Hijacker's Money-Ain't-No-Thing Build

General discussion forum about the 240sx, and a great place to introduce yourself to the board!
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Hijacker
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Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
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I got some more prep work done for the trip to the machine shop. I had planned on taking it last week, but decided to order new valve guides and SuperTech valves. When I had my S13 SR worked on, the exhaust valve guides were all worn out and I ended up replacing a handful of intake valves. SRs can be hard on their valves and guides due to the forces that the rocker arm setup applies. I went with JWT last time, but decided to go with Tomei guides for this round. So until the new valvetrain components come in, I'm going to delay taking the components to the shop.

In the meantime, I'm continuing on with checking clearances on internal components and cleaning small parts.

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-The oil pump and its pressure relief valve all checked within spec

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-I set up my hypersonic cleaner with some Orange Zep and got to cleaning. It has an internal heater that gets the solution pretty darned hot, which helps the Zep attack the grime and crud. I don't let it dunk for longer than 15 minutes

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-One of my buddies printed the shim tool, and it came out perfect. He dialed in the neck to 17mm on the nose and it fits the HLA bores perfectly.

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I'll likely be going with the dual rocker guide method of shimming rather than using the flat shims.

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-Another little surprise was that the HLAs look to be the revised part with the large input hole and small relief hole. These should hold pressure better and keep the lifter pumped up. I'll know better once I get the motor fired up and if that damned lifter noise comes back

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-The original 370cc injectors

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-I originally was going to use Tomei 740cc injectors, but those have been long discontinued. I saw ConceptZ had stock on their site and took a gamble and ordered a set. Well, that gamble was a bust as the site had erroneously showed stock. Nick at CZP was cool and hooked me up with a set of Nismo 740ccs.

The bore clearances all look okay. I checked the specs on each bore and they're all at 86.00mm right now. The CP pistons have a 0.089mm to 0.076m clearance spec to the bore. Since my cylinders are all at 86.00mm, that means each piston needs to measure between 85.911mm and 85.924mm. All of my pistons fell within this range.

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-I also picked up an inexpensive scale that goes out to a hundredth a gram to weigh my rods, pistons, and other bits of reciprocating mass

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-Without doing any grinding or lapping of the rods and pistons, I was able to get the assemblies paired up to within 0.9g of each other. To keep it all straight while it's still stored away, I've marked each ring pack and put a label on each wrist pin bag. The pistons will stay in their foam packaging, but I have my notes aligned to show which quadrant is which.


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Hijacker
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'94 F-150
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The rest of the head parts are in! I'll get the block and head packed and prepped to go to the machine shop on Monday

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-Tomei P-Bronze valve guides

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-Supertech STD size intake and exhaust valves

I also got around to ordering a set of rear wheel bearings from a 91+ Z32 non-turbo to swap my rear 5 lug hubs onto. The rear brakes I run came off of a GTS-T which had the larger axle splines. All TT Z32s and the Skylines with the R230 rears use these axles and bearings. So when I swapped the brakes onto my car, I had to cut the little tab spacer off of the bearing. In 1991, Nissan opted to use the same bearing carrier for both styles of axle splines. So to future proof the whole setup, I opted to get some factory bearings with the correct spacer style bearing carrier

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-43280 is the RH bearing and 43281 is the LH bearing. These are revised part numbers I didn't have on my parts list. It looks like to save some change, Nissan opted to make the carriers universal and have a pressed in locator pin much like the aftermarket bearings

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-Another change I noticed with the revised part is the change to the bearing seal

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splintercell
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Love the updates, OG's are back in the game. I may start a new thread for my 91 Silvia I picked up from Japanese Classics last Sept.

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PapaSmurf2k3
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Looks good Bart!

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Hijacker
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splintercell wrote:
Fri Sep 13, 2024 11:51 am
Love the updates, OG's are back in the game. I may start a new thread for my 91 Silvia I picked up from Japanese Classics last Sept.
Do it!

I decided to take apart the alternator that came with the S14 SR to clean up the shell, inspect the brushes, and spray it with a high temp protectant

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-All of the parts laid out

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-I had already cleaned the backside shell to test out best cleaning methods. These aluminum shells had been pretty dirty and stained. I found the best chemical was Purple Power Aluminum Brightener. Once you clean most of teh dirt off and get the chemical on the bare aluminum, it'll start to bubble and foam. It does a great job IMO. I also used a wire brush to get it worked into the metal and pull the dirt stains out. Don't leave it on for too long if you decide to use it. I would rinse the aluminum after about 30-45 seconds.

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-These are the before pictures of the front shell. I had already given it a light scrub with some Orange Zep to get the heavy dirt and grime off of it. What's left is the stained portions that were being stubborn

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-The after picture. It's pretty amazing how clean the shells came out

I put a couple coats of high temperature engine enamel clear coat on them and applied a black high temp paint to the outside of the stator magnets

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-The brushes all looked fine and had plenty of wear left on them. So it was back to reinstalling the components. The first step is to get the brushes locked back. This needs to be done to reinstall the rotor. The rear bearing of the rotor is a tight fit into the bore and these brushes will make it impossible to get back into place. So you push them in and use a rod to hold them up. There's a rubber plug on the rear shell that you can pass the rod through.

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-Two small screws for the voltage regulator and one longer screw for the diode/rectifier. You can gently start to tap the stator into the shell at this point to get things started

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-The next step was to get the bearing retainer for the front shell put in place. What I found worked best at this point was to install the rotor to the front shell by slipping it in place and then getting the pulley at least hand tight. Then you can slip the rotor into the stator and start the bearing into its holder

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Once you have the bolt holes lined up, you can set the alternator face down like this and start giving the bearing box some love taps with a mallet. It takes a bit of effort, but it'll slide on so long as the brushes are out of the way. You can also peer through the venting to make sure it's seating properly. If the tabs and bolt holes aren't quite lined up properly, they can be persuaded to move with the mallet.

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-Shell bolts are put into place

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-And a strap wrench is used to secure the front pulley and tighten the pulley nut. I'm not doing a final torque on this just yet as I have plans to clean up the hardware and pulley

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-The alternator fully assembled and ready to be tested

The thing I learned about this alternator is that it's from a 180SX. I pulled the part number on the rear shell sticker and it crossed with an S13. Not sure who swapped it out, but I thought it was kind of neat. It's also the Mitsubishi design A002T37891, and doing some research, I can get parts for it if it ever fails fully (or just doesn't work when i do test it)

On the motor front, now that all of the valve train components were in, I boxed up the parts, the service manual, the Tomei spec sheets, and put the block on my engine pallet. It was all loaded up in my truck and taken to the machine shop

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It's all currently at the shop. Hopefully it won't take them too long to do the things I need done, which is a hot tank for all the parts, check and deck the headgasket surfaces, rehone the cylinders, replace the valve guides, 3 angle valve job, and install the new Type A springs

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float_6969
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Build threads just never get old! Thanks for the update!

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PapaSmurf2k3
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float_6969 wrote:
Wed Sep 18, 2024 9:00 am
Build threads just never get old!
Amen to that! :mike

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Hijacker
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Hijacker wrote:
Mon Dec 28, 2020 8:48 am
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-All of the brackets I want to get cleaned up and powder coated
So...I kind of left this one hanging for the last 4 years. The parts have been sitting in this box the entire time.

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-I dropped them off a week or two ago at the powdercoaters and they came back today. The brackets look pretty frickin' nice. I did realize too late that this motor never came with the big triangular bracket on the intake manifold. I've already sourced one, but that will just end up being a second trip to the PC shop. I'm sure I can find something else that needs to go there <_<

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-I also settled on a color for the valve cover. This is Illusion Purple and I love it. Much better than boring old black

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-It pairs really well with the nismo oil cap and Tomei spark plug cover as well

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-The last thing that came in today was Mazworx head studs. I ran standard ARPs on my last build, so I want to try the Mazworx studs this go round

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float_6969
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That valve cover color is perfect! Be carful when you bolt it down. If you don't use any kind of rubber washer under the fasteners, it can chip the powder coating off. Guess how I know...

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Hijacker
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float_6969 wrote:
Thu Sep 19, 2024 5:30 am
That valve cover color is perfect! Be carful when you bolt it down. If you don't use any kind of rubber washer under the fasteners, it can chip the powder coating off. Guess how I know...
Thankfully the factory fasteners are all rubber grommets and going back into this cover. They're on my list to clean up today. And I absolutely love this color for the valve cover. I waffled a bit on color choice, but in my heart of hearts, I knew it was always gonna be this one

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Hijacker
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New Apex'i Power FC boost controller arrived today. I plan on installing the MAP sensor on the S13 ignitor bracket and installing that on the right hand side strut tower

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-So many parts I don't know if I'll end up using. I priced out just the 3 port actuator and the Denso MAP sensor, and the cost wasn't any better than buying the full kit

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The Denso MAP sensor bolt pattern is already pretty close to the factory JDM control solenoid's. Although, by Apex'i's instructions, the MAP sensor should be mounted in a way that the vac port is aimed down (likely to protect it from accidentally being broken). I may end up making an adapter bracket to orient the MAP sensor or modify the igniter bracket to get the MAP sensor oriented correctly.

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float_6969
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You want it pointing down to make sure moisture doesn't settle into the sensor because that could damage it. GM used a lot of MAP sensors in the 90's, and most are mounted directly to the intake manifold, pointing down. Some were mounted to the firewall, pointed down, connected to the intake with tubing that made sure any moisture would drain back to the manifold.

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float_6969 wrote:
Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:09 am
You want it pointing down to make sure moisture doesn't settle into the sensor because that could damage it. GM used a lot of MAP sensors in the 90's, and most are mounted directly to the intake manifold, pointing down. Some were mounted to the firewall, pointed down, connected to the intake with tubing that made sure any moisture would drain back to the manifold.
That makes sense. I guess my smooth brain was thinking "why should it matter if it's under pressure"

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float_6969
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"Smooth brain" :rotfl

No worries man. I wasn't born knowing it either. Somebody smarter than me told me.

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I'm still waiting on the machine shop to get started on the head work, but in the meantime, I had a few more items come through

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-The other side of the boost controller equation. I hadn't actually purchased a wastegate actuator yet! I landed on the Turbosmart after reading a bunch of reviews with dyno charts to back up the performance of the units. I also watched a teardown video and the actuator is very solidly built. This one comes with a 7 psi spring installed, but I can upgrade it. AEM says that most 3 port e-controllers are best set to within twice the spring setup of the physical actuator. So this setup will limit to 14 psi, but I can easily swap in a stiffer spring on the actuator and then dial up the boost. I opted to stay at 7 psi during the initial break in of the motor.

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-The large intake bracket I sourced also arrived today. I'm gonna wait a bit before I send it off to get cleaned up and powdercoated in case I have anything else that will need to go

The original fuel rail on the s14 had some gnarly dents. These were kind of in irreparable sections of the rail

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Getting a new OE rail from Nissan was pretty much down to Amayama. Nobody stateside had any. However, I got lucky and found someone on eBay parting out a couple. The pictures looked fine on both, but I decided to get them both to make sure that I was guaranteed at least one good rail. If both were in great shape, I could sell off the extra

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-Both rails are in great shape. No dents or other restrictions I could see

I'm setting up a zinc electroplating and yellow chromate station to recondition all of the engine hardware. I'm going to use my dented rail for practice, but if it turns out well, I can clean both of these new to me rails and replate them.

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-The red injectors happened to be Denso 550cc side feed injectors. I'll probably hawk these off cheap to help pay off the fuel rail purchases

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splintercell
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Do you use Noland ( Advance Coating Solutions ) off Industrial Dr. for PC? He does everything for me, just picked up some parts the other day.

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splintercell wrote:
Tue Oct 01, 2024 5:58 pm
Do you use Noland ( Advance Coating Solutions ) off Industrial Dr. for PC? He does everything for me, just picked up some parts the other day.
I used him in the past. He did my rear subframe and diff housing. I took a gamble and tried out Santiso Custom Coatings off of Bethel Church Rd

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I'm still slowly getting some things done, but I'm kind of on standby until I get the block and head back. I got my exhaust gasket and CPS gasket from GKTech. The original CPS gasket was severely stretched out and needed replacing

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The replacement is a direct fit. Very pleased
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I also ended up getting a Circuit Sports lower oil pan. I thought I was getting a V1 which has the metal flapper doors, but instead received the V2 which have the rubber flapper doors. I need to contact Circuit Sports to see what material those doors are made out of and I may end up replacing them with metal doors depending on what CS tells me.

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All in all, the quality of the unit looks good. The flange is straight, which is always a problem with the Greddy knock off pans. The welds also look well done. And the flange has channels for the gasket maker material (that's a feature the Tomei pan lacks for some reason)

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I also took some time to get the 5 lug hubs pressed out of the original bearings. The inner race was well seized on both axles. I tried a few different methods to remove the races, but ultimately had to cut them off using a Dremel cut off wheel.

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I've had a couple of their coolant overflow tanks and they're good stuff. I'm not too surprised the lower pan is good as well.

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float_6969 wrote:
Mon Oct 14, 2024 7:38 am
I've had a couple of their coolant overflow tanks and they're good stuff. I'm not too surprised the lower pan is good as well.
CS. Also got back to me on the materials used for the flapper doors
circuit sports sales team wrote: Those flip door are made of Viton, it is the most chemical resistance rubber on the market and can take temperatures from -45C to 204C (-49F to 400F). Same as some OEM oil baffled pan.. like BMW and Cosworth uses.

Best Regards,
Team CS

Circuit Sports
330 N. Palm St Suite: A
Brea, CA 92821
Viton is used in a lot of engine seal design. BMW also uses it for the e30 oil pans in the same configuration/application that CS is using it. The chemical and heat resistance of it is excellent

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Also, if you can swing it, get one of those handheld induction heaters. They're AWESOME for freeing up rusted nuts and bolts, and loosing stuck bearings. I got mine from www.theinductor.com

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Yeah, Viton is the good stuff. I'm a pool/spa guy by trade. I ONLY use Viton seals when available. It's basically everything resistant. The primary manufacturer I use for pool equipment has a line of "Trade Grade" whole goods. They're only available trade professionals, service centers, like myself, or brick-and-mortar stores. They have a better warranty than the online goods and they use upgraded seals and plastics where possible. I don't think I've ever actually had a Viton seal fail from chemical damage unless it's been in an excessively high chlorine or high pH environment for prolonged periods of time.

PS, I just noticed that link doesn't work correctly. I'm trying to get that fixed now.

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float_6969 wrote:
Mon Oct 14, 2024 8:33 am
Yeah, Viton is the good stuff. I'm a pool/spa guy by trade. I ONLY use Viton seals when available.
Would never be without it. Beats the crap out of BUNA on every level.
https://www.harborfreight.com/180-piece ... 67525.html

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EPDM is typically better for refrigerant and brake fluid, and I'm surprised they rated that FKM down to -45C... usually that's FFKM territory, although their "rating" criteria could be a barn door.

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More parts have been coming in while I'm waiting.

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-Aeroflow turbo lines

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-Also picked up a Nismo radiator cap for s*** and giggles

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-Alex Chang made a comment on one of the S-Chassis pages I'm on over on Facespace. I did a little looking and either my car never had the factory foam dam on the upper radiator core support, or someone before me did a REALLY good job of removing it as there was no sign of anything ever being glued there. Since I'm going with a koyo and a fan shroud, I figured why not get the little seal piece. These were still available through Amayama, so I ordered two to have one as a spare

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-I also picked up a Wite data logger for the Power FC. The Wite allows me to hook up some additional sensors and a wideband O2. It also uses the RealDash API and can connect to iOS and android devices via bluetooth so I can display some of the additional data if I need to. And it can be used for FCEdit as well.

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Back in 2007 when I swapped the doors out for hard top doors, the panels I got were lacking the map pockets. Back then, I was able to secure one for the passenger side, but I've kind of let the driver side go without. I found someone on ebay selling just the door pocket, so I jumped on it. Eventually, I need to take the panels off and have someone recover the inserts. I was thinking of going with the same Recaro fabric my seats are made of.

The next thing I'm gonna be looking at will be a pillar gauges. I want to get rid of the s*** bottom tier Autometers I have currently. I'm heavily looking at going with Defi and getting the Style 98 Homage series since they more closely match the factory gauges. I do like the sleek look of the Defi N2+ since they black out when turned off, but I don't really care for the color ring around the edge of the bezel. I was also looking at Innovate MTX-A gauges, but right now the Defi units may win out. I considered AEM, but I hate the big yellow AEM logo on them as they stand out too much IMO. GlowShift and ProSport are out due to their reliability concerns and Autometer isn't high on my list either as I'm just not a fan of their overall looks

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Overall, I like the full design of these. They're all electronic and I'd have to get used to SI gauges as Defi no longer makes anything with freedom units. My main gripe is that Defi defines the gauge face a bit too generically. So Temperature can be used for either Coolant or Oil. In my application, I'd be only using three: Boost, Oil Pressure, and Coolant Temperature. But I guess I'm just a nerd who likes to see Coolant Temp/Water Temp on a gauge face so I know that anyone else will know what it's for.

Another point in favor of the Defi units is that the cost to order them direct from Japan is cheaper thanks to a weak Yen. I can get them on Blackhawk or RHDJapan for half the price of any decent gauge over here.

The Style 98 also only comes in 60mm, so I'll need to make a custom A Pillar pod. I'll probably make a mold so I can pull a custom fiberglass one piece full A Pillar trim pod replacement piece rather than have some generic pod epoxied to my existing trim. I refuse to sacrifice my vents, I don't like the Mickey Mouse steering column pods, and I want to keep my DIN pocket cup holder. Keeping them on the A Pillar will be the way I'll go.
float_6969 wrote:
Mon Oct 14, 2024 8:23 am
Also, if you can swing it, get one of those handheld induction heaters. They're AWESOME for freeing up rusted nuts and bolts, and loosing stuck bearings. I got mine from www.theinductor.com
Those could definitely be handy on suspension bolts, but that's a lot of money. I'd probably get more mileage out of it on my truck than on the 240 :crazy:

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float_6969
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Dude. That White datalogger looks pretty cool. Logging wideband with datalogs makes tuning soooo much easier.

I've run s*** and no had any issues, but I know they're not high quality either.

Have you ever lived with blackout gauges? I did for a while and regretted it. Granted it was on a digital gauge, but if the sunlight was wrong, they were impossible to read. A dial gauge may not be as bad, but I won't do it again. That was Glowshift as well though, so Defi could do it better. Obviously Defi has a great reputation, so I doubt you can go wrong with them.

I'm with you on A-pillar well. I learned the hard way though. Steering column blocks too much of the speedo and tach. Loosing the center vent and DIN pocket sucks. I moved away from the A-pillar because I thought it was too flashy, but after having lived with the other options, IDGAF if it's flashy, the A-pillar the best place for them.

LOL! My old '99 Chevy truck with nearly a half a million miles on it is why I bought it in the first place. But after having owned it, I've found a zillion uses for it.

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float_6969 wrote:
Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:43 am
Dude. That White datalogger looks pretty cool. Logging wideband with datalogs makes tuning soooo much easier.

I've run s*** and no had any issues, but I know they're not high quality either.

Have you ever lived with blackout gauges? I did for a while and regretted it. Granted it was on a digital gauge, but if the sunlight was wrong, they were impossible to read. A dial gauge may not be as bad, but I won't do it again. That was Glowshift as well though, so Defi could do it better. Obviously Defi has a great reputation, so I doubt you can go wrong with them.

I'm with you on A-pillar well. I learned the hard way though. Steering column blocks too much of the speedo and tach. Loosing the center vent and DIN pocket sucks. I moved away from the A-pillar because I thought it was too flashy, but after having lived with the other options, IDGAF if it's flashy, the A-pillar the best place for them.

LOL! My old '99 Chevy truck with nearly a half a million miles on it is why I bought it in the first place. But after having owned it, I've found a zillion uses for it.
One of my buddies in the 757 had the steering column pods and I hated how it blocked things

I ended up ordering the Defi Advance BF gauges. It'll require the advance control box, but I can eliminate a bunch of wire runs up to the a pillar. I would have had to have run 10 wires up to the a pillar for the Style 98 or N2+ sets, and I'm all about modularity and would have put a 10 pin connector to allow for easy removal of the trim. One thing I hate about my current setup is that it's all hard wired in and a pain in the a** to work on. The sensors can now be routed to the central control box and then I can run a 4 wire plug up to the A pillar and the gauges can daisy chain from the first one. The cool thing with the Advance gauges is that they have integrated idiot lights. I also ordered a new 60mm universal 3 way pod and a new trim piece so I can mold up a single piece replacement. I wasn't originally going to go with the advance because of having to run the extra control box, but in the end, I think this will be a cleaner and ultimately better solution. The neat thing with the defi gauges too is if I end up feeling there's lighting issues, defi makes little shade caps to prevent glare and reflection

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Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

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More little things taken care of

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-The valve cover hardware was painted in high temp cast iron and finished with high temp satin clear to cover up the bit of corrosion they had developed

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-I also cleaned up the harmonic balancer and painted it in high temp black and finished it with high temp satin clear. I also painted the timing marks silver to make them easier to see with the timing light

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-If you've known me for more than 3.7 seconds, you know I hate the factory position of the SR's oil filter. I picked up this relocation kit from HEL Performance and plan on placing the filter on the frame to make life easier and hopefully a little cleaner. I'm tired of dumping oil on the subframe

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-I finally got around to testing out the zinc plating kit I put together. A month or so, I had tried to make a zinc plating solution based on instructions I had found online. But I could never quite get a decent plate out of the setup when plating test hardware. I ended up breaking down and purchasing the chemicals for Caswell's Copy Cad kit and yellow chromate. I already had the hardware from pretending I'm a chemist: a couple of buckets, a copper pipe, and a DC power supply from Amazon.

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-My test piece here is the interconnect bracket for the downpipe to transmission mount. I had one sitting in my spare parts bin that was pretty dirty and had some rust on it. These images are after taking a steel brush and some orange Zep to it

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-Next, I hit it with a wire wheel on my bench grinder to get all of the rust and old chromate and zinc off. Afterwards, I soak it in hydrochloric acid (4:1 water to acid ratio) until the bubbles stop to get what's left of the zinc plating and any surface contamination off of it. Then I take it back to the wire wheel to prep it for plating with one last polish to get rid of any surface rust that may have flashed by the acid. These images are before the final pre-plating step, which is a hot degreaser bath.. I have a cheap crockpot with orange zep that I heat up to around a hundred and let it soak for about 5 minutes or so to get any oil residue off. The final test before plating is to check how water runs on the surface of the piece. If it beads up, it needs to be cleaned better. The water should just sheet off.

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-It came out a bit duller than expected. So I may need to add some brightener to the plating tank. I also missed in the tank prep steps that I needed to run a sacrificial piece for about 30 minutes prior to plating anything. This was about 30 minutes in total of plating. Hopefully my next parts won't be as streaky. I still have to figure out a lot of the nuance of how the process works. You're definitely playing it by ear when setting up the power supply as the math gets you close enough, but you always end up needing to deviate in the current to get the plating just right

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-Prior to the yellow chromate process, I did a quick dip in the acid bath to etch the part. I watched a bunch of different youtube videos on the process, and the one I liked the most did a 3 second acid etch. Afterwards, I dunked the part in yellow chromate for about 30 seconds and hung it up to dry. The chromate takes around 24 hours or so to properly cure, so it can't be handled until then

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-It had already started to dry out and form the iridescent look that chromate has within about 15-20 minutes. I was worried that the chromate solution wasn't strong enough (bottle said to use 1/2 oz to 1 gal of water but the Caswell book said to use 1 oz per gal of water)

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-I compared the part to the factory ignitor bracket and I have to say that the match is pretty close. One thing I've seen with some people is that they go too heavy with the yellow chromate and the parts looks really dark and loses that iridescence. This process seems to match the factory look pretty well. I'll refine it a bit to get rid of things like the streaking

I have a metric butt load of bolts to plate now as well as attempting to do the fuel rail I picked up (thankfully I have two spares I can test on)

EDIT: Here's the youtube vid I followed the most. Guy does Datsun restos, too. So you know he's good peeps

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Hijacker
Posts: 14373
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

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Not now, Jerry. I'm entering full electroplating mode.

Have some before and after images

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-Coolant pipes under the intake manifold

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-Lower intake manifold bolts

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-Harness bracket on back of head intake side

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-Harness bracket on the block under the intake manifold

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-What I've dubbed the frog bracket that connects the fuel rail to the filter and return lines. The before picture is the only one I have where I was testing my plating process on a spare frog bracket that has a kinked line

The new Defi Advance BF gauges also came in

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Next step is to create an A Pillar gauge that will work with them. Nobody offers a non-auto seatbelt trim pod for the S13. I picked up a spare convertible A pillar trim and a GlowShift 60mm triple pod. The main downside to the triple pod is that it is too wide for the trim piece, so I don't know how much trimming and molding I can do to make it fit.

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You can see how much overhangs. It would be difficult to get this specific shape to fit

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-So enter SAAS. They only make one for RHD S14s, but I like the overall look and how clean it is. I think I can fab up some kind of pedestal to mount a 60mm cup to and mold that into the trim piece for LHD non-auto belts. This will probably be my winter project

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float_6969
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Joined: Mon Aug 26, 2002 1:55 pm
Car: CA18DET swapped 1995 Nissan 240sx (too many mods to list)
2015 SV Leaf w/QC & Bose (daily)
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The Caswell kit is what I used as well. I got similar results. It works very well. It looks like you already figured it out, but the streaking is from not saturating the solution before adding your parts. I also found that with flat parts, it helps to flip the part over or run 2 anodes.

Networked gauges are definitely the way to go! The wiring is soooo much easier.

What different on the vert a-pillar trim piece? I assume it just doesn't have the notch out of it? If so, could you use an auto-belt a-pillar gauge pod and then fill in the missing piece? IDK how you'd blend it and get the texture right, but it's an idea.


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