The S130 Pheonix Project

[Gollum]

I was just reading through this thread for the first time, and when you mentioned not having the head temp sensor hooked up I, quite seriously, smacked my forehead. Glad you got it all worked out though. In my experience I can't even get an L engine to RUN at ALL without that sensor, well... I can but it's barely drivable.

 

 

You'd be amazed how little weight distribution actually matters in the long run. What matters is how well your chassis and suspension is tuned for the balance you have There's plenty of examples of cars with WAY off balance weight that are kings of handling.

Edited November 11, 2010 by Gollum

[whyfeel]

 

Well, it sucks living 120 miles from where you do serious car work, but I try to make do. I've kept up with various maintenance tasks such as a new alternator, front bearings, new rotors and pads, new back deck weatherstripping. I got all 4 wheels to match, fixed a rear exhaust hanger, put a new clutch slave cylinder and stainless braided line in, new oil pressure sender, new acc belt and oil changes. I have another Derale electric fan in the mail to replace the one I have which has died finally.

 

I finally got my suspension to a good place though. It felt great and drove fine, but I wanted it a bit better. I got Techno Toy Tuning roll center adjusters and another set of offset control arm bushings.

 

Old bushings were actually installed backwards according to the installation instructions.

 

New bushings have grease fittings. This should be very helpful.

 

RCAs installed. I haven't tightened the swaybar end link down yet in this picture. Rest assured it got done.

 

I still haven't gotten it aligned. I adjusted the control arm bushings to give my best guess at the most available camber. It drives very straight and corners like crazy. The camber gives an amazing confidence and grip in the middle of any corner. The RCA's have also made a big difference and the whole car bounces less and is easier to steer, even in parking lots. I don't have to have a death grip on the steering wheel in case a hit a bump midcorner, either front wheel's suspension will absorb it like it should instead of bouncing the whole front end. The car is now incredibly driver friendly.

 

I replaced the heater core. I put it back under the dashboard in the plastic case it's housed in and hooked up the heater hoses to test it. Good thing I did because it leaked. The core itself and the original core was fine. It was the thermo dashpot valve in back that was leaking and parts to replace it were not a direct replacement and looked like a pain. I never thought the stock fan in the defroster or vents was strong enough to be of any use anyway, so I went with a different approach. I wanted and got a rudimentary heater/defroster. It works decently and a couple shields in addition to my setup to help channel airflow a bit would help. The design as is is nice because you can angle the core by swinging the rack up or down.

 

I gutted all the air/heater/air conditioning ducting and vacuum lines from under the dash. I weighed it all along with removing my a/c compressor, all lines (except the one in front core support behind radiator), hoses, condensor and heater controls. Turned out to be 75 pounds. So with what I put in that I didn't weigh I guess 65 pound weight savings with a/c removal and heater modification.

 

Aluminum frame I put together to hold the core up.

 

Put a heater hose on the frame to insulate it from the core. I use zipties liberally, I know I should probably do something better, but it works for now.

 

Got a couple good bends out of the Al on the top end of the frame under the dash.

 

Cut out a few small steel brackets for the bottom. I bolt it right into the original heater core mount.

 

I used one of the FI cooling fans from the 280zx's engine compartment. I wanted something with some kick for cold days and my poor design.

 

I got some copper plumbing fittings from the lumber yard and snugged everything up with hoseclamps nice and tight. It leaked a little once, a few half turns on the clamp and its been solid. I was surprised because the fittings are so small, I thought I was going to have to silicone it all together. Still an option if it busts.

 

 

I'll try to update a little more frequently. The most important thing is that this cars drives me every day everywhere I need to go and looks nice doing it too.

 

[Gollum]

Love the DIY air system! I must have at least 3 of those injector coolers lying around...

[whyfeel]

Got my Crane Hi6s installed. It smoothed out the engine a great deal and brought out a lot of midrange power. The stock coil was ancient. I still need to clean up some wiring and get the tach adapter to fix the tach jumping around below 2k.

 

 

[WildmaN]

I haven't been on here in over 3 years. But I just went through your thread. Funny thing, your Z's stock color was the same as my '82 T-top. I really miss that nice blue. Anyway, glad to see you are still keeping that Z running. Look forward to seeing you progress with it. Good luck to you bro'.

[whyfeel]

Thanks for the compliments. I do what I can.

 

 

I swapped a couple of wheels with my little brother. I like it, running 195/60R14 in front and 225/50R15 in back. The extra grip in back feels nice.

[whyfeel]

Cleaned my headlight harness. I have 25$ ebay headlights but they are 100w halogens and are properly aimed not at other drivers.

 

Also, I got it on the scales a few weeks ago. Around 2.5 gallons of gas without me in it wet it weighed in at 2720 pounds. Ran 2900 pounds with me in it. I am very happy considering that I still had the jack, spare tire, the t-tops, tools and everything still in the car.

Edited April 16, 2011 by whyfeel

[whyfeel]

Been a while, been busy with work and school. I'll try and bring things up to date. First off, the above mentioned headlights are removed in favor of proper DOT approved MSR H4 headlights. Much better pattern on them. I have done normal maintenance, engine oil and filter, valve lashings, timing, cleaning harness contacts and the like. I have been running Redline synthetic oil in my transmission and differential, that is really nice.

 

I have gotten a tach adapter, couldn't get it working. At the time I had a bad optical sensor in my ignition set so the engine kept dying while I tried wire it up in a few configurations. I have a Crane HI6S and I got the Tach Adapter from MSD PN 8920. The asked for Crane product was part number 6000-8920, so I thought it had a chance to work. It has to be with the Red and White input wires for the HI6S but I wasn't able to finish my troubleshooting. The problem is the MSD adapter has directions for use with MSD unit so the wire colors are slightly different. Here is how I have my HI6S set up.

 

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated. In any case it runs well. I put in NGK Platinum plugs and gapped them to 0.045". The throttle response is neck snapping. In march I replaced the engine mounts and transmission mount. It was an amazing difference. I had replaced the engine mounts 8 years ago with OEM Nissan and they were shredded. My car was much quieter afterwards. Also at that time my kind brother sourced a junk 5speed that happened to be in great shape. It has the best throw of any used Dastun 5speed I have felt. The '79 5 speed I was running was destroying itself, I pulled 3/4" chunks out of the drain plug a year before I took it out. The speedo failed as well and started working with the new tranny.

 

This is the nearly dead transmission's plug after I drained it before the swap. Pretty impressive that all that metal was flying around and it was still working. I think the Redline oil helped keep it together that extra little bit. It was very noisy in fifth and getting hard to shift. I didn't blow any gears but I took it easy towards the end, I didn't want to get stranded.

 

 

Also been working on the front end. I put in Techno Toy Tuning TC Rods and I am very impressed by them. It tightens up the front end so much it got me going finding other broken stuff I hadn't noticed yet. I replaced the manual rack and pinion steering, already had poly bushings in it. They are getting very hard to source and it took Autozone 4 attempts to ship a working model. They were all re-manufactured however the first one had slop in the right side, the second had reverse threads on one end link. The third was the wrong part number shipped! They shipped a rack for a completely different vehicle. The fourth was finally right and works great. They are phenomenally expensive BTW. Now that the rack is good I need new tie rod links, one side is a little loose. An alignment after that and I should be feeling pretty damn skippy about it.

 

For added comfort I got a set of Alpine S series component speakers. I mounted the tweeters flush inside the strut towers, gives pretty good imaging. Added a Bazooka 200w sub strapped in back and it is more than enough sound for the small interior. The sub is small, so you can unstrap it and unplug it easily for spirited drives.

 

I have some more stuff to do, as always with a Z. Will update.

[whyfeel]

Here's a rev test I did last month.

revtestv2.wmv

[whyfeel]

Haven't made any progress with the tach adapter. I believe the MSD Tach adapter isn't designed to work with Crane's HI6S setup. I posted more information about how I tried to wire it here --> http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/107191-tach-adapter-with-crane-hi6s/

 

Last fall I noticed the speed bumps on campus were pretty huge. If I got caught in the wrong area I would scrape frame rail. I didn't have the facilities to do frame rails at my apartment, so I bent up some plated angle steel and bolted it up to keep the remains of the frame rails in tact. The PO did a number on them as well.

 

 

It has been very effective, I should have made them a tad longer. I don't try to smash them and I take extreme angles but the car sometimes needs its frame sliders.

 

 

 

Otherwise I have been cleaning up my electrical system. I put together an accessory fuse panel that bolts in place where the a/c and fan used to; two 10mil bolts.

 

 

It fits nicely and is out of the way.

 

Here is a shot of how I mounted my tweeters. The stock speaker location is weird so I used a component to try and get better imaging. As it sits the high tones float right to your ears, even with luggage or a load in the back. This particular placement requires some EQ work to pull the excess highs out of the mix and it sounds phenomenal. The tweeters have a clear path to your ears but the rest of the speaker is shooting into your kidneys. Sorry, my car is dirty.

 

Edited June 13, 2012 by whyfeel

[whyfeel]

Been busy as usual. First, the boring stuff. So the front suspension and steering is completely rebuilt now.

 

Tokico Illumina struts

Tokico springs

Techno Toy Tuning adjustable TC rods

Techno Toy Tuning Roll Center Adjusters

Offset drilled Aluminum front control arm bushings

various poly bushings

New tie rod end links

re-manufactured Manual rack and pinion steering rack

ball joints were replaced 3 yrs ago

Front wheel bearings and races replaced

Front sway bars are 1 1/8 inch

 

I just got the bearings and tie rod end links in and got new tires and an alignment. I had my front tires set to -0.4 degrees of camber each and it feels amazing.

 

Also did a brake job for the bits that wear out. Replaced my front rotors with a set of cross drilled and slotted rotors I had from the previous car. Resurfaced the front and rear rotors with 3m twist lock pads and replaced brake pads with performance pads from PBR. I have been running them for years and they respond better with increased heat up to very high temperatures.

 

Started in on the body. MSA body kit I had on the previous car was beat to hell. A little wet sand and rattle-can job turned out nice with my brother's help. I have some issues to clear up and will remount and relocate several bolts but it will suffice for now.

 

I wanted to mount the fiberglass while retaining the stock bumpers, however heavy they are for safety reasons. This car is my daily driver and crazy **** happens on the open road. The bumper mounts needed to be moved back, overall shortening the car 3.25 inches from front bumper to back bumper. This doesn't include the two front rubber pieces on the bumper, at least 0.5 inches thick. So putting this on shortened the car overall 3.75 inches.

 

Front bumper mount. Drill tube to release oil and smack with sledge gently to free up. Take measurements and weld in place.

 

One of the rear mounts.

 

Front view.

 

Side view.

 

Rear quarter.

 

I still need to clean up the gunk on the side and do some more spraying but I really like it for now. Still need to tackle the rear suspension. Have the Tokico Blue struts and springs on as well as a 7/8 inch sway bar but I need to adjust my rear wheel's alignment. Despite the problems and a list still a mile long the car drives amazingly.