seattlejester Posted December 16, 2013 Author Share Posted December 16, 2013 (edited) Found a local guy to weld my bungs on, talked for a while about cars and projects, always nice when you meet someone you get along with. Surprisingly he used a mig with a teflon liner, no spool gun, and he had no problems with bird nesting or anything of the sort, color me impressed. Got around to doing a few small things. Longer studs for part of the intake manifold, longer bolt for relocation bracket, the old bolt had 3 turns of engagement, ordered a 90mm length so now has at least 10 turns. Bought all the hoses for the intake manifold and the drill and tap to block off the idler hole instead of making a whole block off plate, so hopefully that side will be complete pretty soon. Yea, so I took some time to make "The List" promising, but at the same time, daunting. Install longer alternator belt Cap off power nut for alternator Check for correct clearance for alternator belt Buy brake fluid Cut slot for fuel lines in fuel cell cover Double check line clearance Install SS brake lines Check SS routing to clear wheels Install hydro ebrake Build mount for hydro ebrake Bleed brake system Tighten clutch line Bleed clutch Switch ignition signal to megasquirt Have megasquirt send signal to fuel pump/spark/and fuel injectors for power through 12v out Find out firing order for pairing wasted spark outputs Combine all megasquirt ground and find good location Use bolts and nylocks to go over factory ground locations (want to replace the tapping screws used before) Patch holes from fuel line routing Tighten engine mount bolts Install hoses for intake manifold Route to brake booster, ecu, blow off valve, and turbo Drill out and tap intake manifold for 3/8 npt bung to block out idler valve mount Clean intake manifold Install intake manifold Torque intake manifold bolts Buy silicone sealer to seal cold start injector port block off plate Check Timing belt and timing Mount chassis brace Mount throttle body Buy/find plug for TPS and wire to megasquirt Clean TPS Buy new non rusty throttle body bolts Install and torque throttle body bolts Clean intercooler pipes Install Intake Air Temp Sensor Mount intercooler pipes Mount radiator Wire up fan controller and mount Mount intercooler Connect pipes to intercooler Seal off gaps to force air through radiator and intercooler Block off heater return Seal off thermostat housing with silicone Bolt thermostat/water return to engine Install CAS Wire up CAS to ecu Grind down stud on turbo to fit missing nut Mount down pipe Install o2 sensor connected to controller Wire controller to megasquirt Tighten spark plugs Paint and mount coil pack mount Wire coilpacks to megasquirt Wire up sensors to megasquirt Wire up and plumb boost controller to turbo and to megasquirt Drain oil, and refill oil Add coolant to radiator Add oil to transmission Get shorter bolt for starter/alternator connection Install and plumb blow off valve Install throttle cable kit Install seats Install rear wheels Go over interior center panel wiring Install turn signal switches and indicators to steering wheel Delete turn signal stalk Go over wiper wiring Install nexus 7 in front of steering wheel over no longer used factory gauges Seal trunk area Go over weatherseal gaskets on the doors Seam seal windshield gasket Remove chrome surround Buy aerocatch for hood and trunk Build heater system Buy hose and oil filter for oil filter relocation kit Remove the muffler from exhaust (don't have a mid pipe, it would drag on the ground) Charge battery Attach positive battery to terminal Crank motor without signal from megasquirt for fuel pump/injectors/spark to circulate oil in motor and in turbo Load basic configurations into tuner studio Cross fingers Enable 12 volt signal from megasquirt and crank Make appointment at muffler shop to have car driven in and midpipe installed Tune and datalog Knowing me, enjoy for 1000 miles before thinking about upping turbo and injector size, hopefully not though. I would like to enjoy the car this time around. Note the BT20 battery is pretty impressive. It's been a good 3 months or so since I took my car up there and the battery still have over 75% according to my battery charger, and that includes the 40 minutes or so of running the fuel pump to drain the tank when we brought the car up. Edited March 20, 2014 by seattlejester Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
280zex Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 don't go all gorilla grip on your wire crimps cant wait to see the finished product, and now that my Z is on the road again we can go for a drive!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osirus9 Posted December 23, 2013 Share Posted December 23, 2013 Maybe this is a silly question, but why are you opting for an electric heater setup instead of a traditional heater powered by the engine? Does that weigh less or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted December 24, 2013 Author Share Posted December 24, 2013 1. I don't have one, the one on the car was leaking when I got the car so it went straight into the bin 2. The leaking coolant from the heater ate through the floor, so not having coolant running in the cabin is a boon 3. Ceramic heaters are much lighter, nowhere near a similar btu output, but the amount needed to defog the windows is quite a bit less weight 4. Less plumbing in the engine bay 5. With the new motor the head sits right back against the firewall, so there is no way to get coolant from the rear head fitting Those reasons are pretty flimsy to be honest. Truth is I really don't need it, and there are plenty more things I can address first. During the summer when this car is on the road, there really isn't any need for a heater. In the winter, cracking the windows and putting on an extra jacket is enough to get me where I am going. And I don't drive it in the rain if I can help it (wipers even with new wipers and the honda motor isn't all that great when it pours, welded diff, leaking door seals all add up to make wet driving an unpleasant experience. If I ever end up replacing my dash with a simpler folded metal style and pulling the interior wiring I may retrofit a boat heater like 280zex has on his car. For now I don't want to start another project until I finish the motor swap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted January 19, 2014 Author Share Posted January 19, 2014 I've been slowly checking off the list above, and finding some more things here and there to add onto it which is why the list doesn't seem like it has progressed very much. Tighten or order a part here and add another item to the list there. So actually had quite a bit of progress today...regarding brakes! First got my rear brake lines squared away. My first problem was that on the driver side, the lines had rubbed together and had made a hole in the line, luckily I was parked when I found the problem. My second routing to prevent the lines from rubbing on each other worked quite well as far as I could tell. But, when I went under the car to route the fuel lines, I found that the line was actually touching the inside of the wheel. The lines looked fine, but definitely another possible failure point. So to definitely make sure that they could survive if they someone decided to rub in the future, I switched out my lines to a rubber coated stainless steel line from Agency Powers for the S13. I played around with the line for about an hour, playing with a jack to raise and lower the wheel to try and spot some problem areas. Eventually came to this configuration. Hopefully it will be problem free. It wraps neatly around the caliper, and avoids the axle and doesn't double up on itself under compression. I think in the future I will either move the chassis mounting point further up and inboard so the line makes an L towards the caliper. Or run two braided lines, one line to the strut, and then one line back to the chassis. Finally got around to installing the lines for the hydro brake as well. Ended up using 1/8th adapters to take advantage of the 1/8th npt outputs and adapters I had for the line lock and the proportioning valve. Ended up with that configuration, but really didn't like how tall the forward fittings was. So using my awesome ridgid flare set (basically an overbuilt regular flare set) I bent myself a little coupler. Then I used some 3/8-24 flare to 3 an adapters I had purchased along the way to shorten the height and even out the lengths on the braided lines so I can use one of my fuel line clamps to mount the whole setup against the chassis. Just need to tighten my clutch line and bleed the clutch and brakes and I should be all set on that part for the immediate future. Injectors have been found, and injector clips have finally arrived, so nothing should be stopping me from wiring up megasquirt. The intercooler piping needs a once over and I am going to attempt to roll some beads back into the piping to make sure that blowing off is not a possibility. I bought some nicer couplers to replace the more flimsy ones I got with my kit so that should be a fun little project. Total hours spent 110. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 Kind of interesting stuff. So mandrel bends essentially just stretch out the material. I have always known that, but when I cut my U I saw it for the first time. You can notice the outer edge (bottom) is a lot thinner then the smaller radius (top). Also made an intercooler pipe bead rolling tool via vice grips and pipe clamp. Pretty difficult to roll pipes with bends at the end, but still better then nothing. (Don't worry the outside and edges just have marks on them, it is smooth) And now onto the fun stuff. Really it wasn't all that bad. I think I have plenty of wiring to route wherever I would like it to go. For now I just wanted to connect everything is on and play with some of the sensors. The cable from efi analytic unfortunately had receiving nuts so it couldn't be used to connect to the computer, and my macbook couldn't connect to megasquirt via bluetooth due to insufficient something or another. But I am really starting to dig into megasquirt so it is quite a bit of fun. Wish me luck . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted February 16, 2014 Author Share Posted February 16, 2014 A little neater . Just a few more things and then I can move into the interior and then work a little on the body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted February 28, 2014 Author Share Posted February 28, 2014 Getting to the final stretch. Ordered the oil line for the remote oil filter mount, still need to buy a catch can and a PCV line. Still need to wire and mount my oil gauge and wire the LC-1 into the megasquirt harness as well as go over the shoddy wiring for the center console, but as far as megasquirt is concerned car could potentially run. Bought coolant, oil, transmission oil, filter, and all the other little bits for the first start. Decided I would take a brake from the monotony of wiring and do some physical items on the car. Torqued all the bolts and.... Installed the Aerocatch on the trunk! Boy does it look nice, the underside is a different story, but at least the surface looks good. Still need to do one for the hood, but the hood won't go on until the intercooler is hard mounted and the wiring is officially done with. It's nice knowing that I have a lock for the trunk now instead of just taping it over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted March 19, 2014 Author Share Posted March 19, 2014 (edited) So I was supposed to start my car two weekends ago. Plan was to fill up the fluids, crank for a bit, turn on spark and injectors and start, but failed at the first item. Started off with mounting me remote oil filter. Needed to find a location away from the exhaust, easily accessible but out of the way of the wiring. Ended up mounting it at a 45* angle right after the cross member. Easy access and hopefully no problems. Drained engine oil and filled with no problem. Drained transmission oil and filled through shifter with no problem. Poured in coolant and problems. First leak was right under the intake manifold. Unbeknownst to me there was a barb to feed coolant past the throttle body. So I grabbed my stock intake manifold, pulled off the barb to fit to the new one, and low and behold, no threads on the new intake. The problem was the hole was under the runner, and given how tight the whole assembly is, it would be hours to take off everything to get at it with a tap for a plug. As much as it pains me, I went with marine JB weld. Tested it first on a pipe and found it didn't budge or leak so I had my solution. After pouring in 1 gallon of coolant I noticed a drip, from the block off plate for the heater return. Took it off to find that I had knicked the silicone sealant with a stud causing the leak. Lathered on the silicone again and put it on, no leaks so far. Filled it up all the way with water this time to make sure the leaks were not a hazard. No problems. I spent the next two days trying to get the toyota CPS sensor to work with megasquirt. Maybe due to it's age or some other reason, it just was not picking up the wheel speed at anything close to reliable under 500rpm (tested with a drill). At that point I decided to cut losses and go with a DIY auto tune wheel and hall effect sensor proven to work. Wheel arrived, I had considered welding the wheel on, but decided that getting it centered would be difficult, so I chose to bolt the wheel on. The 7mgte pulley is deep, so an extended crank pulley bolt would not be an option. So I decided to drill into the center pulley bolt and tap it for a smaller screw. While drilling the small hole, I noticed 4 holes in the pulley. These holes are actually for a crank pulley puller, but they would serve my purposes magnificently. Problem was that the bolt pitch was 8x1.25 where the trigger wheel had slots for the smaller 1/4 inch bolts. Tentatively the plan was to weld a 1/4 bolt head to head with a m8x1.25 bolt, when I remembered I had some m8x1.25 threaded rod that I could shape at no cost to me . So after a few measurements... Then shaved the sides 180 apart to thin the bolt Then used some spacers and a nut to give the wheel a nice flat surface to sit against Benefit is using 4 bolts the wheel lines up almost perfectly with the center as the sides of the cross line it up side to side and the center of the cross line it up in the middle. Saw a picture where someone tapped the timing belt cover for the bracket for the hall effect mount, so I did that as well. Still need to go back and take a look at lining up the spacers as the wheel is bowed in a little bit with everything tightened. But pretty painless process. The longest portion was making my shaved bolts and running a die to ensure they had a good thread at the bottom and figuring out the correct drill size for the center pulley, but should hopefully get a nice cranking signal this weekend. Edited March 19, 2014 by seattlejester Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osirus9 Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 haha I guess your heater explanation makes sense. Although I'd personally not want to do it since I wouldn't want something like a space heater inside my car to potentially burn things, or the load on my alternator. But in Chicago it gets WAY colder, so I need some serious heat if I ever want to drive in the winter. Your wheel mounting solution is pretty creative. Are you concerned that the differently weighted custom bolts will throw your rotating assembly off balance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted March 20, 2014 Author Share Posted March 20, 2014 Yea the ceramic elements in my heater are two little bars about an inch or two wide so I doubt it will be getting too hot, and they will be pointed towards the glass and the rest of the heater doesn't get even warm so I'm not too worried at all. The built in fans are probably going to be more useful then the little heating element. We get maybe a few days of snow a year and it's generally around 40-60 most of the year and 70-100 in the summer, so not too concerned. I have a daily so no plans on driving when it's uncomfortably cold. My new alternator is 140 amps so it can handle quite a bit of load . I'm not the first to take advantage of stock holes, why do more work then necessary? Honestly I think the pulley is just a pulley, not a harmonic dampener like in american cars. I know the toyota pulley is balanced from the factory, but I don't think a couple grams here or there will make a difference with the rubber dampener in place Plus the trigger wheel itself is balanced, and similar hardware was used. If it turns out it does end up making a weird vibration or something, I can always add some steel putty into the spacers to make them of similar weight. I do plan on finding another pulley and maybe welding the new wheel on if this turns out to be long term. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osirus9 Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 I get excited when it's 40 degrees here! Most of this winter has been below 20 degrees as a high. For a few weeks there even 20 degrees seemed warm with highs around 0. This winter was a little more awful than normal, but you get the idea. A little ceramic heater wouldn't be able to even defrost the windshield at those temps, much less your hands! I'd be cautious about unbalancing your pulley though. I do remember hearing that the pulley is not a harmonic damper on the L series, but at the same time unbalancing it might not be the wisest thing. It might not be noticeable in the short term, but over time you could see the crank widening the hole in your front cover, or just generally ruining bearings. If I were you I'd use that mounting to get me going, but find a balanced solution in the future. Just my $0.2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 I appreciate the concern, but it pretty much is balanced. 4 bolts 90 degrees apart, balanced trigger wheel, same hardware. It's harder to get more balanced then that I imagine. I've seen very similar setups on other supra's some don't even have the balancing hole in the trigger wheel and I haven't seen any future posts by the users stating problems. With that said, I would be a fool to not keep an eye on it. There it is with the hall effect sensor mounted. I've been getting some signs of life! There are a few people helping me out in the EMS section. They are helping me work out my wonky settings, but I did get it to run for a second. Megasquirt does pickup the hall effect sensor signal much more easily, it reads consistently down do ~40-60 rpm. Will be going back today hopefully with a spark plug wire to use with my timing light and hopefully figure out when the spark is actually lighting off as well as reducing my pulse width for the injectors so I don't foul the plugs. Pretty exciting stuff . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
280zex Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Glad to hear your making progress. Hope to see the beast run! I got my z all sorted out and ready to go for a drive any time your good and ready! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted March 26, 2014 Author Share Posted March 26, 2014 Your wish is my command. ^click for video. Big shoutout to the guys in the EMS section, they've been a big help in looking over my settings. Need to hook up the plumbing and make sure all my gauges are outputting (I suspect AFR and oil pressure are being unfaithful). The weather is getting nicer and I hate being the repetitive guy, but I am almost there. Definitely would love to check out your car with the new ignition setup! Hopefully final push this weekend to get the crank and run settings dialed in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted May 4, 2014 Author Share Posted May 4, 2014 Alright, so that was a much longer ordeal then it really should have been. As with most things, a lot of it ended up with stupid user error. Really big thank you to those who helped in the ecu section. Some gremlins would have never come to light otherwise. So coils had been firing at the going high setting, should have been going low. Should not have been using a cheap timing light to diagnose which coils were firing, should have been using a coil tester from the start. Managed to get the car starting reliably, although with a high idle (3000rpm). Took the entire intake side off to trouble shoot, to find that there was a vacuum port on the throttle body I had missed. It had been filled with carbon, so when I blew on it I didn't feel much air in the throttle body, so I thought it was a coolant passage. Turns out it was a vacuum port to what I am guessing is the charcoal canister or something of that nature. Welded that shut and am waiting to bolt everything back together again. It was a good chance to route the vacuum lines a little better and work on the throttle body. There should be minimal problems from that aspect now. Had a pretty sizable oil leak which had left me bummed out. Turns out as with the previous engine, it was a valve cover gasket. This time with the non black colored block I easily traced it to the top of the head and found the valve cover screws to only be hand tight. A bit more torque and it seems the problem has subsided for now. Exhaust, seats, radiator, intercooler, radiator overflow, oil catch can, tune, pre-swap mods (cabin heater, cabin fan, turn signal stalk delete, sealing seals, checking body leaks, etc), and probably a few things here and there and we should be golden. Hours spent probably close to 200 hours now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted May 28, 2014 Author Share Posted May 28, 2014 Car is safely back home, only broke down 3 times on the way back! I'm thinking of tossing out my relay/fuse box and going with one of these units http://www.leashelectronics.com/4-Relay-Power-Board-4R2012.htm I had shadow dash running, but it cutout and stayed off on the later half of the trip. I'm thinking of moving over to MSdroid, it seems a lot happier running and has a hard wire option. Will have to see how the whole tablet idea pans out. Family is moving, so I can not order any parts without confirmed shipping dates. Quite a challenge trying not to order things. Need an exhaust system, replace the driver side window/door, and I think I am going to ditch the fender mirrors and go with a traditional setup. Trying to merge back onto the freeway trying to see oncoming cars through that 2 inch mirror from 4 feet back was a challenge to say the least. I must say, that surge of power in 5th gear is pretty ridiculous. Just rolling onto the throttle in top gear and feeling speed build up and the boost gauge climb, just something really awesome about that feeling. Once those few things are fixed, focus will turn to suspension and rear driveline components. Then hopefully I will feel comfortable enough to really throw some miles on this car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowman1771 Posted May 30, 2014 Share Posted May 30, 2014 The Z looks really good. I must say that I wasn't a big fan of the white car, black accents when you posted about it but those pictures look really good. You also have done quite a bit more extensive of a restoration than I am doing (and you yourself set out to do). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted May 30, 2014 Author Share Posted May 30, 2014 Why thank you. I think I am planning on painting the front chin white at some point. I really am enjoying the white on chrome so I think I will leave that as is. Yea, I feel like these cars hide a lot more then they let on. Good luck sir. I've ordered a 2.75 to 3 inch adapter to put a filter onto my turbo, as well as a new fuse/relay box. During the breakdown, the power to the car was uninterrupted, but the ECU and all the assorted bits would cut out and experience sync loss. I think the cheap relays are to blame so I have ordered a prebuilt unit. Wiring should only take a couple hours, and the exhaust shop I have used in the past and am happy with is less then 2 blocks from my storage unit, so should have an exhaust soon after. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowman1771 Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 I think you should paint the air dam white, not a fan of mismatched body panels but this is only my opinion. Mine had a body kit off a 280z fiberglassed onto it, no bolts, just fiberglass don't ask me why. Underneath a rotten frame rail, floor pans that were gone, both quarters had been replaced along with the rear rollpan, and a rocker panel that had been patched with 4 tack welds and scrap metal. And I thought I could do everything in 2 months......5 months later and a hell of a lot of bondo, I'll finish this weekend until I figure out how to drop the VQ35 motor out of a G35 I have in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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