Looking Good!

 

Not much going on in way of progress, I completely stoped working on it for the holiday season as there were presents to buy and over time to work, so not much time or cash to play with it. now however that the holiday season is over I can pick the project back up. First things first, I did an oil change for the first time since I installed the magnetic drain plug and there was a good amount of stuff it collected and it’s only been about 200 miles since the last oil change. I swapped out the oil for 50 weight oil and the oil pressure stays up after it warms up which leads me to believe it’s a tolerance issue, unfortunately I left the measuring and bearing size selection to a machine shop I stoped working with and don’t have the measurement numbers. With all this information I decided I’m going to pull the motor, tear it down and start fresh. First I disassembled the old Z engine that blew a head gasket. And honestly I was surprised how clean everything was. So I decided to use the crank from that engine and have it balanced to the bobweight numbers from the last crankshaft. Once I get it back I’ll take the measurements with a dial bore gauge and micrometer and pick out the bearings best for my application, haven’t decided if I’m going to use Nissan main bearings or go back with king, I have a lot more options with Nissan bearings so it might depend on my numbers. But it will probably be a week or 2 before I get that crank back and that should give me some time to pull the engine that’s in the car now and start tearing it down, I’m going to make a long tedious process out of it as I want to know exactly what went wrong 😡

 

You have the patience of a saint...

 

Pulled the motor out last week and have slowly bit by bit disassembling her over the last week, timing and accessories have all been pulled, cleaned and stored away. Didn’t find anything amiss there but wasn’t really expecting anything there. I inspected around the oil gallery plates and I didn’t see any evidence of gasket failure and all screws were still at torque spec, since I already have a replacement Z1 gasket and bolt set I went ahead and pulled the plates to examine the gaskets but I didn’t see any evidence of failure. I continued to remove the rear timing cover and pulled the cams on the drivers side head and there is a nasty scratch on the first journal in the head that wasn’t there before, probably some debris left in the engine made it’s way through the oil system. I proceeded to pull the drivers head and moved over to the work bench to examine it. Pulled the buckets cleaned all the oil off everything and broke out the plasti-gauge. Starting with the exhaust camshaft I measured the clearance of the 4 cam journals. 1st .0035” at the far end of the tolerance but still ok 2nd .005” almost double allowed 3rd .006 more than double and the 4th was hard to read being about in between the marks of .005 and .006 but far too much clearance. I haven’t gotten to the intake came yet but I expect to see similar results all around. So that’s definitely an issue and one that would cause my problem but I’m still going to be measuring everything else as I tare it down. I have another two sets of heads so I’ll measure the tolerance of those before I pick the next set of heads. I don’t think this was a natural occurrence I think this was ultimately my doing cleaning up the heads and the de-buring process I went through. We’ll see what I get from other measurements as I go

 

Finally finished tare down of the engine, both heads are going to be retired along with the crankshaft, I’ll begin port and polishing and blueprinting a new set of heads, at least this time I know what not to do. Any who here are a few pictures from the tare down. All the bearings have damage, the rod bearings being the worst




Main #1

Rod journal #1

Rod journal #2

Main journal #2

Rod journal #3

Rod journal #4

Main journal #3

Rod journal #5

Rod journal #6

Main journal #4

Piston and bearings

Main journal 1 bearings

Main journal 2 bearings

Main journal 3 bearings

Main journal 4 bearings

Rod 1 bearings

Rod 2 bearings

Rod 3 bearings

Rod 4 bearings

Rod 5 bearings

Rod 6 bearings

 

Why are you retiring the heads?

Can the crank be cleaned/polished? It doesnt look bad/ I’ve sent cranks to the machine shop worse than that and they were able to clean them up?

Where are you going to source a new crank from?

Mains look alright

any root-cause-analysis on why the rod bearings look bad?

 

the cam journals are enlarged to almost double maximum allowance there is no way to fix this and ultimately the cause of my low oil pressure issue. This was my fault as I used scuff wheels on the cam journals without thinking about the effects it would have on cam tolerance and oil pressure, rookie mistake but now I know. I will also replace the camshaft as one is a little bowed. I decided to replace the crank because it’s already been ground down 1 size on the mains and 3 sizes on the rod journals. I have a healthy crank that I can use standard bearing sizes with so I decided several weeks ago to have the machine shop go ahead and polish and balance it to the bob weight numbers of the rotating assembly. I’ve started working on a new set of heads and that were in good condition to begin with. I’m going to take my time and enjoy porting the heads. I’ll buy a new set of Brian crowler valves for the new heads and have the machine shop trim them to size when they do the valve job and surface the heads

 

Small update but big news
I decided to make the plunge and purchase a boundary pumps VQ DE High Flow Oil Pump Assembly with the MartenWear Treatment, it’s a fully blueprinted oil pump for the VQ35DE with higher flow and I’m having them spec it for higher oil pressure for the larger bearing tolerances required for high HP applications, should be able to support +1000hp and 13000rpm, so more then sufficient for my power goals. And it comes with the blueprinting documentation.

as for the new heads I’ve finished porting the intake and exhaust of the drivers side head, just need to finish final polish out, then I’ll move on to enlarging the head stud holes for the GTR studs I’m using and final cleanup then I’ll start on the passenger head and then they will both go to the machine shop for a surfacing and valve job with the new valves. I also decided I will be switching from the oem hardware in the head and block to ARP stainless bolts for cam caps, oil pump mounting, and for timing brackets. Not Sure if I’m going to do this but I’ve been in talks with getting the crankshaft and main timing gear cryo-treated but I’m not really sure if I want to ship the crankshaft. Any who that’s all for now I’ll continue to update as I make more progress, I’ll probably post pics of the port job later when I’m done

 

Good Choice!

I have those Gears in a New Revup Pump, and Rev to 7800rpm....

 

Things are still going slow project wise as of now the crankshaft is polished and balance as standard, going to pick it up from the machine shop today and drop off the heads for surfacing and valve job. I’ve been told by the machine shop that they have a 4 week backlog on valve jobs right now so it will probably be 4-6 weeks before I can think about assembling the engine, which is fine for now everything seams to be on back order or backlogged. I think I’m probably going to be putting a dummy engine in the car for now just so I can get some good fabrication done while the engine is in limbo. On that end I’m thinking about changing my turbo plan again and moving it to a tunnel mount style with a spool valve. I just haven’t been happy with the fabrication and packaging that goes with having it at the front. Also been thinking about having so much heat in the engine bay with the manifold and turbo so close to the charge pipes and such. But I’ll figure it out as I go. I do have a lot of fabrication pics to post but I’ll wait to post that for now until I decide what I want to do until then here is a teaser pic of my port and polish job on the heads





There is also a possibility I might modify the PCV system if I decide to go with the tunnel mount turbo, right now I’m using an EXA-pump for crank evac but it doesn’t really keep up with the blow by above 3k rpm. If I decide to go tunnel mount I’ll use the EXA-pump as a scavenging pump for the turbo and purchase a Moroso vacuum pump and crank mandrel to run it with

 

Little update: dropped off the heads at the machine shop they said they were backlogged 3-4 weeks so I’ve got time to burn getting everything cleaned and ready for assembly. Picked up the crankshaft and all the tolerance were good which I confirmed letter with a micrometer at home


boundary blueprinted pump came in this week




did some fabrication to make an aluminum pre-oiling tank for the engine stand, the idea is to cycle break-in oil through the engine on the stand without rotating the assembly. That way I can prime the pump and oil passages before starting the engine, it will also help me get any dirt or other contaminants out of the engine before startup.





the idea is to put 5gt in to the tank and have the exa pump pump it through a 30micron filter, into the engine, collect the oil from the oil pan and repeat process until I gave good oil pressure, then I will use fresh break-in oil for actual startup

Got some of the ARP bolts in for the cam caps, oil pump, and some accessorie studs for the rear coolant pipe


still a lot I need but ARP has a lot of things on back order till April so I get them as I get them.

I did start getting the rear coolant pipe ready for the turbo setup, this will include cleaning up a lot of the casting flash, adding -6AN ports for the wastegate coolant line and I will eventually ceramic coat it as well, I’m going to need the added protection of the ceramic coat and you guys will see why later
Also not sure if I have posted this yet but since I have a good bit of downtime that I can’t really expedite due to the machine shop, I’ve been going back and powder coating a lot of the engine brackets with a gloss black w/red flake coating. I think it will compliment the red metallic of the front cover and such nicely


also as I’m going through all this stuff to upload I found some things I don’t think I ever showed you guys, here is what I did for a windshield washer reservoir, it runs the front sprayers with the oem pump



it needs some work to clean up the remote fill reservoir but here it is

 

Quite an update today, all turbo and fabrication related. I apologize in advance if I post a picture I’ve already posted before but I wanted to do a good detailed update on the fabrication side of things

first off I’ve officially given up on having the turbo where the A/C compressor was, I’ve now opted for a trans mount turbo setup. Over all I just wasn’t happy with the progress and quality of fitment I was getting from trying to cram everything right next to the engine. There is a lot more to it than that such as heat issues and such but I have a lot to post so we will leave it at that.


This is the new location for the turbo, passenger side of the transmission. The camera angle is a little weird so it looks like it’s sitting lower than it really is







i ended up playing around with this position on a few separate occasions so there is slight positioning differences between some of the photos


I rebuilt the passenger side manifold to pass out the rear and cross over the bell housing where it will merge with the outlet of the drivers side manifold before heading down next to the transmission. It might seam like a backwards way of doing it since the turbo will be on the passenger side but I need room for the wastegates, more on that in a second. this photo was taken in the early stages of fabrication and has changed a bit, in this picture it continues towards the front on the drivers side but was later revised to merge angling towards the rear



I completely scraped the driver’s side manifold and started with a new flange and angled everything towards the rear

I knew I was going to need to have the lower part of the turbo piping be able to separate from the rest of the piping or it would be impossible to install so I opted for the 3 bolt flange from acereceparts and ordered a block of aluminum so I could make a purge block/heat sink


I drew out the flange drilled holes and milled it for gas flow out



It worked really well and kept the flange from warping




I welded the outlet flange, passenger merge, and a support bracket to the drivers manifold


I build a jig for the turbo mount and fabricated most of the lower piping, I am still using both Tial wastegates however only one will be used for actual wastegating, the other is being used as a spool valve which will stay closed until the turbo is spooled forcing all the air initially into the small scroll of the turbo


Here are a few pictures of the lower piping fitup, the open port on the turbo flange is where the spool valve will feed into the turbo but I am waiting on a special flex coupler before I can complete the plumbing here







This is the position of the spool valve

Here you can see both wastegates in position




I plan on putting a support bracket here to help with the weight of the turbo and manifold but I’m going to wait until everything is welded up, it’s already tight in there and it can wait


This is an in-line view of the bottom of the car to show clearance you can see that the only part that drops below the chassis is the hump around the belly of the trans

 

Pre weekend update
got the last of the manifold mocked up

 

Took a brake from the turbo stuff for a bit as I finally got the new heads back from the machine and painted. Decided I wanted to get the engine assembled and back in the car and running before it gets too hot out








I did shorten the windage tray to only the first 4 cylinders, I was having clearance issues with the oil pan I wasn’t happy with


she still isn’t running yet but I hope to get her moving this weekend

 

I like the windage tray - thought about doing something similar but I didnt want to drill / tap the girdle but yours looks great!

Nice progress! Keep the updates coming!

 

Engine is in and running but I’m still experiencing low oil pressure, at this point I don’t know what to think… looks like once it heats up its sitting at 10-15psi. it was never that low before the engine blew. I’m somewhere between buying an aftermarket gauge to verify or dumping the car at a used car lot

 

idle 15 psi
2000 rpm 43 psi
6000 rpm 57 psi

 

really wish the oil pressure gauge was digital, it would make things a lot easier, probably going to purchase An aftermarket oil pressure gauge. I’m just frustrated I’m not seeing the pressures I used to see with the original engine
edit: scratch 10-15 it’s sitting just above 0 but enough that the oil light isn’t on

 

when i installed my oil cooler i seen a lost of about 10 psi thought some thing was wrong, didnt realize at the time you lose oil pressure when you have an oil cooler,

 

I should also note that I’m not using a standard oil pump. I’m using a boundary pumps blueprinted oil pump with a higher pressure setting