Some of you knew my brother, his handle was 480sx and he passed away in august 2009. He had a sincere love for Nissans and it was how he chose to make a living. His personal build was something he took a great deal of time with getting everything exactly right. It seemed like he had somewhat of a curse though, he had been through 4 motors with less than 500 miles driven. Before he passed, he had started to build another motor. He had spent a great deal of time and money in this build getting it exactly right. So I have had a built short block with forged internals laying around for the past three years, along with his pearl white 95 240. I will go into a more detailed list in a later post but some of the goodies include:
-One of 10 AMS turbo top mount exhaust manifold with a coating by swain tech
-Borg warner S258 custom turbo with a 63 exhaust housing.
- 850cc injectors.

Nearly three weeks ago I started to dive into restoring and rebuilding the car. I have some pretty awesome plans for it, and I intend it to be a streetable track car.
Here are some pictures of where I am so far.
The motor

Some goodies I got for Christmas Zeitronix Failsafe unit and Afr/boost/FP/Egt gauge

Bolt mayhem

Repainted and cleaned up bay and harness

The car

Injector harness cleaned up with new loom material.

Painting in progress (cell phone picture)

Powder coating the intake mani

Intake manifold before

So I am similarly ocd to my brother. I am trying to get everything perfect before I drop the motor in. Everything is powder coated, including the intake manifold, timing covers, pulleys, valve covers, brackets etc. I installed a EGT bung in the AMS manifold and a bunch of other little nick nacks. Before Christmas I placed a huge order from summit for AN fittings for the relocation and mocal oil/water cooler piping. I am probably going to run most of my vacuum lines in stainless steel piping. I also ordered a Sard r2d2 Bov, as that was his discharge valve of choice and I ordered a pro sport evo oil pressure gauge.

I will update this thread as I go along, hope you all enjoy. Wish me luck!

Looking forward to this one, J.

Me too man, me too.
Got back from the fams, thought I would go through the setup a little more detailed.
Motor internals:
Pro seal ring set
Crower H beam rods
CP pistons coated by Swain Tech dry lube on the sides, ceramic on the top
Cyllinder is .02 over
Rings have been gaped by a local machinist
Crank was hot tanked, balanced and micro polished
Hand lapped valves.
Sard side feed 850cc injectors recently sent to dworks, flow tested and patterned
New oem oil pump
Metal HG
arp studs
And all of the rotating assembly has been balanced
So I know the cams currently in it are 248/232, I don't know if they are a brand name or just cams from a different motor. Can anybody help with that?

I will be running a Mocal Laminova oil cooler that is cooled by the antifreeze system. I hope this will keep the oil at a more consistent temperature and viscosity. I would like to add an accusump and probably will be before I get it all together. Between Summit and a few other shops I just dropped nearly 500 bucks on hoses, an fittings. blow off valve and gauges so I need to recover. Also the Borg warner turbo was incomplete. I have the compressor and exhaust housing but no cartridge. That is going to set me back another 500 bucks. I will have the turbo built by a local shop owner that Nate was on real good terms with called 'tims turbos' in Virginia. I will be running a dual filter remote mount setup. It has a pre filter and a main filter. I will tap my oil pressure gauge into the adaptor plate in the block. The hose on the exhaust side of the bypass filter mount will go straight into the mocal cooler and then back to the block. That is the best configuration I could think of, trying to minimize having miles of 8an steel braided line. Still not sure where I intend to mount the oil filter unit itself, but that will hopefully become more appearant when I mount the motor. My turbo feed line will be ran from the adaptor plate on the block that covers the oil filter housing, it will be on the exhaust side of the filter so the oil going into the turbo will be filtered and cooled to a consistent temperature.

I will be using a stage 3 spec clutch kit and a lightened flywheel. When I get it running I have a LSD just not sure of what exactly I have. (Have 3 differentials laying around) I have new hubs and 300zx calipers that will be mounted and after that I will be looking for a set of coil overs. The motor and fuel system should be able to support in excess of 550 horsepower, however I am not sure where I will be most comfortable running it.

I do have a few questions that I have not had the time of researching. Maybe someone can help me here. I understand the relationship between fuel pressure and duty cycle with the injectors. However, I am not sure of where my starting point should be with the fuel pressure. Also, should I set the motor up for the stock KA timing when I go back together with it and then adjust from there? I also need to do some research on spark plug heat ranged and appropriate gap for this build. If you all could help me with one or any of those issues I would be very thankful.
Hope everybody's holidays were great.

Id run stock fuel pressure and stock timing. As far as plugs I've had good luck with the bkr7e plugs at 1.6 bar with an upgraded ignition system and 9:1 compression. what are you using for tuning?

Im going to be running an enthalpy tune. How do you go about calculating compression? I have heard different things, I have done a compression check on the motor, but don't know the other parts of the equation. What kind of upgrade did you do to the ignition? I was looking at the kenne bell boost a spark, but just not sure I want to spend that much money. I don't think this motor will see over 20 psi unless I end up being extremely confident in it.

I wouldn't recommend enthalpy, they tune pretty lean. Id hit my homie jason up @ecutunerguy.com. He does those same style tunes but is way better at it. As far as the compression ratio goes, as long as stock length rods were used (most likely the case) then its all on how the piston is made. It would have said on the box, or receipt for the pistons.

As an FYI for mounting the oil filter unit, you'll probably want to stick to the passenger side of the bay. However, I relocated my PS reservoir to the extreme corner of the bay (where firewall meets driver fender), which freed up a lot of space on that side.

There's a lot of "rearranging" to be done with a turbo KA setup.

I already had a enthalpy tune. I am having them plug it into a car and make sure the ecu is working properly. Its either the enthalpy tune or the MS 2 that nate was never able to get to work. At this point it has multiple broken connections on the pcb from getting thrown around. Also, on KA-t I started this thread when I was unsure if I was going to be able to get in touch with enthalpy. http://www.ka-t.org/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 36&start=0 And if you look at post 3 you will see what I am referring to. I doubt a mod would speak bad about a tuner without reason.

AZ, Yeah I am going to stick to the passenger side. It will probably be up front somewhere because the mocal cooler needs to go into the radiator hose. So maybe if I am able to put it on the side of the frame rail up in the corner below the fuse box? I am not sure yet. My power steering res is actually on the right side as you look at the motor, where did you mount yours? over behind the headlight?

Wow, dude really doesn't like him. lol. I've dealt with enthalpy on a ka, jwt on my fwd sr sentra, and many many tunes through jason. I've been doing business with jason for almost 10 yrs now. He has been able to give me tunes that jwt/enthalpy couldnt. Sure if enthalpy can run your car on a dyno and fine tune it then yea.... You could have a decent tune but for a mail order tune, jason by far has the most power, with the best throttle response. each to his own I guess, but I've seen and dealt with quite a few s*** tunes from both other companies. Each to his own I guess.

I am not making assumptions about his business practices, but when I see a user who represents a forum and makes a statement like that I have to pay heed.

Also, I don't think you can fairly say his tune makes more horsepower and has better throttle response than enthalpy. From what it sounds like you have one ecu that has been tuned by enthalpy. Nowhere near enough evidence to support a claim like that.

Regardless, I have a tuned ecu and the guy was nice enough to take it, figure out what the tune is currently and also hook the ecu up to a KA and make sure the ecu operates properly. Hopefully that will get me close enough where I can do a few dyno pulls and get a solid datalog and a retune. So until I get the balls to fix and install my megasquirt that will be the route I go. The build is capable of 600hp, which is more than enough for me.

Got a bunch of stuff from summit this evening and decided to go out and work on it a bit. Between 3 cups of coffee I talked myself into dropping the motor in. Did it by myself and honestly only took 30 or so minutes from the time I had the tranny mounted. The clearance on the bmc is tight. Thinking about making a heat shield and insulating the lines.

So today I tackled the remote mount. My brother had chosen to go with a dual bypass filter kit.
I am running AN8 fittings to it from my filter assembly cap. Mounted it under the fuse box with the filters extending through in front of the wheel. It will be covered by some sort of wheel well. Really happy with how it turned out though.



With it setup like this it will keep the hoses short and clean. It also allows me to keep the filters mounted upright so I don't lose 2 quarts of oil into my engine bay when I replace them. They are extended cycle filters, not really sure of the cycle time though.

this is going to be awesome

That's some legit coating on that manifold. I'm jealous.
Build looks awesome dude, I'm looking forward to it's progress.

Thanks man. I bought a 50 dollar harbor freight powder coating system and built an oven over the summer from an old carwash frame. Really simple stuff. Here is a picture a few minutes after I cooked the manifold.

And another picture of the oil plate assy finished. I put an oil sampling valve on the front and put my oil pressure sending unit up there as well. Had to make the steel diamond plate piece, didn't come with the kit

The oil pressure sending unit is directly behind the headlight for reference.

I got a call from enthalpy yesterday. I sent him two ecu's, one that had already been tuned for him to check and another in case the first was blown. Turns out a bug had cocooned on the board and blown the injector driver. He is switching the board out and testing the ecu for me to make sure it works. Hopefully I will have it in the next week and be able to fire it up.

Got a few things done this evening. Still a whole bunch of buttoning up. Should have the ecu this week and the new borg warner next.

man that is really clean...that shell was great do begin with too!..wish we had shells that good here in Vegas..are you going to run an MSD ignition system or something similar?

It is in excellent shape. That was one of the reasons my brother was so sold on the car. I think there is one door ding on the entire body and the paint is in flawless shape.

I am not sure which way I will go with the ignition. I am going to get it build and running first. I will keep the boost below 7 psi. There are two things I need to change. I am going to modify the stock fuel rail so that it is dual feed with a return in the middle of the two sets of injector bungs. I am also going to switch to my megasquirt and am thinking of going with individual coils.

coil packs are a pita in my humble opinion...im boosting 14 with my MSD, and have a smooth idle even with my 272 cams..the reason i asked mainly is they have the 7AL3 that can controll injectors allso. and a safe feature for lean issues that retards..im still reaserching it for the new model..so ya know..if your gona upgrade the brakes..you can now get brembo 4 pots for the same price as a z32 or q45 upgrade..that would really be a great addition to your sexy white lady there.

Already have everything I need to do the z32 brakes except lines and rotors. (better aftermarket anyways) But that project it quite a ways off. I am however thinking I will have it running by the end of next week. Been plugging away, got the mocal oil cooler and all the stainless oil feed lines for the bypass and cooler plumbed up.

Had to fab up a couple brackets.

Glad you're finishing Nates build. I had hundreds of long conversations with him on AIM about KA's and life in general. It's nice to see one of his dreams come to fruition. Hopefully you can keep it running longer than he did...lol. I remember one time he had just finished a build, fired up the motor and it seized almost right away. I don't know if he forgot the oil or had no oil pressure...he was pissed...lol.

Just my .02, there is no such thing as a perfect plugnplay ecu. They all could use some fine tuning. Which is easy enough to do if you have a SAFC.

Also, I never had ANY issues with the factory ignition system at all. The one for the S14 is much better than the S13. I wouldn't mess with it unless you started suffering from spark blow out, but I doubt you'll experience that at all. Good wires, plugs and plug gaping are where the money is for the S14.

That's a wicked cool easy-bake oven you made dude!

WDRacing wrote:Glad you're finishing Nates build. I had hundreds of long conversations with him on AIM about KA's and life in general. It's nice to see one of his dreams come to fruition. Hopefully you can keep it running longer than he did...lol. I remember one time he had just finished a build, fired up the motor and it seized almost right away. I don't know if he forgot the oil or had no oil pressure...he was pissed...lol.

Haha, he was hell on motors He would always get himself in a rush and forget one critical process or check, that always seemed to be his demise. I think the motor you were talking about was the time he put the bent camshaft in a good head. One the first two motors he neglected to connect his AFR gauge because he had lost his PC cable to connect to his datalogger. That would have tipped him off on the motor he blew up that had a bad injector driver in the ecu. That ecu was the ecu I sent to enthalpy. He said a bug had cocooned around the injector driver on the board and there was evidence of shorting.
So I have a plethora of gauges (that will all be operational) I had him actually stick the ecu in a Ka to make sure the ecu was operational as well. I know he has a brand new oem oil pump in it and will be monitoring oil pressure very closely.

Just my .02, there is no such thing as a perfect plugnplay ecu. They all could use some fine tuning. Which is easy enough to do if you have a SAFC.

[/quote] Yeah I do have an safc, I had actually taken it off his car so I will have to reinstall it and freshen up on operation of the unit.

Also, I never had ANY issues with the factory ignition system at all. The one for the S14 is much better than the S13. I wouldn't mess with it unless you started suffering from spark blow out, but I doubt you'll experience that at all. Good wires, plugs and plug gaping are where the money is for the S14.

This is what I am thinking at this time. I think I will wait until I have a problem with spark to do anything with the ignition system.
I have not gotten there yet, is the distributor on these things HEI or is there a separate coil?

That's a wicked cool easy-bake oven you made dude!

Thanks man. I actually did all the work myself. There are a few things I would change, and I need to put another burner in it so that it heats up faster, but for all intensive purposes it works very well. I built it from an old carwash frame we had laying around the house. The vents on the burners to outside air are 3" borla tips I had.

The coil is inside the distributor. You have to cut a brass tang and solder a wire to it in order to use an external coil. I did this in order to use a MSD BTM.

Good to know.

So I have to give major props to enthalpy. I sent my board away to him, he not only switched the rom to another ecu but the tune was a little off and he changed the tune for free. Martin was a stand up guy and really went beyond the call of duty for me. I highly recommend them




So I have a few questions, I cant figure out where this little control module goes, and also the plug near the starter that is covered in rubber. They seem like the type of plugs that should be used, just cant find a home for them.

I powder coated the fmic piping yesterday, came out pretty nice. Is it typical for the pipe that runs from the compressor to the FMIC to be a slightly smaller diameter than the pipe that runs from the fmic to the throttle body?

Cooler and Dif fan controller mounted.

Got the gauges mounted

So I went out a few minutes ago and plugged my consult unit into the port and when I turned the key flames shot out of it.. Interesting. The light still comes on, so it may be good. I had a similar experience with a Bluetooth obd2 scanner I bought from china, and it still works. Problem is, I cant open consult on my laptop, only on my desktop. (Get an e reader error on my new laptop and my friends) Are there any other full service freeware downloads out there?

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/668739/scantec ... 41Beta.zip

See if that works.
I get some errors when I run it, but everything works.

Nice

<adding this thread to my list>