DJZ

Passed my warrant. Car feels much much better with the new springs all round, just need to do something about the ride height. It doesn't look like it's come up much at the front but I think it's come up about 30mm in the rear if the cert plate is accurate. It's still not as bad as the DR though! Also bought these off Kane, they are pretty sweet and I'm sure they are genuine Nismo ones, they are cool because they have hinges so you can lift them up to clean under them etc without having to remove them completely. Won't be fitting them to the car till I get some new headlight buckets sorted and painted, they are both cracked. I can't understand why anybody would go to the trouble of trying to fix them with more fibreglass instead of just replacing them.

Chances of them being tapered and not a metric thread are pretty slim, what calipers are you using again?

The one down here that I can think of had a pushrod Nissan V8 in it, a Y40 or Y44? Err see here maybe? //oldschool.co.nz/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=12732

Ah I see now. Burnt valve or damaged seat? It's still a fair amount of compression so it can't be that rooted? Can you see anything if you look down the port?

Do you think it's a bent valve or is it jammed in the guide? I don't know much about Ford motors but I'm assuming it's push rod? Have you had the rocker cover off?

Changed the front springs to 10Kg ones, haven't driven it yet, possibly tomorrow. Coming up due for a warrant just before the Datsun Club Nationals so will have to see about getting it in this week. Also adjusted the brake master cylinder push rod a little bit, the pedal still had a little too much travel for my liking. Will also bleed the brakes to see if they get any better.

Was round at my mates today loading one of his R30 wrecks onto a trailer and after running over 2 of my toes with a trolley dolly I thought I'd grab the missing bits to fix the rear bumper being loose on the DR, was a 2 minute job to remove them from the HR30. Got home, had a quick look at the DR and of course it's completely different. Ended up removing the bumper and pulling the whole thing to pieces. Lots of rusty bolts, I broke 2 off that are part of the clamp for the top of the bumper (the bits on the rag in the 2nd picture), there were 8 or 10 bolts holding it together so I flagged fixing them, weight reduction yeah? Replaced all the other bolts with staino ones and put anti seize on them, I doubt I'll ever have to pull it apart again but if I do everything should come undone nice and easy. The bumper bolt that was missing was actually broken off, I took the bracket off, drilled out the spot welds for the nut, tacked a new one on and painted it, fitted a new staino bolt and put everything back together. There was a little bit of rust here and there under the bumper so I treated and painted that at the same time. Also removed the number plate to have a look at what was going on underneath, the awesome people that imported and registered this had for some reason cut this number plate frame in half and fitted it under the new number plate, no idea why.

I don't think you'll ever find a "good" set of guards, they are pretty much all rooted, either at the bottom, around where the guard mirrors used to be or along the lip. Unless you buy some fibreglass ones.

I very vaguely remember when I had my car tuned they had to move the speedo from one output to another (maybe output 1 or 2?) as the one I had picked would only display up to like 90K on the speedo.

The start of something awesome? Maybe!

We've got a few at work you can have, not heaps though.

Well it's taken most of the day but I've got the wideband 95% installed. Just need to take it down to work to chassis punch the hole in the floor a little bit bigger to get the plug through, I had all but one of the pins in the plug out but I just couldn't get the last one to move. I spent ages trying to figure out a way of mounting it where I didn't have to cut anything or drill any holes. It's screwed to one of the mounting screws for the surround with a little aluminium bracket, it's pretty sturdy and I don't think it looks too bad. I popped out the air con button as it's got no aircon now so that's the hole the wires are running through.

Got the turbo on tonight, initial test drive seems good - it's holding boost much better than previously it looks like the actuator is around 0.35 bar which is around 5psi. The boost controller probably needs to be reset as it was set at 0.50 bar but doesn't seem to be trying to get to that. Car feels like it has a little bit more torque, it's a bit hard to tell. Feels slower due to the lack of boost, I need to install the MTX-L wideband gauge I got from Zac then see about winding it up, I'll have a go at that tomorrow. The MTX-L is pretty cool and it has a narrowband output so I can run that to the computer and it'll be just like having the factory O2 sensor there.

Hmm something didn't look right when I investigated the wastegate flapper position. Not too sure what was going on, it looks like the tube piece the wastegate flapper runs it had been pushed into the flapper housing which is the cause of the sticky flapper too, I should have thought about this earlier as I think when Zac and I were dicking around with the last one we found one the tube can move in a out with a little bit of persuasion. I got it pretty much back into the correct position then ported the crap out of it, probably slightly too much as the puck was catching just on the edge of the hole closest to the flapper rod, I managed to get it into a position where it wasn't touching so hopefully it's all good. Old turbo vs. new turbo, it's a little bit bigger but not much. I ended up swapping the FJ turbo exhaust housing on to the T3/4 as the VG30 exhaust housing didn't have a O2 sensor bung and I don't want to drill the exhaust just yet. Everything is all lined up and ready to be put back together, I need to grind a little bit off the engine mount just to make it easier to get the turbo on and off, it'll fit but it's tight the way it is. Need to find a 2.5" to 3" reducer for the compressor inlet, I think I've got one somewhere from when I had it on the RB.

Finally back in our house after 5 weeks of "earthquake" repairs. Pulled the turbo off last night to try and sort my overboosting/wastegate flapper stupidness. Had a look at fitting the T3/4 that I had on the red top RB and it's actually going to fit pretty much perfectly. I forgot that it's got a watercooler centre section as well, I'm not going to hook them up at the moment but that's something I can do later on. So to get it on I have to have a look at the wastegate flapper position, Zac and I mucked around with it when we fitted it to the RB, I loosely put the flapper housing on the exhaust housing and with a torch shining into the exhaust inlet I can see a little bit of light so it's not quite sealing up, will put some bearing blue on it tomorrrow and try and figure out whats going on. Other than that it's just clocking the housings to get everything in the right position, make sure the wastegate actuator is going to fit still and find a couple more silicons the right size as the compressor inlet and outlet are bigger than stock. The oil lines bolt up the same as the original turbo and the downpipe will still fit, easy as! I've been looking at making a stock position thin wall stainless manifold too, I know a lot of people frown upon thin wall manifolds but the Chinese one on the Z has actually been alright since I fixed it and we've got a bender at work than can actually bend it reasonably nicely, I need to get a head flange (about $90 from Autobend), a T3 flange and some more tubing. The tubing is quite cheap, around $20/m for 1.5" diameter 1.5mm wall thickness.

I'm keen on the dizzy if you want the other bits? Sump is a turbo one so is a good score. I'm jealous of your aerial too! Mine is long gone.

Yeah man, if you want to drop it off sometime I'll sort it.

Ours is a small one like this, I can have a measure up tomorrow if you want? I've gotta pick up one of the cars sometime in the afternoon.

What diameter are they? We've got a small bearing puller plate thing at work.

Is that a spark plug lead fitted instead of a coil lead?

A Z32 VG30DE doesn't have a distributor and the loom looks pretty separate, his motor/loom/ECU is sitting at my work at the moment.

A supercharged 3.8 Commodore motor is apparently only 221hp. The VGs are only single cam per bank, probably low compression and low boost too, they are a truck motor after all.

How about a VG33ER supercharger?

Keep in mind you will need to pay for certification and the other costs associated with it (drive shaft hoops etc etc).

It's easy man, I've never had a column shift box apart though but I can't see the bellhousing being any different. You need an RB bellhousing then you just have to bush one shifter rod hole and fit the bigger C series countershaft bearing.