texis30O Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Well done sir. Clean looking N/A car. too bad it is too far north.... lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted April 26, 2015 Author Share Posted April 26, 2015 (edited) Cheers texas30O, appreciate it! Nice sunny day today, so I thought I'd attempt to perform my first valve adjustment. Never done one before, but read up on it and it seems simple enough, just a little fiddly. Popped off the valve cover, seems the threads on 3 of the allen bolt holes are partially stripped... joy... anyway, that's a problem for another day. Pulled the plugs, all looked fine there. Took the opportunity to set the engine to TDC and check that the crank and cam timing at in sync. The marks lined up perfectly, nice! My 60-2 trigger wheel for the Electromotive HPV-1 was also correctly aligned with the magnetic pickup on the 11th tooth from the -2, so I know my timing should be accurate, which is great. I did the valves in pairs, turning the camshaft to the next pair as needed. Almost all of them were out of spec by 1-2 thousands, and one was out by 4 thousands. Adjusted the intakes to 0.008" and the exhaust to 0.010", per the cold specs. Threw it all back together, and the engine is now running noticeably smoother. The wideband gauge is much more steady as well, whereas before it had some wild swings going on. Tomorrow I'll be pulling the 44's, to give them a check over and clean up. While I am at it, I am going to play around with the heatshield I made - reckon I can bend up the back of it a touch to gain better header clearance. Edited April 26, 2015 by ryant67 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted May 7, 2015 Author Share Posted May 7, 2015 Had the Z in with my mechanic as it was leaking a fair bit of oil and he suspected the rear main seal. While he was in there replacing it, he found a spun bearing. More money I guess. On a positive note, we did confirm that my engine was indeed a stroker with the V07 crank - hopefully it's undamaged. Heading back up there later today to tear some parts off the engine, to make it easier for him to pull it. Will be interesting to see what's all in the engine, rod/piston wise, etc. Time to read up some more on engines... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted May 9, 2015 Author Share Posted May 9, 2015 Trying not to go too crazy with the rebuild here, but since I am already running L24 rods and have a LD28 crankshaft, I guess I might as well take things a step further. At the moment I am thinking of going with the following:E31 head - already ported and polished with enlarged valves (have)Isky cam - thinking stage III?F54 block (have)L24 rods (have)LZ24 pistons - 89mmLD28 crankshaft (have)Clevite bearings1mm head gasketBHJ damperMisc other items I also have:9qt oil panElectromotive HPV-1Mikuni 44'sFidanza flywheelCenterforce II clutchSo, when it comes to pistons, are there any specific brands to seek out or avoid? Presumably actual Nissan ones would be best, but I haven't been able to find any online so far. Same question for piston rings I guess - I think I have read that ITM do the job just fine?I'll be shopping around this week for a decent machine shop to do the rod/crank balancing and engine boring. I know quite a few serious autocrossers, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Ultimately all of the above should leave me with roughly 9.5 compression ratio on a 3.1L stroker. I was running a 3.0 stroker with what I suspect to have been very low compression (never had any ping, no matter how far I advanced the timing), and an unknown camshaft regrind, which I suspect was very mild. Looking for a bit more grunt here - I drive the car purely for fun, hitting country roads and occasional track days. Any thoughts are more than welcome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted May 18, 2015 Author Share Posted May 18, 2015 Sad pics... DSC04337 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04335 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04334 by ryant67, on FlickrWhile the engine is out, I will be repainting the engine bay and tidying the wiring and such up quite a bit. Lots of little brackets and such to POR-15 up too. Here is how the head looks, since it's now pulled. Thankfully the valves have already been switched over to the larger L28 ones, and some head work appears to have been done. DSC04339 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04340 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04338 by ryant67, on FlickrShould be hearing from the machine shop this week, and once I know the status of my short block, I can get things rolling. The sooner the better too, since I am obsessing over details way too much already, idle hands... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted June 3, 2015 Author Share Posted June 3, 2015 Bought a fully built engine over the weekend. Was going to build another stroker, but it's Summer and I want this thing back on the road ASAP... besides, rushing a serious engine build is probably not the best of ideas, so the stroker can wait... for now. I'll be switching to a well built L28 with flat top pistons and a ported N42 head, running about 9.5:1 compression with a 1.5mm thick Kameari head gasket. It currently has a pretty mild Crane camshaft in it. I am planning to run it as-is for now, but since I do have my E31 sitting here I am tempted to slap a more aggressive Isky cam into that, switch to a 1mm head gasket, and shoot for 10:1 compression with some valve reliefs cut into the pistons. Could work well, and the quench from the flat pistons and E31 head should keep detonation from happening. Anyway, that's all speculative since I don't pick up the engine for another week or two. For now my attention has turned to having the engine bay sitting perfect and ready for that new engine. The paint on the body of the car looks pretty great still, and the underside is solid, but the engine bay is looking pretty sorry. Quite sure this is still the original paint, and I have a little bit of battery area rust going - now is the perfect time to take care of this. Stripping everything out of the engine bay now, but still have to do the area by the master cylinder. I'm shopping the repaint out to a local shop, I know my limits and want this done properly. It will be getting painted white to match the rest of the car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted June 4, 2015 Author Share Posted June 4, 2015 Done all I can, so it's off to the body shop for paint. The frame rails are rock solid, which is good. Thankfully the rust by the battery tray doesn't seem to go too deep either, just surface stuff. Excited to see how it turns out. Big re-wire job is next up. Did a re-wire last year, learned a lot in the process too, but I think I can do a much better job this time - especially with no engine in there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 Checking over things from the old engine, killing time in limbo... My E31 head:DSC04427 by ryant67, on FlickrAt the very least, those old aluminum valve retainers will be needing replaced. DSC04432 by ryant67, on Flickr--------------------The camshaft has obviously been reground, but there is no stamping on it besides the factory "K". Mystery cam! The car was pulling very hard from around 4k rpm up to red line at 7k rpm. I set the rev limiter to 7k rpm due to the unknown internals, but this thing wanted to keep going at 7k... Measuring the lift with vernier calipers:Find the smallest lobe measurementDSC04430 by ryant67, on FlickrThen the largest lobe measurement DSC04429 by ryant67, on FlickrSo 1.5" - 1.15" = 0.350"Rocker arm ratio on these cars is typically 1.5 I believe, so 0.350 * 1.5 = 0.520 lift. So that helps explain the powerband a little. Skinny looking lobes though. ----------------------------Checking on the Centerforce clutch and Fidanza flywheel, all looks pretty good to me, aside from all the oil from my rear crankshaft seal leak - still though, I guess my shifting isn't THAT bad...DSC04412 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04411 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04413 by ryant67, on Flickr ----------------------------Cleaned up my Mikuni intake manifold. DSC04408 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04407 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04410 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04407 by ryant67, on FlickrWho is Jack? I measured up the manifold:Carb side: 44mmIntake side: 35mmSo the ports all match (for better or worse..)Probably going to soda blast my Mikuni 44's this weekend in an effort to clean up the outside of the casting. I have a damaged body to test on first, but this method looks simple enough, and the results look spectacular! Link: http://www.aircooledtech.com/tools-on-the-cheap/soda_blaster/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madkaw Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 Looks like you have too many options and it will be hard to choose-not a bad problem I guess. I would think the e31 with 1mm gasket on a stroker will be at the edge of the CR limits. Sounds like you have full spark control so that will be an advantage to control detonation. Mikuni manifold looks familiar! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted June 21, 2015 Author Share Posted June 21, 2015 Not a whole lot of major progress to report. The car is 100% going in for the engine bay repaint on Monday, and I picked up the new engine last weekend. Right now I am just stuck in decision mode as the new engine had a lot of nice parts that are duplicates of aftermarket goodies my old stroker motor had. New: Kameari-style cast aluminum oil pan 5.5qtOld: Custom high capacity baffled oil pan 9qt [x]New: 123 Ignition programmable distributorOld: Electromotive HPV-1 crankfired ignition New: Clifford Research 6-2-1 header w/ 1.5" primaries into 2" exhaust lineOld: MSA 6-1 header with 1.5" primaries into 3" exhaust line New: SK Racing 40's on a cannon-style manifoldOld: Mikuni 44's on a Mikuni manifold New: Crane .450 lift 262/272 duration camshaftOld: Unknown .520ish lift with unknown duration And duplicates of the same 83 ZX gearboxes, centerforce clutches, and fidanza flywheels - reckon I will just inspect, pick the best condition ones, and sell the spares. It's a nice problem to have so many good choices when it comes to parts though, and once I sell off the spares I will just about break even on the new engine I bought, huzzah!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 Some pics... Took it upon myself to improve the aesthetics of my Mikunis. Tried the old sodablast technique and it didn't really do enough for me, so I got ballsy and bead blasted the carb bodies. Following the blasting, I blew them out with compressed air, rinsed the insides out with carb cleaner, then blasted the hell out of them with the high powered water gun at a coin-op car wash before once again blowing them out with compressed air. Pretty sure there are no beads left in these suckers now. Finished them off with some of POR-15's "Glisten PC" to keep the clean finish protected - I wish I was a little less heavy handed with the coatings though, got a couple of minor runs, but on the whole I am pretty satisfied. DSC04460 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04461 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04463 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04459 by ryant67, on FlickrTore down the old stroker engine and now I have 2 V07 cranks in my living room. DSC04466 by ryant67, on FlickrPulled these L24 rods and unknown pistons from the engine too. Dual valve reliefs, hmm...DSC04470 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04469 by ryant67, on FlickrSome pics of the custom 9qt oil pan from the stroker motor. Quite like it actually, and it's bottom sits perfectly level with the crossmember. DSC04473 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04475 by ryant67, on FlickrDSC04471 by ryant67, on Flickr DSC04472 by ryant67, on Flickr My little hoard of rods and pistons. DSC04467 by ryant67, on FlickrSpent a couple of hours trying to straighten up the fins on my Griffin radiator, not a fun job. Tweezers and lots of patience. DSC04465 by ryant67, on Flickr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted June 26, 2015 Author Share Posted June 26, 2015 Back from the paint shop, boy did they ever do a great job matching the paint! So good a job that I'm now getting them to repair the cracks in my fiberglass front air dam and repaint it as well. 23 unused holes were welded up. Battery tray was removed, and I'll be putting a battery box behind the passenger seat. Happy. Now to get the harness sorted out and install it in a couple of days time, then the engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted June 27, 2015 Author Share Posted June 27, 2015 Kind of fluff given my earlier post, but here are some before/after pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted June 28, 2015 Author Share Posted June 28, 2015 Reworked my engine bay harness today. Modifications done:- Removed stock alternator wiring as I am running an internally regulated Ford 3G alternator.- Removed distributor wiring as I am running crank fired ignition. - Added fused power wire for fan controller.- Added wires for ignition and accessory relay triggers.- Added lines for Electromotive HPV-1, cd player, and fuel pump. - Sleeved wiring in braided nylon (techflex F6) and heat shrinked ends. All in all, pretty pleased with how it turned out. I just need to sleeve the relayed headlight harness and water temperature gauge line now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted June 28, 2015 Author Share Posted June 28, 2015 Added a fuse/relay box to the harness. Normally I will DIY, but a shop called Goat Built had a ready made set-up that used the bussman box I was planning to use. Very well made! http://goatbuilt.com/shop/misc-products/10-circuit-universal-wire-harness/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted July 8, 2015 Author Share Posted July 8, 2015 Getting close now, just a couple of small odds and ends to finish up, then the engine can be dropped in. I'll need to fab up a bracket for the bussmann fuse/relay box, mount the bus bar for power connections, and run the wiring for the power and ground wires to the battery behind the passenger seat. Chomping at the bit to drive this thing again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldAndyAndTheSea Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 That's looking fantastic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted August 14, 2015 Author Share Posted August 14, 2015 Egads, how time flies! Engine is in, and running. Just a few odds and ends to zip tie and secure, and some clutch adjustments to be done. Looking pretty good though! I was pretty bummed out that my AN fitting fuel lines sit too high for the Cusco strut bar, and the T3 triangulation rods to clear. Reckon I can solve that be adding an extra 90 (or 45) degree bend so they angle down again. I'll also be switching to a throttle cable for the carbs, as there really isn't sufficient clearance for the rod by the firewall. Lokar seems to be the way most people do this, so I just need to DIY up a bracket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryant67 Posted September 6, 2015 Author Share Posted September 6, 2015 Some finishing touches:- Added some 45 degree AN fittings to my fuel lines for the carbs, which lowered things just enough for the Cusco strut brace to clear. - Installed T3 triangulation bar. - Hacked off one of the clips on my ITG air filter for clearance. - Converted to Lokar throttle cable. Made a basic bracket for it that attaches to one of the heatshield support arms at the side of a Mikuni. MUCH improved throttle response now, loving it. - Re-routed the brake vacuum line to avoid any clearance problems with the throttle linkage. To form the shape I rammed 3/8 copper tubing inside 3/8 rubber line, wasn't easy, but it went. Then I carefully bend the tubing to shape. Brakes still work perfectly, easy job. - Rerouted the braided fuel line slightly to be more direct.Not much left to do at this point, just some fine tuning to the carb jetting. Very happy with how things are looking under the hood, and how well the car seems to be running. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 Beautiful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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