FPR on it. I'll see if that changes anything. Maybe I've been tuned for a bad fuel pressure all this time I've had the car? Or could it have gone bad in the last year sitting around my garage?... Strange question to have to ask, if you ask me.

Are any of those turbo AFM's? I believe the turbo AFM's were a bit different, at least I'm certain there's minor differences, not sure how it affects the tune. Maybe we can work out a trade or something.

All good advice, and stuff I've thought of as you suspected. I think it's going to have to come down to actually testing components via FSM standards. I'll test the CHTS tonight on the stove with a cooking thermometer. I'm not sure how I'll test the AFM, but the traces might very well be the main issue here, as it's never had a cover in the length that I've owned it and my engine bay is QUITE oily. Maybe I should pull that too and check for continuity on the traces.

The AFM had been right up against the turbo since I got the car, ran fine like that but I knew it was too close. In trying to troubleshoot I've now moved it just behind the radiator core support. I checked for leaks on the intake and actually had one, but fixing it didn't change anything. Timing hasn't been checked with a light, but I know it's close just by ear, which is how I've timed all my L6 motors for the last 6 years. I'll double check the TPS wiring again. Maybe the ECU thinks the TPS is closed 24/7? That could be bad maybe. I'm pretty sure the CHTS is ok, since the one from my other car did the same thing and that car is running fine.

I bought my first Z, a 80', thinking that I'd be swapping the motor for a V8 once I didn't have to subject my vehicle to smog inspections. Then the laws changed. So, after owning 4 S130's I NEEDED a car to drive, and I wanted a S30 like you couldn't believe. And find one I did. It happened to already have a L28ET and I got it for a song and dance. So for me, I've been sticking with the L motors for one big reason - it's in there already. This saves me downtime that most people spend on swaps, and I don't have to worry about fabricating anything to make it fit. My first Z was my first car, so my tool collection started small. I simply didn't have the resources to do a swap. I eventually did do a turbo swap in a S130, but I also did the whole swap for pretty cheap. I DO love the sound, and would love to have a 200+hp L28 in a lightweight 240Z. I love the sound of those solid lifters and timing chain. All those little noises are just like pouring joy juice in my ear canal. An ITB L6 is just sex on a platter. All that being said, once I have a welder and some experience with it, down the road my S30 is probably going to get a SR or VG or possible a VQ. My 280Z is going to stay pretty hardcore, but if I happen upon a nice 240Z I might just have to build one that the wife could enjoy. She doesn't even like thinking about riding in my 280Z. My 81' I have really mixed feelings about. One week I want to sell it, the next I want to keep the only slicktop S130 I've ever had. The motor probably won't make it to 300k and is going to get there terribly so if it does. But swapping in a rebuild L6 just seems cruel with that crappy EFI. Maybe I'll swap in a carb'ed motor and roll the dice at the smog dyno.

Long story so I won't go there, but my engine was running great before I swapped my head (from P90 to P90). The new head is from a 81 so it's got a slightly different cam, but not by a ton. Both heads were solid lifter heads. I'm using the same intake and exhaust manifolds. Same ECU. Same AFM. Same TPS. Same Turbo. Same Exhaust. But, in the shuffle of heads I had to change the coolant temp sensor because the old one didn't want to come out without falling apart on me. Then wiring the engine back up the hacked up TPS wiring finally gave up the ghost, so I got a new plug from a NA model and wired it in (I'm pretty sure it's correct now). But, I can't seem to get it running right. It'll start ok (no cold start system left, I just rev it a few times on a cold morning and then it'll idle), but at all temp levels, it won't keep rev's at very light throttle settings. It gets really rough and wants to die. If I snap the throttle open quickly the motor revs nicely, and under accel the motor runs nice. But at soon as I start to hold a speed it starts it's sputtering. I've noticed that at those low throttle positions if I open the AFM a bit to give it some more fuel the revs pick right up and are stable. But I've loosened the AFM and that didn't help at all. I've actually moved the AFM a lot both directions to figure it out but it's still just not happening. The only thing I can figure, is that maybe the AFM worked on the old head, but is now just way off for the new one for some reason. Or maybe the new coolant temp sensor is the wrong part, but I tired the one from my 81' and it didn't make a difference. Or maybe my fuel was bad, but I've burned through that and filled it up, but this is the first tank so it's a bit mixed. Or maybe my plugs are going bad? I pulled them and put in some older NA plugs to see if there was a difference and there wasn't any. The other thing that I should probably check, is the FPR, but I don't understand how that could make it run lean at high vacuum... Grounding problem somehow? So what am I overlooking guys? I've done my best to change one thing at a time, but the problem seem to be extremely static. The car's drivable, and pulls really good once boost kicks in, but that transitional area just sucks.

Well I feel like a real doofus now. I guess I was a bit quick with my findings before. It seems like the rear right caliper is sticking just enough that the wheel wouldn't spin with light movement of the opposing side. Somehow I didn't realize that was what was going on the time before. This time when I jacked the car up it was pretty obvious, as it brakes were stuck enough that it was hard to get the right wheel to move by moving the left wheel. So I guess I probably have a bad u-joint. Which is probably better than dealing with a diff issue, but at least I had a spare diff lying around. I'll keep future findings updated here.

Well, sometime this weekend I'll pull the diff and axles to see if I can hunt down the problem at any rate. Just finding the real source will be nice.

The play it certainly not in the half shafts at any point. I thought it was u-joint issues too, but I can't seem to find any signs of play or wear in them. I can FEEL it too, that left wheel moves EASILY in that 30 degrees, feeling then past that you feel the other side engage. Where as on the passenger side there's almost none of that free play feeling. Almost immediately you feel that resistance that then starts turning the other wheel. The problem is certainly in the diff from what I can tell. If the stubs from the 280Z R200 will just press in then I guess that WOULD be an easy swap. Anyone have any ideas if the seals would need to be replaced? They look ok, but they also came off a 280ZXT that had 200k+ miles.