Hi all, Yes, this is another project build story. Just a little bit about myself. Born in the early 90's era from around western Sydney. I grew up playing the the Gran Turismo games on PS1, and as a starter car I always seemed to fancy the 300ZX or the series 5 RX7. With a fair bit of nostalgia and the fear of never been able to afford one if I didn't get a 300ZX soon, I ended up purchasing a 1989 300ZX TT Auto 2 Seater (Import). It was a dream find due to its close vicinity and dirt cheap price. The car was reported to have beeb sitting in the backyard waiting for several years for someone to do it up. It had not been registered in 12 years. The car started up straight away and made some loud noises and smoked bad but I didn't care because I knew I was always going to rebuild every inch of this car from the ground up. My goals are pretty simple. I wanted to freshen up every part of the car, get rid of all the clutter that was not needed (the regular deletes) and give her a few bolt on upgrades. Current power goals are to reach a reliable 250 to 275rwkw. Here is a picture of it when I first bought it and put it in my own back yard. The grass was growing around and underneath pretty quick so I made a quick make shift base (dont mind the crappy brick paver work) and put her on it before getting a 6x3 and a car cover to protect her from the elements. I didnt want to work on her for the time being because I didnt have the room to rip everything out, but after too many days staring at it I just dove right in and tore the entire interior apart so I can make sure there was no unknown rust and so I can lay down dynamat extreme sound deadening to its every inch to make its ride quite on the inside. Every thing out, inclusing scraping off every inch of that 30 year old factory sound deadening tar. Ohh my god this was one of the worse parts of it. Sanded and resprayed the interior shell with a few cans to prevent rust. Laid down dynamat everywhere, even the little roof it has. Found a bloke selling bulk dynamat packs for half price. I even took the factory sound deadener off of the cabin side firewall and added a layer of 12mm insul layer from Car Builders to its backside, as well as dynamating the cabin side firewall and added another layer of insul layer on the firewall before putting the factory rubber mate with the added insul layer back on. It was a very tight fit (next time i'll stick to a single insul layer sheet in between). Jist trying to figure out how to make images work, will upload more on this story.
Also filled the interior with a thick sound insulation layer over the dynamat EVERYWHERE. I then put most of the interior trim back in to make some room in the garage (knowing full well they will be taken off again once the car is fully built and resprayed so I can get the entire interior re upholstered. I then set out to start pulling the panels and engine bay apart to do a backyard respray job for the engine bay. Sticking with original pearl black colour. Engine out. Sanded down. Blue gazebo makes the colour look blue now. Resprayed and starting putting some wire and cables back in, thoroughly scrubbing, polishing and cleaning everything.
I have been ordering most of the parts from CZP in bulk and a little from Z1. The engine is currently being fully rebuilt by a 300ZX owner/racer/mechanic. Wiseco 87.5mm forged pistons Stock Rods Acid dip, crank balancing, decking etc All Arp bolts for Main/Head/Idler/Rods Full 120k Timing service kit Replacing cams with ones from a spare manual VG30DETT engine I've sourced for that added power Pretty much all little/frail bits and pieces on the engine is being changed. I'm not after major power here, anything around 275rwkw is more than adequate. Therefore I decided to get OEM turbos with brand new cores from CZP, half the price of any next upgrade. (Didn't want to go hi flowed because I wasnt sure if they'd use genuine garrett cores here. The major peformance upgrades will be: -Brand new Oem Turbos - to be run at 14 PSI -AMS Exhaust Manifolds -CZP Titan SMICs -AMS 2.5 SMIC pipe kit -AMS Oil Cooler -CZP single intake kit -2.5 inch down pipes -2.5 inch dual exhaust (will be custom made) -ECU Nistune type 2 board fitted -New style AUS 550cc Injectors -Electronic Boost Controller (TBC) -New EFI harness from wiring specialties These are the major bolt ons I'm going for to help me get to my power range. The car will also be converted to a manual. Missed many little things. Current at stage of rushing to putting everything i can back in the engine bay before the engine itself is ready to go back in by the mechanic.
Looks good, how much weight did the dynamat add? Also, I see you left the hicas solenoid in the engine bay. Have you considered deleting the system while the car's apart?
So far I've used 3 x Dynamat Extreme Mega packs, they're 20 kilos per box. The insul layer and the carpet layer from Car Builder is very light, about a kilo per box and I probably only used 3 kilos of that. So all up, just over 60 kilos added. I definitely do not care about the weight though, I prefer silence, a solid feel (dynamat makes a ridiculous difference) and comfort over anything else at the moment. I'll still be adding on more layers to the inside of the doors soon as well as insulating the entire length of the driveshaft and gearbox corridor to avoid any heat coming through from them and the exhaust. As for the Hicas, I'll be keeping that. I'm going to keep all the things that make this car unique. I'll only be deleting the useless emissions things in the engine bay such as full AIV delete, PVC, EGR, coolant bypass and etc to clean up most of these hoses in the engine bay. Almost every cable will be put through a black conduit to make it look fresh and most other lines/hoses will be replaced with braided black lines and AN fittint style clamps.
Lots of effort there @Remo so well done! Keep it up, I look forward to more updates. Consider some advice, from a fellow newbie Z owner: don't just put black conduit over cables to make them look new, replace all of the cables/looms/harness that you can in the engine bay. Almost every issue I had (stalling, not starting, rough running, guages playing up etc.) with my Z was electrical, due to heat from that cramped engine bay. Also, and I may be wrong, but will 550cc injectors get you where you want to be power-wise? My impression is stock turbo vg30 needs e85 to easily push 270+ which might = more injector size for an easier result? Some of the more knowledgeable guys might chime in on that. Keep it up!
Thanks @Harts Yeah, I got a brand new engine harness. I did rip the front body harness off when respraying and cleaned it up and made sure there were no fray wires as best as I could. Hopefully i didnt miss anything. As for the power, I am being highly optimistic here. I would still be more than happy hitting 250rwkw. Even though I've got stock sized turbos, they're brand new, so surely that amounts to something more, compared to others running with stock turbos that are much older. I've also got all the breather mods to help including manifolds. Hopefully that gets me at least to the 250 mark. As for the injectors, I believe the injectors should be more than sufficient for this goal. The below link is one of the forums I've used as a guide and read many other stories/dyno results with similar mods to mine and injectors. https://www.zcar.com/threads/max-hp-on-stock-injectors.205760/ I guess time will tell. Optimisticly, i'm hoping to have it mechanically ready for dyno and the exterior body work/respray done by the end of October. I've been watching your build post religiously and still struggling to believe you didnt crack at least 250
@Remo ahh cool, I'm glad you did get the fresh harness, awesome news. I had a read of that thread, thanks for the link. I think for sure, with your mod list you will be around the mark you are looking for, especially with manifolds etc. With your brand new turbos and more boost than I run you will definitely make more than mine, I just think if you are looking for 300rwkw, why not make it easy for yourself and run 1000cc with e85, especially if you plan to purchase new 550cc injectors, 1000cc must be a similar price. Your main power gain over my build will be the extra boost you run, because our turbos should theoretically be running the same power at the same boost levels, within a margin of error, if our housings and cores are the same size. You should be able to use my build as a measuring stick, see what I did and didn't do and use that to help inform. I have 3" exhaust all the way from turbos, 2.5" intercooler pipes and large smcs, 1000cc injectors and ecu with map sensor, but stock air intake and manifolds with old turbos that I limited to running 14psi to avoid a bang, so you can gain easy power on my build with manifolds, air intake and more pressure. Have you considered a 3" exhaust BTW? You will for sure make your 250-300, and it will be awesome fun, so look forward to that mate. I just bought some coilovers so I can run my bigger wheels, as the stock ones are now useless for the 245rwkw I have, even with the new semi slicks I have on them. Keep the posts coming, and I'll keep my fingers crossed for end of October for you
I didnt want to go E85 simply because of its inconvenience, availability, etc As for the exhaust, thats still to be decided, the 2.5 inch dump pipes i bought were for a bargain, or else they were gonna be 3 inch as well. But for the rest of the exhaust, i think dual 2.5 inch should be more than sufficient and efficient for this level. I think 3 inch would only help at the top end of the rev range with a lot of noise and drone and only if you plan on pushing serious power (above 300-350rwkw). As for my power and needs, the 2.5s will be friendlier and allow a smoother and quiter ride under normal driving, which is where its most at for me on a weekend cruise I can always be convinced otherwise by exhaust install time.
Fair enough on the e85, I have to travel about 15 minutes to get mine but then I have flex fuel so its only because I want to. Yeah cool, sounds like you have thought about it, and that is the most important part. Good work mate, I'm following
Even with all the breather mods you are doing, you may need a bit more boost from stock turbos to get close to 250rwkw. I hope you prove me wrong. I think hiflow stock turbos would be better for your goals.
Damn, don't say that. I was initially gonna go hi flow, but opted for Oem garrett instead for originality. It was the same price too.
Get a flex fuel tune so that you can run e85 if it is convenient and you will make your number, you have the right gear, you just need to cool running e85 to push you over the edge. Does the nistune do flex?
That would be the easiest way to powergoals with the setup, no extra parts except for the feature pack and sensor and some sweet smelling fuel, cheap in the scheme of things. @MintZ32 are you running nastiness mate?
Nah not running a nastiest , I know some people who have it with the flex setup though. I have an even nastier Blitz flashed ECU that my car came with... If I do anything it will be a hard choice between Link and Nistune though
I think you're probably gonna struggle without high flowed turbos on 550cc /98 . I hit 300kw on 550cc , high flowed , 98, 17psi , 80plus duty cycle . In saying that, everything as you say is new on your build so you might get close♂️
I guess I'm gonna have to rethink it over with E85, but man, nearest servo is 20 min drive from me lol and nothing out of Sydney.
