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I’ve had the same thoughts on subdividing the harness and I feel you on the OEM harness
But at the pace my project is going you’ll probably beat me to it
I’ve had the same thoughts on subdividing the harness and I feel you on the OEM harness
But at the pace my project is going you’ll probably beat me to it
it’s atroscious!
I’ll get a variant going and give me your feed back and we’ll gather and use the best ideas … maybe by the end of it we’ll have figured out the OEM harness completely.
Tiny bits of progress today … got the remaining chicken sheet done and the block is 100% ready to come out … I had early evening through late evening obligations so I only had a few hours to work. Hope to have the engine & transmission out tomorrow and the engine on the stand ready for disection. Interested to see what I find.
My plan for it is to get some peg board and layout the harness on the board find out what goes where, what’s getting deleted and how I want to reroute things, I also plan on pulling my engine again so I’ll probably use it to make a template with 1/4 rope and then lay it out on pegboard for concentric twisting a tefzel harness
When I did it last I got messed up where all the coils ground-out and possibly something with the OEM CAN - My tac was all messed up.
I like the method of having disconnects for sub-harnesses and I can start small and work up to each. And if something goes wrong I can pin-point it much easier.
Probably would be beneficial to get nissan's wiring diagram and print it out 48"x 36" or something!
initially as I was wiggling the rods rod three didnt move much, noticable yes, but not nearly like I thought it would or like cylinder #4 did back in 2018…turns out the bearing rolled up onto each other.
Initially, I was sorta disappointed with King Bearings and (without knowing or really conceptualizing the fault) it was easy to think they make sub-par products but aside from the failed bearings and some minor wear on a few other rod and one main bearing they all look pretty good. I dont know if the pictures do them justice.
the oil residue in the oil pan is pretty thick and I think it’s a by-product of break-in oil with microscopic metal reminiscense from the the ring bedding process - but there is bearing material in there.
I think it is … I have a buddy that works at CAT and he cleans them up for me for $100. I have a few cranks available and they are pretty inexpensive if you get them from a VQDE murano or a maxima.
Just been cleaning stuff up, hot-tanking parts/hardware/items and reviving the 87mm throttle body swap … trying to figure some stuff out on it…
This is a re-post from the High HP Oil Bearing Clearance Thread and I wanted to get it into my thread and also clean it up a little…
OIL CLEARANCE IS NOT A MYTH IT IS A CALCULATION
By: Carl Amundsen Date:2/8/2000
Over the years I have had many opportunities to discuss oil clearance with engine builders. Some are building for their own use, some are small shops while some are large. In any event when the question is posed "HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR OIL CLEARANCE IS?" the responses vary. Some can give a good mathematical response, some don't have a clue. The common denominator here is that everyone knows they have oil clearance.
A common phenomenon that occurs when a motor fails is that no one looks in the mirror for answers. The vast majority of the time it is blamed on an engine part failure. The connecting rod too many times is the favorite fugitive.
A LESSON IN MEASUREMENTS
A very dangerous but commonly used method of measuring is a dial caliper. The average dial caliper is super for measuring the thickness, inside diameter, and outside of an empty toilet paper roll. A SHOCKING STATEMENT , NO DOUBT! If you look through some catalogs you will find a dial caliper for $40.00 that has an advertised accuracy of +/- .008 . That is an error factor of 16 thousandths. Pay $200.00 for a digital caliper with advertised accuracy of +/- .0015, the margin of error is now 3 thousandths. An error factor of 1 thousandths can cost you a motor. Calipers are great tools for some things but not for the task at hand.
WE MUST BE ABLE TO READ IN TENTHS OF THOUSANDTHS(.0001) ON WITH THE LESSON
If you were to take a good 0 to 1 inch micrometer and measure the thickness of a page in the ARC catalog, you will find it to be five thousandths (.005) thick. This is very important to remember as you read on. Now feel the paper with your fingers and imagine somehow splitting one of these pages 50 times. One single sheet would now be 1 tenth of 1 thousandth of an inch thick (.0001). I hope I have your attention, because this is getting down so that you can't even feel the thickness. Just incase I am going to be confusing you with decimals please remember the following:
1.0000 = 1 inch
0.1000 = 100 thousandths
0.0100 = 10 thousandths
0.0010 = 1 thousandth
0.0001 = 1/10 thousandth
It makes no difference who you buy your parts from, nor does it matter what brand they are, ARC included, they need to be checked and double checked.
NOBODY IS PERFECT.
For example let's build a stock stroke Briggs racing engine. The following is the measurement specifications on the typical parts to be used:
Stock Briggs crank rod journal size......................... .998 +/- .0015
Aftermarket Connecting Rod................................... 1.150 +/- .005
Aftermarket Rod Bearing thickness........................ .075 +/- .003
ALL THE PARTS WE ARE USING ARE WITHIN THE MANUFACTURERS TOLERANCES.
You are going to use a medium weight oil and you are shooting for .0025
The Connecting Rod is on the small side................. 1.1495
The Rod Bearing is on the big side.......................... .0753
The Crankshaft is on the big side.............................. .9985
Let's put this motor together and go racing.
The Connecting Rod is small by .0005...................... 1.1495
The Thickness of the Rod Bearingare big by .003(2 bearings) =.1506............................. - .1506
Net Rod Bore size with Bearings installed................................................... ................ . 9989
The Crank Rod Journal is big by .0005..................... - .9985
The Calculated oil Clearance = ............................... .0004
We were shooting for ............................................... .0025
With a little luck this motor will crank up and run, as long as the motor is running at no load and a low RPM it may be OK for a while. The minute you go racing the lack of oil flow between the bearing and the crank journal will cause heat build up. The bearing will seize on the crank journal, break the rod and just make a mess of everything.
BAD PARTS RIGHT? WRONG!
Now let's build another motor and go the opposite way, still trying to achieve an oil clearance of .0025
The Connecting Rod is on the big side........................ 1.1505
The Rod Bearing is on the small side.......................... .0747
The Crankshaft is on the small side.............................. .9965
The Connecting Rod is big by .0005............................ 1.1505
The Thickness of the Rod Bearingare small by .003(2 bearings) =.1494............................. - .1494
Net Rod Bore size with Bearingsinstalled........................................... ........................... 1.0011
The Crank Rod Journal is small by .0015..................... - .9965
The Calculated oil Clearance = .................................. .0046
We were shooting for .................................................. .0025
This motor is going to run, but what is going to happen here is: The bearing is going to get pounded at the top and bottom of the rod bore, because there is an air gap between the two surfaces. The oil is not thick enough to prevent this from happening. This is going to convert the rod bore into the shape of an egg standing on end. The crankshaft will now start to lose it's round shape and wear.
EVERY MINUTE IT RUNS, THESE PARTS WILL INCREASE THE OIL CLEARANCE UNTIL IT EXPLODES. HOW LONG WILL IT LAST? I CAN'T SAY EXACTLY, BUT NOT TO LONG!
The crying shame here is that everyone will point their fingers at the connecting rod, bearings and/or crankshaft as the culprit.
THE MOST OVERLOOKED AREA IN ENGINE BUILDING IS AS FOLLOWS:
You have a motor that has run for many months, but you notice you're getting a little blow-by and it could probably use a set of rings. It needs freshening up so we tear it down. Every thing looks great so we touch the bore with a hone and put a new set of rings in. Back to the races. If it ain't broke don't fix it. STOP!
Under the most ideal conditions engine parts will change with use. Bearings can look good but will wear, connecting rod bores will change shapes and crank journals will wear and rod bolts will stretch and fatigue. It is just as important now as ever to check the dimensions of the parts. Don't go to sleep.
Some may think there is some deep mystery behind the term oil clearance. The reason is, everyone has a different opinion as to what it should be. As a rule of thumb, it can be anywhere between .0015 and .0035 and be in the ball park. If the clearance is on the low side, use thin oil, heavy oil will not work. If clearance is on the high side , use a heavier oil, thin oil will not work. How can you make a judgment on the oil to use unless you know what your oil clearance is?
THERE IS NO MAGIC, YOU CANNOT KNOW WHAT YOUR OIL CLEARANCE IS UNLESS YOU MEASURE THE PARTS THAT AFFECT IT.
DEFINITION OF WHAT OIL CLEARANCE IS:
"The distance between two very smooth moving surfaces that will allow oil to be present at all times, coating both parts with a film of oil so that metal on metal contact never happens. It must be small enough to retain enough oil and large enough to allow a fresh cool supply to move through every microsecond."
If you do not check your parts and build 4 motors and 3 of them seem to have a pretty good life span you are lucky. If one fails out of the gate or shortly thereafter, shame on you. It takes less than 15 minutes to check and measure all the parts in a motor and the benefits are fantastic. It is possible to build an engine that will run until the cows come home, or something like that. There are many engine builders out there that do a fantastic job in this area, but on the other hand there are more that don't.
ASSUME NOTHING, BELIEVE NOTHING AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, CHECK EVERYTHING.
I hope we have given you an insight to one reason for engine failures. If you need us, give us a call, it's all free. 1-800-521-3560
Been working on cleaning up components, removing RTV, and organizing components.
Bad news with the orginal block - it got a small gouge in it and I am not exactly when this happened? I just came across while ball-honing - it’s basically toast. I do have two other blocks and Im going to hone one out to 96mm with the lisle hone - I’m excited to try it and have been doing research on the process. I can practice on the damaged block before I head into good block - looking forward to it. If all else fails I will have the machine shop hone my block to 96mm.
I will be getting my rods back from the machine shop tomorrow or Thursday. The hone could be here Thurday or Saturday and from there I can hone-out the block and begin reassembly.
Machine shop didnt have my rods done and I think I’m gonna buy a small engine hone and hone the rods out. Looking at my numbers if I can keep the rods around 2.1660” (OEM Spec is 2.1554” to 2.1659”) I will either go with OEM spec bearings and I’ll have clearances between .30 and .35 (and this is a little big if you ask me) or I can buy OEM oversized Nissan Bearings and it’ll land my clearance between .0025 and .0030. The next best solution is to take a little more out of the rods and use a +.001” bearing and get my oil clearance to .0025 to .003.
I’m hesitant to remove too much material from the rods as that makes the circumferance bigger and you lose the ability to really push the bearings into the rod & rod cap.
Cylinder hone might be here tomorrow and the first thing to accomplish will be pushing out the OEM block to 96mm.
Hope everyone is having a good christmas eve & christmas - much to be thankful for!
Had some garage time and got a spare block cleaned and ready to hone. The lisle is pretty neat and I was (at least in my head) really overthinking the hone. It’s pretty simple and even with 80grit stones it take about 8 to 10 rounds of 20 to 30seconds of drill-honing to shave .25mm off the wall. Its a pretty simple process of honing and dropping the piston in and seeing how far it slides down - the skirts are 96mm while the ring lands are 95.5mm. Another good resource is having the old block to see how they slipped in the old block versus the new block. Also ordered more stones after the 80grit came loose and I was able to loosen & remove the stone from the metal backing … no damage to the cylinder but upset with Lisle that they’d use such low-quality glue.
Lisle instruction say to hone the cylinder to where you can just bearly get the piston in and then switch to a higher-grit stone to clean it up and that will suffice. I have a piston to cylinder wall clearance of .003” and I may take that up to .004” with the feeler gauge and I’ll run the math too.
Still need to figure the rods out but one step at a time.
Another productive week (although not a huge amount of progress) but got all the honing done. It took longer than I eluded to above … and it seems that the pistons barrel shape and longer skirts required more honing than, say - for example, the top portions of the cylinder. Regardless, I went back and test fit each piston into the bore and everything looked good. I did go back and re-hone about 15seconds in each cylinder a cross hatch and hit it again with the flex hone to give the cylinder walls a smoother finish. I did a sanity check and assembled each rod/piston (no rings) and bearings and assembed everything to verify there is nothing binding - everything rotated smoothly. I want to clean the rods/pisonts, crank, and block before I go and start the reassembly as there is stone dust and aluminum dust everywhere along with gear oil on the components.
Next step will be to measure cylinder walls and see how close to 96mm each cylinder came out. Regardless of cylinder I am going to move on with the reassembly … I’m sure my piston to wall clearance is larger than the spec’d .003 but each cylinder is pretty close to the piston’s width and is similar to what my previous block is. I know heat exapansion will account for some of this expansion if/when I have it over again I’ll take the block to the machine shop - the time it took to do the work, the accuracy and precision a machine shop has over what I can do and the risk of something going wrong just doesnt pan-out.
I have some pictures to upload but didnt snap too many.
Other than this I think I’m good to go - excited to get this back in the car.
Had a little time in the garage tonight and started the gapping rings … and got about that far. Not happy with the ring gaps that I’m seeing and it’s because the hone is off. I’ve come too far to let something like this de-rail me. Gonna scrap this block and take a fresh block to the machine shop and have them bore it to 96mm. Measured all my piston skirts and theyre all coming in right at 95.88mm / 3.775” and this will give me a .004” piston to wall clearnace.
Disappointed that it didnt work, satisfied that I took a chance, experiencing the ‘oh-well’ moment right now. I dont know how long it’ll take to bore this block but I’d imagine a week or so.
maybe my original block (the one with the scratch) and this block get taken to 97mm and make a 360z?
Machine shop called … block is ready to go - gonna try to pick it up tomorrow or Friday… I secretly wanted to build two VQs at the same time, I secretly didnt…
A little bit of a debacle with an engine building in colorado springs: for the archive and for when **** really hits the fan and I remember when the machine shop that stole $100k+ worth of subaru engines/parts/deposits/etc and you were likely the last person to get his stuff back (minus nuts & washers).
is the crankshaft salvageable?
