DJZ's DR30 Skyline

[DJZ]

Got all the bits to put it back together now:

Rocker cover, I got it hot tanked, it came up pretty good, couple of little bits of paint I still need to get rid of. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the writing, I thought it was raised so I could just tape over it and paint but it's recessed, might have to tape over the whole raised bit and then paint in the recessed bits with a brush?

Got the lower ball joint back yesterday, they've put a new boot on the outer tie rod end which I'm replacing anyway and have given me a spare boot for the inner which I'll chuck on.

Made this up last night for the fuel pump, the welding looked better before I ground it back to redo it. I haven't swaged the other end, it's only low pressure but I might put a couple of little tacks on there so the hose won't fall off.

[DJZ]

Well I gave in to peer pressure, pity it's the cleanest looking thing in the engine bay now!

My fuel line piece that I made up isn't going to work as it is, it needs to be more like a 90 degree which I think will crush if I try to do it. Might have to have another play with the bender and maybe do it in two bends?

[DJZ]

Got it going again tonight, was hoping to get it ready for the warrant recheck tomorrow but didn't quite get there.

Fuel pump wiring was interesting, somebody had been there before. The ground wire has a braided shield around it by the looks of it for some reason? Might be to do with the fuel pump controller thingy. The blue wire is the +12V for the pump, it's really tiny. I'll use these to switch a relay running heavier wire from the battery later.

Fuel pump setup for now. I'll probably change it a bit further down the line once it's legal.

New sway bar bushes and outer tie rod end.

Still need to do:

Bleed the brakes and hope they work okay

Put the headlight stalk unit back on and hope that I've fixed the headlights!

Put the steering wheen back on

Put the car back on the ground and do up the wheels & lower control arm bolt

A skid

[DJZ]

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.

[DJZ]

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.

[DJZ]

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

[DJZ]

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.

[DJZ]

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.

[DJZ]

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.

[DJZ]

Alright, got the new alternator mounted on the weekend, used a modified L series adjuster which unfortunately isn't a threaded locking one, just a slotted bracket but it seems to work okay! Upgraded some of the wiring including the output of the alternator to the battery and a new much, much thicker ground cable.

So I checked the output of the old alternator before I took it off and it was around 14.2V with nothing on, with the new alternator with the high beams, radio and heater on full it's making 14.4V. Only problem is the car doesn't think it's charging even though it clearly is. There is a bulb check relay that lights up most of the lights on the dash which is triggered by the alternator so it knows when the ignition is on but the car isn't running, but the lights are on all the time. I pulled out the relay and the battery light is still on all the time, I've been driving it around since the weekend and it's running fine so I'm not quite sure what the problem is.

My late Z31 5 stud hubs have arrived so I'll have to find some rotors and some new wheels, I'm leaning towards R32 GTR wheels or possibly another type of BBS wheel, nothing too flash or expensive. I'm thinking about buying some R32 GTR calipers to try and fix the squealing from the Z brakes so that would make the R33 calipers spare so they might end up on this.

Ever since I've had the car the temperature gauge has been acting weird, I had a bit of a look the other day and the wire going to it broke off in my hand so I crimped on a new terminal but no change to the gauge reading, had a bit more of a look at the sender and the hex was rounded off and the resin part in the centre was loose and was able to turn.

I looked through the catalogue at Repco and of course there was no DR in there, closest thing was an S12 with an FJ so I got one of those senders but it must be the wrong resistance range as it would barely read above the first bar. I had a bit of a think and I'm pretty sure the gauge clusters are the same between the HRs and DR30s so I had a dig around in the garage and found a brand new Z sensor, kept digging and found the threaded collar that the Z's use to hold the sender in, had a measure up and it had a 16mm thread too, chucked it in and the gauge seems to be reading sweet. As it heats up it sits pretty much half way on the gauge, sitting in traffic it goes a little bit higher - I'm not actually sure that the fans are coming on, I've tested the fans themselves and they do work. Might put a couple of little LEDs running off the fan wiring so I know when the fans come on.

The L series setup looks like this:

[DJZ]

So ignore those posts about changing the alternator, managed to kill the alternator yesterday trying to fix the battery light problem. Took the car around to Zac's for him to have a look at and after trying a few things we decided it must be a fault within the alternator, we must have left it a bit too long with the sense and lamp wires backwards, there was a bit of smoke and now alternator no worky.

I put the original one back on today - the battery light goes off like it's supposed to now.

Got my front 5 stud hubs today, thanks James! Now I just need to fix the rooted rear one, buy some new brakes and wheels and chuck it all together. Easy as that!

Had a bit of a play with the fake Tial BOV that I bought for the Z originally, I cut down the spring too short so ended up buying a real Tial. I connected it up to vacuum on the DR while the car was running and it was opening a couple of millimetres so I shimmed up the spring until it was just closed at idle, only problem is the spring looks like it's binding up now as I can only open it about 6mm. Time for a new spring, just need to find my boost gauge that works and see what kind of vacuum it's actually pulling when warm.

[DJZ]

My new injectors plugs showed up from the US today so tonight I chopped the injector plugs and also the water temp sensor plug off and soldered on the new ones, I also cleaned the terminals on the injectors and temp sensor, 3/5 sets of connectors had quite a bit of corrosion. The car seems to run a little bit better now, doesn't seem to pop/miss at idle which it was doing a little bit before. We'll see how it goes tomorrow when it's cold.

Hooked a boost gauge up today to see what vacuum it's pulling so I can order a new spring for my fake Tial BOV, looks to be around the 19 - 20 inches mark which is not too bad, it goes up to about 22 - 23 after I blip the throttle.

Ordered my intercooler finally today, it should be here tomorrow or Wednesday. Will have to have a look at mounting it and see if I have to remove the air con dryer(?).

[DJZ]

Got my intercooler today, it's pretty averagely made and feels pretty light but it'll do the job. I jammed it in the front to have a look, definitely going to have to remove the air con which is a bit of a shame but it doesn't work anyway. The cooler looks quite good in there, I'm going to try and get it as centered as possible, I don't like things being offset

I got a new fan switch as well, drained all the coolant out, removed the old switch, went to put the new one in and it looks like the thread is different. It looks tapered (possibly 3/8") where it should be 16x1.5. I'll have to ring up Tridon tomorrow and get them to check their other ones as it's the right part number and the description says it should be 16mm.

Took some photos but I can't be bothered going through the rigmarole of trying to get them off the fancy camera tonight, I'll do it tomorrow.

[DJZ]

Ended up just recutting the thread on the temp switch, it was definitely 3/8" BSPT by the looks of it. Fans both come on now when the gauge gets to about 3/4 of the way up.

I yanked out the air con today and the intercooler is going to end up something like this. I had to remove the headlight to open up the hole for the piping a little bit and ended up breaking one of the studs off, they were really rusty. I drilled it out and tacked a bolt in it's place. The only part I'm not really happy about is the pipe between the intercooler and throttlebody just after where it comes through the radiator support. It's a bit annoying as the power steering tensioner is really high on the motor as you can see in some of the pictures so I have to have a 90 degree then a 45 degree to meet up with the other pipe. I'm probably going to weld on a 90 degree bend to replace that silicon then still have the 45 degree. I'll be welding the pipes together to try and get rid of as many silicons as possible.

The other problem is the air flow meter piping, I might have to change my filter from the K&N to something a bit smaller to fit in the gap that I have and get another silicon bend to hang the air flow meter over the pipe out of the turbo. There is heaps more room with the air con pipes out of the way. Things aren't going to stay like this forever anyway once I change the exhaust manifold and turbo.

[DJZ]

Decided to put the intercooler in tonight. It's not 100% finished but it's in and plumbed up. Seems to have made a bit of difference, the car feels a bit torquier.

I need to get one more length of the shiny pipe to replace the piece of thicker walled dull finish pipe and I found an ali 45 degree so I can replace one more silicon.

Also bought an almost complete N/A FJ20 for $112, might have to find some twin carbs and a 1600 to put it in.

[DJZ]

Here are some pics of the intercooler, will try and get the last piece of pipe this Saturday and either a mushroom type air filter or another 3" right angle silicon to replace my current not very sealed air filter setup.

After the rain the other day I discovered about 10 - 15 litres of water in the side well in the boot. Had to drill a hole in the bottom of it to drain it out, after all the water was out I had a better look and it seems somebody has welded a patch in there where the original bung should have been (probably because it's started rusting) and then hasn't drill a hole in it, idiots.

[DJZ]

Been doing a couple of jobs on this thing.

Installed the boost controller the other day, it seems to be working but I think I need to run through the setup again, with it set at 0.8 bar is going up to over 1 bar.

I replaced the intercooler pipe after the radiator support. Chopped up a long leg 45 degree bend then welded it back together so I've gotten rid of the 45 degree silicon bend. Also welded on the blow off valve flange, I fitted the fake Tial valve I had, it works but not very well. I'm going to borrow the spring out of the real Tial one possibly tomorrow if I've got time. It's $50 for a genuine Tial spring. Got a little bit more work to do to get the piping perfect, but it's close. I also got a 3" bend to connect the air filter to the air flow meter.

And tonight I made up a pipe to get rid of the cat converter. The front pipe measured about 60mm OD and the rear about 70mm so I got some 2.5" pipe and two new flanges. The cat still had all the guts in it but when I was moving it around bits started falling out. The car sounds a bit better in my opinion, it seems to be a bit more burbly when the revs are dropping but I haven't actually driven it yet, maybe tomorrow.

Yes, it does have wheel nuts at one end. I wasn't planning on finishing it tonight but got most of the way there and thought I'd chuck it on and those are all I could find at work.

[DJZ]

Swapped the BOV springs yesterday and took it for a quick drive, managed to pop one of the intercooler pipes off so I ended up pulling all of them off and ran a couple of little beads around the ends of all of them to help them stop falling off. I made up a mounting bracket for the last piece of piping near the BOV and also remade the pipe on the outlet of the turbo so it's one piece all the way to the intercooler. Made up two mounts for the cooler too so it's pretty solid now.

Took it for a bit of a drive around today, was do some reasonable speed then I heard a bang, couldn't figure out what it was till I got home and found this piece bent completely backwards, I've bent it forwards again for the picture. One of the little plastic mounts at the front had snapped of. It's pretty much rooted so I pulled it off.

[DJZ]

Had this thing on the dyno today, pretty interesting. Zac and I took it out last night to try and do the learning mode on the boost controller. It didn't go very well and in the end it seemed to be hitting some kind of cut out or the pressure relief valve was opening.

We had a quick look at it this morning, wound the pressure relief valve in, fixed a broken hose going to the factory boost sensor (I really need to replace this hose as it's getting shorter and shorter), moved the pressure source for the boost controller from the inlet manifold to the compressor housing, while trying to do this I had to remove the wastegate actuator and found out the wastegate flapper was stuck half open! I'll probably have to remove the wastegate flapper and hone out the hole that the rod runs through to fix it, I got it moving again but in the first maybe 1/4 of the travel it still felt notchy. I really need to pull the turbo off and swap it for the T3/4.

Anyway, with the boost controller set at 0.8 bar boost was creeping up and it was going dangerously lean so I set the controller down to 0.5 bar, it was still creeping up but we got most of a run out of it, up to about 6300rpm I think it was, final result was 158kW. Time for bigger turbo, bigger injectors and an SR computer swap I think!

[DJZ]

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.