Getting the TT back up to speed (ex DUG-300)

After passing through multiple owners in quick succession, this series 2, manual TT 2+0 ended up in my possession. I'd been after a TT for quite some time, being primarily locked up in Canberra I had significant difficulty trying to get one as there weren't many around those parts. Had a look at a few in NSW aswell but they didn't look particularly promising either. Anyways some time after beginning my hunt this thing showed up.



The good:zlove:
2k front bar
2k tailights (minus center panel)
Brazillian hatch
Unknown FMIC

The bad
Front bar chipped real badly
Drivers side skirt pushed in
Cracked brake light
Timing belt allegedly done at 150000k's (currently 205000k's) no receipts
Alarms kinda weird

The ugly
Low comp in at least one cylinder (#6)
Wiring loom majorly hacked up to install microtech lt8 in piggyback (throwing multiple ECU error codes)
Douchebag cannon exhaust
iPhone pics throughout this thread (buying a real camera soon)



Not in the best condition, in fact the last owner had a lovely thread detailing how much grief it had given him. After weighing it up I decided I might aswell give this thing a go - the goals:
1)Having it running reliably before the new financial year
2)Obtain the old power figure from a 2004 dyno (245rwkw) by end of the year
3)Rebuild to insure no major problems for the next 5 years or so.



I got started with #1 as soon as i got it. The electrical problems would cause a very annoying idle, much hesitation and stalling. The latter naturally caused me to overuse my starter motor and it appears this caused it to fail (all connections appeared good upon inspection)



So I bought myself a 2nd hand loom and S2 PTU. Ditched the microtech and the old loom and got the engine bay rewired. Had the fuel dampner and det sensor bypassed and installed a nismo FPR. About a month went by and my starter motor began playing up - thanks to eBay and Madcow I got that sorted quick smart. Basically that got goal #1 finished in very good time. heres the old loom:



While this was happening I thought I might as well have some fun mods implemented too. Replaced the manual bleed valve with an EBC, got buddyclub 17" wheels with Federal EVO for fronts and SS for rears. Would've taken EVO for all 4 but they didn't have em in the sizes I wanted for my rears. Also picked up a pair of bride seats from Mike.







Also had a big bunch of goodies come through from Coz so I figured I could get these on too. Replaced the brake light fascia, used the broken one to give my NA a brazillian. Got a Nistune chip courtesy of Chrispy. Then I left the TT with my mechanic to slap on Stillen swaybars, energy master bushing kit, labree dumps, magnaflow cats, bronze shifter bushes, greddy water temp sensor adapter, aftermarket water temp gauge, mishimoto rad w/1piece bracket and black silicone rad hoses. Also had QFM HPX brake pads and rda slotted/dimpled rotors. Hijacking my thread here - what purpose do dimpled rotors serve???





Now.... the (more) expensive side of the stick. I've been comtemplating exactly how to proceed with my actual rebuild. I'm getting my mechanic to do a comp test to see if it's just #6 I'm losing comp on (as details on comp from previous owner appeared sketchy to say the least). But basically I'm expecting a full rebuild with forged bits thrown into the mix as well. I was thinking one of those rebuild kits from Coz with wiseco pistons/eagle rods/full gasket kit + full 120000mile kit and Ferrea valves.

Another question, should I wait til after the rebuild before I get my tune via nistune? My logic says I should - but I don't actually know if it will make a difference

I'm planning to do this around Septemberish. If anyone wants to offer some input into the engine rebuild please do - I'm not too cluey when it comes to cars and this TT is my 2nd car and the 1st car I've had needing a rebuild so this is all very new to me. I want the costs for it to be a reasonable 4 figure value and I'm not chasing big power (ie not in the mood to touch cams, porting and the like) so if anyone reckons that theres better value for me going down another path please say so (I'll get actual comp results this week probably).

Future to do list:
Tein SS coilies with EDFC
z1 aluminium tailshaft
Powdercoat the wheels either gunmetal or black (opinions?)

 

I really miss this car

Such a shame I was forced by circumstance to sell it one before I had a chance to restore it. That being said, I'm sure my baby seat will fit in the new car a lot better than this one.

That offer is still there if you need a hand working on it Whoppersandwich.

Cheers,

Sean

 

Nice Brides!
"dimpled" rotors give the cross-drilled rotor look without the cracking problems

 

Thanks Sean

I'm sitting around in Perth atm (got a month off!) but when I get back I'll see what the go is with the car. My place isn't particularly user friendly tho (and not just to mechanical work either...). Have you acquired a stag yet???

 

holy crap whopper good thing ur gaurenteed a roof above ur head and 3 solid meals a day cause id imagine all ur money is goin into the Z. man its gunna be beastly, i'm probs gunna come down end of year to see u dudes march out so hopefully itll be all good then and u can take me for a spin

btw man ur little shoebox room must be gettin awfully cramped with all these carparts lol. wats ur DO think?

 

Haha yeah you could say that

Had the commandant have a look at my little shoebox room one Monday - made for some interesting conversation lol. Lucky for me the DO is restoring a '60s Mustang and can sorta understand what i'm going through so he lets me get away with it.

On your douchebag cannon PM - the NA is 2+2 so I can't just do a catback swap. Can't really be bothered getting my magnaflows cut and rewelded either lol. Although if there's more GB's on at the end of the year (and I have money...) I might get another set of magnaflows for the TT. But yeah I agree Magnaflows on the TT would be fantastic. I think Madcow is keen on the current exhaust so I could sell them to him lol

 

Minor update

Thought I'd post up the progress, mods since last time are new wheels (BuddyClub lightweights)/tyres, dumps, 02's, swaybars and swaybar bushes (couldn't afford to get all my energy bushes intalled - workshop wanted $3000 for that!) and radiator - tried to get someone to do my temp gauge but apparently the thread of the sensor (not the size - thats fine) is wrong and I need to find another sensor. Anyways on to some pics







Glad I checked up on the engine bay after coming back from the zorst shop!!!


Oh well at least i got a free spanner out of em

 

what did u do with the microtech?

 

Sold it to Madcow for $200 + labour to install the starter motor

 

Nice blue point ratchet spanner!

 

Got my dual pod installed last week, temps in farenheit tho... Kinda annoying but i worked out that at normal operating temps you can approximate temp in C by subtracting 100 degrees (170F=76C,200F=95C etc)


For Anti - this is how the temp gauge was set up:


The sensor plugs into the Greddy adapter



The wires for it are insulated with that black insulation material you can see coming out from under the drivers side intake hose. It goes round the fender and leads into the firewall and up the pillar to plug into the gauge into the other side.

 

hey mate, nice progress so far.
jsut curious, did you notice much difference with the dumps?
how much less lag? increased power?

 

Hard to say, the stock dumps werent attached properly (missing bolts, and thus not sealing properly) so theres was a big difference installing the new ones, a lot more responsive and smooth but didn't really notice much powerwise (car already had a 2.5" catback with gutted cats when I bought it - when I got my dumps done I had the exhaust shop slap a pair of magnaflow high flow cats in there so things were a little more road legal). I suppose the best way to show you the difference is with the dyno sheets.

Heres the one from 2004: Power mods wouldve been microtech piggyback ecu,FMIC, catback zorst, pod filter, manual bleed valve running 16psi



This ones from last month: Power mods are nistuned ecu, turboback exhaust with split dumps, nismo fpr (deleted fuel dampner), FMIC, pod filter, hybrid ebc running 11psi



As you can see the top one has rpm on the x axis and the bottom has speed which makes things alittle difficult to judge, but going off the assumption that 4000rpm = 120kph you can see that my new boost curve hits 11 a bit earlier than the top one (but that may be thanks to the ebc aswell...)

 

That's a pretty solid result, pretty much exactly stock Nissan quoted power figures(300hp but at the wheels!)

 

Sweet, cheers dude. Grab some primer and matte black spray paint for those screws though!

 

nice mate, but if you have the nistune why did you wind the boost back down?
why not keep it at 16 and have it singing at 250rwkw? because of cyl #6?

 

Target was 14psi (I heard somewhere here that garrett say our stock turbos shouldn't be pushed more than that) but when i picked it up the tuner had only gone up to 11. Said he was heaps busy atm and I could bring it back in a couple of weeks and hed bring it up to 14 and retune for free. While the whole cyl 6 is in the back of my mind and I still want an engine reco next year when I move to Victoria I'm a little skeptical of the whole compression issue...

In the old threads by the previous owner, Chilli kept asking simply mighty to check/recheck the compression values as he could not believe that it had dropped. I had the zed booked in for a comp test in june/july (amongst other things) but unfortunately the mechanic passed away. By the time I got back i was more determined to get all my go fast bits on and tuned so the whole compression things slipped my mind ie - I have no actual compression figures.

Anyways - heres a question for anyone game enough to answer. I'm making 223rwkw on 11psi, ever since i corrected my electrical issues the zed has been running nice and smooth. Based on this - would I actually be down on compression? I suppose nothing's gonna answer this question as well as a compression test so I will get one done eventually - but if anyone has an opinion on this I'd like to hear it!

Also if I have a compression issue:
I'm not blowing smoke - and I can't hear any weird noises from the engine bay, so what would the cause of the problem be? Burnt valves? I'm leaning towards them as most other issues would be clearly visible from the exhaust/engine wouldnt they?

 

depends on how low the compression is. from what i remember it wasnt low enough it didnt burn fuel.

i think it was around the 100psi mark (im going off memery from awhile ago) i think it would be the rings which is causing the low compression, when he put some oil in it, i think we had it up again for a few turns. (this is going from what i remember ages ago)