You WONT believe this! (no no, something GOOD for a change!)

[Guest bastaad525]

I dont know how... and I dont know why...

 

Okay first a little recap

 

Put a turbo motor into my '72, had tons of problems. Didn't run right. After about a month, an intake valve got stuck for no apparent reason, and got bent. Had the head rebuilt. Put the head back on, and the motor starts smoking really bad, when it hadn't smoked before. Figure out it's not the turbo or valve seals, must be the rings. Replace the rings and bearings. Solves the smoke problem. Then the fuse for the tail and dash lights develops a nasty habit of blowing every time I turn the lights on. Was a short in the dimmer switch, bypassed it, problem solved. Drove for three days, and the water pump pretty much explodes, car overheats pretty bad. Get it home, replace the water pump. Car SEEMS fine, for about three trips around the block.....

 

On the fourth trip around the block, I come to a stop light and notice the the idle is suddenly very lumpy, and the car is smoking again. Take it back home and turn it off... check everything out and cant see anything wrong, disconnected or anything. Go to start it back up, and while it's cranking I hear a sound I recognize right off the bat, like one of the cylinders has no compression (I remember because it was the same after the valve got bent). Check the compression, #5 has only 20psi, and the #5 spark plug is DRENCHED with oil. Everyone here was pretty sure it would be the head gasket, and I felt the same, BUT, the only oil passage close to the #5 cylinder actually passes between the #3 and #4 cylinders... it just didn't make sense for oil to be getting into the #5. So we assumed the worse... either a cracked ring, or a holed piston (caused from possible detonation, which I THOUGHT I may have heard when it was overheating). So... Found a guy 100 miles from here selling a used complete long block, including exhaust manifold and turbo, for $300. Drove down, checked it out, and bought it. Went to take my car to my friends house today to start the motor swap, idle still lumpy, still making that funky noise when I crank it, and still smoking pretty much constantly. Get about 4 miles down the street, and my g/f, who was following me in her car, decides she's gonna play around and try to 'take off' on me from a light (in an '89 slow ass Prelude) So I figure, fuggit... the motor is toast anyways, and floor it. BIG puff of smoke comes out, tires break loose, and off I go. Get to the next stop light, and... lo and behold.. the idle suddenly feels fine????? No more lump... Call my g/f on her cell "hey keep an eye on my exhaust pipe" Floored it for a second "any smoke?" "nope none" "no fuggin way... I'm pulling over" Pull over, check the exhaust... wtf?? NO SMOKE! Okay... turn the car off, disconnect the fuel relay, and crank the motor... it cranks perfectly!!!! No indication of bad compression in a cylinder. So... drive it to work... car seems fine half way there, then suddenly starts jerking REALLY badly, and the tach is going crazy. No biggie there, I figure that's GOTTA be electrical (the short of it, I checked, cleaned, and re did a couple of iffy connections... on the drive home it didn't happen again, BINGO). Other than that the MOTOR seems fine. Get my compression tester and test the #5 cylinder at work. First thing I notice... not ONE DROP of oil on the spark plug!! Tested the compression... it's back up to 120psi!! (when I tested the compression after putting new rings all the cylinders were at right about 120psi). So... as I was saying... I dont know how, and I dont know why, but this crazy car seems to have fixed itself. Only thing I can figure is that either a) the overheating and possible ping may have collapsed the rings down, and getting on it like that somehow expanded them back out?? or a valve was sticking, and whatever was causing it to stick got worked loose. HOWEVER, I am having a hard time believing it was the valve, as the first time I tested compression after this happened, I took the valve cover off and watched the valves and checked the clearances... everything seemed fine, and both #5 valves were definately moving up and down in what appeared to be their full range of motion. On top of that, I've had a valve get stuck in two other heads, and BOTH times, I found out because when it happened, the lash pads popped off the top of the valves, causing extremely loud tap. So.. it does't seem to match up. Well.. whatever... I am just soooo fuggin happy that I just didn't waste a perfectly good rebuilt motor!!! And that for once I seem to be having some GOOD luck, and something actually fixes itself... I'm grinnin big right now

 

Oh and one more tidbit of good news... if anyone is wondering... I'm not gonna lose out as far as the money I spent on the other motor... I owed one guy $100, for some work he did on my car... instead he took the turbo that came with the used motor. And the other guy, who put the new rings in for me, I owed him $200 for some brand new rocker arms and various gaskets etc.... well he's gonna take the motor in trade, and probably throw in a couple other little things he has that I need. So... not one cent wasted there

 

Can you guys believe it?? FINALLY a break from my bad luck!! Think I'll go for a little drive

[Guest Nic-Rebel450CA]

maybe you burned all of your oil

 

Serious though, glad to hear things are working better for you. Not exactly my area (as I have told you before), but perhaps a seal wasnt seated properly and managed to get seated all the way when you pounded it?

 

Maybe the bad-luck Z gremlin has just decided to leave you alone for a while and go plague someone else. Like me

[Guest bastaad525]

you mean a valve seal? Nah... dont think that would have given me such low compression in one cylinder. I dunno.. friggin mysterious it is... I'm so jazzed though. Now hopefully I get back to worrying about how to get it going faster, instead of just worrying about getting it going

[Guest Nic-Rebel450CA]

you mean a valve seal? Nah... dont think that would have given me such low compression in one cylinder. I dunno.. friggin mysterious it is... I'm so jazzed though. Now hopefully I get back to worrying about how to get it going faster, instead of just worrying about getting it going

 

Based on my own experience I would consider driving it for now like it is a break-in period. Get some good problem-free miles on it before you go pounding it much more and forcing more power into it. Can't hurt

[Guest bastaad525]

yeah that was the plan, dont get me wrong. Trust me I wont have any extra $$$ to get any extra any time soon anyways. And I've been going VERY easy on it. Just feeling things out right now... seeing if the problem comes back... not gonna do any real driving at least until I get an oil change with some synthetic in there. Then, when I get some more $$$ I really gotta figure out what my next step is gonna be. I got a few choices here...

 

1. Install the intercooler I bought... looking like it will be about $100-200 with some help from a friend... 90% chance this will be the next thing I do.

2. Install a Megasquirt system... somewhere in the $600 area for everything I need, including a laptop, 240sx TB, sensors, etc.(I think) Looks so promising but the price is prohibitive right now.

3. Install either an n/a ZX dizzy (so *I* can have some control over ignition system, which is the #1 most problematic area on my car right now) or an '83 turbo dizzy, to get rid of my problematic '81 CAS system. About $100-150

4. Install an MSD boost timing retard device. Unlikely that I'll do this one, this idea only occured to me when I found out that my car runs PERFECTLY with the TPS disconnected and the connector bridged, providing an always closed signal, however, it either causes the car to run way lean on the top, or to run way advanced (a friend and relative expert on the turbo motor and swap into 240's says it's the latter, oddly enough), and causes some ping on the top. So, I figured if it WAS just the timing advancing too much, I could use this device to get rid of that problem and still, finally have a perfect running car.

5. Install an adjustable FPR or RRFPR... I wish more people on these boards agreed on which is better or if they are even helpful... too many people with too many different oppinions on this one! Either way... I need some way to gain some control over fuel, and at $100-200 this is way, will most likely get the RRFPR, as I want to only increase fuel under boost, I dont want to richen up the whole curve and have a pig around town and at idle. This one is a big possibility, as it would give me some of the fuel control I sorely need, and is way more within reach than even the relatively cheap Megasquirt

6. Install the Apexi Super AFC II or other similiar piggy back device to serve the same purpose as the FPR, but with more control. In the $200 range. Very unlikely I'll do this but it looks apealing.

7. Get a 3" mandrel bent exhaust... another pricey one, cheapest I've been able to get a quote for was just over $400... and as much as I know this will greatly increase performance, the other mods listed above seem more important to me... I want to get the car running right first, you know? THEN go all out with performance mods like this. Still... with all the raves switching to this exhaust has gotten... the guaranteed extra power is tempting.

8. GET A PAINT JOB!!! Getting tired of oil stained, fading, scratched, black primer!! $200 from One Day for a nice looking dark dark sorta metallic gray. As much as I want to improve the car's performance and or reliability... I am so sick of having a car that I'm damn near ashamed to point out as my own.

[Guest ON3GO]

man dont be ashamed of the paint.... thats just dumb.. you have a 1G Datsun Z with a turbo motor in it... its quick, different and fun.... so what if the paint is amess.

just get some black primer spray paint and take ur time... it will look awesome if u take ur time and do it right..

[Guest bastaad525]

Heh well it's the 'do it right' part that's the problem. When we did it we did take our time... masked everythign real good, and I did what I thought was a good job of the actual spraying... but it just came out all messed up, splotchy.. very uneven and patchy. I'm just not good at it *shrug* and anyways it ended up being expensive... like $60-80 if I remember right... thought it was only gonna be like 5 cans... came out to be like 12.

[Guest ZmeFly]

see i know what the problem was you were babying it.

 

my car 83 ZXT for some reason just died on me and wouldnt start. everything in the damn car worked or was to spec. only thing that seemed slightly off was the chts.

 

so i replaced it and it still wouldnt run right.

 

i got pissed because it kept wanting to die on me if i let off the gas.

 

well to make a long story short, i pulled out of the lot said die at 3500 rpms and let off the clutch and went smoking threw three gears. short of it all was after that i never had another problem.

 

go figure

 

glad to hear your now problem free

[silicone boy]

After hearing about your run of bad luck, I don't feel so bad. I'm the idiot who dropped a nut down his intake-had to take one of my cylinder heads off. I got everything back together, ready to fire it up. Then I cranked the motor only to have it get stuck. After ruling everything else out, I tore down the motor and found another nut in another cylinder! This time I put a nice dent in the piston and head. I decided to tear it down and rebuild entirely--it would have been bad karma to continue the present setup . It's good to hear I'm not the only one who's snakebit.

[Guest bastaad525]

heh... well... it hasn't ended yet... more problems now... see my new thread.