Ross, Looks like you're making every effort to get to the GOR Run on Sunday. Good on you mate. Cliff.
Fark Ross, this really is the devils rebuild as he's pulling every trick in the book to fark you over on the Z....from reading the thread it sounds like every time you fix one thing, another breaks....I would seriously be pulling my hair out by now, kudos for soldiering on :thumbup: I am guessing you got it all good for the GOR? As I spotted you in the pics Anyway keep at it man, sooner or later it's going to run out of things to break on you and then you'll love it :zlove: Cheers, Craig
Thanks Craig. Despite the weather doing its best to keep me at home, the zed went well on the GOR run. Happy to say there were no nasty surprises (I carried plenty of spares just incase) and even managed to drive to work and back today without any dramas.
Bit more in the way of progress. Spent the weekend with my dad messing with the zed. After checking the timing with the timing gun I could only get it to 15degrees advance with the CAS turned to maximum! Indicating there is either a CAS issue or timing belt. Pulled the timing belt off and put it back on counting the teeth (again). Spent a bit of time on the phone with Tektrader to ensure we're on the right track (thanks mate). After putting it back together and checking the timing again, we were no better off! So we pulled the CAS apart but could not see an obvious flaw. Once I got home from melbourne this arvo, I installed on of my spare CAS'. Set it to the middle position and timing is at 15degrees!!! Finally another friggen problem solved. So once I save up enough I'll buy a new CAS. The bearings in my spares are a little worn.
have a look at the teeth inside the spigot of the old cas. Odds are they are worn hence the timing scew up.
Time to liven up the interior. New fake leather seat covers arrived so I decided to spend a couple sleepless nights installing them. It's quite straight forward, no special tools needed. But it is incredibly time consuming! I looked at the clock this morning as I was rapidly losing coordination. Noticed that it was 5am Can't remember going to bed but I did wake up at lunch time and soldiered on. Needed to finish them in a hurry as our main car is out of action and the zed is the only means of transport. My bike is in pieces too I need to learn to do one project at a time. Anyway......... Seats before: After: I'm doing the rest of the interior at the moment. Rear seats will have to wait till next year when funds allow.
Wow! Looks fantastic Ross. Laughed when you mentioned all of the projects you've got going at once. At least you're brave enough to tackle them all at once!
Finished the centre console lid today. Added some extra padding to make it nicer on long cruises: While I was waiting for that to dry I chucked on an adjustable fuel pressure regulator that arrived today:
Finally got to the bottom of the rough running problem!! Spent the afternoon at Mick's place and while he wasn't looking I quickly pulled out his MAF sensor and installed it in mine. Went for a spin and it finally ran smoothly! So I've ordered a new one which will hopefully arrive within a couple of weeks. It only runs rough between 2k and 3k. I did all the tests outlined and it passed all except the one with the engine off. It measured 0.4vdc instead of 0.8vdc.
Argh! Just had the wheel alignment done and now it needs adjustable rear arms to get the camber right! I had a funny feeling I should have bought some when I got the fronts.
Is it worth going over your rear suspension a bit? This seems like it may be a symptom of something else. Unless you have lowered the car a decent amount I would have thought getting pretty straight up and down camber should not be too hard to get.
The guy is pretty thorough, at least a lot more than any other place I've been to so far. Said it's pretty right but rear is -1 degree camber which will cause the rear to wear on the inside. It's fine for twisty roads, but most of my driving is in the freeway.
Is your car lowered at all? My rear camber is minus half a degree which I find works really well for day to day driving and has never been an issue on the track and I have completely stock rear suspension and such.
I'm not the best at the fine details of these things but that may be enough to take you out of the range of the camber adjustment it came with out of the factory so it's probably all good. I'd just be worried that if you were at stock ride height and you could not get better than minus one degree at the back there might be other issues and the adjustable arms would just be a bandaid fix.
Bit more zed work out of the way. Spent a day installing the rear strut brace. Prick of a job trying to cut the rear platic things for it to stick through. That and the fact the n*power rear strut brace if offset incorrectly so it fouls on the strut support thing. A little massage work with a block of wood and hammer soon fixed that. I've been putting it of for over a year so glad to have it finally out of the way.
Currently trying to diagnose a really bad fuel leak / smell. Changed the fuel lines a couple of times with no effect. Going back to a stock FPR to see if the new adjustable unit is the cause. Ordering a new set of sway bar bushes to try and improve the handling. I have a set of subframe and diff carrier bushes to go in but this wont happen till I have more spare time on my hands as it looks to be a big job.