Surprise! I've gotten more time to work on this car since my side job has taken a back seat.

So, this part is connected to the fuel tank. It's a "roll over" valve. Apparently Nissan thought it was a good idea to let air out if the car rolls over. I think it might also have something to do with if the tank sits too long without the car running, it lets out air.

Anyways, mine was broken, so anytime my car would sit for 2 weeks or so, whenever I would start it, the car would piss gas out the rear. Turns out this part was pissing out along with a fuel hose being cracked and leaking under pressure. NO WONDER MY CAR SMELLED OF FUEL. Finally fixed this and the car still smells rich, but not like pure gas anymore, just rich due to the tune.
So I decided to refresh the car. I got a new thermostat since mine was stuck open and the car could only heat up to 60c, a new shifter boot, and a ISR silicone radiator hose kit as my lower rad hose was cracked and just running gaffer tape over it. It turns out though, that the ISR CA18 kit does not fit!!! The top hose fits ok, could fit better, but the small hose which connects the T pipe to the engine and the lower rad hose both do not fit. The lower rad hose isn't long enough. They must have used a KA rad hose or something in this kit. I'm still looking for a kit to fit. I might just grab the Samco one, as I think that brand has a better reputation. I got a new o2 sensor for my AEM UEGO wideband. As a warning, DO NOT GET THE STOCK AEM REPLACEMENT. They are complete s*** and will crap out on you. Mine actually lasted quite a while, but died due to very rich environment. That said, I wasn't taking any chances, so I got Bosch 17321. Direct replacement and waaaaaaay cheaper. They're like $60 versus $130. Here's the old sensor. You can tell my engine was running very very rich. So, I also got my Power FC Commander screen replaced. I highly recommend talking to FC Hako to get a screen replacement. Way cheaper than buying a new one. Also I had him put in a white colored screen. The screen is bright and looks great. Here is a pic of my interior. I also stripped my NRG magnetic oil plug! The bolt head broke off. Luckily it took all pressure off the bolt and I could easily get the bolt out the pan without drilling. Thank god. That soft aluminum is very sensitive to torque. I've learned my lesson now! Bought a Cusco magnetic oil plug which is made of a little tougher aluminum, but now I will remember to torque it less.
Finally I was able to replace my fuel pressure regulator (FPR) with a Nismo one. I used two pressure gauges, one mechanical and the other was my interior gauge. Turns out my interior gauge was accurate. I was measuring 42 psi with the engine off. So 6 psi too high of the 36 psi it's supposed to be at. So I put in this Nismo FPR and set it to 36. The car actually runs better now. I had an 11.5 AFR at hot idle on my AEM UEGO. Now it reads 12.0 at hot idle. I always had a suspicion that my car was never tuned correctly due to the FPR weakening over time.

Next up is to install my Apexi AVCR boost controller. I'm still using a Greddy Profec B I because it's so simple to use. Only 3 knobs, low boost, high boost, and gain. My old tuner said the reason why my car wasn't making proper power was because the EBC wastegate simply couldn't hold the pressure properly. So this one should do much better. On to bigger and better things. Also, I plan on installing my dual catch cans that I never installed. In hindsight, probably should have done this long ago since it's so important on a CA. I even have press-in AN fittings for the valve cover and Saikou Michi catch cans. That said, I don't remember what the best routing is to do catch cans on a CA. I think I'm just going to each cam cover to their own catch can, and then vent each can to atmosphere. LMK your guys' thoughts on that.

If you're going to vent them to atmosphere, I'd suggest running a tube down under the car for the outlet. I've never found a can with a filter on the outlet that doesn't end up making an oily mess of the engine bay eventually.

float_6969 wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 20, 2023 9:33 am

If you're going to vent them to atmosphere, I'd suggest running a tube down under the car for the outlet. I've never found a can with a filter on the outlet that doesn't end up making an oily mess of the engine bay eventually.

Ah, good idea. Any +/- performance-wise for running atmosphere versus back into stock plumbing? I can't really think of anything off the top of my head.

NOT having to possibly call the Fire Dept. is one remote caution .ya ?

Uncle Jed says .....be SAFE NOW ...........................so your good to... " ride through Beverly Hills "

There's the potential for a small benefit running to atmosphere as the oil can build up on the intake plumbing and slightly reduce the octane rating off fuel. That being said, it's probably not even a measurable difference on a street car. I personally don't vent to atmosphere anymore. It make sense for a full on race car that's trying to squeeze every last horsepower out and spends tons of time at full throttle, but for a street car, it's not worth all the hassle. I'd rather have a clean engine bay and not have a car that smells bad inside while I'm driving it.

Good to note. The whole oily engine bay and underside of the car is a pretty good reason not to vent to atmosphere. I'll go with that one and see how it all works.

Can't wait for pics!

Small update.

I've been trying to fix my shift knob. The threads are stripped and have been since I bought the front clip back in...2012? Damn I'm old. So I bought a tap & die set. I've never rethreaded anything in my entire time owning this car, so I have no idea how to use this kit, but it seems like a very nice kit. All metric. That said, I tried to tap this shifter and the threads are way too gone. As I was rethreading with a M10x1.25 pitch, which is supposed to be Nissan thread pattern. Well, I thought about it and if a thread is too far gone, you gotta go down a size! Which also means you would need an insert in the shift knob. So instead, I just rethreaded and put electrical tape over the threads to grab better. Better than what it was, still spins the knob if you twist with somewhat hard force. I'm just going to get a short shifter. I see the Circuit Sport ones are adjustable height, and I like my shifter at stock level, maybe a little lower, but I've always hated short shifters like the ones in M3s. I also plan on getting GKTech shifter springs. I never knew shifter springs were a thing. Some S13s have really bad side-to-side play for the shifter, mine is alright but I would like it tighter and feel like a new car, so I'll be doing that when I change the shifter. I'll post pics of the process.

Anyways, just a little small side project I'll have to do. Next up is still the catch cans installed.

Sucks that you couldn't save the threads, but it happens sometimes. I have the B&M short shifter that I've had for AGES. It's great quality as well.

Hmmmm, looks like the website has some kind of error attaching image files. I'll update this thread when the website admin gets that fixed (hopefully they still pay attention to the website).

I got around to installing the Apexi AVCR boost controller. So out goes the Greddy Profec B I. It kind of looks like a radar detector sitting in the footwell like that, lol.


I decided to use the pocket below the radio. I cut out the back of the plastic so that the Apexi harness could go through the dash. I then mounted took out the back screws of the AVCR and installed L brackets, screwing them onto the AVCR and then drilling a hole in the plastic dash pocket. Attached with a bolt and nut inside the pocket and voila! Mounted boost controller!

Here is a comparison of the boost solenoid of the Greddy vs Apexi. As you can see, Apexi was wayyyy ahead of the game in the late 90s. The stupid thing is the Profec actually requires a hose to enter the cabin and plug into the back of the main controller unit. Apexi simply uses wires and that's it. No bulky hoses going through your rubber grommets to get into the cabin.

And here is the final product, mounted and with power! I personally like the black version of the AVCR. It's a tad more expensive than the more common silver & blue. These things now run $500!


So funny thing, I actually hooked this thing up wrong. The manual says to use a hose and attach the COM port of the solenoid to the wastegate, and NO port back to the intake manifold. I had it backwards. God I'm an idiot, lol. The controller was reading 0.85 kg/cm^2 (yes it reads in kg for some reason instead of bar or PSI) and I couldn't get it to boost any higher. I thought the duty cycle function was the problem. So I got it properly hooked up and it's now boosting as it should, hitting 1 Bar (14.7 PSI or 1.02 kg/cm^2 for all you nerds) at 75% duty cycle. Car still runs rich and the only difference I feel is that my Greddy was set to 12 psi on low boost, and this one is 14.7 psi. So it certainly feels faster but I know that's just cause I changed the low boost setting. High boost is set at 1.25 kg/cm^2 (18 PSI), which is what my tune was previously made for. I'm just not going to use high boost as I'm not sure if the boost is coming on faster, therefore feeding more air into part of the powerband faster than what the original tune was created for.

Anyways, I went to a big car meet hosted by the big Youtuber Larry Chen. Was pretty cool but I didn't take any pictures, although I saw a Evo VI Tommy Makinen Edition, probably the rarest car there. Ironically, I'm not a big picture guy and I even forget to take pictures when working on my car.

Next up is installing the silicone radiator hose kit when it gets here from Japan, installing GK Tech Roll Center Correction angle kit with Tein tie rods, dual catch can install, extra sub frame spacers, and purchasing that B&M shifter kit. Hopefully somewhere in there we'll get this thing tuned as well, then we'll see what this CA18 is really made of!

Radiator hose kit got put on back order until February of 2024 so I cancelled. Then I remembered that I thought the KA upper and lower radiator hoses fit for CA18. I checked the FAQ and I think I'm correct. So ordered a pair of those for much cheaper stateside. I'm an idiot, lol.

Not much else to report other than I organized my messy tool box and bought some M6 hex screws. Put it on my CAS as I only had 1 bolt holding that on. Looks much better now.

The KA hoses aren't exactly right, but they're close enough to work. I'm working on the image issue!

Yeah it looks like the upper hose is bent slightly different, but hopefully it's just a length issue. I'll document exactly what the differences are.

Pictures are fixed!

Picture time!

Ah! Those good ole' Japanese black boxes of goodness!

More news. So I had a coolant leak on the intake manifold. It cracked right near the front injector. So I've decided to replace all those small rubber hoses with silicone. Here's the small bees nest of pipes at the front of the intake, right under the throttle body. Mind you, this is what it looks like after my engine builder removed a ton of unnecessary piping. So the plan is to order HPS silicone tubing to replace all these rubber hoses.

I also got around to removing the upper and lower radiator hoses. I put on the KA24DE kit and it works! Just requires some trimming of the upper radiator hose. With that said, you can also use that trimmed hose to fit on the T joiner of the lower radiator hose that goes to the block! It all worked out I've been meaning to do this all for a while now, so it's good to get out of the way. Also, I got some very nice Norma clamps. These don't have holes but instead are a raised ratchet system. I believe these are made in Germany and are incredibly high quality. Best clamps I've ever seen and very rigid. They don't buckle under tension. So I'll be replacing all the clamps down there with these. That's all for now. More to come later!

I've had all silicone hoses for a few years and they're holding up great, even though they're just an eBay special. Those are great clamps as well!

Got all the new silicone hoses in! Here's what it looks like. The large U shape hose is a little loose but tightens up just fine with no leaks. With that said, the coolant line that flows right under the throttle body broke next to the throttle cable. So I had to plug that coolant line until I can get that welded.

Secondly, the car is running wayyy better than it was previously, and I believe it's because of my MAF cable having interference with the chassis. I shifted the cable and my AFRs climbed. I'm now sitting at properly 15.5 AFR at hot idle, which is something I haven't seen in a long time. The car should be running lean at idle with no load. When I took her out for a drive, AFRs looked much better, sitting at 14ish cruising and 11 getting into boost. The extended MAF when doing any of these engine swaps are notorious for being sensitive due to shielded wiring, so my guess is the wiring was just getting slightly grounded signal. Not really sure but kind of makes sense. I also ordered an FC Hako. Should be arriving in a couple weeks. I have a very sneaking suspicion that my tune is getting reset or corrupting, so now after I get a tune, I'm going to go into the ECU and save my file on my computer so that I have a clean file that I can upload at any time should I find that my tune changes and starts enrichening. Finally going to get to the bottom of this. One clue I found was that Power FC has a problem with ECCS relay powering down too fast, which doesn't allow the ECU to save it's state. Some people have been having a problem with car alarms being attached to the ECCS relay, which doesn't allow it to stay energized during shutdown. Now, this sounds like it's only a problem when changing the tune or file. I used to change the tune quite a lot through adjusting rev limit. I think the Power FC was overwriting the file every time I changed rev limit, and therefore corrupting the file table. That's just my theory. More to come later.

That's awesome that you got the AFR issue sorted! I also think it's cool you've stuck with the PFC. I had one for a short time. The stock tune was pretty damn good, but the lack of any local tuners and not being able to connect it to at PC at the time (This was in the early 00's) caused me to end up getting rid of it.

Installed my Saikou Michi catch cans today. There was a lot of talk about catch can configurations back in the day. I took that knowledge and applied it here!

This is a dual catch can setup, one for each side of the valve cover and entirely close-looped. Overall I'm satisfied with how it turned out, although I had some press-in AN fittings that didn't quite work as I think I needed to take off the metal extensions already present on the valve cover. I decided to just tighten the steel braided lines with a hose clamp and call it good. I tried fitting a aluminum intake pipe from the turbo, but turns out the SR20 kits don't work for some reason. It's at a completely incorrect angle as it snakes out from the turbo. I wish I could weld or had the space to learn. Ah well.

All that's left is to swap the lower radiator hose, as I think it's a bit too small and there's a slight kink in it, reducing the flow and making my temps erratic at lower RPMs. Turns out the KA silicone kit doesn't work properly.

More to come later.

Catch can setup looks great! There's ways to do it with a single, but IMHO, duals is the simplest way to do it.

Yea, the SR20 kit has never worked quite right on the CA. The closest I've come is the S14 SR20 kit, but even that isn't quite right.

Put in a small 2 inch aluminum pipe to extend off the lower section of the radiator hose. Now the hose sits much better and doesn't have a kink.

Also decided to replace my exhaust gaskets. Tired of my exhaust leak. I went with a Remflex thick gasket because I think the cat flange is slightly warped, which is creating a slight gap and wrecking my gasket seal. These Remflex gaskets are THICCC Here's the old gaskets. Definitely major leaks on both sides of the housing. Yes, those twisted two pieces were a single gasket! All the layers are coming apart. Had to fix my laptop since I have some tuning to do soon. Luckily I paid attention in all those computer classes! The FC Hako is here from Australia! This little thing will let me into the ECU tables. Alright, so here comes the bad news. I erased my old map on the ECU. Sadly the tune was from 2015 or something, so I don't think my old tuner has the file. Who knew that the button in FC Edit called "Initialize" was to erase and set everything to default??? Terrible word to choose.

Anyways, the car still seems to run with the default tune from Apexi, but now I definitely can't drive the car at all until it's time for the tune. More to come soon.

Those Remflex gaskets are great! My old work vehicle was a 1999 Chevy C2500 w/the 6.5L Turbo Diesel. They're INFAMOUS for the passenger side exhaust manifold warping and getting an exhaust leak. For a while, you couldn't get new manifolds anymore and I couldn't find anyone locally who was willing to mill it to flatten it back out. So I tried one of those Remflex gaskets. Thing worked perfectly! It was still in there holding fine years later when I sold it last year.

So I finally found a tuner that can still tune Power FC. Apparently this guy has tuned Daigo Saito, Taka Aono, and many other drifters. The place is called Unrivaled Tuning.

With that said, I've been recommended to get an R35 MAF for the tune to replace my Z32. I've been reading up and they're supposed to be more stable and the resolution can be customized by the size of the housing the MAF is placed in. The R35 MAF is removable from the housing, so you can place it in any type of pipe. People are also saying that their cars are running smoother with the newer MAF (SR & RB guys). Part number is Hitachi MAF0031 And since I'm changing the air component of my motor...might as well do spark! NGK R8 coils. If I have a problem with my car running too rich, maybe my burn isn't as complete as it can be and it's just my guess but maybe I'm leaving power on the table. Also, 30 year old CA18 coil packs are probably weak as all hell. I watched the Motive video comparing all coil packs and the S15 SR20 packs ranked the worst, so I can't imagine CAs are better, lol. I've also been running the NGK platinum spark plugs, as my car refused to accept the coppers for some reason. They would massively backfire and sputter no matter what gap I put on them.
https://youtu.be/4d3nrBZjYKA?si=GFrVkltP-RjWOg7C

I've also been doing some light reading and the consensus seems to be that these R8 coils like to be around 2.0-2.8ms dwell timing. I have heard that CA guys had success just dropping them in without changing dwell timings, so I wouldn't be overly concerned with changing it.
[references]
https://support.haltech.com/portal/en/k ... ition-coil
https://www.hpacademy.com/forum/general ... -settings/
https://www.50ignite.com/assets/files/C ... owerFC.JPG

The range is obviously quite a bit considering 2-2.8ms is a fair bit. I'll be running 2.5ms given that both the tuning sites are saying 2.0-2.5ms (at 14v) and that these coils have high amp draw, and an old wiring harness like mine might want to not crank these up too high. I'll be using the dwell calculations that I've found on various forums which have converted dwell timing in ms to crank angle that the Power FC reads.
y=.006 x RPM x Target Dwell
y= crank angle (the number that goes into Power FC)

Here are my calculations and settings for 2.5ms dwell The R8 coils. Part number NGK U5014 And of course the wiring harness from Wiring Specialties to go with it. Also, I've been fiddling with the Power FC map. I actually got my hands on a CA18 base map. All I changed on it were the injector settings, putting them at about 51%, as I'm running about double the size injectors compared to stock. The car backfires slightly but I'm more attributing that to oil spilled in cylinder 1 and 2 from my catch can hose. I've now just reverted the breathing system back to stock until I can get everything else sorted to eliminate known causes, but it was incredibly strange to find a slight pool of oil on top of the spark plugs. I'm thinking the PCV system didn't like my hose routing, so maybe it pushed out from the breather on top of the valve cover? Or maybe the valve cover gasket gave way to the pressure? No idea at this point.

More to come soon.

I've been running the R8 coils for a few years and I'm pretty happy with them. They've never done anything but work perfectly!

Removed the old coilpacks. As you can see, I already replaced one. So surely the other three were not much better.
Installed the new NGK R8 coils. The plug that goes into the rest of the stock wiring harness had some difficulty fitting, possibly due to newer pins, but with a little bending they fit right in. They look so pretty!
I highly recommend anyone with stock coilpacks to upgrade to R8. The cost is very cheap nowadays and this entire conversion probably ran me about $250 USD. I've adjusted dwell to 2.5ms and the car runs like butter now. Previously the car was a tad slow revving from 1k at idle, now I've noticed better response. Obviously I've not really got to test the car out in boost as I'm still running a base map, but I can tell she's really feeling these coils. Also I increased spark plug gap on these BCPR6ES to 1.1mm (I think these plugs may even come at that in the box). Absolutely no misfires or sputtering. We'll see how she gets on during boost, but this'll just be information I give to my tuner. If the spark doesn't blow out at 1.1mm gap, that will be pretty incredible, as I should be running 18 psi or thereabouts I'm going to guess. My old coil packs couldn't even run coppers, let alone 1.1mm gap. Also, if anyone is concerned about running these without a cover bracket, the coils fit very snug on the spark plugs and the only reason to run a bracket would be to keep debris out the wells. If you live somewhere dusty, definitely run a cover bracket. I may get one later or just fab one up myself with sheet metal.

https://www.ssautochromeinc.com/turbo-d ... pe-de-cat/
I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get a 3 inch downpipe and turbo outlet pipe. The downpipe I'm currently running is 2.5 inch and just doesn't match up well to the 3 inch cat and exhaust thereafter, as that is what's causing problems sealing. I've been looking at downpipe and turbo outlet combinations on the market and the CA18 just has zero options aside from SSautochrome, which we've discussed multiple times for being very hit or miss on this forum. I may just have to buy it, but they now only sell a downpipe with decat length. So I'll need to chop that off, shrink the size and reweld, and make sure the flange matches up to the turbo outlet pipe.

https://www.ssautochromeinc.com/turbo-d ... 0sx-rs13u/
https://www.ssautochromeinc.com/turbo-d ... dump-pipe/
The only thing I'm wondering is SSautochrome makes a "Trust style" turbo outlet and then a regular one. Not sure what "Trust style" means, but I'm assuming there's a divider for wastegate exhaust. The pictures suck a** on their website so you can't see anything. Also, the pipe looks too short to even truly affect anything if there even is a divider inside, so I may just get the regular one. Not sure.

Anyways, more to come soon and hopefully a tune schedule.

Do you have a muffler shop locally that can do mandrel bends? If so, just buy the flanges online an have them make the pipe. I've had good luck with that. You could even buy the mandrel bends online and just have them use that to weld everything up.

Well what do we have here?
I decided to get a Tomei turbo outlet instead. Funnily enough XSPower/SSAutochrome gave me a refund when I tried to purchase their outlet. Probably because they don't make it anymore or something. So I said screw it, I'm going full SR20. So this is an SR20 outlet and I have a SR downpipe on the way.

The nice thing about this Tomei elbow is that it's fully cast.
As you can see, no welds! This thing is a UNIT! The quality looks to be incredible. The inside of it is incredibly smooth. Not port & polish smooth, but close! Much better than traditionally cast. I guess they do a process called "lost wax". Also another interesting part of this piece is it has a divet on the side, presumably for the transmission housing. Now I'm not sure if the CA runs into the same problem, but that was something I was considering when looking for another elbow. Once the downpipe arrives, we'll toss this on and see how it all lines up. Hopefully they're the same length all said and done. This has always been the bottleneck of my entire exhaust, so it will be nice to get a full 3 inch from outlet all the way back. Technically this outlet is 2.8 inch, but I've got to assume they didn't make it 3 inch for a reason, maybe fitment issues, also hence the divet.