DJZ

The clutch should be fine, I was running an RB30 flywheel and clutch on mine. You might have to get a shorter release bearing carrier. The N42 heads are pretty good, the exhaust flow is their main down fall though. Kyteler, I was using a 2mm Nismo (HKS?) metal gasket on mine, I'm not sure if you can still get them, I think MSA sells a different brand, maybe Tomei now? When I last looked they were about 50% more expensive than when I bought mine.

Early L20A and all L20ET (as far as I know) rods are shorter than L28 rods for when you are building a 3.1L, they are the same length as L24 rods, they should have 9mm rod bolts from memory. Late L20A motors are odd ball, smaller journal diameters etc etc With a decent balancer & cam the L24 would probably rev to 8 grand without any other work, for a while anyway I used to rev my unbalanced 3.1 to 7200 (and sometimes slightly higher) with a heavy clutch/flywheel and a standard 3 row balancer.

You can get it here: http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/enginemodellingsoftware/lengine.zip One of the Oz Datsun websites also had a web based one which was interesting, it had more engines in it (like RB, VG etc). One of them had a problem with the length of the L20 rods, can't remember which though.

Don't take this the wrong way but it's a lot of money to spend on a motor that probably won't make any more power than an L28 with flat tops and a decent cam. If you want it to last any length of time you're going to need forged pistons and a very good (expensive) harmonic balancer.

How high are you planning on revving it?

Crank handle through the front bumper? Mount the starter motor to the gearbox like a VG30DETT?

So when you only have one going car what's the obvious thing to do? Pull it apart! I thought I'd give upgrading the alternator a go. I've had the old one of the L31 lying around since I pulled that apart, it's a 90 amp unit off possibly a VQ of some sort? I've had the pulley swapped from a multi rib to a v belt pulley for when it was on the L series. It's pretty similar to the original unit, the top mounting bolt hole is offset to one side and it's actually further towards the pulley than the original which caused a bit of grief. The original unit looks very similar to an L series one, this one is a 60 amp and going by the other sticker on it it's either been rebuilt or replaced at some stage. The new alternator uses a different style of plug, I made up an adaptor for when it was in the Z. You can see the main output post at the bottom, this is also causing a bit of grief as it's an 8mm stud where the original is tiny - possibly 4 or 5mm. The original wire that runs from here to the fuse box is also quite small, I'll probably replace it with something a bit bigger. I'll take some photos later on when it's going again, I have to go down to Repco to get some more terminals etc. The alternator is all mounted using a modified L series adjustor and the original v belt. It's not the easiest to adjust but it should be alright.

To add to the never ending list of things I keep finding wrong with this thing, after trying the R31 companion flanges, flipping the bearing cage on the right hand out CV to shorten the axle a little bit and replacing the back pads I've now developed another noise from the right hand rear, it's hard to describe but seems to be when the shock is extending after hitting a bump etc. I've had a bit of a poke around for that and the only thing I can find is that possibly the brake pads are loose in the caliper due to one of the removable slider plate things was a bit broken or possibly the piston hasn't advanced fully due to the rubber boot on it not being in the right place? I'm trying to find another slider plate thing. Also while investigating this noise I thought I'd check out the loose wheel bearing that the guy noted on my warrant sheet last time (also the right rear). Jacked it up the other day and had a feel, definitely some movement. Drop the axle off and tighten up the nut a bit more, still movement, tighten it up more and more (the torque range for this nut is pretty big) got to about 220ftlb and there was still movement. I replaced the bearings when I fitted the 5 stud hubs originally which was about 3 years ago so this seemed a little strange? Pulled that whole side apart tonight, knocked the hub out extremely easily which made me sad. Took the bearings out and the inner bearing pretty much just drops onto the hub with no force required, they should be press fit from what I understand. I also found some strands of metal shavings on the inside of the control arm between the two bearings which is a bit worrying, I'm going to be replacing the bearing spacers and bearings, I'll give the bearings a good clean at work tomorrow to see if I can find out where the metal has come from. Basically it means one of my 5 stud hubs is rooted. I'm in the process of buying another pair which hopefully aren't worn, I'll have a chat to the guys at HBI and see if they can think of a way of fixing it, possibly machining it back and fitting a sleeve which I can tack in place (even though you aren't supposed to weld axle parts I don't think). The other way might be metal spraying but I don't really know anything about that. The good news if I can get it fixed is I'll have a full set of 5 stud hubs for the DR now! Also I got a pair of spare 8Kg springs from my mate out of the front of his S13, they are 40mm shorter than the rear springs in my car which are 6Kg but I might try and fit them and see if I can get the height etc right with them. It's basically just to test whether I can stop the companion flanges hitting the body before I have to go and buy new front springs too.

It'll physically fit in the block but from a very vague memory the snouts are different lengths and it possibly might have a different bolt pattern for the flywheel?

Decided to upgrade the fuel pump wiring today. Spent ages trying to figure out which of the original relays was the fuel pump one, had it narrowed down to 2 then I found this: So I unplugged the relay, found the pin that is the switch +12, mounted another relay, connected it up to the battery, ran the wiring from the relay to the pump and yay, now my pump is really noisy - it must be getting a lot more juice that before. Only problem is I think it must be back feeding through the relay as the fuel pump will come on when I turn the key on with the immobiliser turned on, I think a diode should solve this. This is the size of the original fuel pump wiring (the blue wire is positive) compared to the new wiring. You can see a hole has been drilled near the bung, so it's possibly had a non original fuel pump in it at some stage before? Can't see any other reason for drilling a hole in the floor there and sanding back the paint.

You can have the most accurate tool in the world but the monkey using it is still a monkey.

I hope that pictures not of your accessory belt.

Sorry for shitting up your thread man. Anyway, back to the car. That front crossmember looks massively large, I'm assuming the L23 had a front bowl sump? You might end up with the motor interfering with the crossmember or the drag link by the looks of it?

As long as he doesn't want to be Takumi and rev it to... 9GsgwQpj57c But anyway, if you've got it on more than half way just do it up and torque it to spec.

I know Repco keep it, it was expensive when I worked there though.

L series to RB, it's evolution baby. Depending on the SR20 they only look to put out as much power as an N/A L28 anyway, but you are going to have to get it certified no matter which way you go unless you fix the L23. How much work is it actually going to be if you dump all the L23 stuff including the trans and put an L26, L28 etc in it? Do the engine mounts need to be changed?

Are they BBS wheels? I got some wheel bolts (not actual studs) for mine from: http://www.tunershop.com/

On to the next round of problems. So after the barbeque yesterday I went to visit Zac at Repco and let him take it for a drive, we discovered it seemed to be detonating a little bit which I hadn't heard before, this along with it feeling faster than it should made me suspicous so I thought I'd have a look at the wastegate actuator piping today. Also the factory boost gauge stopped working yesterday so I thought I'd investigate that too, turns out the vacuum line on it had broken. Trying to get the wastegate vacuum line off was a pain in the ass so I thought maybe if I take the actuator off it'll help, took the R clip off the wastegate flapper and pulled the rod off and hello, the wastegate flapper won't move. Looks like after sitting for a year it'd rusted shut and I've been free boosting it pretty much. I sprayed the crap out of it with CRC and knocked on flapper rod around a bit with a small hammer and managed to get it free. It's still a little tight but hopefully that will improve now that it's moving, the only other option is removing the turbo which I don't really want to do right now, I'll save that for when I upgrade it. I had to remove the O2 sensor to get the hammer in there and low and behold the ceramic part of the O2 sensor is completely smashed which seems to have been the rattling sound that I couldn't identify, it sounded like maybe a washer was stuck under heat shield. The only sensor I had lying around was the one from the RB20 which I don't really know the condition of, it seemed to rattle a little bit if I held onto the washer, might have to buy a new one at some stage. I've jammed the RB one in there for the moment so we'll see how that goes.

Yeap, indeed it was. We were having a fund raising barbeque for the Datsun Club.

It's all good, i bought rego online at about 6pm but the system looks like it doesn't update very fast. I've got 2 weeks to take the rego form into a cop shop and I'll get off it. It was a lady cop, she was pretty good about it.

Haha, almost made it 4 hours without getting pulled over.

Warranted and just about legal! I cocked something stupid up which I had to waste two nights this week trying to fix but it's all good now Have some of these on the way (thanks James). Not too sure I'm going to use them for this but we'll see.

Bleed the brakes and filled the diff back up with oil. Put the rest of the interior back together, after reassembling the headlight switch I turned them on to see if it was fixed, walked around to the front of the car to have a look at the lights then walked round to the window again to see smoke slowing coming out of the steering wheel area, turns out whatever I used to try and clean the contacts with didn't evaporate and left a residue on the contacts themselves haha. Oh well, the left hand light still wasn't working properly so I pulled the switch apart again. The furthest away contact is the one for the left hand low beam, it looks like it wasn't quite making contact properly as when the light was dim if I touched it very gently the light would go full brightness. I tried to bend it very slightly but it wasn't really working so I took my spare HR30 stalk apart and swapped the white part that the plug goes into with the two screws in it, this seems to have fixed it. I cleaned everything off as well so no more smoke this is a full current through the switch setup like the other early Nissans/Datsuns by the looks of it. Had a go at tightening up the steering box as well, different people have different methods but I went with the one that made the most sense to me where you adjust it with the steering at full lock as this is the least used part of the gear, if you adjust it up on the centre (most worn) part of the gear when you get to the least worn part it's going to be over tight. Somebody had tightened up the power steering line so that it was blocking access to the adjuster screw so I had to undo that and move it out of the way. I haven't driven the car yet, I'll have to see what it's like tomorrow.

Squeals pretty much every brake application unless I'm really soft or sometimes really hard, after fitting the new pads and rotors it squealed on the first application of the brakes when I stopped at the end of my driveway. Rotors I think came from Partmaster, pads are Lucas ones from Repco I'm not running any anti squeal shims as the pads have a rubber backing pad on them and I didn't get the shims with the calipers I don't think.

Sweet so I flipped one cage on one original axle and put that back in, the R31 stuff just isn't going to work. Looks like my only option at the moment is to put stiffer springs in the back. Got my freshly machined rotors and brand new pads, first application of the brakes and the squeal is still there. I pulled the back apart for a look last night and there was a pretty big lip on the pads where they don't actually sit on the face of the rotor (long story), so I filed that off all the pads as I was in a hurry and didn't have new ones and the squeal is still there! I'm almost at the point of paying someone to fix it because I'm stumped. Also mate bought this: