Right, thought I'd start this. As some of you may know my cars a bit broken at present and I have a pile of parts ready to fit that gets bigger without it making its way to the car.

 

So lets start with what's up with the engine. Myself and gaz pulled the engine about two winters ago now, as one of the turbo's had failed. Compression was tested at this time with a very even 170psi across the board. Pulling it all apart we found a multitude of issues, egr hanging off causing an exhaust leak old sockets rolling about etc etc. We took that time to replace every damn crusty water and vac pipe and delete just about anything I considered a waste of space.

Water plenum bypass,

EGR,

AIV,

PRV,

Cruise control,

Aircon,

Think that's all. The turbos were rebuild by myself and for the first 50-100 miles things were bob on and I didn't give it too much stick. The first couple of pulls it detonated, new plugs, reduced the issue but it still did it a bit. Changed to a smaller gap and great the det was gone. The car was pulling very well at this point with virtually no lag and was dyno'd at 289hp bone stock, no extra boost no chip. Not bad for an old auto engine. Sadly it had started to smoke on over run, I assumed id cocked up one of the turbos during the rebuild. So I had been putting it off for months, well actually years now to pay out for brand new turbos. Anyways as the tax ran out I thought id do some more inspecting as the symptoms just didn't fit the pattern of failed turbos. The first thing I found was that lovely even compression was no more, cyl had a rather lame 115psi. Cue further inspection to work out exactly what block I had, manual/auto etc I assumed it was auto. That's when I found this...

That head casting reads R-10Y, wtf is that I thought. It's supposed to read 40P this was one of those penny drop moments. The piston crown sealed that moment of realisation and many dots connected.

That's right its an NA, 30p pistons are NA and 30p1 are TT defiantly no 1 on that code. Turns out r-10y is the later spec NA head aswell, so yeas 100% an NA block. Now this engine was fitted by a garage 4 years ago a few months into my ownership and we wont go into that too much but it wasn't a great experience and it transpires it was worse than I first thought. Anyway whilst they refused to reimburse me for that error, a good will gesture was sent out to me in the post of a few quid.

So a replacement engine is going to be sourced and fitted this winter. More of that and what's happening to the current late spec NA block.

 

So now more about that shelf of parts. I purchased last winter a full rear subframe assembly off Jaffa, the one off his time attack car. Loads of goodies already polybushed to death etc. So I stripped it down to bare metal and started painting it all with a few coats of lovely hammerite. This is how it stands at present;

So this winters aims are.

Remove front and rear bumpers, re underseal all of that and rip out and guff.

Delete HICAS system

Reloacte PS reservoir and fusebox

Switch over all suspension to new units from the shelf

Fit 354mm diameter brembos

Change engine out and preform various mods

It sounds like a lot, but hey winter is along time. Don't expect it to be coming through thick and fast. Im lazy haha

Annoyingly my little relay treasures didn’t work out.

Annoyingly my little relay treasures didn’t work out.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]112392[/ATTACH]

 

Do you need one like the pic "300ZX"???

I do indeed Pete. Mines worn out, it clicks about 30 times before either latching in or just not.

I do indeed Pete. Mines worn out, it clicks about 30 times before either latching in or just not.

 

I can send you one/two.

Where do they live and what are they for??

I can check them out on my car maybe before sending.

PM me.

Cheers Pete il be in touch.

liked the battery terminal solution :cool:

 

shame about the micra relays, i had visions of zed owners all visiting their local breakers to raid the micra electrics :lol:

liked the battery terminal solution :cool:

 

shame about the micra relays, i had visions of zed owners all visiting their local breakers to raid the micra electrics :lol:

 

Something will share them. Primera is a good bet.

Something will share them. Primera is a good bet.

I've got two cars worth of relays, probably best to ask around than raid disimelar cars

Something will share them. Primera is a good bet.

 

That's not a given by any means.

There are still plenty of 300ZX small parts littered about among the existing community.

Do you really want to spend your limited free time hawking about sleazy scrapyards??

I thought Pete had some of these relays for you Stephen?

I have some also

I was just responding to what Craig said, for me personally the issue looks like it’s resolved thanks to Pete (gotta PM him and finalise it) however in reference to pirateering from other models, it’s always worth knowing. These cars are vastly less common than some others of the same marquee and obviously some items are common. For example there’s no need to hunt for a good set of rear plate lamps as there’s millions of them on micras. It’s a convenience thing, as well as a longer term thing.

I actually quite enjoy a bit of scrapyard challenge.

I actually quite enjoy a bit of scrapyard challenge.

 

That's the spirit Stephen!

 

 

That wasn’t as seemless as I thought :(

 

Really should rename this thread, “Feck, Piss, Arse.”

Edited May 24, 20187 yr by Stephen

Some dicking about today around this Caster problem. Hub centre to hub centre there was a descrepancy of 10mm. I removed the rear wheels and checked traction arms, both flat out closed. This is what I feared. The alignment guy can’t make it smaller than smallest. So I took the passenger one (problem side) off for further inspection, this revealed it to be 5mm longer than the stock arm. Took it all apart and noticed one end was a thread out of sink with the other and some paint runs where preventing the nut sitting home. Cleaned up and all reassembled. Took it for a quick spin round the block to settle it all out, hooray it’s now much closer and once the toe is correct I recon it will come together, at least the drivers side can be lengthened if required to make things bang on symmetrical. Still waiting for a response for a local specialist as the normal places either haven’t got the facilities to do Caster or they won’t touch modified cars.

Found the previous alignment sheet; the rear is worthless information and it’s a for a Z31 (won’t make that mistake again) but it shows the front camber was 0.2, I’ve raised the front 5mm or so in anticipation that it drop a little with a degree of camber extra.

Can’t wait to get it done properly next week, already it’s so much better to drive.

Here are my settings that I have used for a number of years. they work well for a fast road car situation.

My increased track confidence means I have been wearing outer edges on the front so Im going to get that front camber increased.

And Maybe a little more castor too.

 

Front. Camber 1.39 -ve.

Castor 9.10.

toe 0.01 average.

Rear.

Camber 1.28 -ve

Toe 0,14

I dont have adjustable rear castor arms so no readings were done.

Cheers for those Pete, give me a base line and I also found an old thread by JimmyTT about his set up.

 

Anyone know what I should aim for with the rear Caster? It’s not listed in the manual. Or will we just have to work from the wheel position?

And the results were........................................????:biggrin:

Il upload them in a bit. Significant improvement. Sadly they couldn’t complete the front end as they couldnt get at the front camber arms, I have the powertrixs arms, I think they are just a bit stiff.

Il upload them in a bit. Significant improvement. Sadly they couldn’t complete the front end as they couldnt get at the front camber arms, I have the powertrixs arms, I think they are just a bit stiff.

 

Look forward to that.

You probably need to take the Powertrix stuff off the car and clean/free up etc on the bench.

So I went with essentially stock settings, adding an additional roughly minutes over stock maximum. This was based around an average of many different people’s alignment settings.

In respect to the front camber, I think your right Pete, just need freeing up. Once I’ve done that I can go back and get things perfect.

Before;

After;

So I went with essentially stock settings, adding an additional roughly minutes over stock maximum. This was based around an average of many different people’s alignment settings.

In respect to the front camber, I think your right Pete, just need freeing up. Once I’ve done that I can go back and get things perfect.

 

I bet it feels better already. You "before" settings were pretty dire.

Night and day bud. I knew the passenger rear was bad you could see it was wrong, this I know is because I’d been dicking about back there. The front toe though was also dreadful and I’ve no idea how changing the front springs caused such an unequal reaction, makes you wonder but never mind.

Regardless of the alignment, the car is really moving forward. The skipping front end and miles of ABS are gone, the big holes in road aren’t hatch back smooth but they are much better and the small ones are fine. It feels firm but complient, as apposed to harsh. The Brakes, I’m still bedding them in but I can pull up pretty hard from 40 and not get ABS interfering, the bias is far better.

There is an empty space on my drive where my Z has parked every day for the last five years...