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Get your own Free Home PageThis is my new chariot as I purchased it.
It was found using the internet on the Trading Post with the add running as follows:
300ZX turbo 1986 targa top 5 speed manual, air, steer, long rego, white, blue trim, good condition, A1 mechanical $6800, NFA-359, DL-13336, 196 Milperra Road02-9773 0855 REVESBY
It came stock with a 3 litre V6 running a T3 turbo, nonintercooled and hence limited to about 5 psi boost. They were rated at between 146 and 155 kW, depending on who did the testing, and (I think) what octane fuel was used. While that may have been OK back in ancient times, this is the end of the 20th Century and even 155 kW is only a starting point for a modern man's vehicle.
Hence this is the story of how I take my standard Zed, with a stock VG30et engine and suspension built for comfort rather than speed, and transform it into a high powered supercar, while retaining the luxury and possibly getting some more.
I spent most of the time looking for a car parts store. (Remember I just moved to Sydney) Despite living with a local car enthusiast he was no use until Sunday night when he suddenly remembered a Kmart a few minutes away.
Did an oil change, a coolant change, may have fixed the oil temp sender, tried to fix the petrol guage sender but couldn't get the final bit undone, bought and fitted seat covers and floor mats, found the places to do everything else (but didn't have the fluids because the stores I went to were either closed down (3 of them, including 2 target autos) or only stocking very basic stuff.
Had a moment of panic when I found that the oil filter ($5!!!) was too small to be gripped by the oil filter spanner, but I managed to grip it in a rag and squeeze hard and twist. I also had to wrapp my arm in a rag as you have to rest your forearm on the exhaust to grab the filter.
The sump plug is simple enough IF you have a set of ramps to put the car on (which I did. The ramps were too steep to drive straight up without hitting the spoiler, but I went up on a diagnol.)
There is an inspection pit half built at the moment. It may be finished any year now.
I have had two ideas
1. A very nifty way to install some cooling fans to suck hot air from under the bonnet. Have had an incident with heat soak and disapproved.
I pulled up at a store to get some things for work, and when I hopped back in it wouldn't start. The owners manual mentioned that this might be a problem so I popped the bonnet, waited, and then started it and drove home (the wait had meant that I couldn't be bothered going back to work.)
I can position the fans so that they are at the top of the firewall, blowing into the ventalation plenum. It may mean that I can use "ventilate" less often and aircontitioning more often, alternatively I could pipe the air to the bottom of the car.
Grahams suggestion was the addition of bonnet vents, but
2. Found a huge and varied supply of guages that read air pressure to 2 or more atmospheres. Available in analoge or digital form. The cheapest being sub $5.....Tyre pressure gauges!
Have also installed a "maximum temperature reached" thermal sticker on the air intake to see, well, the maximum temperature reached. If it works I will do the same all over the place.
Well I've said it before, and I hope never to say it again, changing gearbox oil is a very yucky job.
Having (FINALLY, doesn't anyone in Northern Sydney ever change the oil in their gearbox) found somewhere that sells gear oil in a 4 litre container, I set to work.
Draining the oil was simplicity itself. Nissan engineers in their wisdom had installed drain plugs where you could easily get at them, and filling plugs (also accessible) just above them. With such a major deviation from standard automotive design practice, it was no wonder their company eventually went broke and bought out by the French.
However, despite the easy access to the filling plugs, it still required use of an oil squirter gun to pump the oil up into the filler holes. This would be OK Except that the gun in question, though new, leaked like a sieve. At times it appeared that more oil was squirting out the back of the gun (onto my arm, armpit, chest, face and hair) than was actually going into the gearbox or diff. After the first few attempts I decided to encase the entire gun in a plastic bag, so that at least it wouldn't spill everywhere. This worked to a limited extent, though I was then left with a leaking plastic bag filled with quite expensive gear oil. I managed to get a significant proportion of this bag into the bottle.
While waiting for the old oil to drip out of the gearbox and differential, I investigated the possibility of installing ventilation fans to help reduce underbonnet temperatures. To my surprise, I found holes leading into the front quarter wings from the top of the engine bay ( where hot air would tend to accumulate). These holes were blocked off by easily removable plastic plugs, and they fitted perfectly to the output side of the exhaust fans I had obtained. Had there been room to mount the exhaust fans onto these exhaust vents I would have been very suspicious indeed. However Murphy's law finally started to work and none of the vents had room to fit the blowers.
Nevertheless I worked out how to mount the blowers quite close to both vents, and right next to a power supply. My only problem now is to obtain tubing to blow the air through until it reaches the vents, and to develop some way of hooking up the thermistors so that they can turn the fans on when the engine bay gets too hot.
This Weekend I finished the fluid changes. The brakes and clutch. After scouring Northwest Sydney I finally found a Repco in Parramatta, and although it still didn't have what I consider to be a decent range, it did sell 2.5 litre containers of brake fluid, which should be enough to flush out a 0.5 to 1 litre system.
The flushing process itself was very easy. I assummed that I'd have to pump all the old fluid out, run some new stuff through, and then bleed out all the air. But Graham, my flatmate (who changes the fluid on his truck all the time (when you are using standard Holden Kingswood brakes to stop a 250 kW, 4 tonne, truck you do need to make sure they are working as well as possible)) told me of a much easier technique.
The secret is to support the vehicle so it is level and then crawl around and crack open the bleed valves on all four brakes so that the fluid is just slowly dripping out. Then you stand around chatting and occaisionally topping up the reserviour so that no air gets into the system. Providing you top up the fluid carefully, so that the new stuff forms a layer on top of the old stuff, without mixing, then this will gradually replace all the old fluid with new (high quality) fluid. Then you just crawl around and do up the bleed valves again.
The clutch was done in the same, relaxed fashion.
Now I can see that this method may not suit a garage, where time is money. But for the average handyman, who would much rather spend 40 minutes having a chat and a cup of tea, with the occaisionall glance towards the fluid level to see if it's time for another top up, to spending 10 minutes crawling around under a car with old brake fluid squirting in your face, then I feel this is a big improvement on the traditional method.
I finally got the fuel sender out, and couldn't find the problem. The symptoms were that the fuel guage would read full when the tank was full, but after reaching 3/4, it drops immeadiately to empty. So I'm forced to reset the trip meter after filling up and watching it to know when I should refuel.
I tried cleaning everything: no difference. I tried bending the contacts so they ran up and down on a different track on the potentiometer: no difference. I tried to solder a bridge across the place where the signal dropped to zero: it wouldn't wet the ceramic material. (I soldered FAR away from the fuel tank!)
So I just reassembled everything and went on using the trip meter.
Well I haven't done anything to the car lately, well not directly. I have driven it to Newcastle and back twice (280 km) and to Nambucca Heads once (500 km). Neither time did it give me any trouble except for the previously mentioned heatsoak problem when I get the engine hot, turn it off, and then try to start it before it cools down.
I really should install those cooling fans.
On a curious note, with every tank of petrol I use, the working range of the fuel gauge gets larger and larger. The only explanation I can think of for that is that the part of the resistor strip that the contacts were running on had worn out, AND the rest of the resistor was covered in a layer of gunk. When I realigned the contacts, they started wearing a track through the gunk onto a good section of resistor. I know that as explanations go it isn't too good but if you have a better idea email me.
Well this weekend I tried to do something about the hot start problem. Firstly I actually got around to installing one of the cooling fans. I don't know how well it works yet because I haven't got the wiring or thermostat required to turn it on, but it looks good. Or at least it did once I got out the spraypaint to change the air-pipe from baby blue to black.
Next, going from a tip I got from the Autospeed forums, I took a look at the distributor. Apparently these can be a source of trouble in mid-eighties Nissans once they get hot. Taking it apart I saw that the contacts were quite dirty and corroded. Thinking that this could well be a source of the problem, I got to and cleaned them up with some sandpaper.
Now the car, which usually ran beautifully, is displaying a distinct miss. I'll have to take it apart again and see what I did to it.
Well a quick wiggle of the spark plug leads didn't seem to help. But a nice run up to redline did! The miss is gone and all's right with the world.
(Actually, on a day when Microsoft had its web sites brought down by hackers, when the biggest crisis in Australia seems to be whether someone has used the word "regret" or "sorry" (which according to any dictionary mean the same thing anyway) and when the stock market bubble seems to be gently deflating with no sign of a crash it could well be argued that all IS right with the world, or at least the civilized parts of it. I know that the radio news had me laughing out loud on the way to work this morning.)
This weekend was mainly spent measuring up the positions for the intercooler, the exhaust, etc. Now I just need to buy the piping somewhere.
I did however do the wiring for the cooling fans. I measured the temperatures under the bonnet and found that in normal running it gets to about 55-60°, whereas when it gets really hot and then is parked it rises to 65-75°. So I got a thermostat ($3.95) that switches at 60-65°. I may need to adjust this but I think that would be easily done by changing the position of the thermostat (The further away from the engine the hotter before it turns on.)
I also fixed my horn. My normal horns were disconnected and twin airhorns hooked up instead. BUT these were foolishly mounted in Sunlight and the UV destroyed the plastic so that they leaked and sounded weak and horrible. So I reconnected the normal horn which works fine.
Doh! I hooked up the cooling fan to the thermostat on the weekend, and found that the Jaycar thermostats turn OFF once they reach 65°, rather than turning ON. This makes things more complicated.
And the heat soak problem is still there. :( So cleaning the distributer didn't cure it.
But more interestingly, while crawling through the electrics of the car I found a burlar alarm! As this is a public forum I shan't give too many details, but it seems relatively sophisticated, it has a siren and everything. It has sensors on the Doors, hatch, ignition, bonnet, movement detector...
I just haven't worked out how to turn it on and off yet.
And while tracing all the wires of the burglar alarm, I found another set of tools in the car! And an electric tyre pump! I also came to the conclusion that the burglar alarm was designed to be turned on and off by a remote (which I no longer have. So I think I'll try to hook up a normal hidden switch to perform the same function. Or perhaps get a remote and try to tune it for the same frequency. Or something else perhaps.
Doh! I set the car on fire. For more details see here.
Other than that not much was done as I was too busy fixing the seat. I did set up an engine immobilizer, but it didn't work. Or rather it did work but it wouldn't stop working to allow me to drive the car. This was eventually (franticaly, in the fading light of Sunday evening with rain starting to fall and me not wanting to catch a bus on monday morning) traced to the new switch I had just got from Jaycar. Whether this was a faulty product or whether I had broken it during installation I don't know. So I bypassed the switch and will have to get another.
The burgular alarm installation in the Zed is pretty bad. There are these connectors that are for people who can't work a wire stripper. They lock around the two wires and push steel spikes through the insulation and into the wire to make the connection. I've been replacing them with solder and shrinktube as I go. With this quality of installation it is entirely possible the alarm NEVER worked.
There seems to be a possibility for a cold air intake that I will have to investigate.
On Saturday I was going to go looking for a peculiarly shaped pipe (like a question mark) that I needed to install the intercooler, I suspected I would have to use some truck radiator piping. But as I went outside to get the referdex I tripped over a piece of steel pipe in the exact question mark shape I was after that someone had left lying outside the front door. Now this doesn't normally happen when I am looking for something so I grabbed it and made sure I went to church that evening.
It turns out that it came from the exhaust system of a hot commodore owned by the brother in law of a friend of my flatmate, so it was rather dirty with some carbon deposits on the inside, so these will have to be cleaned out before I use it, but other than that it is perfect. :)
Then I finally hooked up the thermostat for the underbonnet cooling fan. As mentioned above the thermostat was back to front in that it turned OFF once above the set temperature, rather than turning ON. This was nothing that taking it apart, insulating the existing contacts, and soldering on new contacts wouldn't fix.
Well I cranked up over 1000kms on the weekend in visiting my girlfriend (she lives in another state). And I found out some interesting things.
Well I should have bitten my tongue. The distributer got worse and worse until it conked out entirely. The car wouldn't start at all!
My first suspect was the crank angle sensor but the 300ZX mailing list contained a simple test for seeing if your crank angle sensor is working or not. When I tried this test it passed with flying colours. The test is that you take the distributer off the engine and then turn it around by hand. If it is still working then you will hear the injectors clicking at each point. This happened.
Two weeks and a myriad of other tests later, I gave up and took it to an auto electrician. They popped in a new crank angle sensor and it was as good as new.
Better than new actually, the new, improved, crank angle sensor is now supposed to be resistent to the heat soak and so should last longer than the mere 13 year life of the first one. I don't know, having to replace ignition components every 13 years, it's almost as bad as a points system.
Now I can get back to making the thing go faster. At least in the process of looking for parts I found a convenient wrecker.
The last few weeks were spend finding a new place to live, and moving there. But I did spend some time yesterday changing the plugs, with big breaks where I had to close the bonnet and go inside because it was raining and I didn't want to get the electrics wet again :( All up it took about 3 hours with 30 minutes spent changing plugs and 2.5 hours retrieving tools that had dropped into the crevices and grottoes of the engine bay.
Well OK I also changed the dizzy cap and the rotor, but that took a couple of minutes.
Results? Well the idle seems a bit smoother, The slight hesitation at 4 grand which I hadn't noticed before it was gone, was gone, and at a couple of stoplights I got off the clutch a bit smartly to find I wasn't going anywere, but it was raining.
Well I haven't done anything for a LONG TIME have I? Well actually I've bought new Tyres and changed the plug leads.
I had to buy new tyres, the front ones were going bald and the car was due for it's yearly road worthy certificate, or Pink Slip as they are called in NSW. I was a bit concerned about the Pink Slip. In Queensland a roadworthy is only due when a car is sold and it is a really big deal, with the brakes all inspected for disk thickness and the car put up on hoists etc. Here however, being a yearly event, they just checked that all the lights worked and took it for a drive to ensure the brakes stopped it. And when they found that one of the parking lights had blown a bulb, they replaced it free of charge! This is totally different from my experience in Queensland where an even more trivial defect (Battery holder not screwed down sufficiently far) has had a friends car defected so that he had to take it away, screw down the holder, and then book it back in for another inspection. Actually I suspect that there was something else going on there, because it would have taken the mechanic longer to write up the defect than it would have to give the holder a couple of turns.
But not these guys. If anyone else wants a Pink Slip supplier in Inner West Sydney that is fast, efficient, curteous, and helpful, try AMS at the corner of Concord and Parramatta roads.
The plug leads weren't as easy. The choice was between getting special Nissan V6 leads (Read $$$$$$$) or getting something more normal and changing them. So I got some Nissan Staight 6 plug leads, which are all too long, and cutting them shorter. Cutting plug leads isn't as complicated as it might appear. They just consist of carbon fibre conductors, with an outer insulating rubber coating, and special connectors crimped onto each end. So you just carefully unbend the crimpped connector, cut the lead shorter, peel back the rubber from the new end to give the crimp a good electrical connection and then crimping the connector back on.
This can be done while sitting in front of the TV, though it can make girlfriends complain about you getting bits of rubber everywhere. :)
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