Sounds good, let me know whats up. If you arent going to use the pan/ let me know, Thanx, Craig

On the pan, I'm not going to use it at the moment (it'll go in my parts bin) but will keep it in reserve in case I need to go rear-sump.

Let me know if you find anything out on the swaybar and I'll do the same.

Thanks,
Nick.

Thanks,
Nick.

Craig, if you're planning on shortenting the arms from ~14 inches currently to something that'll work (e.g. 9-10 inches), as there are clearance issues to contend with, there is no hollow bar of this diameter that will work. To give you an example the stock bar with 10 inch arms gives you a 519 lb/in rate (this will most likely bend your end-links or worse).

What will work is a 3/4 solid bar which will give you ~240 lb/in rate under the same scenario indicated above.

Just thought I'd pass this on.

Thanks,
Nick.

Thanks,
Nick.

Later this week after a few 'break in miles' (breaking the tires loose is more like it) I plan to get it up, and start off with the SHO bars, solid's I have a 23mm, 24mm, 26mm, 28mm, all fit the space under back of eng, and are mountable to the frame, and endlinks, If none of them are useable, then I have 4 others from numerous cars to try. But I think that one of the SHO(Tauras SHO's FWD 90-95) ones will work well. Of course I am starting with the 23, although it should be too weak, not enough roll control. Building a street driver, not a racecar, so My 'Frankenstein' methods are ok by me.

That's cool. I did some more math as I took the factory pressed flat section where the endlinks bolt onto and measured the thickness of it and divided it by 2. This should give the wall thickness of the bar which according to that is .16 instead of my assumption of .095 and a rate of ~292 lb/in. So with that in mind the hollow bar will work at 1 inch diameter, same length as the stocker, and 10 inch arms. At 9 inch arms it'll be about 30% stiffer - similar to what the stillen stock replacement is.

Just some more info for you.

Thanks,
Nick.

I can honestly say that if you're looking at plating Atlas Plating here in Houston has done an outstanding job thus far with my stuff (the pictures don't really provide the full effect). Each piece was first fully polished then chromed, then polished again for a mirror shine. They did the same with each individual fastener - you can actually see it in the washers/lock washers that are a single assembly with the bolt - each piece is like a mirror.

So here are some pics; I hope you enjoy them....

Thanks,
Nick.

Fuel Rails / Pressure Regulator/Damper / Injector Caps/Bolts and Hardware

Coolant Pipes / T-stat housing / Fittings / Bolts and Hardware

Closeup of T-stat housing

Lower Intake Runners / Bolts & Hardware

Lookin good tho! I couldn't afford to throw money at the looks, will prob just get covers and manifold powder coated and leave it at that lol...

Very nice though man, you going for the show quality look?

As far as a show quality look, yes I want it to be clean and shiny with low maintenance. I may take it to some of the local shows but I'm not really going for trophys. Most of this stuff is for a show of one (me).

Thanks,
Nick.

All I sprang for when I had my motor apart was a few cans of brake cleaner to spray off the crap. Can't hardy see the motor with it back together anyway.

I'm starting to get anxious now for all the parts to get done and/or arrive (I bought all new goods from infiniti to piece the top end together anything questionable was replaced (so I got new gaskets/seals/grommets/o-rings, knock sensors, ECT sensors for ECM & gauges, PCV valve, exhaust manifold gaskets, etc.) In the meantime I'm going to go and read up on Racelogics' traction control system as I think one of those is in my near future

I'll probably be contacting you (if it's ok with you) to chat when it's time to do the engine management stuff as I have the goods (Ostrich2 getting ready to buy Nistune), I just lack the complete knowledge to tune this thing

Thanks,
Nick.

Lookin good!

Shocked you are throwing the bling on, But can understand why. I cant afford those ammenities, I just did the old fashioned elbow grease method, then on new motor, decided to go stock look, no shine.
Let me know when you have it together, we can go play.

Craig

Thanks,
Nick.

Oilpan with HPC S02 oil-shedding dry film coating

Valve Cover HiperCoat 1300 degree Coating (I only took a picture of 1 as they're packed pretty well)

A couple of pictures of the turbo housings (hot side) - HiperCoat Extreme 2000 degree stable coating

Nick, rather then the 45, I just made a entire step that rests atop the crossmember, allowing mor oil capacity. both ways help it flow down. I like tha oil shedding. I guess its like teflon?

nice stuff, hope it keeps the temps down.

craig

That's cool - I guess both ways accomplish the end result for us front-sumpers. Yes the oil shedding coat is like teflon but does not retain heat inside the pan like teflon does - S02 allows it to radiate out while still having all the oil shedding benefits.

Ditto on the temps, I hope the coatings on the turbos will do as advertised and reduce the skin temp by 50% (900*F versus 1700-1800*F is always preferred). If it's good enough for Nascar, IRL and aerospace, I suppose it should be good enough for what I'm trying to do

Time will tell and I'll report back after I get some time with everything installed and running.

Thanks,
Nick.

Just have to have enough oil, and a good way to get it down to the front.

With the slick on it, it should fly down very well. I cant wait to see it boosted. Your gonna love it N/A, but now that I have raped mine up a few times, I wonder what it'd be like, ........... Hummmm

If you aren't really good with a soldering iron and would rather let someone else do it I'd be happy to assist. Send it over and I'll get it modded for you like I did mine. No problemo.

Can't help you with Nistune as all I've seen are screenshots but I can show you the maps I've come up with so far.

Fantastic - thanks a bunch in advance for the assist and the advice. I can't weld but I'm pretty mean with a soldering iron I know what you mean with soldered chip sockets they're sometimes a bear to get out - I've got a tool that sucks the solder out that I'm planning to use to clean them up pretty good.

I'm looking forward to working with you to better understand the engine management side of this. I agree with you that regardless of tuning tool used the fundamentals will be the same or very similar.

My new oil pickup tube didn't arrive yesterday (it'll be here Monday) so as I cannot put the pan on without it, I sat down last night and read maximum boost by Corky Bell cover to cover; it was a good read highly recommended. A good portion of the stuff I already knew, some stuff I skipped over (like blow-through carburation setups, etc.) but he had many nuggets in there that were of great value. After reading it I saw the way I had my turbos positioned originally will not be optimal, so I was up until 4:30AM looking at different scenarios to see what will work the best. At that time I gave up and decided that I would look at it again today with a clear mind.

Anyway, I'll let you know as soon as I'm at the engine management stage. My plan is to get the car started on the factory unmodified ECU, then socket/romulate, put a factory tune on it and make sure it still starts/runs. I will then pull the upper plenum, drop-in the nismo 555cc (615cc) injectors and use Nistune to indicate the injector change (it automatically changes the values in the tune to correspond to the new injectors) and start/run again with the new injectors. At that juncture we'll be able to do a tune for the normally aspirated setup so I can enjoy the car as I work out the turbo installation.

Let me know if this sounds like a reasonable approach to you.

Thanks,
Nick.

The plumbing from the motor to the turbos and from the turbos to the factory exhaust will run underneath the crossmember using oval pipe that is solid mounted with the addition of an insulator in the mounts. There will be stainless steel flex-pipes from the manifold to the pipes feeding the turbos, as well as the connection from the solid mount returns to the catalytic converters. The flex-pipes should allow engine movement without affecting the solid mounted pipes and turbos.

I am also going to have some aluminum heatshields fabbed that will go around the turbine housing of the turbos - additional insurance on top of the coatings. Let me know if you see anything that you don't believe will work (the only thing that concerns me is heat and the probability of the solid mounts shearing bolts with the thermal expansion of stainless steel) as when you're this close to something for a couple of days one tends to lose the forest from the trees.

Thanks,
Nick.

LH Turbo (the horn will be relocated )

RH Turbo

Turbo as seen from the front opening

If you've got the time and will to do it this way it can be done, but it seems like an almost unnecessary step to "make sure it starts" with the stock 370s and stock ECU. As long as everything is assembled the way it's supposed to be there isn't any reason I'd ever even put the 370s back in. Make sure your timing is set up correctly when you install the chains and there's shouldn't be any reason it won't start (other than electrical or wiring issues).

If it were my car, I'd go ahead and put the 555s in and save yourself some work. Be VERY careful with the O-rings on these sidefeed injectors as they are notorious for getting damaged. I've got a leaking O-ring on mine as we speak. A friend of mine just had an O-ring on his injectors in an STi go out randomly and it was never even pulled from the fuel rail.

Thanks for your feedback. The reason I was looking at the 2-step was because I thought the car would run rich if the ECU believed we still had the 370s in there when in reality we had 555s (615cc). I suppose I can do the ECU tweak and change the K value, injector latency, etc. and do all this in one step as you recommend; it would definetely save some time. Let me look into it and I'll work with Shane to get a good bin (adapted for 555s) that I can load on the Ostriched ECU when I get to that step of the build.

Thanks again,
Nick.

you think you could possibly mount it right under or next to your intake? that way it sits a good 6+ inches higher than the smic mounting points. and then take out the extraneous snorkel intake tubes for the stock airbox and run your piping through their?

your project is in too good of shape to just risk putting the turbo there

Thanks for the feedback. I have investigated different positions for the turbos but when mounted higher, the exhaust plumbing ends up with too many bends (not good for spool nor heat management). The exhaust plumbing is underneath the turbos with relatively straight shots from the exhaust manifold when they're mounted lower as pictured. I'll take a look again and see if there's anyway to do them higher but FYI the airbox, IC plumbing, etc. are all gone and will not be used. The setup will go to a custom front-mount IC, unless I can figure out a better way to fit them where the airbox used to be and maintain some sanity with the exhaust plumbing. With my setup I have to fit 2 Y pipes to accomodate the external wastegates as well, which further complicates the exhaust side plumbing.

I'll post some pics if I come up with something better than the current scenario.

Thanks again,
Nick.

Thanks for the feedback and assist. I ordered the Nistune software earlier this week and received the registration key from Matt at Nistune while I was in California this week (I actually just got home). I will call the folks that have my coated/plated parts and make sure they're ready so I can pick them up tomorrow, and will then proceed to do the ECU modification, so it can be socketed (I have a 5-day weekend ahead of me but will spend part of Saturday helping Jerry with his harness modification). My understanding is that we can load the stock program in Nistune and then use the software to state that the injector size has changed and it goes in and changes everything automatically. When I get to that point, I'll e-mail you a screenshot of what it says so we can do a sanity check on how this works. If it works like it states it does, we may be ok. I'll let you know as soon as I'm there (hopefully in the next 2-3 days)

Thanks again,
Nick.

Not sure how your dual MAF setup will need to be setup. For mine I had to expand the TP scales because stock only went up to 72 and I'm hitting TP's up to around 100. I expanded mine up to 128. With the dual maf's your's may not go that high since it's only reading half the air flow. Stock may be ok. You should know more once you do a map trace and see where the TP is.

On the 132 K value - is that based on 555cc flow rate? I ask because Nismo calls them 555s but they actually flow 615cc. I downloaded everything from Nistune, so I'll spend some time installing the software and then start the work on the socketing. With hurricane Gustav on the horizon, I may have some delays in working on this, as I have family coming in from East Texas that has a mandatory evacuation in effect.

Anyway, there are still delays on my bringing my car in for the manifolds so I got fed up and went out this morning and bought a Miller MIG welder and all the accessories, and I will start working on this myself. The only thing that was slowing me down with this project is my ability to weld well. This move will force me to sit down and learn it well by doing it. I was surprised at how expensive the 122CF tank was for the argon/co2 mix though. I will start working with this setup for the crossmember seam weld, and brackets, etc. and then will get a tank of tri-mix so I can start work on the stainless steel.

This approach will probably cost as much as getting everything professionaly done, but at the end of the day I will end up with more tools I can use in the future, and the satisfaction of having done the work myself!

Thanks again and I'll let you know as soon as the electronics are ready to go.

Nick.

Amen Brotha!!

Which welder did you get? I think you'll pick it up quickly.

Anyway, I didn't buy the stainless wire yet as I'm still trying to decide between 304 and 321 stainless. I know the latter is better against heat and cracking, but I didn't wan't to overkill if the 304 will work well (Corky Bell's book mentions 304 as a good option for turbo manifold construction). Also, I didn't know with the additional chromium content in the 321 if that would make it much harder to weld or not.

Thanks,
Nick.