nice job, all that electrical stuff scares the hell out of me but sounds like you navigated it well! When is your first event?

 

Im getting better and better at it and feeling more and more comfortable with it

As soon as I can get the engine broke-in and get some datalogs to dial in fuel I am scheduling something. Also, still, the seat has not arrived. It will be here soon - maybe next week? But I should call my rep to follow up on it.

Got the haltech figured out … I swapped the power and ground wires for the wideband controller … very difficult to figure out just by looking at it but I should have plugged everything in and put a volt meter on it to determine which was 12volt and which was ground. Its all good.

re-wired the Haltech harness and I may un-do everything and extend the wires that connect the wideband controller. I put about 18” on them which is fine if the wideband controller is in the cabin/near the haltech but the sensor leads may not have enough lead on them … shouldnt be difficult - just a touch of rework.

Onward/Upward - I fired up my old laptop and was able to grab my haltech files (not sure why I didnt copy them over when I retired the old laptop) and was able to successfully install Haltech’s latest firmware and got everything going and everything connected. Was a little nervous that the version I had for the silver platinum wouldnt work for the redbox but everything connected and fired-up.

I did a ‘save-as’ from the 475hp tune from circa 2016 and updated my injectors, deadtimes, slightly modified timing values and did a once-over on all the settings.

I need to get the widebands plumbed in and I’d like to get an independent AEM WB sensor installed too (needs a new connector). I’d like to make some type of mounting solution for the redbox - sorta where the glove box is and Im thinking if I can cut the ‘guts’ out of the glove box but keep the door if that’d work?? Sorta like you open the glox box and the redbox is right there.

I have a handful of vacuum leaks that need plugged-off.

 

your details are fascinating. excellent content. I was surprised to learn that the rev up engine uses wideband O2 sensors. isn't that another indication that Nissan was preparing to go turbo way back then? maybe they were going to do the Nismo as a turbo car? (Nissan SHOULD have). your skills are impressive.

 

Thank you kindly - I appreciate your input too.

Very likely the widebands were necessary for FI (never thought of it like that). I suspect going widebands was also the way the industry was going and for how efficient the engines have to be (due to EPA/CAFE/Govt) it was almost a neccesity.


More progress -

Wired in the AEM wideband and I think I have a dead sensor … it’s reading 14.8 100% of the time - If I remember right, this sensor came off my white z and I killed two sensors back at the kansas event with the 116octane fuel - I suspect I threw it back in my parts-bin without a second thought. Luckily I have a handful of new Bosch 4.2 LSUs ready to go.

Spent the late morning/early afternoon just buttoning stuff up - getting the handful of vacuum ports closed-off/plugged, ran a MAP line from the vac block to the haltch, need a line for a boost gauge as well.

cut the glovebox up and it’s gonna work great (I’m just going to stuff the ECU & WB controller in there for now … I’ll make a pretty mounting plate later.

I installed a 0-100psi oil gauge onto the turbo feed to monitor oil pressure - just to make sure I have oil pressure. I’ve been spoiled with the Link G4+ that I rely on it for oil pressure (and the OEM oil pressure gauge).

Got the car started up and ran it for 5 or 6 minutes and it did well - happy with it thus far. I shut it down and drained the oil. I think I’m going to do another round of flush oil before I put break-in oil in it.

Got a pretty bad power steering leak on the pump side, high pressure line - Hoping its just loose and/or needs some teflon tape. I bought the Chase Bays power steering line kit and its a great kit but the hose fittings on it are all f’d up and it stresses the hose wrong. This may be something that I replace in the future.

Anyone wanting to do this on their own - its about 4.5feet of high-pressure crimped lines with -6 AN fittings. The power steering rack fitting is a -6AN x M14x1.5 and is about 25mm long (and I think manufactures make these so its not hard to find) and then the power steering pump is a -6AN x M16x1.5. It’d be wise to put 115d / 135d fittings on the hose … the fittings on the Chase Bays hose suck suck suck.

I am only running about 40psi of fuel pressure, so that needs adjusted up.

For some reason I cannot get my tune loaded onto the haltech (it’s been a while) so gotta chase that.

I had 10 CEL that I gotta chase down.
P0102 - MAF - duh, its been deleted
P0447 - EVAP - solenoid is installed but everything else has been removed
P1111/1136 - Intake Valve Timing Control Solenoid B1 & B2 (this sorta scares me - because everything is hooked up and it could be an achilles heal of this rev-up harness)
P0550 - Power Steering Pressure - no sensor is intalled
P1564 - Cruise control swith - need to dive into this one…not sure whats going on here.
P0132/0152 & P0031/0051 - all my OEM oxygen sensors are not connected, so hopefully this is an easy one.

 

One step at at time - had a few hours on the car today.
Installed a new 4.2LSU o2 sensor and everything is working … tinkered with fueling in the tune and it acted like it should.

Put 5quarts of oil in the engine and ran it another 5mintues to purge the coolant, cycle power steering and just do checks before I go live with break-in oil.

I am getting some leaks at the power steering high-pressure fitting and Im not 100% sure if it’s at the reservoir port or the high presure rack port. Drained the reservoir, took the two fittings off and put a new crush washer on the high pressure side and put a new oring on the low pressure reservoir side. Didnt have a chance to re-test it but I think I mayyyyyyy have a damaged AN-6 x M16x1.5 fitting. I’m going to get another one on order just incase. Luckily no other fittings are leaking on the PS cooler side.

Getting a small oil leak out of the turbo feed line but it’s because I have that pressure gauge installed … so I’m not gonna freak out too much about that.

Chased CEL lights for a few minutes - plugged o2 sensors in and that took care of those 4 codes. The code for the cruise control dawned on mne that I didnt plug that module back in when I installed a 350z steering wheel onto the car - so I gotta chase that down next.

DIdnt do anything else but did throw a few revs at it and I was able to get into the 3500rpm range so I know the car isnt in limp mode.

Picked up more oil and more vacuum line.

Will focus on getting the aforementioned wrapped up (hoping the PS seals up) and then need to installed headlights, skirts, front bumper, and the hood.

Also looking to install a battery/power cutoff switch somewhere on the outside of the car. Was thinking the passenger side rear/side window. Was thinking getting a 1/8” or 1/4” sheet of plexi and cutting it the shape of the rear window and installing that?? Not sure. More to come.

 

Got 10minutes more of run time on the engine and it’s time for break-in oil.

Had a weird issue with power steering where it seemed like fluid wasnt flowing through the rack. I didnt have the steering shaft hooked up to the rack but I could not manually turn the wheels while the engine was running. It led me to believe that I had hoses hooked up wrong. I double check this and they were connected correctly. I hooked up the steering shaft to the rack and turned the wheel and everything started working.

Still no seat so I really cant do much until the seat comes in. In the mean time I will get everything buttoned up, get wheels on the car, clean out the cabin, work on the CEL, etc.

I’ll get some pictures / videos uploaded too … been slacking.



Oil from the ‘dirty side’ of the filter



Oil from the dirty side of the filter #2 … dont want to freak out too too much over this and this was on a freshly assembled motor. But I’ll keep an eye on it.



AEM Wideband setup



Glovebox disassembled


Just placed the haltech in the glove box for now … too much of push to get the car on the road to worry about tying it down now - I’ll come back and make a neat bracket for it.








My sad face when A. I didnt have the g and had to drive my buddy lotus and B. After I put it in the dirt…






Sold the open car trailer and picked this badboy up… sorta intimidated to haul with it - 28ft … might be able to get two cars in it??


Love how low the ramp is


Waste gate stubs






Little car show, saw this first gen corvette


Wifey made me a nissan 350z wedding cake…

 

You gotta love how long a BB turbo keeps spinning after shut down.

That 28 footer, what the GVWR? With only two axles, I'm guessing 10k? Trailer probably weighs 4500? That only leaves 5500 for your stuff. That's a car and some gear. My 20 footer weighs 3500 and has a 7k rating. I get my Cobalt and my Snap-On cart and that's it.

 

The GVWR really depends on the axle and tires ratings. When I ordered my 20' enclosed I upped the rating on the axles to 10k so I have plenty of capacity for car and everything else inside.

 

Shameless plug, but thats why I left the camera running, lol…

Very good point - 10k is all I can haul as a non-DOT licensed driver, I believe my truck is rated to 11k or 12k (not that I want to push it). I’ll get more info but even 4500lbs seems light? All good points - Happy to have something enclosed.

 

nice work James! I like trailer, that will be nice to have. Im wishing I would have gone with a enclosed. I got a 20' tilt trailer and it works great but eventually I'll prob go enclosed.

 

🙏🙏🙏 thank you!

RIght place at the right time … a coworker (and he is two tiers above me, pretty big manager) moved to colorado for the position he is in now. His father gave him the trailer to move his family up to colorado and really didnt want it back. He’s basically had it in storage for a year and a half or so and knew he really didnt have a use for it and wanted the cash to throw towards a 5th wheel. It looks pretty good and it’s got some flaws and needs some TLC but essentially got it half-price.

I got plenty on the plate to do so it might be winter before I can dust it off.

Talked to my rep and of course the Sparco seat is sitting in a warehouse waiting on me … smh … I guess Sparco needed payment first (which is absolutely fine) but the distributor has a slightly different system where they bill you when it ships.

Regardless, seat was paid for and released and I should have tracking soon (god willing)…

 

Have been pecking away at the car. Used the CNC robot to cut a 1” thick oil pan spacer. It’d have been smarter, easier, less expensive to simply buy one but wanted to try it. It came out alright but really had to baby the machine. It took about 45mintues to cut the inside and about 40minutes to cut the outside. I was cutting at .005” per pass and going about 90 inches per minute. The machine did **** out on me but didnt ****-out the ring, rather left a gouge in the center (waste) piece.

Got the spacer installed and re-rtv’d a few days ago and seeing that I didnt have plans to drive the car I didnt add oil to the engine after the 24hr cure period.

On Friday morning, I woke up to a few messages from local FB buddies telling me there was a set of OEM track wheels (the 6spoke rays) up in Fort Collins (about an hour/90 minutes north of me). Got ahold of the seller and was able to get them tied down. The wife and I zipped up there Friday, grabbed the wheels, grabbed dinner, and came home … was a fun trip and now a respectable set of wheels for the g. They came with some hoosier R7 wheels which will be burners.

Had some more time in just buttoning things up - got under the car and checked every bolt on the transmission, suspension, got the track wheels cleaned and installed/snugged on, ran a boost line to the cabin, got tbolts torqued down.

And finally the seat arrived earlier in the week - everything looked great! I need to revisit the harness mounting instructions but the bracket install went well. The seat is a great fit, really holds me tight but I do wish it sat about an inch to 1.5” taller.

Upcoming - The headlights will require two custom made brackets to hold them in-place

I dont really like the OEM g35 bumpers but I am going to run this one which will require some very minor trimming of the mech and mounting tabs.

Picked up a 1/8” sheet of lexan and will be doing (at least one) the rear quarter windown ouf of lexan and mounting a battery cut-off switch on the passenger rear side.

Hood exit exhaust at some point - This hood is decent for it’s age but I think I gotta put a hole in it to exit exhaust. Long term I’d like to route it under the car but for the time being.

Side skirts need mounted as well (and may need more mounting tabs.

 

looking good, nice progress. How do you like the halo seat?

 

I like it! Its not as intrusive as I anticipated and I would say that it creates a little pocket left of the steering wheel where you can use your mirrors for sideview monitoring.

 

Why so much space between the intercooler and the radiator? other than those two other coolers that are going to see very little flow.

 

I dont have an immediate answer other than I wanted ther intercooler as forward as possible allowing myself as much space between the IC and radiator and the coolers. I wasnt 100% sure where the coolers would be mounted and I wanted to give myself options.

Elaborate on why you think they wont get airflow? I think I know where youre going but you’re smarter than me and maybe Im missing something?

 

Air is very suceptible to follow the path of least resistance. When you have unducted coolers sandwiched between other coolers they get basically zero flow. The air just redistributes to other areas of the face. It effectivly lessens the cooling capacity of the intercooler, the two small coolers and the radiator by creating mal distributed flow through all three. it would work best to get the intercooler and radiator closer together with very good ducting between the two. Toss the small coolers somewhere in free stream in the front bumpers or put fans on them. Does that make sense?

 

For sure - I totally agree with you and that statement.

My experience (indirect) is that you see many VHR / 370z track builds that struggle with overheating. I know there are many factors in play but I suspect there are a few reasons for this:

A. I dont think the 370z has the best / optimal front end opening. I think it could be better and especially when you go FI and your intercooler is the first thing in the grill

B. I think you need to give the heated air a passive way to escape. Below and through the engine isnt as optimal as it needs to be and the answer is to vent the hood (which I will be doing on the g).

C. I think the intercooler, radiator, condenser, and any coolers being stacked on top of each other is not optimal. I think it would be better if there was a more efficient way for heated air to escape.

From my experience with my TT setup back in the day I had pretty bad hot-start issues (plenum was too hot to touch) and I added hood vents to which it allowed airflow an escape route and it completely solved the problem.

I dont think airflow is going to pass through the IC and completely avoid either oil/ps cooler and then avoid the radiator. I thought you were going to tell me that air flow is lazy (which is sorta path of least resistance) and I dont think that 100% of the air flow will avoid passing through the coolers. I would also add that air doesnt (necessarily) like changing direction.

Some air is going to bypass either/all and escape from the side. I think a bigger ‘win’ will be having negative air pressure pulling and extracing engine bay air out.

I dont disagree with your statements and I dont think it’s a single solution that solves all overheating issues but I think in real-world application its more case by case.

With all that being said I will report back on the performance of the system. I dont necessarily have a way to track/log oil temps but ECT should be a good indicator.

 

progress…

got the car 100% ready and off blocks -

spent a day just looking over things, got under the car and checked suspension bolts/nuts and did that ‘stare at it’ with a flashlight routine and luckily nothing crazy jumped out at me. I was missing a nut on the bolt that holds the shock to the control arm. I didnt have it in the coffee can, sorta a strange M12 with fine threads, and Ace / Lowes / HD didnt have a nut for it so I just replace both bolts & nuts - problem solved.

Spent 30minutes just tidy’ing up the cab … reconnecting things that were disconnected, my MAP sensor on the haltech was disconnected, misc stuff everywhere, ran a boost/vac line for a gauge, etc.

For what its worth - everyone knows I love Driven Racing Oils … but I have spun bearings on my last two rebuids using their break-in oil … I still love them but decided to go with Castrol Classic GTX 20w-50 - has higher zinc & phosphorus addatives, conventional, and geared towards performance engines. Planning on two break-ins (a ~50mile and a ~200mile) before I go full synthetic. I’d like to do compression tests after each oil change to see how the rings are bedding.

I had the two wire-harnesses (near the wheel wells) detached … something happened with the wheel speed sensors - the main harnesses are in place but the subharness (the actual sensors) were swapped … and dont get me wrong, I love that nissan makes their connectors fit specific to each sensor, but it took me about 10minutes to realize that the sensors were swapped. It’s all good, I figured it out … sorta … the ECU isnt picking up wheel speed or vehicle speed? Speedometer works fine though? So maybe it’s the haltech? Link wouldnt have this issue… :-)

One task that has been put off was the exhaust dump. Now that the hood is on I had to poke a hole for the exhaust. I’ll reiterate that I’m not a huge fan of hood-dump exhausts but without two weeks to fabricate an exhaust this is my best option. Along with the hood install was installing the headlights. With no OEM radiator shroud I lost 3 of the 4 headlight mounting points. I’m fine with losing one of the points but needed a bracket to extend the top mounting bracket and then needed the inboard mounting point replaced.

I’ll ‘tanget’ that I’m trying to learn fusion 360 which will be instrumental for CNC’ing … Fusion is made by Autodesk … who also makes Autocad Civil 3d which (arguably) is significantly more complicated and I damn near know most of Civil 3d. But for the life of me I cannot mentally grasp fusion - I dont understand why I cannot manipulate lines/shapes/objects after I ‘finish’ the sketch … Following a few Fustion channels on YT and enrolled in HP academy’s 3d modelling/CAD course … anyways - CAD’d these brackets in about 30minutes using Carveco (thge toys r us version of fusion) … they are not symetrical but it was pretty easy to generate.

Got the car off the blocks and out … (Friday Night) nothing crazy and took it around our two-mile neighborhood loop and kept it under 3500rpms and essentially out of boost, just enough throttle to get some decent data logs to make any rough changes to the fuel map. The tune was decent in the 1000 to 1500 rpm range but was 10% to 15% lean in the 2000 to 3500 rpm ranges.

Cut to Sunday afternoon - made fueling changes to the base map and the start-up maps and I love the Link’s PC-Link software but ****, Haltech’s interface for the redbox and plats are sooooo simple … I think there are 3 maps for start up where Link (I think?) has eight … surer than **** it started raining 10minutes before I wanted to take the car out. Hell-bent, I wasnt about to let the rain stop me from taking the car out … so, got it out and it ran noticable better with the changes made to the fueling and I felt comfortable taking the engine up to 4k to 4500rpms and got into positive boost pressure …

and if you cant tell from the pictures - no windows, no rear quarter windows, no windsheild … and maybe the seller forgot to tell me the rear window wasnt sealed-in … and I guess I got some speed bc the rear window flew out of the car … I laughed when my buddy told me to go plexiglass…


Side-story: picked up a set of 370 rays for $400 … not sure if they’ll make it on any of my vehicles as I dont like putting next generation wheels on previous generations vehicles. I love the offset on these, how well they clear the brakes, and how they bulge-out a touch.

I swore up and down that I’d never put anything but 18” wheels on any of my ‘performance’ based cars … I may have been intoxicated at the time? I dont remember exactly? but the fact remains and other proclamations I’ve made under the influence (in the past) have served me well … if nothing more I can flip them…

The bad news … I’ve got two noticable oil leaks … first is stupid simple - somewhere from the oil cooler and/or the oil filter in the front of the car…zero worried about it … I do have a non-branded / no-name oil filter relocation kit on the car and I suspect its coming from the fittings. Not a big deal.

The second is a little more worry-some .. its coming from the center of the chassis (left to right) around the bell-housing … worst case scenario is that my rear seal is leaking. I hope this isnt the case as I will be pulling the engine and re-sealing the upper oil pan. My luck dictates this is the issue … my neurosis is that I’m leaking from somewhere else and thats just where it’s dripping from - I RTV’d the rear-seal pretty well and it had months to cure. We’ll see?




















And…2023 has been a **** show of the unexpected … and, as the story goes - I bought 2 pails of VP C16 for Kansas 2022 and only used one… so I had one stored in the garage (which was slated to get tore-down) so it got moved into the basement … the wifey FREEEAAAKKKEEDDD out that it was in the basement (she wanted me to literarlly dump it out - $130 pail of fuel on the ground) … soooooo … we pulled the trigger and bought a chemical cabinet … I joke with friends that its a anniversary present after I bought her a dyson but you know the real reasons (I’m dumb)…

 

its coming together nice. sucks about the oil leak. Those are never fun. That hilarious the rear window blew out. Definitely need to go plexiglass now!