nienberg.11

Guys, it may have taken me a year but I finally got the a/c straightened out. I did things kind of crudely, but the system works excellently now. First, I dumped all of the pressurized r12 and oil out of the high pressure valve. I removed the Schrader valve from the low pressure side and installed the Freeze-12 fitting from the kit that I bought on Ebay. From there, it was just a matter of cranking the car up, turning the compressor on, and putting in the Freeze-12 oil and refrigerant. I used 10% less Freeze-12 than r12 as they recommended, which is about 2 and a half of the 12oz cans. I was also keeping an eye on the sight glass and measuring the temperature of the air at the vents. Considering that I didn't vacuum the system in any way or change out the receiver/dryer, it's performing well. The temp at the vents has gotten as low as 36 degrees F on a 75 degree day. It typically hovers closer to 40 and sometimes 50 depending on how long the compressor has been cycled on or off.

I ended up blocking the flow of coolant to the heater core by clamping a piece of a bolt into the line. Eventually I'll replace that with an inline shut off valve.

How is the heater valve actuated, and where is it located?

Guys, I just got my a/c working, but I'm noticing that even while the dash vents are blowing cold air, the defrost vents are trickling out hot air. Slightly counterproductive. Has anyone else dealt with this? I suspect that this either a vacuum issue or perhaps some foam seals in the dash have rotted out, but I'm not sure.

145... Impressive. I can't wait to get my suspension in shape so I can try that.

Talk to the mechanics. Make them point out each and every boost leak they've found. Then take the car home and start replacing all of the rotten hoses or gaskets that are causing the leaks by yourself. It'll take more time of course, but you'll get to know your engine better and save a ton of money in the process. Keep in mind that there's always plenty of help on here if you get in a jam.

Yeah your compressor wheel is hitting its housing when you hear those noises. You will definitely have aluminum chunks and more than likely a nice puddle of oil in the pipe zguy mentioned. If you were only able to hit 3 or 4 psi then the bearings were shot from the start. By the way, where is this shop that does turbo rebuilds? I spend a lot of time near Lodi and West Salem so it might be close enough to be of use to me.

I had heard about that method once before... I like the sound of it. I'll have to practice it on my junk t3 housing. Oh btw, do you guys have any tricks for when the bolt is broken off in aluminum? (aside from drilling and tapping. i know that one all too well)

I hadn't read that post very thoroughly until now. I see what you're talking about. Mattsun, when you say that you removed your greddy bov, what did you do then? Did you block off the hole in the intake track, or put another bov in its place?

We weren't talking about surge or debating the value of BOVs until your post, sweetleaf. This thread is about the level of exhaust noise on turbocharged cars.

I doubt anything is wrong with it. It's probably the piping around the turbo that makes the difference. When I was running the stock t3 with only a downpipe, I could hear every last whistle from the thing, even at idle.

I tried to get the bolts out of a stock t3 exhaust housing with similar results. Even being very careful and using gallons of Parts Blaster and heating each stud and the surrounding cast red-hot, I broke off all but one. Good luck trying to get someone to take the broken studs out. It's just too much of a pain for most people to deal with. You'll likely have to buy a different housing. Aside from the obvious issues you're having, there's the bigger question of what type of compressor/bearing sections are you trying to adapt to the stock t3 turbine housing? Which turbine wheel are you planning to use? Are you sure it will all fit together properly and yield a/r ratios that are favorable for an l28? The whole works may also need to be profesionally balanced, but I'm not sure about that.

I can almost never hear the whistle from my turbo, but I have a glasspack inline with a muffler. Even when the external gate opens you only hear a faint hooting.

If you really are into buying things that won't need upgrading in the future, an FMU isn't the way to go. You'll end up wanting to go standalone. Speaking from experience.

I had an adjustable rate regulator. Ranged from 1-12 iirc.

I'm with you 2003z, his mistake, his loss.

It won't hurt anything to give it a try without a restrictor in the oil SEND line. Like Tim said, you absolutely don't want to restrict the oil return, unless you enjoy huge clouds of oil smoke. I ran my t3/t4 with no rectrictor and it was fine for ~2000 miles, then started to smoke a bit. I added in a restrictor and it's working perfectly again.

$390 for that? I just saved that picture to show my welder, who will make the wheel and bracket for a lot less.

If the smoke doesn't have a hint of blue to it, you're probably right to think it's coolant. I'm not sure what goes on after freeze-plug replacement, but I was referring to the fact that as you're driving the car, coolant won't be drawn through leaks into the cylinders as readily because of the higher manifold pressure. If the leak is big enough it wouldn't make much difference, however. I was burning coolant due to a rotted H.G. and it would only show at idle when the engine vaccuum would draw coolant past the weak spot on the gasket.

Like the others said, retorquing the head after the first startup is a must. Going a pound or two over the torque specs doesn't hurt either. If it smokes a lot while going down the road it's likely to be oil burning. Coolant being drawn into the cylinders happens much more easily when there is high vacuum in the engine, like at idle, and tends to clear when the car is being driven.

I was told that shielded wiring for the tach signal was a good thing to have even when triggering from the "-" side of the coil so I'm running coax with the shielding grounded to the car. That's probably a common practice (I don't read in here often). I personally have witnessed how much electromagnetic noise a z can produce and didn't want to take chances. I once had the car sitting halfway in my garage and had the garage door try to come down on my roof after revving the engine. I moved the car forward a little for safety and found that I could consistently activate the garage door just by revving to a few hundred rpm within a few feet.

from megasquirt: 43 kpa at idle. 96 atmospheric

I'd definitely go to an ohio z meet.

I don't race but I've heard that about having to use the original harness in certain classes. Seems kind of backward but whatev. Prox, I did it this way to eliminate downtime and allow as much time as I needed to work out mistakes in my wiring. Plus it was pretty nice being able to do all of the wiring in the comfort of my basement and just plug it in when it was all ready. I really thought it would take me a long time to get the car running on MS since I've never done this before, but I guess I got lucky. It only took about 4 hours to get it to crank up. No one's disputing the benefits of a new harness but this made the transition to MS ridiculously easy. BTW, did your old motor kick the bucket? I noticed you got an l28et now.

Mack, I like the sound of yours but I'm having trouble visualizing how it's connected in. Perhaps you could post a pic and add some more content to the thread for others wanting to do this sort of thing. Mom's Z, I used a '95 240sx auto tps with slight mods for fitting and connected it to the old tps wiring. The ECU connector was from a spare non-working 2+2 ECU. One swipe with an angle grinder and it came free from the board. And yes, tach and MAP were the parts that had to be run separately. Here's the tps. I was unable to locate a complete 240sx TB assembly in my area so it's mounted on the 280z TB. A hole had to be cut in the back because of the length of the 280z throttle rod thing and a couple of tabs were added to extend it to the bolt holes.