Gollum

Correct, they're different. That said, I see Z31 cars around here all the time. I can pick them up a ECU (I always call it a ECU, but I think that's the ECM on the Z31) if they want me to. I think PNP only charges like $30 for a ECU. I'd suggest he finds someone's place to store it for the time being. I'd also suggest they find a place that's a "pass or don't pay" or a "pass or next test is free" type of a place. That way they can see if the work done is actually having an effect on the problem. If I saw the test results I might be able to give some good tips on how to get it to pass.

That is menacing. ...I like it.

It's really sketchy on your part to start talking about race motors as though that same engine could be reved like that in a street car and be reliable. Nascar revs pushrod motors to levels unheard of, does that mean we should even attempt it? NO WAY!!! Just because they can get a windsor based V8 to rev past 10k doesn't make it safe nor reliable. Plus lets not forget just because an engine is designed to survive a 24 hour race doesn't make it reliable. Odds are after that race they'll be tearing down that motor to give it a full overhaul before the next race. An F1 V8 is so touchy you can't use cold oil in it. They have to feed the engine hot oil before starting it because the tolerances are so tight. These engines also rev past 25k... The new renesis as a redline of 9k, and it might be semi-reliable. But just like all engines I'm sure running it that high more often than not will take it's toll on the engine. Look, nobody here has been outright flaming the rotory motors, but you're acting as though someone has. We all here enjoy rotory motors probably more than MOST car forums on the internet, but we're not fanboys that's for SURE. Oh, and if I recall correcly wasn't the 20B rated at 280PS? That's a far cry from 400hp, and rotory motors have had quite the history with overrated power...

Hope you got the car back. I'd fight for more than just your money back personally. I'd demand money for the time YOU spent fixing THIER mistake. You're clearly BY LAW in the right. There's ZERO proof your car was there more than 24 hours and you IN NO WAY violated any law. Vallejo has lots of old beaters and dead cars driving around. This makes me think the city is getting tow happy. That being said last time I talked to a vallejo PD, I'd left my car in a parking lot (private, and I know the owners like family) ALL DAY, and it was the only car there. They'd seen the car earlier in the day and were worried it bellonged to a burgler trying to break in but didn't find any disturbance, so they left it. When I went back to the car later in the day THREE squad cars rolled in after me. They were just going to the same lot to write their reports and talked to me about seeing the car earlier in the day. They were extremely nice, surprisingly so, and let me go on my merry way and said they'd remember the car next time and it wasn't a problem at all. I also had a completely dead/undrivable CRX parked in benicia nearly a month before it got a tow away warning, which gave me 72!!! hours to move the vehicle. I don't know about you, but I'd fight kicking and screaming if I had to. The laws are written in detail, and you were in compliance and there's zero proof otherwise.

SR20 would be another nissan option around those power goals and cost. Shoot, 300/350hp is so easy to make with most engines. VG30ET VG30DETT VQ35DE VH45DE VK56DE SR20DET RB20DET RB25DET RB26DETT L28ET KA24DE(t) CA18DET All those would make the grade. And that's just nissan. How about toyota, GM, ford? Thier lists are just as long if not extremely longer in the case of the american companies. Those power levels are pretty attainable for any motor over 1.8 liter with force induction, or a naturally aspirated motor over 3.5 liters.

olderthanme - I agree. I was really hoping we'd be able to get people who were involved with the creation of stickies to contribute the same information. I think probably any of the sticky information is worth mention, but I don't think many of us, if any, are well versed in knowledge enough to deeply cover ALL the stickies on this site. Me and chris put all the information on that site together in just about 2-3 weeks I think. If just 20 people were as dedicated as we've been (which isn't much, about 10 hours a week max) then we'd have most of the essential Z car data gathered pretty quick.

Mopar/challenger - You'll notice a link at the bottom of the nissan L engine page that brings you to an engine calculator. You can use that to check the specs of various setups. I was the one who constructed the base data for that page and I didn't include information like that because I wanted to keep the data clean, and add info as people request it. No sense in cluttering up these pages with info that nobody wants. If you want a quick and dirty cheat sheet though here ya go. http://www.zhome.com/ZCMnL/tech/128combo.html

I never took your posts that way. Let me say this as my overall opinion on the subject, and it should clear a lot up... I don't like the characteristics of an engine near it's power limits. NA OR turbo. Screw type supercarged motors maintain great characteristics at the extremes, but double max NA potential still gets kinda ugly/peaky. So for me personally it comes down to what type of car do I want. A 2000 pound go kart that's got 200 or 400hp. Or a boat that has 300 or 800hp?

Robello might be able to make you a 300hp/300lbs motor but that power band won't be all that large, and the motor will be near it's limits. Pretty much any ford V8 can make 300hp, and will have 350+ torque in most cases, and be very reliable with plenty of room for improvement if maintained. As stated before, they're completely different beasts. If you build a 4.6 mod motor to the same torque/power curve as a 300hp L series it'd have nearly 500hp naturally aspirated. I've heard nothing but good things about robello if you do decide to go with a L series though.

Very cool. What software did you use? I assume you had it setup to auto take pictures every X amount of seconds/minutes. I recorded 90% of the pulling of my turbo motor, I even have all the video files sitting on my computer still I think. Just never got around to splicing it all up.

Werd. I like the webbing... Well, I like it all.

True, but a redline of 6000, or even 7000 will never sound like a redline of 9000 , at least not in my experience. But that being said, I've found that almost all engines can be made to sound desirable to an extent. Except maybe the old VW motors...

This is all very true clifton, and for the record I agree completely. I was just pointing out that if he wanted an inline 6 and his goals were in those ranges... then the money for a 2JZ would be "cost effective" in the long run versus other inline 6 motor options. And regarding the 13B swap... HAHA Oh so much lighter than a L series eh? Funny. I seem to remember braap's L6 motor weighing in at well under 400 pounds... Last I checked a fully capable of running 13B-REW isn't all that light. Now, a NA varient will weight quite a bit less. But lets not give people false ideas here. Rotary motors aren't as amazing concerning thier weight, as they are weight PLACEMENT. Two very different things. They're an extremely compact package. And clifton makes a good point. He didn't say it this way, but I will: A 300hp L28ET will make a faster car than a 300HP 13B. A 400HP L28ET will make a faster car than a 400HP 13B. It's not that torque is "better" or that you can't have a good motor without good torque numbers. It's about that fact that torque values are a good indication to POWER BAND, and the larger power band you have for a given HP, the more potential the motor has for making a car fast. If I had my choice of three motors all with 500hp, one with 300, one with 400, and one with 500 torque I'd choose the one with 500 torque. That is, if all engines weighed the same and were of comparable package size. And just based off of those torque numbers I'd guess the 500 torque motor would have a redline of about 6000rpm, the 400 torque motor around 7000rpm, and the 300 torque motor around 8000rpm, possibly a bit more. You can almost even guess the displacement once you know the torque figure and an engine's redline. It's a balance game. You can't have massive torque, and still redline to 10k. So yea the 500 torque motor might seem like "racey" in the sense it won't sound like a F1 V8, but you know what? It'll be the fastest.

I just had a quick thought I'd run by you guru's of the air. We know that more rake on a windshield is better, and we know the S30 windshield isn't the greatest. It doesn't have a ton of curvature, and it's not very raked. But... We do have a bit of cowl area between the hood and the windshield, and judging by pics I've seen of the primodonna Z you can achieve a lot better windshield angle with just stretching into the cowl area leaving the hood length alone. So what about this as an effective alternative? Put a small piece of lexan about 4-7 inches high at the front of the cowl area, in a curved manner in order to start air moving over the roof of the car before it reaches the windshield. This would cause the air to make a slow, more gradual change in direction. But would it work? or would air just spill over it causing more problems than solving? I just figure that if the hood on the new Ford GT40 can help force air over the car, keeping pressure in front of the windshield down, why can't a small piece of plastic have a similar effect? This would obviously be for the hardcore guys that have already looked at other areas of their car and have a "total package" laid out and aren't just looking for their first aerodynamic modification.

Sorry to hear about the setbacks. Seems like the engine just wants to live with you in the shop lately. Me and rudypoochris had the chance to talk with some of the origonal BRE team members, and we talked to floyd link (one of the engine builders on the team) about your insane project. He seemed quite impressed. And the team as a whole, brock included, were very impressed with what power people were getting nowdays and admit they were making very little by comparison. In fact floyd is still tinkering with these engines (he told us it was a project for his son's Z car) and he's making at the wheels around what they used to be making at the crank. And the numbers were surprisingly low. He was 100% ALL FOR modern EFI and thought it was basically the only way to go these days. I thought I'd share that with you just so you know that someone who's been an engine builder for race cars for years, and successful at that, thinks your project is impressive and interesting. Fight the good fight. This is still by far my #1 most anticipated project on the forum.

Just remember as you play around with the L28ET, that doing all the work to "upgrade" to a 7MGTE wouldn't gain you much. Getting a 2JZGTTE with the manual trans will set you back around $5500 if you find a smoking deal, but realistically yes, 6k+ can be expected. But if you're going to be shooting for 900+hp then that money is money well spent in the long run. It's been talked about constantly on the board for years, goals goals goals. You need to know what you want in a car before you really figure out what would be the best options of engines to go with for your situation.

1JZ was rated a 280HP, 200hp in NA form, quite a bit more than the 7MGTE. I'll let clifton correct me on anything he wants, and add in his own opinion, but I know a small bit about the motor so I'll share what I know. #1 Reason NOT to get one would be the head gasket issue. With the stock deck surface and bolts they just don't hold. Most guys running these motors consider a headgasket change every 70k or so as common maintainence. If you have the deck resurfaced and use a quality gasket with ARP studs then the issue is normally resolved. Realistically they don't take a ton of power on the stock bottom end. Most guys consider around 500hp the limit until you want to start looking at rebuilding the bottom end, though maybe that number was more like 550, but you get the idea. The can easily make 300-400hp with lots of stock parts, and as far as I know the stock long block is good for those numbers. But at the same time the L28ET can make those numbers on a stock longblock too. The main reason I could see getting one over the L28ET is that I bet it has a larger power band thanks to a better flowing head from factory, and there's a whole heck of a lot more fuel/turbo/EMS stuff for it that's made for them. Thanks to it's 3.0l displacement it should have a little more torque and power off boost which is ALWAYS NICE, dispite what some turbo lag addicts say. Turbo cars will never be unmanagable on the lower RPM, so having a few more cubes to play with is good. That's my basic run down of the engine. I was once thinking about swapping one into a S130 because it could be done legally, and still be tons of fun. But I've grown to not be such a fan of inline 6 motors as I used to be. They're good of course, but I'd rather have more liters in a V8 that's the same weight and sits farther back and I can find parts for at any corner store. But that's just me.

A good friend of mine has a supercharged Xterra, and I've had him pop the hood several times so I could stare at his engine bay for a while and take measurements. They're just such light iron block motors to ignore.

Yea, I know what you meant. And it's a shame they're not doing it anymore. But they didn't have any special arrangement with the department of transportation. They just knew the laws inside and out and knew who to bring the cars to in order to get them into the DMV system correctly.

You're not SOL by having a 280ZX... quite the contrary. You'll be hard pressed to find someone that doesn't believe the S130 is more aerodynamic. It just is. As a base care nissan designed it to be MUCH more aerodynamic and they did a pretty good job. Here's some key differences between the two that help the S130 substantially: Lowered front hood line and brought the bumper down, forcing more air over the car, not under. Blocked off more frontal area to make better use of air cooling and reducing drag. Raked back windshield and added more curvature/radius. If you just dealt with the lift the back makes (add some Vortex generators and a mild spoiler) you'd have a very stable high speed car. Perform more duct work for the front and design a belly pan and some headlight covers and you're good to go. Back on topic though: I'm not sure I'd recommend the RB20 simply because of weight. If you're economy concious every pound is going to help. Converting all the glass to lexan would give you quite an increase of milage all on it's own. As it's been briefly touched on here, the whole package will be crucial if your goals are to be maximized. Suspension, aero, drivetrain, rigidity, etc should all be looked at if you want to squeeze the most out of the car.

Yes guys, the frame rail distance is different between the chassis codes. The SR mounts out there are entirely new "crossmember" pieces that stretch from frame rail to frame rail. If the distance is different between rails then how will it fit? The reason why both cars fit the L series with identical mounts is because the S130 has a front crossmember with mounts in the same location as the S30, but again, it's a completely different crossmember alltogether. The only swap mounts for any engine that would be compatable for both are ones that use the stock mount positions of the S30 and just used mount adapters. If you want to get almost any engine as far and low as possible this just isn't feasible, and you're going to end up needing to weld something to the frame.

Just remember though m4xwell, if they can do it, anyone can do it. Our country doesn't give companies special rights to importing laws as compared to individuals. Anything they did to legalize it an individual "should" be able to do. It's just having the right connections to the right people.

$4500... that makes me puke.. S14's here can easily fetch those prices, and some idiots will pay over 10k for ones that have had silvia front end swaps with SR20 swaps... Lame. There's only one reason, and it's the same reason it's hard to get a lot of vehicles registered and taken care of all the importing dealings here... The engine. That's it, the engine. And it's not because it's special. It's not because it's powerful. It's because it never came in a production car here in the USA. If nissan RIGHT NOW TODAY released a new sedan with a RB26DET you could easily legally smog and register a R32GTR here in the states as long as you equipped the car with the new sedan's emission systems, ignition system, and EMS. And there's nothing anywhere that states that the "United States of America won't allow these cars on their land" or even to be registered for that matter. It's just a PITA because the laws aren't written in order to make it easy. It's like an architect making a house boat, of course it's not going to work well. Politicians aren't importers, and havn't written the laws to make it easy for us enthusiasts. There's only 2 people last time I checked that can legalize an imported car for you here in the bay area. One is actually in richmond, not more than 5 miles from where I live. I'm sorry to say but the guy is an idiot and doesn't know a ton about cars honestly, and is constantly offloading his work onto other state refs because he doesn't want to deal with stuff he doesn't know anything about. But if you can get him to do it, he can basically verify for the state that your car has been modified to be legal in this state to be smogged and registered as a XXXXX vehicile with XXXXX engine. It's not just about cost of shippment, but the headache of legalizing. I think there's only a single company that can bring a GTR to your door with a pinkslip and smogcheck sheet in hand. The other importers don't do all that work for you and don't really leagalize them, and at best add some catalytic converters to make it pass any test you put it through, but that doesn't make it legal.

Woohooo! Glad it's all starting to come together for you man. I forgot to mention I was down in the san jose area last saturday, I don't think I would have had the time to swing by though unfortunately. Keep the pics comming of course, and I'm counting the days for the video of the foggy.

Well is your engine NA or Turbo? Most of the people that talk about having to rebuild every 60k no matter what are the guys putting 400+ wheel HP down on turbo motors. NA rotary engines last forever by comparison.