nickz32

I can’t remember who told me this, but SZ basically said since Covid, the cost of raw materials has rocketed to the point it’s not longer profitable to make the flywheels..... why they’re not continuing to make the replacement segments, I can’t answer and am incredibly frustrated by!

Well this is a little annoying! so I bought this SZ flywheel a little while back to replace my Z1 lightweight flywheel (that my old starter munched the ring gear on). foolishly I just decided to send it and fitted it to the car without properly checking it.... silly boy. I went to take the car for a shakedown drive, only to find the clutch was slipping horrendously at idle manoeuvring speeds... off came the gearbox for an inspection as to what the chuff was going on as you can see, the outer and inner circumference of the segments is a lighter colour.... that’s because they’re unworn high spots which my clutch decided to smoke itself upon.... doh! Second doh! moment is realising the segments for the SZ flywheel are no longer available.... balls so I’ve had to buy a new flywheel, which I’ve gone for the new version of Z1’s light weight one piece flywheel, which should be here on Monday

After a bit of testing with various polishes and pads, we found that the Lake Country wool pads with Scholl Concepts S3+ followed by S20 Black on a meguairs polishing pad, then finished with S30+ on a meguairs finishing pad gave use the best results. we only managed to “finish” the bonnet by the end of the day, so there’s still more work to do before I ceramic coat the paint to seal in the finish. But, I think the pics show, she’s going to look amazing!

She was wheeled back indoors, dried off and taped up. ive always thought the finish on the paint could be improved upon, aswell as a couple of scuffs that have occurred during its time off the road, I decided to wet sand the paint using 3m’s trizact foam backed 3000grit discs.

Now she’s ticking over nicely, it’s time she had a cosmetic birthday! a good friend of mine, who is as into detailing as I am, popped over, and we gave the Z a thorough clean and decontamination.

Took a bit of a break from Z stuff this week to enjoy some time on the bike. sadly I’ve had to put her up for sale due to post Covid budget cuts at work, but I think she had a pretty good send off!

Well here she is ladies and gents. The first post calibration start up of my EPR build. still some work to do with the ecu settings, but she’s on the home straight https://youtu.be/GRBhs3MzAIM

Bar coolant, ps fluid, trans oil and installing the battery, she’s all done and ready to fire up

Just generic etch primer and gloss black rattle can and a 2k rattle can clear coat, nothing special

And another little job out of the way. My balance bar was looking tatty with chipped paint, so I commandeered the green house for a bit of painting. Quite happy with how it came out

Wiring harness all made up for the Haltech. a friend of mine, who owns Paradox Motorsport, made the loom up for me using tefzel wiring, braiding and all new connectors for my sensors (with tags for each branch of the sub loom) It’s a shame that no ones ever going to see it due to how im routing it

Exhaust is now topped and tailed and sitting as good as we can get it. it appears the mistake we initially made was to get the pipes straight and level on the boxes so they measured the same tip to box, tip to tip and parallel to the box itself. However, when they were on the car, they looked to have a droop on the outside tips (as appears to be common with customs quad setups on Z’s). We finalised the welds on the pipework, vbands and hangers and then spent a good few hours getting the tips in the right spot. That’s why on the bottom pic, the tips look wonky

The new blood for the gearbox turned up this morning. I decided to not to go with the MT90 trend and stick with a brand a know and trust in Motul. I’m yet to come across a product they make that doesn’t live up to expectation, and it’s more widely available than Redlines MT90. the cars is still a little way off moving under its own power, but I’ll report back with how I find it..... although my gearbox as always been smooth and quiet, so I’m not expecting to feel anything different.

Isn’t it just! just a little wiring to do and she’s ready to fire up

As I’m now using the internal MAP sensor for on the Haltech ELITE, I’ve been able to repurpose the bracket I made for the external map sensor for the Boost Solenoid. I was never happy with how I had it previously mounted down under the brake master cylinder, now this is more accessible in that left hand corner

I’ve also finished the sound deadening across the rear arches, bench seat and inside the doors. once I topped and tailed that, the replacement early spec carpet and boot carpet went in, as did the seats and trim panels. The dash and centre console are staying out for the time being while I sort the wiring out for the Haltech, map switch and a few other little bits and bobs I want to tidy up under there

I replaced all the T-bolt mikalor clamps, because I bloody HATE them, with genuine High Torque Jubilee clamps. These should clamp more evenly that the t-bolts, and hopefully no more pipes popping off! ive also fitted a WinFactory hood prop kit, which has done away with the rather antiquated hood prop.

Well after 6 weeks and counting, I got bored of waiting for the parts that got missed when returning my engine back to me, I cracked on and sourced the majority of the parts from Jimmer and a few other places. Here’s what I’ve been up to recently

You’re over estimating the capabilities of the ECU to provide that level of accuracy with diagnostic codes..... you gotta remember it’s pre OBD and 1989 computing technology. It’s extremely common for such things like PTU, CAS, MAF, CTS all to fail without the ecu throwing a singls code

While the heads are off, get those intake ports walnut shell blasted and get rid of that horrid carbon build up. otherwise looking good ?

Second job was to mock up all the Haltech bits in the footwell. Took my finest puzzle solving skills to figure out what to put where and have enough room to route wiring etc. It’s a shame the patch harness connector has no provision to hard mount it to a surface, so I’ll have to have a think about some way of securing that. still waiting on a few sensors to turn up, and then need to finalise the wiring, routing etc.... but you get the idea (The forums having a hissy and won’t orientate the pic correctly)

Tick another couple of jobs off the to do list. Fitted the replacement carpet I bought from Banzai Breakers. Considering the mechanical improvement Nissan made on the later cars, always baffled me why they the cheaped out on things like the carpet. Early spec cars carpet is much plusher in comparison

Cheers.... this pic shows the rear stance a bit better

If copying an existing off the shelf design is your thing ?

She’s not quite sitting how I want it, some little tweaks needed on the right hand box, but it gives a good impression of how it’ll look, and I’m really pleased. The 3.5” APR tips give the OEM+ look I was after and fit the recesses in the bumper perfectly