stinky

I've got an HY35X on my Z31. For the price I like it but its definitely a truck turbo. The turbo is built beefier(heavier) than most hybrids and performance oriented turbos. As a result it doesnt give the best response but it does haul butt. I get full boost by ~3200rpm if I give it time to spool in 4th. Not sure how the H1C compares though.

If you have the title just call the junkyard. Around here (Florida) they will send a truck to pick it up. They might even give you some money for the scrap metal. Having the title is the trick though.

Yeah all the z31 transmissions use the starter bolted to the block.

Roastin, The only thing I wouldnt like about megasquirt at this point is that, as far as I've seen, it doesnt support coil on plug and sequential injection. You can do wasted spark and batch injection but I have a feeling it's not going to be easy or ideal on the vh45. If/when they release the router board for the MS you should be able to do sequential injection and COP. As far as stock wiring goes its actually been very easy so far. You'll want to have the stock s13 harness and a full vh45 engine harness. The VH45 harness should fit in the stock s13 firewall port. You'll need to cut out the section of the s13 harness that runs to the relay box and run that in with the vh45 harness. That part of the s13 harness provides the power and such from the relays and ignition switch. There is a relay or two that is used on the vh45 but I'm bypassing them. Hopefully that wont cause any problems later. As far as the AT stuff I think the engine will be fine without it. The q45 (90-94?) has a seperate at control unit. I see no reason why there will be a problem and i havent heard of anyone having one yet. The (91-93) vh45 ecu is very similiar to the z32 ecu. I've run across a couple people that have reprogrammed them so I dont think itll be any harder than the z32 ecu. The romulator should work and Nistune will likely support it as well.

Technically the bellhousing is not removeable. However, that entire part of the transmission casing is interchangeable between the z31t and z32 trans. Although I dont remember for sure I'm guessing you're right about the bolt patterns being the same. At the very least you can probably use the adapter plate with only minor changes if any. The starter could also be an issue if you stick with the z31 housing.

Roastin, IF you can find a z32 bellhousing (good luck) it will directly bolt on to the z31t (87-89) transmission. That would be the easiest way to get the z31 trans on. If I remember correctly the z31 na trans and the s13 trans are basically the same. Also the z31t trans have the shifter located roughly the same as the z31na trans. So it's reasonable to assume that the shifter location of the s13=z31na=z31t. Now the question would be can you get the transmission back as far as the stock s13 trans would be using the adapter on the vh45. I have a feeling it will be close. BTW here are some more pics of our 450sx swap. I got most of the ecu wiring done last night. We have spark and fuel. We just need to get all the crazy intake piping put together and we can crank her over. http://www.ibconceptions.com/q45/thumbs.php

This seems to be a very common problem. We had a track event where a portable dyno showed up. They had a big fancy trailer with fold up sides, lcd screens to display graphs, and a printer to print out your graph. The only fan they had was a small 12"? blower that sat to the side of the car. Oh, and it was a dynojet. I think most customers just dont think about what affect the heat is having on their car.

Was this on the Mustang dyno you went to? Here's my guess. I think you mentioned that the dyno operator entered in a a lower weight than what your car actually weighs. That being the case it would have thrown off the ramp rate to something much faster than what you would see on the road. Is it possible this faster ramp rate would have allowed things to happen too fast so that the engine/ic/other components didnt heat up as much as they would have with a slower ramp rate? This would allow for more timing and less fuel with no detonation. Now this question goes to the Zensport and other tuners. Had they tuned his igntion/fuel by doing steady state load I assume this would not be a problem. In fact wouldnt steady state tuning heat the components more than might happen on the street and result in a safer tune?

This is an awesome post. This is the sort of thing I love to see from good dyno (Dyno Dynamics, Dynapac) owners. My buddy and I have recently opened a shop and a Dyno Dynamics single retarder dyno is planned in the near future. I have some quick questions for you. - When tuning very light load areas how low of a load can the dyno hold. Is the dyno able to hold the rpm steady at near idle loads? Do you tune these lower rpm load points on the dyno? - Do you many customers complaining about the DD reading lower than Dynojets?

I'm not fimiliar with the AEM unit but I do have the LM-1 with the rpm converter. In my opinion the best way to use the wideband is to log the data during your runs and analyze it later. This is most useful when you are logging other inputs as well (rpm, boost, afm/map voltage). This is the only way you can really see whats going on with your motor and ecu which is the whole point of having a wideband. Looking at a gauge while you are shooting down a road isnt a safe or accurate way to monitor your AFRs. Anyway, my point is that which ever unit you get should have good logging functions and good software. I dont know about the AEM but I do know the LM-1 has both.

16 sounds about right. I run about the same on my vg30et at around that boost level. Same turbo and ic btw. Keep in mind your particular engine combination (turbo, ic, pistons, exhaust) is different from most everyone else so its hard to compare. If you have the opportunity to dyno tune that will tell you exactly where you need to be. As it is I think youre about right as long as its not detonating and you dont have to run an extremely rich mixture. Try advancing it a bit and see what happens.

The z31 na and t disks are identical. BTW you should have just pocketed the disk. One way or another I usually get my moneys worth for the $2 admission fee at my local yard.

There is not better motor that easily goes in the z31. Same goes for the transmission. The ka/sr transmissions are the same as the nonturbo z31 transmissions so theres no point.

Easiest thing would be to use the stock ecu and harness from the J30. You might need to lenthen the wires or relocate the ecu but its going to be easier than trying to get the other ecu working. Wiring up the power, fuel pump, tach, and other external stuff will be the hard part.

First let me say that there is nothing wrong with a grainger mbc. If you take the time to adjust it and play a bit it should work very well. As far as tuning here's my take. A friend and I are working on opening a shop and we had a talk with a Dyno Dynamics rep recently. This guy charges near $1000 a tune and does mostly higher end stuff. He was nice enough to talk tuning with us for a bit. After our talk I realized how much can be gained by dyno tuning with a good dyno and a good tuner. Theres simply no way you can get the quality of tune by playing around on the street. Consider this. Each engine like a particular AFR for best power. My VG30 might like 12.5 while an L28 may like 12.0. On a good load dyno you can hold the ecu in each load/rpm cell and modify the fuel table until the engine reaches its highest output. I dont know how anyone can hope to do that by doing runs down the road using a butt dyno. The same goes for timing. A few degrees of timing can make big difference in power and also safety. You cant possibly hope to find your ideal ignition timing on the road. A few degrees too much and you lose power and start detonating. Too little timing and your lose power and have higher egts. It all comes down to having an accurate way of measuring changes in a controlled environment. You can't do that with any butt dyno. In the end all you will do is spend a lot of time and money to get a tune that can cause damage to your engine and has lots of room for improvement. My suggestion is this. Get a boost controller installed and make sure your engine is in good running order. Once you are comfident that your engine is up to producing the power you want then you are ready to get it tuned. Find yourself a shop that has a good LOAD dyno. If the dyno can't steadily hold your car at X rpm, under X boost, and tell you the current power output you need to go elsewhere. If the shop doesnt have someone who knows how to tune your ecu then find someone that is willing to go to the shop to do it. Once your VE is straight and your actual AFR matches the fuel map the tuner should go through each individual cell of your ecu and tune the fuel and ignition for that particular rpm and load. Doing it on the dyno ensures that each cell is accurately tuned and that even the cells you wouldnt normally hit on the road are tuned incase you do hit them at any point. If you have the tuner do this all the way up to whatever your max boost is you should end up with the best tune you could possibly have. It might cost you a bit but I think the gains would be worth it. Anyway...I'm losing my train of thought. I think you get my point. Get the dyno tune done right and you'll be happier. Just make sure you go to someplace with a good load dyno. Inertia dynos just dont cut it.

Z32 rear suspension is an option but honestly I think it's more work than most people are willing to do. I would say at least get the engine in and running before you decide to swap suspensions. Z31 NA diffs tend to break easy as do the half shafts. If you can get a hold of a 87-89 CLSD or 88SS VLSD you are the best off. 84-86 Turbo open diff would probably be stronger than the NA diff too. Basically stick with the z31 parts because they will bolt in. Everything else is just a pain in the butt and since the internals are basically all the same its not worth it in my eyes.

I can tell you that the z31 87-89 turbo transmission and lsd diff would be the easiest to use. They will bolt right in to your chassis where the z32 components would require lots of modification. Either way you go you will need to make an adapter for the transmission though. The ecu is up to you. If you can find someone to reprogram the stock ecu for boost you can use it. On the other hand it might be easier to get a standalone system and start from scratch.

Yeah if you're going to mess with adapting a different transmission on to an sr20 put an 87-89 z31 turbo trans on. You wont break that one.

You usually use standard gear oil for VLSD units. The VLSD itself is a sealed system with its own fluid and it doesnt mix with the normal gear oil used to lube the gears and bearings. Clutch LSD does need special fluid for the proper friction of the clutch discs which share the same oil with the rest of the diff.

Tom - Any r200 vlsd should fit into any other r200 housing. The only thing that may or may not fit is the gearing. All you have to do there is swap your original ring gear over to the VLSD unit and you have a VLSD in your original diff casing with your original gearing. The input shaft requirements are going to be the same for all VLSD units because they all use the same VLSD unit and design. If you can figure out how to get the right half shafts on your car you can use any r200 VLSD unit in your diff.

Maybe you guys already know this but I'm almost 100% sure the VLSD units use different input shafts on the halfshafts. One side's input shaft is longer than the other due to the design of the VLSD. If you use normal z31/s30 half shafts I dont think they will fit right. The SS has a VLSD and as a result has a unique set of half shafts. (I have one). BTW. The infiniti J30, Q45, z32, and some other nissan models use the same VLSD which is available at some junkyards for $30. They fit directly in the standard r200 case but the halfshafts are different as I noted above. If someone knows a good way to get around this let me know as lots of z31 people would love to use those VLSDs.

Very cool to see you've done this to an l28. I just put an HY35 on my z31 last weekend. I've got to fix an exhaust leak around the 4" v-band and do some more tuning still. The HY35 doesnt hit as hard as the t3 did but then again it wont peter out like the t3. What kind of AFRs are you running to help build boost? I've got some z32 injectors and I'm tuning the stock ecu. I think ill be doing the merc 420s pretty soon.

I'm not 100% on this but I'm almost certain the 82 has a crank angle sensor built in to the distributor. You will need that to run the ecu. Also grab the shaft/gear that goes on the oil pump because it is different where it attaches to the bottom of the distributor.

The 87-89 turbo z31 trans is basically identical to the z32 trans with the exception of a few things. Case and shift linkage is different Z32 has doube sychros on 2nd and 3rd gear (might be 93+ or something) The gears themselves are different (counter shaft spins at a different ratio) Z32 5th is apparently stronger (read it somewhere) The basic design is so close its funny. In fact, I had a z32 trans and swapped the guts in to my z31 trans. I also swapped my z31 5th on to the z32 gears so it came out to .67 or something like that. All the z32 gears fit fine on the longer z31 main shaft. I dont see any reason my the z31 trans wouldnt hold as much as the z32.

As far as wiring goes it's not that bad. I would suggest getting a good motor, harness, and ecu from the junkyard. If you can follow the harness diagrams in the FSM you can figure out how to wire it up. The main issue is that the z31 ecu harness is designed to put the ecu on the passanger side. If you can make it fit I would try that. Otherwise there's nothing that would be a major problem assuming you have good fabrication skills. It's a solid motor and parts are easy to find. Depending on how much power you are planning on you will need to consider how you are going to accomodate for larger injectors and a different maf. That's a while different challenge but its not any harder on the z31 than it would be on an sr20 or l28.