nickz32

Not a lot to update everyone on. Engines out and in bits with no “smoking gun” of why I had metal in the oil. Bearings all show an even, if slightly excessive amount of wear, but nothing that I think correlates to what I found in the oil. For the time being I’m taking a well earned break from working on it and am enjoying being back on 2 wheels again (BMW S1000RR if anyone’s interested). Anyway, before I discovered this little issue, a new “car media” company asked for my car for a photo shoot.... here are a few of this pics of my car

Cracking weekend had by all (I believe) Gutted I wasn’t in the Z and was very envious when we went for our tour of the Dales/Pennines/Lakes, they all looked fab going down the road. Deffo fancy this again another time, but think a 4 day trip would probably work a bit better, there’s a lot to cram in in just one day. Thanks to all who organised, attended and visited. A great advert for what club meets can be!

Really struggled to get motivated today, but I dragged myself up to my workshop to finish off the engine removal.... then promptly decided that I was fed up of working on my back and pushed the car round to my mates workshop and used his ramp for the final stages. Despite far from being in the mood, the engines out. While it’s out, I’m going to look at sorting a few other bits out. Now is the perfect time to fault find my AC system, potentially replace the rad support cross member and sort a small power steering leak. Once I’m back from the Lakes I’ll look at bringing the engine home and finding out what’s gone wrong

I’m going to remove the wings to besafe I’m yet to come across one of those wing “protectors” that hasn’t marked the paintwork

Yeah, I’m paying about £1.30 for Vpower at the moment, although I’ve seen it around the £1.38 mark in my general area.... Bloocy yanks messing it up for the rest of us!

This is not a sight I thought I’d see again for a long time What on Earth I hear you ask..... well I’m very much asking myself the same! The long and short of it is, a couple of weeks ago I noticed a little rattle while moving the car, a rattle that appeared on lift off of throttle. It disappeared as quick as it appeared and I couldn’t replicate the noise again. Drove her around and all was well. With the upcoming lakes trip I decided to do an oil change, again for Motul 300V. Started her up, great oil pressure as always. Repositioned her to make room for my friends car in my workshop and that same rattle appeared again. Again, after a rev on lift off of throttle. Again it disappeared and I couldn’t replicate the noise. I slept on it and the next day (yesterday) decided to cut open the oil filter and check for any nastys Gutted doesn’t really come close. Wasn’t expecting to find so much metal in the filter. This is its 4th oil and filter change since the rebuild and the engine has just over 2000 miles on it, so I was expecting no problems. My initial feeling is that I’ve caught the very beginnings of a big end bearing failure. I spent the afternoon prepping for engine removal, which I should have it out some time on Friday. From there it’ll be a case of open the sump and check each bearing for damage. Once the damage has been identified, I then need to try and establish what has caused the bearing failure. I know my clearances were where I wanted them to be and every oil galley had been thoroughly cleaned in the block and head prior to assembly. I have heard of ACL’s failing on a number of different manufacturers engines, so a manufacture fault is entirely possible. Regardless, I’ll be looking into a new choice of bearing. Trying to take some positives from the situation and I’m going to look a doing some more small modifications. An EPR extended baffled sump is on the shopping list, as well as modifiying the block for a couple more AN fittings for an Accusump system. I’d also like to address some thermal management issues to help keep Intake Air Temps down, potentially ceramic coating of the manifold and intake tube to the turbos. But before any shopping takes place, I need to be sure that the crank is undamaged and there’s no other damage to the rest of the engine such as cam journals. One of these days I’ll get to enjoy DRIVING this effing car

I’ll post up on my thread later, but I’m more than a little gutted

Unfortunately, I will now being coming up in the BMW and not the Z

Sad face

But that’s not going to help diagnose a front axle based vibration?

Yes mate, 3.5%

MOT’d the zed on Friday, and as expected it had a couple of advisories (loud exhaust and play in the hicas tie rods, the latter being replace on Monday), but otherwise a clean bill of health for the next 12 months. Something I am quite proud of is the emissions side of things, specifically hydrocarbons (which indicates how much oil the engine is burning), is a good indicator of the health of the engine. 125ppm, the limit is 1200ppm, for a car without catalytic converters shows how little my engine now burns oil. Very happy with that.

I’m going to go with some of the suggestions on Fb, sounds like a blown exhaust manifold gasket, and as that’s Pre O2 sensor would explain your slight misfire. See if you can get a tube down that gap and have a listen.

Gutted for you buddy! You sure it’s not a lifter rattle or similar

Bit of an odd one.... I’ve noticed recently that I’m getting what I would describe as a coarse feeling through the steering wheel when turning right at speed, and only when turning right. Problem isn’t apparent when “dry” steering whilst stationary. Power steering fluid level is correct No nasty noises from the PS pump Any ideas? I thought maybe a dry steering UJ, but surely I’d feel that regardless of which way I turn? CheerZ

I’ll be changing the fronts to components in the future..... to be honest it’s all irrelevant as the cars so effing loud!

Nope, two coaxial fronts and two component rears with tweeters.... not quite sure what I’ve done wrong there....

No, I’ve already got the alpine inline amp, which sends 45w rms to 4 channels. That’s enough for me

I used a online calculator (deatshwerks) which said I only needed to flow 266LPH, which was close to my upper limit but should have allowed me to be mapped to pull potential. Furthermore, as I’m only getting a tiny pressure drop from pump to rail (thanks to my fuel lines) I thought I’d have enough margin for the time being. Re Head Unit, it has the Alpine connection on the back should you wish to hard wire a iPhone cable. Sub wise, I’m looking at an active sub underneath the passenger seat

So last night I did some calculations to figure out why I thought my pump was man enough for the job, and figure out how much fuel flow I actually need (and then find a pump that’ll do the job) I used a calculator a motorsport engineer friend of mine sent me which showed... I need a pump that can deliver 330lph at circa 70psi (I’ll only be running a max fuel system pressure of 67psi, but speccing to cover over boost scenario). So I had a look at my spec sheet of my AEM 340LPH pump Low and behold, The AEM only flows circa 270lph, a good 60lph less than what I need without considering head room. The Walbro 485 and 450 (they flow the same, the 485 is E85 compatible) is apparently the highest flowing in tank fuel pump on the market, so I had a look at the spec sheet As you can see, it flows 355lph at 70psi, which gives a 25lph headroom (so at my running pressures, more like 35lph). But, the Walbro has a 5amp increase in amp draw compared to the AEM. A quick check of a wire gauge calculator.... Show for 15ft (my battery loom is probably about 12ft) of length at 18amps I’ll need a 14awg thickness wire. I’ll probably over spec and go to a 12awg. I’ll also need a new connector for the fuel pump as my current one is only rated to 16amp. I’ve got a couple of parts I need to sell to fund the new pump setup (as I went a bought a new headunit for the Z the other day) I’ll look at swapping the fuel pump after the lakes trip. Now I need to prep for the MOT next weekend

Well, the car spent a few hours on the dyno today. After a couple of boost leaks were solved, we started pushing some boost..... and yet again the fuel system is spoiling the party. Above 1.3 Bar of boost the fuel pump runs out of puff and pressure drops off. So it’s been knocked back at the top end to 1.2 Bar of boost and makes.... So I’m probably going to look into either a swirl pot system with a secondary pump, or just try a Walbro 485lph (which is the cheaper option). I’m pretty sure it has a boost leak aswell as peak boost is now 4/500 rpm higher up the Rev range than it has been previously The potential is still there to breach the 600 mark (at 1.6bar of boost), so im a little disappointed. However, it’s now usable for the Lakes trip, so I’m happy on that front.

I’ve got BCR8ES in mine

Sounds like a bargain. Given the stock brackets are 1mm steel held on with two very small spot welds, and mine is 8mm billet 5056 TIG welded on all 4 sides, I’m sure it’ll be fine