One of Six_Shooter's Time Vampire and Money Pits. v.240

[peter mc]

when i was a drag man i ran a 3.7 with the manual and it pulled hard through the traps in 4Th at 125mph and when i fitted the 3speed auto it ran 9.9 139mph ,, the problem is if you go to 3.4 diff is you go slower because the 60foot time is to slow
you need a engine that pulls all the way to 8000rpm

[Sirpent]

Hey Buddy

I have to say, that even though you are half a world away from the members on this forum we all appreciate you.

Yes the mono tone of the paint packs you used has helped a lot, just brings it all together somewhat.

I'm not big into brown shades but always liked Fords Nutmeg which is similar to a current color used by BMW, and when I saw your update pics I thought yeah would look great in those shades.

Keep it up, after all you are our pseudo forum rep of the Canadan chapter.

Cheers

John

[Six_Shooter]

Peter, 3.9 is just too much gear for the turbo engine, it loved the 3.54 R180 when I had it in there, the problem has always been traction off the line, not the top end charge, but the top end charge will get ever better with the taller gear that turbo engines like.

Revving it to 8000 RPM, won't help me, I'd rather shift lower, keeping it in the grunt of the torque, than wind out putting more stress on parts. Besides that means I would need an even steeper gear to be able to pull through 4th revving it to 8000. Probably only go through 3 gears going for 8000 RPM. The car just likes the taller gear and has a great top end charge, when in 4th and 5th, like most turbo cars do.

I'm also going to do the S14 hybrid tranny swap, and I believe the 1st and 2nd gears are a bit lower in that tranny.

Sirpent, thanks for the kind words. I too am not a fan of brown, but it was the colour the car was when I bought it, so for now, I'll stick with it until I do the big tear down and re-build. I definitely will not be brown in the end.

In other news, I broke the tranny on the way out to load it in a friends trailer to go to the road course tomorrow. I knew it was going to happen at some point, I was just hoping it would have been after tomorrow.

[peter mc]

i think you don't understand what i mean you need a engine that will rev and make power all the way. you go faster at the drags if you get off the line fast you need lots of tracksion and have a turbo that make power later than 4000rpm this will bring the top mph up, it wont be fun to drive on the street as it will be a lag monster but at the drags it will be fast, the standard turbo motor will not top end very well so it wont rev so short sifting will make it faster,, if you change at 5000 it will feel fast and will top out at 110mph

[Six_Shooter]

Peter, I understand exactly what you're saying.

I've seen far too many people follow that idea that they have to rev to the moon to be fast drag racing, when a guy that only revs to 5500 beats them every time, because he built a whole package, not just looked at one area. Revving just wastes time, and gets most engines beyond their torque peaks.

I've been around drag racing for many years, I've seen many ideas come and go.

I understand the relation between traction and ETs. I need more power off the line right now to get my ET where I want it. I should have just tried launching at 3000+ RPM last night, and let the tranny break, since it decided to let go today... I was getting some bogging off the line that hurt my short times and my big end overall. On my 3 good runs (out of 5), the difference in overall ET was seen in the short times. I was trying to save the tranny, since I have a lapping day tomorrow that I won't be running with the 240 now. Oh well.

In the end this is not to be used as a 1/4 mile monster, I want something that I will enjoy driving on the street, not something that I won't want to drive, except when drag racing. If I wanted a drag car, I wouldn't have bought a 240Z. That's not to say that I don't want it to perform well on the standing 1/4 mile, just not the main use for my car.

[Six_Shooter]

Well, I pulled the tranny out and apart to confirm that it is what I thought has been a problem for a couple years now. The 1-2 shift fork is broken, where it wraps around the shift shaft. Either need new parts to fix it, or a new tranny.

I'm leaning towards new tranny, or at least a hybrid assembly using an S14 tranny as the donor. I would have liked to wait until the winter to do it though. 

[Six_Shooter]

Just to update, I ended up picking up a 4 speed tranny and swapping the cast iron shift forks into my 5 speed. I had to drill the holes for the roll pins a bit larger, to use the 5 speed roll pins, since they seemed to change size at some point.

This tranny has never shifted so smooth.

I just wish I had kept one of the 4 speeds I had long ago, so that I didn't need to buy another one. lol

[Six_Shooter]

An update:

I got a Momo wheel and adapter with a parts car a few months ago, the wheel was pretty trashed, and too small in diameter for my like anyway, but the adapter was worth keeping, so I decided to find a different Momo wheel, and found a shift knob from the same guy. I paid too much for them, but they feel nice while driving.
I swapped my steering wheel and shift knob for Momo items:

Stock wheel:


Momo wheel:


Momo shift knob:


Both together:


The wheel that came with my parts car, I really wish it was in better shape, and slightly larger in diameter:


I swapped in some 260Z belts as well.

I did have to make a hybrid of the 260Z and the 240Z belts to fit them to the car without any cutting or welding.

I swapped the lower retractor mechanism from the 240 belt in place of the 260 retractor. I had to disassemble the mechanisms, down to the basic components, and then wind the new belt on to the mechanisms.

260Z belt on left, hybrid on right.


Close up of the lower brackets.

[Six_Shooter]

I've had a boost control problem for a little bit.... again.... arg!

So I decided to install the additional wastegate springs a little more elegantly. I bought a package of new springs and made an additional arm to mount to the wastegate lever.

Original install, I started removing them before I took the picture:


Arm:




Test fitting:


I decided that since two springs came in a package, that installing one spring just wouldn't be enough, so cut a little more metal, drill a couple more holes...




I <3 b00st:




So far, it's working better. I hit a solid 15 PSIG, which is what the ECM is programmed to control the boost at. I haven't held it there for long, but will test more probably tomorrow, to make sure that it's good.

[RB30X]

So do you have a wastegate actuator at all?? Or is it just the springs.

How is your boost controller, controlling boost.

[Six_Shooter]

Yes, there is a wastegate actuator. The rod is behind the springs in the above pictures, and connects to the same point as the arm that holds the springs. The springs are just additional to the existing wastegate actuator, since my exhaust was pushing the wastegate open, and may still be. UHG!

I think I'm going to dig out one of my other actuators and replace the one I have on there now, since the current one is only about 2 PSI, and most others I have are 7 PSI and up. Either that, or more/heavier springs...

My ECM controls a solenoid that allows pressure from the intake manifold to the wastegate actuator.

[RB30X]

I think I'm going to dig out one of my other actuators and replace the one I have on there now, since the current one is only about 2 PSI, and most others I have are 7 PSI and up. Either that, or more/heavier springs...

Yes, definitely do that. Close the gap between what the actuator wants to do and what your boost controller wants to do.

I've heard of bush mechanics putting a socket over the end of the actuator where the vacuum hose goes, and giving it a good flog with a hammer to increase the spring pressure, and increase the boost

[Six_Shooter]

The extra springs serve the same purpose as increased wastegate actuator opening pressure. I just think that using a higher pressure actuator might help even more. Tonight I was hitting a SOLID 16 PSIG in 4th and 5th gear, so I'm wondering of some of the fluctuations that I have been seeing were maybe due to my steep gear. I plan to put a taller gear in soon anyway.

Anyway, I took some pictures earlier tonight:

[Six_Shooter]

A few overdue updates:

Well, I drove my car over 200 miles at the beginning of August, round trip to a family gathering, for the girlfriend.

Well, on the way there, I went to pass somebody on a two lane stretch , down shift, pull out to pass, just down shift and get into about 12 PSIG of boost, when *poompfff* all boost goes away, and the car lays down a little, still pulled, but not as hard as wehn there's boost. The Girlfriend is like "what was that?" I just looked at her and said, "It was just a coupling, just won't have boost." "Will we make it there?" she asked. "Yeah, no worries."
So we get there, I open the hood hoping that it's just the throttle body coupling, that would be easy to fix, since I had similar issues in a previous vehicle using the same TB, nope, that's not it, keep looking, nothing from the top, look under, sure enough it's the lowest coupling, directly under my oil pan, just in front of the trans. :facepalm:
So we visited for a bit, then eventually pulled my car down to the garage, jacked it up and re-installed the tube into the coupler. I decided to check the couplers near there, and tightened all of them under the car. I then decided to check all of the couplers from above, and sure enough all of them were loose. One in particular was odd, when I started tightening it, the coupler started to expand around the tube, which is not a normal thing to happen, when tightening the clamp. Sometimes, it may flare out just a tad, but not like this was. So I loosened the clamp off, slid it up and bit and tightened down the clamp, it actually tightened around the tube then. Didn't think a whole lot about it, other than I figured that could have been the cause for a sound I was hearing recently under boost. It was, the cause.
A little while later we leave, it's a gravel driveway, and road from the farm and out to the paved road. So I get out on the dirt road, get it in 2nd gear hit the gas a little and hit 5 PSIG, good, all fixed. Get down to the paved road, pull out, hit the gas, 1st gear, major boost, like 15 PSIG worth of boost, it's NEVER done that before, pull second gear, boom, another 15 PSIG reading on my gauge, hot damn, that's awesome! Get a little farther along in 4th gear, I see 20 PSIG on my gauge! I have max boost commanded as 18 PSIG, since I was trying to find a boost control problem previously, and commanded more than I wanted, just to meet target boost.
So now after tightening the clamps, and placing the one clamp properly, I now have SOLID boost in all gears, it's way too much fun when it hits these boost levels. I'm once again impressed by the L28.  It seems I've had this leak for a while, since I couldn't get the variable boost (based on MPH) to work properly for a long time.

I took a friend of mine for a ride today, when he first got in the car, he knocked my emulator connection out, I have it in kind of a bad place with nothing to protect it. It pulled hard in limp home mode, only running on spring pressure, which produced about 12 PSIG. Plugged the emulator back in, and took him back the other way, for some reason boost was down a tad (He is a big guy, and could really feel that he was in the car), but 13 to 14 PSIG of boost in 5th gear is a lot of fun. Things get quite blurry. He was thoroughly impressed with how the car performs.

So glad to finally have the boost control side sorted out. It spikes by about a PSIG, but I think that is due to too high of an initial wastegate duty cycle setting, again from trying to chase down the boost control issue previously.

Then a newer update:

Well, the I6 era for this car ended  last night.

I've had a slight issue the last couple of weeks that when I would hit high boost and high RPM, it would seem like the ignition signal would go all wonky and act like I hit a fuel cut limiter. Tried changing a few things, lowered the boost level, as a temporary solution. Changed another part tonight, to try and solve the issue, went for a short drive to a local hang out spot, problem not solved, when I went to leave the engine turned about half a turn, stopped, then turned over normally, and started to run, only it ran like the fuel rail was heat soaked, but looking at the AFRs they were fine, then a cloud rolled past my window... Awww man...
It was white, and when I revved it a couple times water or coolant came out of the exhaust and landed on the asphalt.

Well that solves the mystery, headgasket.

So I dropped the car off at home, and went for a lap in my friend's car, came home, and pulled the plugs. #6 was wet, the rest were perfect.

Oh well, time for a new engine.

So I'll be selling off all of my I6 parts, anyone interested? That includes the turbo cam cover and turbo exhaust manifold, modified intake manifold, which is smoothed and modified for 14mm O-ring injectors, including the fuel rail.

[Gareth. J.]

Is it the bearings in the dizzy causing the problems at high rpm? Why not fit a new ML headgasket, sounds like it was almost sorted.

Or do you have a new mod in mind?