Long story and everyone likes pics. I bought a 300 almost exactly 7 months ago. First modern car I have ever owned. ( I know 1990 isnt modern but compared to all my previous cars which were never younger than 30 yrs old ! ). I drove her home, about 30 minutes later, when I stopped I had my first problem. I dont actually believe the whole 300's are temperamental bitches but this was not a good start. Anyway I took a photo of my 2 zeds. What you cant see is the pool of coolant pissing out of the water pump. First shock of 300 ownership : NO gaskets used on water pump ?! Still I like to get my hands dirty so off with the timing covers and all the other things and put on a new water pump. A month passed. I took off the 10 inch +20 rears which were scrubbing badly for some r34 gtst rears ( more in my plans sections ). I put in a new stereo. Then ... Loss of boost. Heart in my mouth I went through all the diagnosis things I could. But lack of boost = opportunity. So I sold the 260z to fund the rebuild that I am now undertaking. A lot of my friends thought me mad but :zlove: . So starting with the easy stuff. Intercoolers Obviously it is a rubber chicken. Intercoolers from carcraze.com.au http://carcraze.com.au/nissan-300zx-intercooler-pair/ and they fit really well behind the stock front bar with some modifications. Obligatory size difference shot is obligatory. While the shrouds were off I also deleted the AIV's as well as the PRVR's which was surprisingly cathartic. Interestingly enough the next shot might not be safe for work. When I was taking the picture I noticed that a front bumperless zed is a bit like a topless woman. You get all excited to get the bar off then you just dont know what else to do. And while I was under the car a friendly postman came by with a 47 kg box of 300zx goodness from z1. Got a free hat as well. No picture of that. While the bumper bar was off I decided to do a wee bit of modifying to it. There is a relatively famous zed with black unpainted sideskirts and a stillen lip. I decided to emulate that with the stock bumper. And I masked up my logo ( I am a 3d freelancer ) and painted. And then put my bumper bar back on and brewed up some strong tea and made plans for the engine pull. While the engine is out I will be doing some maintenance that can only be done while the engine is out like changing the interior lights and replacing door rubbers. :zlove: Mods: z1 gt600rs ( bought ) 2.5 inch exhaust 650cc injectors Plenum pull ( parts bought) As many deletes as I can. Nistune ( group buy came around at just the right time ! ) A set of 18 inch wheels that dont rub. And I like this shot. So you get to look at it as well. So that is it. Want to get all the parts ready before taking 2 weeks off and going for it. Oh and if anyone has some ROH drift r rear wheels that arent stupid offsets you can pm me.
Wow great start to your build and write up What turbos did you end up buying ? Gt600 ? (2560's) Your op has gr600rs :/
Prockyz89: Got the gt600r package . or (GT2560R) http://www.z1motorsports.com/product_info.php?cPath=6_16&products_id=1451 A bit of a treat but hey you only live a short time then you are dead for a bloody long time. Lidz: Yeh I know but I gotta get the exhaust first. I hope ( as does he I spose ) that they'll sell before I can put some coin down on them.
slack poster is slack. Ok weekend arrived decided to whip out the engine. After taking the angle grinder to the exhaust I managed to get there. Got enough room in the carport to take the whole thing out. Obligatory engine bay looking clean ( ish ). So the stripdown started and somethings I noticed. Surely this is supposed to go to the recirc valves. The position is on the passenger side of the plenum about halfway down it if looking at the engine from the side. I dont think it came from the factory this way. And I am pretty sure this is not kosher either. Air comes pissing out of this mess of silicon when you do a boost leak. This is also on the passenger side rocker cover. but GOOD NEWS!! Both the turbos are seized! This is good news cos I had an awful thought it could have been something simple but no each side is jammed solid. Oil coming out of both sides of each turbo. and since everyone likes to look at Arse-rooted mechanical bits here is a pic. So today I am taking the plenum off. The plan is to take my time but work every day on the car.
Plenum off. The injector cap philips screw heads are soaking in wd40 for tomorrow. Started the water bypass procedure. Everyone knows what that looks like so I wont bore with yet another pic of an under plenum. And while taking the plenum off the egr hoses and metal pipes that connect to the intake... are so full of carbonised crud it would have made Han solo proud. I literally couldnt stick a screwdriver down it to dislodge it. EGR deleting anyway so moot point. Oh and the water lines under the plenum were blocked as well. The following song was on my working playlist today : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w7OgIMMRc4
Yep got a vice grip on all of them but the last one ( cylinder 5 ) needed some gentle persuasion with a drill. All sorted. So today I got these And stuck them into the fuel rail using the adapter kit from CZP. New parts finally !! I also resealed and regasketted the cam covers. They were leaking noticeably. No pics of that cos... well it is boring! 650cc's jecs with CZP adapter kit. Oh and the orings under the fuel rail were replaced. The old ones were cracked. And lastly. When I took the 370cc's injectors out they had a rubber and metal spacer under the cap. The CZP kit didnt come with the metal part. I have left them off. The following is the 370cc stock part. I havent nipped the czp caps right down so I can insert them if needed . So do I need these ?
So today I got one turbo on ( the hard side drivers side was hard to take off and relatively hard to put on ). Now if you take a close look at the bracket holding the wastegate on you might notice something. Yes the bracket is bent. I think it was done in shipping not sure. But here is a closer look Nothing a little heat and some judicious belting with a hammer could sort out. The bent bracket had the effect of placing the wastegate actuator linkage clashing with the oil filter housing and I couldnt get the flange up to exhaust manifold. All sorted now and so this is the end result of a longer than expected turbo install. I also put on the end parts of my exhaust. Now before someone says it I know it is a wee bit douchery but the anarchic, devil may care, cad in me is starting to like it. Also for ebay spec it is surprisingly well made and all the parts line up... so far. Tomorrow doing the left hand side which looks to be a heck of a lot easier.
Yeah feel like a stupid person doing something stupid stupidly. It was still really blocked super happy I got that out of the system. Apparently with EGR's you're supposed to clean them every so often to make sure that they are working correctly. On the z .... well we all know what they are like.
End of a good weekend. Finished up the passenger side turbo. Had to hop down to enzed to get them to make a new turbo line so I could still use the stock oil sender unit. And I drilled out the restrictor using some advice Eric from A2zed gave ( to i think sevenangrypenguins ) and drilled out the restrictor at the oil junction. Obligatory pic of that. ( 4mm btw ). Then I bolted up the dumps ( z1 versions ) bigger than stock might not be the be all and end all of dumps but I am happy with the look and the feel of them. Had a stupid ERMAGERD moment when I thought I had them around the wrong way. No markings and you could if you werent checking correctly install them incorrectly. So waiting on the oxy sensors and a few other bits but I could be looking at next weekend. With the last of the day I soldered in the s2 ptu. I know I should solder the ground wire loop but what if you need to unplug or something ? I found out that I love the smell of solder smoke. Might be carcinogenic but damn it smells nice. No doubt the govt will ban it at some time.
Well it has been an interesting 2 or so months. Actually got the engine in a few weeks ago but this week is the first that I have actually "given it some ". So an abridged version. Yes I bolted the dumps on ( torquing the bolts was easier out of the bay ) before I put it back into the car. When you read about the possibility of having to drop the steering rack ( or loosening it up ) definitely do this. So then this At this point I'd love to have had an engine slinger. And booyaka shot for the ninefizno it was in Then the boring nail biting parts came and went. - soldering new injector plugs - depinning the old coil connectors and repinning the new ones. - soldering in the HIDs. - about a million other things. Then I went to start it... first go ! Checked for links and odd noises, drank 4 beers to the sound of a happy-ish engine, that was about 3-4 weeks ago. Finally got my A into G and sent my ecu to nistune to do the hard bits. So this monday I got my ecu back from Nistune ( I thought my fat fingers could do it but... get the fricking pro's to do it ! ) . And it was installed pretty much straight after the postie arrived... I will probably kill myself in this car. It is the fastest car I have ever owned. Turbos kick in around 2200 to 2500 and pull. So some exhaust work , tune , suspension mods , brake upgrades , better rubber+rims and then some cosmetics probably in that order.
Awesome thread! And done fairly quickly too, did the engine have any work done to it to handle the turbos? Or did you do anything? Or just preventative maintenance?
dotdotdot : I did nothing other than a plenum pull and complete gasket overhaul. Living dangerously I know but the when the water pump went I checked that the 100k service had been done ( didnt believe stickers saying it has been done ! ) and since then it has done about 20 000 k. So just plenum pull all deletes and new everything as per the excellent zedcare page. Video would be coming but I happen to live in the noisiest neighbourhood I have ever lived in. Sticking the camera right next to the exhaust didnt do it justice. Very pleased with the sound and for the ebay npower exhaust it is good. It has quietened down a bit which helped as it was loud. I drove past the cops the other day and they didnt blink. So what has happened. Got caught in a real big storm up here 2 weekends ago which shat my car. hooked up nistune and told me it was running on the knock fuel maps and timing map. Interesting. BTW Nistune works well in parallels virtualisation on the mac. Running demo mode but seriously thinking of getting it. Anyhoo checking the error codes in datascan I got the cas error code ( 11 ). So's I went and took the intake hoses off and found this . Seriously WTF is up with that shit perfectly fine when the engine went in then during a storm on motorway it breaks, and comes off Limped home annoying the crap out of the econobox/4wd sheep er I mean other motorists. Now some of you might be thinking i am flipping the bird at the CAS... and you'd be right. So hopped online to find out what can and cant be done about the connector. Found an old post on here about a bosch plug that is the same so have ordered one. In the mean time I did a bodge job with electrical tape and silicon packing in the other side. No pic of that cos... I have a reputation you know! Reset the ecu and it is running oh so very sweet. Since the engine is almost sorted my attention has turned to boobs... I mean wheels. When I bought the car It had +20 offset 18x9 which stuck out like dogs bollocks. So I immedately took them off and put some r34 gtst wheels. Thing is I like my roh drift-r's Obigatory pic is obligatory 275 tyres BTW. Got me thinking I might be able to get someone who has a vertical CNC milling machine. Problem is in the next pic. I would need to lose about 15 mm to get to around the offset i think i need ( +35 ). And that is about as much meat as there is possible on these. I dont really want to roll the guards and stick in rucas and whatever else is needed to fit these. No disrespect to the people who do that but the power coming from the engine requires me to get as much contact on the road as I possibly can. Back to the drawing board it seems. Last pic. She's a rich bitch for sure.
And here is a youtube vid of the exhaust. [yt]0dyJQD6NgWU[/yt] Basically it is the ebay npower spec 2+0 turbo to tip. In fact it is this one http://www.aus300zx.com/forum/showthread.php?t=321664 (BTW the price on that thread is FLIPPING AWESOME compared to buying it all from ebay ) Notice the hammering? That is someone hammering and not my engine/exhaust. My camera is shit. The exhaust has settled down quite a bit since first putting it on. So if you have one it will eventually sound like this. Yes the car was fully warmed up before revving it and was left to run a while after the vid. Yes the vid is small but hope you get the idea.
