Well! I guess I can say that Nismo_Freak was right and you’re not really close til you’re driving it. In my case I did drive it and it actually put me further away from the joy of being happy with my newly self-rebuild ride. (See here: zerothread?id=133450)
Well, now she has about 80 miles on her since yesterday finishing up rebuild, and she sounds great. Except for a damn vacuum leak somewhere in the intake manifold, I think it’s the injector o-rings sucking air in, because they are a little older and don’t seal like the should. That’s ok, I’m just breaking her in on the stock 270cc, then I’m going back to the 460cc RX-7 ones, and those have brand new o-rings and seals. The crappy thing is that the car spent about half a tank going those 80 miles, and I’m not sure why. Is this normal for newly re-built engines? Is my O2 sensor shot? I leaned it out a little bit (5% from 1.5k to 3k) with the SAFC, but I don’t think I should have. This could be because of the vacuum leak, right?
Another thing is that I didn’t realize just how stiff my newly made (polyurethane glue/paste) engine/transmission mounts would be. It’s pretty rough especially on idle, the booming deep engine rumble is pretty bad inside the car. When I get over 2.5k it’s not bad so highway is just regular exhaust noise (which is not too bad since the turbo muffles pretty good). Outside the car is much quieter than it seems when you sit inside and are overpowered by the engine vibrations at idle.
Well, with the giant radiator, when not using a fan it doesn’t overheat while driving, but the temps go up a bit at stoplights. So I let it warm up w/out a fan and then turn it on when I start driving. I think I’ll get one of those temperature probes that turn the fan on as soon as a certain temperature is reached. Anyone know of a cheap one?
I taped two magnets to my oil filter to let it collect the crud that amounts as the rings wear in, so far both my oil changes showed very clean oil with lots of microscopic metal shavings in it. You know what I mean, like the oil itself is not brown, but when you see it, it has stuff in it. It’s in one of the pics in the above posted link.
I’ve disconnected the wastegate actuator for now, so the WG is always open, because I’m breaking it in, I’ll start boosting it after this tank of gas (which was full yesterday and is now half empty after 80 miles) is done and I change the oil again.
Ok here are some pics of the engine bay:Turbo side
Turbo side 2
Intake side
Could I BE any happier
My new (20 years old) shiftknob from Russia, the frikkin thread pattern is the SAME as on a Russian car from the 80s! It’s amazing.
Thanks all who helped and gave advice, please continue to do so, you guys are great!
sil80
Modified by sil80drifter at 3:44 PM 9/3/2005
IT DRIVES AGAIN!
-
sil80drifter
- Posts: 1313
- Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2002 5:53 am
- Car: 1990 240SX Hatch
Re: IT DRIVES AGAIN! (sil80drifter)
What did you do with the valve cover? Just polished? Looks darn good!
-
DRIFTEADOR
- Posts: 706
- Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:17 am
Re: (S13FX)
whoa a condom? how'd you get that from ceramic coating
looking good, love the rose knob
btw, did you polish the cover yourself or bought it like that
looking good, love the rose knob
btw, did you polish the cover yourself or bought it like that
NICE job man!! Really clean install, and I'm diggin' that bottom mount exhaust mani. Argh, makes me jealous but I gotta congragulate you dude- you've waited so long and finally things are just about ready. Only advice I can give you is dont let yourself relax just yet! Keep giving your motor little checkups every now and then, I did that a few times with mine, and each time I found little problems that could have turned into big ones.
Sweet though dude, I wanna see it in person!
Sweet though dude, I wanna see it in person!
-
Florida240sx
- Posts: 11114
- Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2004 7:17 am
- Car: 1993 Nissan 240SX Hatch 5spd
2012 Nissan Altima S coupe 2.5 - Location: DeLand FL
-
sil80drifter
- Posts: 1313
- Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2002 5:53 am
- Car: 1990 240SX Hatch
Thanks a bunch you guys, I appreciate your comments and... inappropriate (hah!) remarks. She's got about 310 miles on her, got 230 miles out of the first tank (even with the first 80 miles eating 8 gallons).
Fiz, thanks for the reminder, I do check the car at every stop, to see if itleaks or what not, but it's good to get a kick in the butt every once in a while, cuz the hard work is worth nothing if I'd let something stupid (cam bolt?lol) happen to it and it blew up. If I have some time next week, I'll AIM you and see if we can find some time to chill, mayeb I'll even boost a pound or two by then. The CT ppl need to get together anyway, what's up with that?
It's not a condom, the manifold and turbo are coated with ceramic paint from Autozone. It's this new stuff they have for $8 per can, it is ceramic based and withstands up to 2000 degeres. I just hated the look of old cast steel on the manifold and turbine side of the turbo which turned rusty colored after boosting a bit, it made the whole turbo setup look beat up and...eh.
The valve cover is painted with another autozone paint which is supposed to be a chrome paint (the cap on the can is bling bling), but in reality just comes out to a nice aluminum shine, and since I cleaned and brushed the valve cover before I painted it, if it chips, it won't be noticeable
Anyway, I switched to 20W50 oil because the 10W30 was running too thin (pressure was 30psi at 3k rpm, which is better than before I shimmed the oil pump, but still bad), and now it's around 50psi when the car is fully warm. I think I'll have to shim the regulator some more, because the rocker arms start clattering a little too much whenthe car is idling.
Other than that, it kinda heats up a little too much for an engine that runs such a huge radiator and has a gutted thermostat. On the highway (with the fan on) the temps stay aroun 170-180, and when it's reall hot and I'm in traffic, they start creeping up to 200.
Odd, huh?
sil80
Modified by sil80drifter at 2:28 AM 9/4/2005
Fiz, thanks for the reminder, I do check the car at every stop, to see if itleaks or what not, but it's good to get a kick in the butt every once in a while, cuz the hard work is worth nothing if I'd let something stupid (cam bolt?lol) happen to it and it blew up. If I have some time next week, I'll AIM you and see if we can find some time to chill, mayeb I'll even boost a pound or two by then. The CT ppl need to get together anyway, what's up with that?
It's not a condom, the manifold and turbo are coated with ceramic paint from Autozone. It's this new stuff they have for $8 per can, it is ceramic based and withstands up to 2000 degeres. I just hated the look of old cast steel on the manifold and turbine side of the turbo which turned rusty colored after boosting a bit, it made the whole turbo setup look beat up and...eh.
The valve cover is painted with another autozone paint which is supposed to be a chrome paint (the cap on the can is bling bling), but in reality just comes out to a nice aluminum shine, and since I cleaned and brushed the valve cover before I painted it, if it chips, it won't be noticeable
Anyway, I switched to 20W50 oil because the 10W30 was running too thin (pressure was 30psi at 3k rpm, which is better than before I shimmed the oil pump, but still bad), and now it's around 50psi when the car is fully warm. I think I'll have to shim the regulator some more, because the rocker arms start clattering a little too much whenthe car is idling.
Other than that, it kinda heats up a little too much for an engine that runs such a huge radiator and has a gutted thermostat. On the highway (with the fan on) the temps stay aroun 170-180, and when it's reall hot and I'm in traffic, they start creeping up to 200.
Odd, huh?
sil80
Modified by sil80drifter at 2:28 AM 9/4/2005
-
sil80drifter
- Posts: 1313
- Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2002 5:53 am
- Car: 1990 240SX Hatch
Crap. Shimming the oil pump some more didn't help.
I don't understand why it would act up like this. I put 6 washers in it (3 before and 3 now) and the oil pressure is still around 35-40psi at 3k rpm and above, and does not go higher at ALL, no matter how high I rev the engine (I didn't go over 4k afraid I may damage the bearings). I'll get a stock pump tomorrow from PepBoys and see if it's the pump itself or something about my engine. I mean, there are plenty of guys out there running stock oil pumps with turbo setups and don't seem to have any problems with oil pressure. So maybe it's just that pump I got (for a 280Z, supposedly higher flow) that happened to go bad. Doesn't sound likely.
What else could cause a drop in oil pressure? All my bearing clearances were well within spec. The only thing that is not stock is the oil feed line for the turbo. It does have a restrictor so it shouldn't be taking away THAT much pressure from the overall system.
Any ideas guys?
sil80
I don't understand why it would act up like this. I put 6 washers in it (3 before and 3 now) and the oil pressure is still around 35-40psi at 3k rpm and above, and does not go higher at ALL, no matter how high I rev the engine (I didn't go over 4k afraid I may damage the bearings). I'll get a stock pump tomorrow from PepBoys and see if it's the pump itself or something about my engine. I mean, there are plenty of guys out there running stock oil pumps with turbo setups and don't seem to have any problems with oil pressure. So maybe it's just that pump I got (for a 280Z, supposedly higher flow) that happened to go bad. Doesn't sound likely.
What else could cause a drop in oil pressure? All my bearing clearances were well within spec. The only thing that is not stock is the oil feed line for the turbo. It does have a restrictor so it shouldn't be taking away THAT much pressure from the overall system.
Any ideas guys?
sil80