Gollum's Never Ending 280Z

[Gollum]

Not a crazy update, but an update nonetheless.

 

Got my dash remounted last night. ALL gauge wiring is now properly labeled and ready to be hooked up once I get there. I still need to cut two holes for the oil/temp gauge and volt/fuel gauge. Not sure if I'll remove the dash to do that, we'll see what's easiest. The dash was a bit far away before, and I happened to have some nice 8" long bolts lying around, so in they went. That extra distance made a world of difference. I'll now be able to reach my switches, even if I'm in a harness. I'd have liked to make a nice fancy dash from aluminum, but that is currently going against my KISS and Get'r'done philosophy. So I'm running what I had because it's the easiest route and worked fine before as far as functionality goes.

 

 

 

 

 

I've also ditched the fuel "reservoir" tank as I can't find any good reason to keep it and it frankly just lends to the clutter that I'm trying to eliminate from this car. I want a chassis with an engine and basic necessities. I didn't see how this thing helped that. I've coupled the smaller breather tubes, but I'd rather have removed them entirely but that looked like more energy that I can't afford right now, as it would mean possibly dropping the tank, and then running to the store to find something to cap the tank with. All good ideas, and I might do that down the road, but honestly I plan to run a fuel cell when talking long term, so the KISS system prevailed.

 

 

 

 

You can also see the wire I ran for the fuel pump. I was going to run it through the rubber grommet that the original pump wiring goes through, but again, dropping the tank would be required as the wiring makes a sharp 90 degree turn through the hole and runs along the tank for a good 8+ inches before coming out. I tired to reach it from bellow, but no luck. So in the more accessible hole it goes. Hey, beats what I had, which was a wire designed for wiring subwoofers going through a rust hole in the spare tire area..... (thank you PO....)

 

My new relays came in today from amazon, woohoo! Unfortunately I have to clean up soon for today and then I'm leaving town tomorrow for the weekend. So no updates at least till Monday, sorry guys.

[Gollum]

So I get home today from a long weekend away, and find new parts waiting for me! So what's the first thing I do just after some preliminary unpacking??? Get to work of course!

 

First, let me share a photo of my beautiful relays that came in just after my last post.

 

 

 

I think these cost me something like $10 shipped. Not bad if you ask me, especially for not leaving the comfort of my home. I was going to order my switches online too, but the cost of shipping just makes that pointless. I'll just pay an extra $1 per switch and run to the local parts store for them. Cheapest I found decent switches online through amazon, ebay, etc was $2.50 + $3+ per switch. I can get the same/similar switch at oreilly for $5.... Got me sold.

 

Onto today's goodness. I'm still going to get more work done, but my hands were clean after cooking and eating dinner so I thought I'd jump on and share progress thus far.

 

 

 

Genuine grant horn button. Woot woot. Decent quality part for the price and I'm more than satisfied for the time being.

 

 

 

Looking at the rear shows that grant really thought this through and makes it easy to install two or single wire horn arrangements. Yay for foresight.

 

 

So let the wiring begin.

 

 

 

I'm going the extra anal route on my car and soldering every connection after the crimp is made. Just extra insurance. I want these connections to last as long as possible to prevent having to go over everything in the near future. Make sure to get the solder to PENETRATE, not just melt on the surface. I've learn this the hard way through many hobby projects.

 

 

 

After each wire is crimped and soldered I finish it up with some heat shrink tubing. I find this to work better for me than buying insulated/covered spade connectors and it's a heck of a lot cleaner than electrical tape.

 

'

 

 

I don't think I needed the ground wire, but I went ahead and made one up just in case. We'll find out when it comes time to try it out...

 

 

 

And the finished product! Yay. Now I just need to head to the junkyard to get the actual noisemakers!

 

 

And while working today I snapped some pics of a factory splice. These are how nissan did their factory splices back in the 70's and 80's. So anywhere you find one wire that goes two directions (a LOT more common than you might think) this is what's hiding in there. While I might be mocking them, they rarely seem to be the actual point of failure in Z car wiring, so when wiring books tell you to never use crimp connections and avoid them like the plague (I've read plenty of literature that least to that conclusion) take it with a grain of salt. Usually it'll be the actual connection that leads to issues. Anywhere you have a friction fit and electricity has to jump from material to material you're giving the system a place for corrosion to build up. This is also a good reason to use relays. This way less current is running through your switches making those connections less likely to fail. You can put your heavy wiring and quality connections in a much cleaner path, literally. This makes it easier to fix and diagnose down the road.

 

So, onto the pics.

 

 

 

B/w wire conversion from one into two wires.

 

 

'

 

 

What lies beneath the factory electrical tape (don't get me started on that topic), is just a basic crimp joint. Though this might look cheap and poorly though, go ahead and try to pull one apart sometime. They shouldn't be failing from harsh vibrations anytime soon, and I've only seen them corrode when you've got massive electrical issues such has bad grounds.

 

Okay, now back to work. Maybe I'll get some relays mounted.

[Leon]

Quite the bare-bones Z you got going there!

 

There is just something about electrical work that is very calming and satisfying to me. Crimping, soldering, running wires, making circuits, etc. is just fun! I should be done with my ignition module, fusebox, and relay bracket pretty soon. It probably won't be pretty, but it'll do for now.

 

Keep it up!

[Gollum]

So not as much done last two days as I wanted, but tomorrow should be very productive.

 

I removed the left rear bumper support mount, as the rear bumpers was just cut off originally (not me). Serious pita but one down. I was half surprised at how heavy it was. Glad to be ditching at least another 15 pounds between the two I'm sure. More to compensate for the eventual cage.

 

And my relay panel is FINALLY ready to be drilled for mounting relays. It took much longer than I wanted but I'm at least happy with the time invested. Figuring out exactly where I wanted it was difficult and once I figured that out, the exact approach wasn't easy as I was dedicated to not buy anything and wanted it to be as function as possible.

 

 

 

It's another cut of stainless from the sheet I have. I took the top of a round die grinder to it to swirl the surface then heat cycled it, though I'm probably going to heat it up again tomorrow. Why? I must admit looks were a factor, but I have a justification. For anyone that's driven with a plain aluminum dash you can appreciate this. Eventually, the sun hits your dash just right and you get blinded, no fun. I'm hoping the swirls with help break up reflections and that the coloring will help dull what reflections make their way to my eye. Why not paint it? Because paint on a surface with things mounted to is bound to chip and such, especially with super budget methods. This seemed like a more "full proof" method to alleviate the issue.

 

It will be mounted all the way right on the upper dash mount bolts. I'm considering doing the same to my dash, but will probably wait until I get all my switches and gauges mounted then pull it all off. Just seems easier that way for that huge chunk of stainless.

 

 

 

Detail shot of the swirling. Didn't take long really. Spent most of my time on this thing just figuring out how I wanted to do it. The actual creation was just about an hour.

[Gollum]

Been too long since posting. Only a little over two weeks before the BBQ! At this rate the hope for finishing by then is slim, but I'll press onward. My real date to have it sorted by is October 11th, though I'll most likely be working out of town the week before, so end of September is my target.

 

I haven't had many blocks of time to get a lot done at once, but here's where I'm at.

 

 

 

So ALL of my lighting relays are wired to the fuse panel, waiting to be wired to where they're going to and to switches. There's a dedicated relay for Low Beam, High Beam, Running, Brake, and Reverse lights. For sake of simplicity turn signals and the wipers won't have conventional ground switching, but instead will be positive pass-through switching.

 

Oh, and my headlights are done being wired towards the relays other than grounds. I'm waiting to ground them till I have the front turn signal wiring done and can ground them all at once to one location. Once that's done I'll be able to throw in a battery and test my headlights, though I've already done a preliminary test to make sure I was 100% right on my wiring pin locations.

 

To wire: (ouch, long list)

 

Headlight switches (doubles as running)

Turn switches

rear lights to relays (brake, reverse, turn, running)

brake light switch

reverse switch (not looking forward to that)

Two ignition switches

Wire said circuits (coil, ECU, Fuel Pump, stereo)

Horn Switch

Horn Relay

Wiper Swtich

Gauges (lights + signals)

 

I feel like I'm missing something, but that's a decent start on all the junk needing to be wired. Fun times.

[Gollum]

Seems like updates are getting further and further apart, but I promise there's movement! (promising myself as much as anyone)

 

I redid my main "dash" panel, which I now call my "bulkhead" because really it's just for mounting all my main wiring components. My goal was that there's a "fork" of functions in regards to wiring in my car. There's "chassis" and there's "engine". Other than sharing the required 12V source and a "turn things on" capability, they shouldn't touch or require each other. Beyond that, I wanted all my "chassis" wiring to be completely replaceable and diagnose-able in easy to manage chunks. If I have a problem, I want to be able to be fairly certain that the problem is either at the bulkhead, or the device. For instance: if I have an issue with my front left turn signal, I want to be able to verify I have no relay/fuse/switch issue in ONE LOCATION before having to diagnose if there's 12V/GND at the light itself, or vice versa. This simplifies diagnostics more than you can imagine. Stock relays could hide anywhere. 12V sources could come from anywhere. Grounds could go anywhere. There's such a mess of slices in the stock chassis harness that it makes me queasy to think about.

 

So that said, my bulkhead:

 

 

 

You'll note the use of aluminum conduit, and that's admittedly unconventional and I wouldn't exactly recommend it for everyone. What it offers me is an easy to way pull new runs if I decide to add wiring down the road, as well as cheap connections to make loom pathways through sections of body. Weather tight fittings are a thing, and they're not pricey. It's a fairly low weight investment, and makes me feel much better about doing ground-up chassis wiring than just covering it in typical plastic loom.

 

This last weekend I got my tail light wiring completed, and I'm still using the stock panel harnesses back there, but I've at least abstracted the wiring in the sense that I can easily upgrade the panel down the road and also conforms to star grounding and the grounds all come back to that bulkhead.

 

Next up is to get the front lighting done so I can check off the "lighting" box on the to-do's and feel like it's that much closer to "road worthy" as I near engine-running state.

 

Which brings us to engine.

 

I've procured a MN47 head, that sadly will for now go on a turbo dish bottom end, which is far from ideal. I just want to travel the path of least resistance to get running, which means dealing with the drawbacks I'm going to encounter.

 

The good(est) news is that en-route right now, is a full MS3X setup:

 

 

 

Beyond that, I'm going COP out the gate. About to purchase a transistor/ignotor box from a Z32 + the DIYautotune trigger wheel to drop into the dizzy. Coils will be the ones Ford used on the modular 4.6, as I have a friend with a small pile willing to just give me six (and likely a spare or two just in case). This should alleviate any issues that arise from the imperfect combustion arrangement, even if it means down a power in the bottom half or more of the rev range. 

 

Also, the head had a broken stud (I broke it trying to pull it) and is with a friend (COP donor) who has a drill press and will hopefully be able to grind it out for me. Once back and free of stud I'll drop the head on and start assembly.

 

 

Also, part of my excuse for being so slow to work on this has been the whole adulting thing (getting married, having kids, etc), so here's picture proof.

 

 

 

 

Note: Odds are I won't be able to do engine wiring with the conduit, which is sad, but not the end of the world. I just don't want to fuss with more than I have to at this point.

[madkaw]

That will have some compresson with the MN47 head.

[Gollum]

Don't you know it! Will eventually be dual-fueled with e85, so it's in the ballpark in all reality.

[Leon]

Don't you know it! Will eventually be dual-fueled with e85, so it's in the ballpark in all reality.

 

Nice! Does MS3 have flex-fuel interpolation capability?

[Gollum]

Nice! Does MS3 have flex-fuel interpolation capability?

Yup. You can drop in one of the Ford or GM ethanol sensors and run any mix you want provided you've tuned the range of course. You can also run staged injection between any two fuels with table switching/blending. The only caveat is that switching is always done from ms3x to ms3 injector outputs so obvious have to be batch injection on one set of injectors.

 

I plan to tune on 87 octane if I can, and once I've got the secondaries installed I'll tune using e100 with the GM sensor installed, then table blending back down to e85 watching any minor adjustments needed. Then I'm not too worried about the mix I get throughout the year.

 

 

I got my "switch plate"... Ummm... "Fabbed" up tonight. Will post pics from desktop machine later.

[Gollum]

The switch plate (I really just grab things and toss them at problems sometimes. That was a macbook pro bottom case cover).

 

Edited April 13, 2016 by Gollum

[Leon]

Yup. You can drop in one of the Ford or GM ethanol sensors and run any mix you want provided you've tuned the range of course. You can also run staged injection between any two fuels with table switching/blending. The only caveat is that switching is always done from ms3x to ms3 injector outputs so obvious have to be batch injection on one set of injectors.

 

I plan to tune on 87 octane if I can, and once I've got the secondaries installed I'll tune using e100 with the GM sensor installed, then table blending back down to e85 watching any minor adjustments needed. Then I'm not too worried about the mix I get throughout the year.

 

 

I got my "switch plate"... Ummm... "Fabbed" up tonight. Will post pics from desktop machine later.

 

Nice! Where would you source E100? "E85" can range anywhere from about E50-E80 throughout the year, FWIW.

 

Looks like your attachment didn't work...

[Gollum]

Not sure if the image is fixed, but it seems to be a public link on my end.

 

For E100 (or E99.5) you can use isopropyl alcohol for about $20/gal. A bit pricey, but still cheaper than some of the fancier race gases. And the ever-ranging pump mix of E"85" is exactly why one should employ the flex fuel sensor into any eXX build.

 

Got my switch panel cleaned up a bit last night. Ready to start wiring it.

 

[Leon]

Nicely done!

 

So you're telling me that you'll be running your car consistently on rubbing alcohol or is it a one-time thing just to see what it makes?

 

That's why I was curious if MS3 could do flex-fuel. Sounds like you're all set! Looking forward to see the results, doesn't seem like Z-guys really go for E85 much. That stuff is the best bang-for-the-buck mod you can make on a forced-induction engine IMO.

[Gollum]

I'll tune using e100 with the GM sensor installed, then table blending back down to e85 watching any minor adjustments needed

 

Just a few gallons to get a base fuel and spark table set.

 

By having these baselines to go all the way from E10 87RON to E100 I'll have the extreme windows that will never be touched. And having the flex fuel sensor I'll be able to get a readout of current EXX mix, so once I like my E100 table I can develop a E50 table my mixing it down. In either case it won't matter a TON as I'll only be running ethanol under boosted conditions and will be shooting for fairly rich AFRs. A ballpark tune should happen quickly when I get to that point.

 

Going to see if I can get my switches wired tonight, as the weekend is filling up with family activities.

[NewZed]

Isopropyl alcohol and ethanol shouldn't be comparable in combustion terms, as an "E" ratio fuel.   Three carbons versus two.  Is that somebody's guess, along the same lines that people poison themselves with to get a buzz, or is there some basis?

[Gollum]

Isopropyl alcohol and ethanol shouldn't be comparable in combustion terms, as an "E" ratio fuel.   Three carbons versus two.  Is that somebody's guess, along the same lines that people poison themselves with to get a buzz, or is there some basis?

Isopropyl is much closer to ethanol than methanol, but you're right, it's not "the same".

 

This actually prompted me to do some extra research since it'd been a while that I'd looked at stuff, so thank you.

 

The "90%" rubbing alcohol tends to be about 65-75% ethanol combined with a healthy 20% methanol and some other stuff. 

The "99%" isopropyl is as it sounds, nearly pure alcohol that's non-consumable by nature.

 

The stoichiometric ratio of isopropyl is 11.4 as it turns out. It does have nearly identical latent energy of evaporation of ethanol though, which means it's likely to burn very similarly in use.

Stoichiometric of methanol is way down at 6.4 though, compared to ethanol (pure) at 9.0. So either I need to just tune with what I can find at the pump, or maybe mix 90% rubbing alcohol with isopropyl and see what the meter reads on the ethanol sensor. As long as I'm tuning in the peak of summer the pump mix should be fairly heavy on the ethanol mix.

[NewZed]

All I'm saying is not that close to mimicking 100% ethanol.  It probably gets you on the curve, but you'll be extrapolating instead of interpolating.

[Jesse OBrien]

MS3X is all packaged and taped, ready to go out tomorrow morning before I go karting.

[Gollum]

All I'm saying is not that close to mimicking 100% ethanol.  It probably gets you on the curve, but you'll be extrapolating instead of interpolating.

Right, point taken.

 

The REALLY expensive route is to just buy a case of 190 proof everclear. You can also get tax-paid 190 proof for about $500 for 4 gallons.