POS13 - A Nostalgic RallyCross Project

rallyxPOS13 said:

  This is why I do Grassroots Motorsports: not for the plastic trophies, not even the competition, but to give myself a profoundly stupid goal, barely complete it, go drive around like an idiot, and then come back home again.

I love this!  

jfryjfry said:

very curious to watch you figure out the low-power sitch 

Too Soon?

Back to reality, I did a bit of reading back on NICO and Zilvia since they're both still around.  I recalled correctly that there's a few different options across the S13 and S14, and it's common to swap them to try and shift the powerband higher and maybe gain a few meager horsepower:

Armed with that information I dug back through my pictures to see what was in the second motor I installed, luckily I had grabbed a shot while changing the valve cover gasket:

Great!  Orange stripe on intake, and Green stripe on on exhaust.  That's the stock configuration on the S14 block I installed.....    Except that they swapped colors from S13 to S14, berk!

So I either have the OEM S14 head config with a 232/232, the assumed S13 exhaust cam in the intake location for a 248/232, or for some reason the S13 cams swapped around for a 248/240

It's Schrodinger's Cam:

ANYWAY, measuring duration is stupid, so I decided the next step would be a quick compression test.  But in reality got caught in a back yard renovation, another trip to WV, and a few other things around the house.  With a RallyCross coming up this past weekend, I finally got around to tinkering with the car again.

SWMBO agreed to come down and help crank over the car while I ran the compression test, but on the first turn of the key.... nothing.  Jiggled some stuff, still nothing.  That's OK I thought, my fancy Lithium battery had a restart function that would turn off and just magically restart the car!   Nope.

The battery was reading 0.1V, shut off completely.  I hit the restart button and it came up to 8ish, but nowhere near enough to coax a start out of the car.   So I pulled the battery out and put it on my charger:

I did a fair bit a research on a good charger that could deal with all the issues of a LiFePO4 and also charge up the rest of my terribly maintained lead acid and AGM batteries, and came up with this NoCo Genius 10.  However, when I finally hooked it up to the Antigravity ATX-30, nothing, I'd get a momentary display like above, and it'd show 14V on the terminals, then an instant shutoff, and the charger on standby...  Well E36 M3.

Personally, I've been involved with lithium chemistry batteries since I did an inspection on a plane we almost burnt to the ground in 2011, and I'm very cautious pushing electrons where they don't want to go.  It was obvious that either the charger or the battery's BMS was not happy with the situation.  So I emailed both companies to try to get the bottom of it.

By the time I got all that info arranged, I missed the last RallyCross   I got a prompt reply from NoCo, and it confirmed my assumptions about the batteries BMS switching off to balance the cells, but I haven't heard anything back from Antigravity.  Hopefully I can get it figured out so I don't have to make all new battery cables again to go back to automotive terminals and a heavy battery. (I also apparently need to track down some parasitic draw)

So yeah, it's been some months.... Waiting on the troubleshooting for the battery, shipping the battery, waiting on electrical power had me like:

There were so many things I could have been doing with the car, but motivation was completely gone, and I just waited and waited and waited.

In the meantime, some distractions took hold:

The Range Rover Velar is gone.  One small LED strip went out on the headlight, the cost to fix was $5,500 , and the best part was our extended warranty wouldn't cover it because headlights are "sealed beams" and are wear items.  At that point in the depreciation casino, I said: "cash out, go home"

What did we replace it with?

Yes.  Very.

So yeah, over the couple years we've owned it, the Range Rover was 'too nice' to let the dogs in, or sit in the white leather (or vegan leather, I forget) while caked in dirt after towing to a rallycross.  So I'd never really used it as a tow rig, or a dog car, and that was a limitation we were getting tired of living around.

4Runner? The dogs love it!

Complaints?  Slow as hell compared to the supercharged Velar, but that was expected... the only really qualm I had initially, was the exhaust sound. Let me transform you to a Toyota board room in the near past:

Big Wig:  Ok, I've gathered all the best and brightest TRD engineers, specializing in performance, acoustics, and manufacturing.  Let's optimize the exhaust on the TuRD Sport for the American audience!

Senior Engineer 1:  OK, lets spin the wheel of awesome engine sounds, we've combined all the best engine sounds onto this board

Junior Engineer 47:  *whispers* Hey, I couldn't find 12 different engine sounds...

Senior Engineer 2: Spins Wheel O Engine Noises (which is really just an old "the Farmer Says" child's game)

The Wheel:  The Cow Says:  Moooooooooooo!

Big Wig:  Excellent!  Spend 6 million dollars to make the new TuRD Pro sound like the epitome of Americana, the Cow, and it's mighty moo!

All Engineers: berkeley!

So yeah, every time I'm going up a slight incline the mighty beast lets out a triumphant MooooOOOOoooOOOOooooooOOOoOOOoOOOO out of the foolishly designed exhaust pipe.  Letting this engine echo the american excellence of a rusted out GM 3800 exhaust echoing off the grand canyon, and reported by some bald eagles.

Anyway, the other part I wanted to fix was enabling it to tow my crapbox to RallyCrosses.  The tow rating is 5000 lbs, about 500 less than the Rover, and I think that the air suspension would have compensated for it...  so I added Air suspension to the BroRunner:

This thing *barely* fits in the garage!

The installed airbags supplement the load of the normal springs, this kit being a Firestone brand version. This was very inexpensive, because it didn't have a full air compressor to change on the fly, instead there's a couple Shrader valve for each back you can fill up with another air source, and since I just got a DeWalt battery powered air compressor, this seemed like a much more cost effective option to have this capability.

There's a RallyX coming up in a week, so I'll let you know how it tows!

Oh, and the battery finally showed up!  

No root cause, corrective action, or anything saying why the old one committed Seppuku from Antigravity.  A new battery just showed up one day.

So before I chucked it back in the POS13, I decided to check for obvious issues.  The first thing I came across was some mutilated wiring in the fender well that some rocks or something must have destroyed.

Powers and ground were pulled out of connectors, wires were stripped mid-length, it was really a bad situation from a wiring perspective.   So I cut all the un-used connectors off, sealed them with shrink sleeve and sealant so no water could get to it, and I also stuffed the exposed wiring in to the engine bay.

..... But then as I put the battery back in there, and went to start it up, the high beams were pushed on on the headlight stalk, and that might have been what drained the battery in the first place.  I'd hoped that the Antigravity Re-Start would have disconnected it to protect from this, but maybe that's what failed the warranty check???

The car fired right up!

As it warmed into an idle, I tried to recall where I was on troubleshooting.... Oh yeah!  Compression Test.  So I drove around a while to charge up the new battery and warm everything up.  Then I coaxed SWMBO into helping with a quick compression test.  Everything checked out OK with each cylinder reading up to 190psi.   However, each plug I pulled, showed an interesting pattern on the spark plug. One side showed a 'normal' brown color, however the other side of the conductor showed a completely virgin gray color of a new plug.  I think this tells me that the flame propogation isn't even across the clyinder, and maybe leads creadence to the cam swap theory.

I piddled with a few other things today:

Some mice or squirrels were getting into the cabin as it sat for a long time.  One of the entry ways could be through where I removed the AC lines between the cabin and the compressor/condenser. 

Luckily for those of us makin racecars, some poor saps in an S-chassis or B-chassis had an option for no AC installed, and Nissan made a grommet to seal up these two hose locations, a quick transaction between here and Japan, and I got some good rubber to seal this delivered.

It also makes a nice grommet for added wiring, like the radiator fan:

While playing around with the car, and cognizant of how close to the max tow rating on the 4RUNNER I am, I decided to gut some extra weight out:

Nice pick up. I have the same bags on the Sequoia. Honestly, I put them at 20psi or so for towing and usually just leave it there for regular driving, as it actually makes the truck lean less unloaded. No need even for a compressor. You can fill up the bags in about 30 seconds with a regular bike pump lol. 

My old 4Runner (08) was rated to 5k also, and towed my heavy trailer and the rallycar no problem. Just had to plan ahead and/or carry speed on steep inclines. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I'm strangely looking forward to seeing how it tows about as much as I'm excited to get out and RallyX again!

The bad ideas train is all hitched up and pointed towards West Virginia!

Glad to see you got the battery replaced. I agree that it would have been nice to know the cause of failure. We had a fire on a auxiliary start battery on a race bike last month. I don't know everything about the battery, but it was not a good outcome. Looking forward to seeing how you do this weekend. Hope the new tow vehicle works out well for you.

you're hiding back there behind all the boxy cars...

So when towing for the first time with a new vehicle, it's good to take it easy, try some smaller loads, and slowly creep up on the limits.... or you know, put a 2500lb car on a 2200lb trailer, add some spares, tools, a couple humans and take it right up on the max tow rating and vehicle weight.  Then head straight for a mountain pass in the dark!

First gas station I came to I bumped up the pressures slightly in the bags and a bit more in the tires (35psi max, my ass!), and it rode much better.

How'd it go when I got to the mountains?

Oh yeah, I should mention that SWMBO decided to come along on the journey to see how her car did, and check out some properties in WV while I was 'racing'. 

So back to the 4runner.  It towed just fine on flat stretches, handled corners well enough with the bags up to 30 and rear tires up to 38.  However, as we got into the hills and mountains at the Virginia/West Virginia border on 48, the combination of turns and inclines meant the 5 speed auto box was challenged to keep the engine into any sort of torque band, anything under 3k rpm would just bleed revs and speed while trying to maintain momentum, the next downshift would wring it out above 4k rpm, where the engine made enough noise to cause the car owner in the passenger seat to tell me to knock it off.   The mapping of the whole mess was that even with 'manually' shifting the box, it'd ignore upshift requests while climbing and just rev hang a while after you crested the hills.  I honestly think it would have been fine if I could be one gear higher and able to floor it to use some torque.    After the divide and coming back down hill, the brakes were adequate, and the gear suggestion lever didn't seem to let me gain too much engine braking.  I had the windows down on the climb and descent, and didn't detect any smells of systems that were unhappy with the extra load.

Anyway, despite my best efforts to break it, we made it to the event just fine!

I got to Nissan nerd out in the paddock in the morning, because there was a DR30 Skyline!

Really neat car, and to tie it back to rally:  While the Skyline went on to do touring car racing, the engine in it, the FJ20DET found it's way into Nissan's 240RS WRC car at the time (in 2.4L form). It's a super stout engine that doesn't get much credit here in the US, and is the missing link of 80's Nissan between the L-series in my Datsun and the KA in my 240SX.  I'd never seen one of these in person, and it much much smaller in person than I'd imagined, and the engine had a way wider head than I had scaled it in my mind.   It's crazy how you make judgments of what things look like from pictures.

Oh yeah, this thread is about the POS13!   Back to the RallyX:  Changing almost nothing achieved the same result!   The car seemed slightly better in gearing with the larger course.  The rear end didn't seem to want to put power down, and on several corners was rebounding a bit too aggressively.  Watching other cars, it seemed like everyone was suffering some of the courses undulations.  However I can't help think I'm either getting some binding back there, or one of the struts has blown.  I'm also noticing that the VLSD isn't limiting the slip quite so well any more.  This course was very interesting in that there were mud puddles just poking into the line on one side or the other.  This being Panthera, the dirt is a silty clay, and when you get water on it, it turns to slick snot.  The effect of the day was we'd come into a corner, splash a puddle on one side, and the tires on that side would lose ~40% of their grip for about 4-5 tire rotations, then dig in normally.   As I was driving terribly, I'd forget this just about every time, and either understeer way past the turn in point, or if I hit the puddle on the way out, I'd oversteer wildly and not put any power down.   This is where I noticed that the rear tires weren't locking as I shuffled the steering back and forth trying to meander my way down the straights. 

With a similar theme to past events, the car seemed capable of competitive times, I just wasn't capable of getting through the course without wiping out a cone or 5.

The mud gave the car a nice patina that I was happy I didn't have to clean off for the drive home!

Thanks Josh (the pictures in your posts aren't showing up for me?) for the great picture as we were hauling ass out of there to get the dogs out of doggie jail in time.

It's been a while!

Car is basically sitting next to the house, still dirty from the last event.  But did get some pictures of it shortly after the event!

You can see the puddles here I previously mentioned:

And a great one showing off the droop travel of the fronts:

Anyway, to summarize the past year at RallyCross with the POS13:  It seems like I got the car to the point this year where it's not the car holding me back, it's my driving.  I had some occasional moments where I was on pace with the leaders, but couldn't seem to stay away from cones, birms, ponds, etc. to throw together enough consistent runs to place well in this very competitive MR region.

Over the next year, I plan on working on the interior, fitting a seat, making it so I can keep some dust out, maybe stitch welding it if things get crazy.  Then turning some attention to the rear suspension, I still think between the diff and suspension, something's making it more difficult to get power down.  And of course trying to get out to more events so that I can get better at driving.  Now that I'm tow-enabled, I'm considering truckin out to PA to try one or two of their events to get more practice and see what that surface is like.

In the meantime I've been playing around with the other cars.  With SWBO's 4runner being worth slightly more than most of my piles, and a bunch of square inches to clean, I decided to pay way too much money to have one of those fancy decade long lasting ceramic coatings done to it.

Every now and then, I think I take my car hobby too seriously, and most people would find the time and energy put into motorsports quite crazy...    Then I meet car detail folks!   We got a call as the car was finishing up with the last of the coatings: "What song do you want with your video?"  "Huh, what video?!"

So here we go, the cleanest any of my vehicles will ever be:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/972765434573690

So yeah, the TurdPro been working well as a road trip car, we even took the mutts on some simple offroading trails to Flagpole Knob in the mountains, and down for some beach time.

Also put a new stainless exhaust and all new fuel pumps and filters on SWBO's Volvo Wagon:

My Outback was also starting to handle funny, so I replaced all the bushings (again) and put some coilovers on it (I should probably start a build thread on this thing....)

After some measuring and guessing, I set the height, dropped it down of jackstands and....

#Subaruined

So thankfully I did order the right ones, and had enough adjustability to add some reasonable ride height back in there:

Whew!  had me scared there for a minute.  They seem to handle better.  I need to kill the outback bump stop in the rear, play around with the dampening, and get an alignment, to know for sure, but so far I'm impressed.

On the "putting power down" issue, I'd look for anything binding in the rear suspension, and check the diff breakaway torque for starters.

Edit: VLSD probably is just open at this point, actually. 

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

VLSDs ARE open until one wheel starts spinning, then they reactively start to lock up.  Once they start to lock up, they start to disengage, so they always kinda float around in that zone.   Clutch diffs react to torque from the driveshaft (and preload) not wheel speed difference, so if you are on the power when one wheel loses grip, the clutch packs are already locked up tight and you don't spin the other wheel.  This is also a little why clutch diffs don't like people who jockey the throttle a lot Pete

VLSDs are nice for the street.

With the VLSD, can now confirm:

Non-Newtonian Nonsense Nonexistent

It'll spin both tires, seemingly 'working'.  However, the other week we got a fair bit of snow, I needed to move the car to let a tree crew by without smacking it with limbs, so I just beached it next to the driveway in some rather deep snow.  When trying to extract it, it started to just spin.  So I chucked a traction board under one tire, assuming the diff would warm up, and I'd be out in no time!   haha, not so much, the tire with traction on the board instantly stopped spinning, and all power went to the one spinning away in the snow.

This does seem to hurt consistency of getting traction down in dirt, so time for a change.

I went back and forth on which would be better a 1.5 or 2 way LSD.  There's plenty of aftermarket clutch based options for the R200 in these cars.  Another thing I started bench racing in my head was the diff ratio, because hey, while you're in there.   The OEM 240SX diff was 4.08, when I chose to swap to the cheap and easy VLSD from an Infinity J30 my car had a 3.92.  There are several other option out there, and the intriguing one for RallyCross was the front diff out of a Nissan Xterra.  They came in 4.63 and 4.90 ratios.

I think that 4.63 will help with RallyCross, and put my speeds where I was fighting between the limiter in 1st and bogging in 2nd at Panther back firmly into 2nd gear.  So some mild mathing happened (excuse apple's Excel knockoff):

So, my current 3.92 J30 diff on the left, and the 4.63 Xterra diff on the right. Stockish dyno for curve reference aligned with rpms for the J30.  You can see from what I assume are the (wheel) speeds at Panthera 30 to 50 mph, I was running out of 1st gear, and/or falling out of the power in 2nd.  The 4.63 should seems to put that speed range right into the meat of the power band in 2nd, and should help with the courses around here.

So, decision made, look for the 4.63 gear.

I was still on the fence with which type of of diff to get, but a welded one showed up near my house cheap on facespacemarketplace, and when I checked it out, it was marked 51:11.  Score, the 4.63 diff ratio!   I know welded isn't ideal, but at least it's consistent, so I'll run this next season and see if it helps me improve my driving.  If it's miserable, or makes things worse, I now have both a VLSD and open housing to look for a clutch diff for.  Also picked up a brand new steering rack from the seller while I was there:

You'll love gearing.  It makes a gigantic difference!  Going from 4.08 to 4.62 is like adding 12% more torque from the engine, everywhere, as long as you don't go so crazy that you need to shift.

On that note, on loose surfaces the increase in torque may mean that you're developing wheel spin problems that you didn't have before, so you may find your speed calculations a bit off from expected as you gain more wheelspin.  It's all tradeoffs.  If you don't need to waste time with downshifts to 1st and can still go without needing 3rd, it's a win.

4.80ish gears are the happy spot with the RX-7 although it does have a lot of RPM to play with, but also as I point out the engine still makes 200hp at 6000rpm... it just doesn't need a shift to 3rd at that point.

IMO there's no point in worrying about 1.5 or 2 way.  In my experience, if you have a decent amount of preload, the clutches will keep the diff locked up on engine braking anyway.  This isn't pavement where the grip from the tires can overpower the clutches.

Because of that, in a rear drive car, IME there is next to no difference between a clutch diff and welded, at rallycross.  The big difference is on the street.  Send it and don't make tight turns while backing up on pavement unless axle replacement is one of your hobbies.

Thanks Pete, that makes sense about the lockup on dirt and welded, I'm excited to give this a try.  I think that on the courses I've run so far, this will be the right gearing for not dropping into 1st or needing to shift up to 3rd.

Season sign up is just around the corner, I think I'll get the full season subscription again, and hopefully get some more seat time this year.

Oh man, thrilled to turn a page in my favorite mag, and see my dusty rusty pile gracing it's pages!

So with that poke, it's time to update the thread!  

The first DC RallyCross came, and I missed it.  Had an opportunity to travel back and see the folks.  Bonus of the timing was that I grew up 20 mins from the 100 Acre Wood Rally, so I got to go out and spectate with my dad.

I've been watching, marshaling, crewing at the rally on and off since 2004, but haven't made it back since I moved out East.  Didn't take many pictures, but instead enjoyed the event not staring through a viewfinder or phone screen.  There was plenty of drama out in the woods, some rogue spectators dashed off into the woods and made the marshals chase them shutting down stage 3, my favorite car at the event was driven through the stages at a snails pace, holding up competitors, and a poor VR4 was totaled by someone flying through the finish time control at speed.

Back at home, I went to address a few leaks on the 240, first one was power steering.  It was pissing ATF all over the driveway at the rate of a quart every month or so.   So I installed the new rack I bought, and a chasebays kit that replaces all the lines with pre-made AN fittings and lines.

After I bled the system, I went for a quick test drive.  Two things became immediately apparent: 

I may have not put the splines back on the steering rack quite right...

And apparently I hadn't cleaned the car since the last 2023 event, a bit of an unbalance!

I've also been cleaning up the welded diff, decided to re-seal the output seals and replace the bearings.   The last time I was inside a differential, it was in a 3/4 ton Dodge lovingly named 'The Clustertruck'.  I bought it for the price of the cummins with a blown Dana 70, and went to rebuild it.  While trying to set it up, I ended up destroying several sets of bearings using my hammer store bearing pullers.  At the time, I lusted after a Yukon Gear setup that just zipped them right off with an impact gun.  I searched a bit now, and there were several other options now, I decided to go mid-range, and grabbed one from East Coast Gear Supply.  Imagine my surprise when I opened the box, and it was the actual Yukon one for a fraction of the cost!

It's neat how it grabs the bearings, and apparently all the Nissan R200 stuff is approximately the size of Dana 60 parts:

After I got all the new bearings pressed on, I realized I should have spent some of that money on a case spreader to put the diff back in...  Then I remembered the cold trick!

After a night in the freezer, the frosty diff just dropped right in.  Also the frost helped show the tooth engagement.

There's a few more things I need to fix up before the event.  The plastic timing chain guides have broken, and making a racket, so I'd rather change those prior to hanging it off the rev limiter for a while.  The clutch hydraulics seem to be blown, despite having only a few hundred miles on them. So instead of these cut rate parts, I ordered not second best, but...

Honorable mention goes to the Anti-gravity Battery, after the rocky start with the first battery, this replacement has been amazing. The car sits for months, and always fires right up, no matter the temperature.

nice. was wondering where you were last event. 

rallyxPOS13 said:

Fun fact:  When you go for a drive, get both the power steering fluid and header all nice and hot, then check your fluid level, the new black powdercoated machined aluminum PS cap will brand your hand with pretty knurled pattern and ChaseBays logo at a bazillion degrees.  It's almost like the OEM was onto something when they made the stock cap out of plastic....

Anyway, back to progress!  I swapped in the welded diff with 4.63 gears.  Old and busted on left, new hotness on the right.

So another trip down Nostalgia lane:  When I was a young rallyxPOS13, I was flush with cash from a summer internship at college, and was getting sick of cleaning dirt out of the first POS13.  When these cars were nothing back in the day, I managed to score a free KA24E motor from a guy doing an SR swap, and then bought a $500 shell that had hail damage and a windowed block.  I combined those two with the help of some good friends off of solo2.org, swapped that engine in and created the SuperBeater!  I sold off the nice uncracked dash, traded off for some undented sheetmetal, and had a rallycross car that owed me nothing!  

How are my ramblings relevant to this current situation?  I was still a poor college student, and had one VLSD that I'd swap between cars.  If there was an autocross coming up, I'd swap the good diff over to the POS13.  If there was a RallyCross, I'd swap it over to the SuperBeater.  

So no surprises installing the diff, I still had plenty of muscle memory on how to balance the diff on the jack, hang it off the sway bar, and slide it over the lip on the subframe.

I did make a few observations while I was under there.

The rear bushings are shot, and might be contributing to the rear grip:

And part of the lopsided braking issue might be down to the e-brake cable.  It seems like there's different parts L/R, and the trapeze thingy is sitting all cockeyed

So with the new diff installed, I took the car out for a flog in the rain.  The new diff ratio was immediately evident!  I let out the clutch in 1st, and the leak through the IACV caused the car to launch!  Then the first run up through the gears, I looked down and was only going 50 in 5th!   Handling was interesting:  During driver induced shenanigans, it stepped out just fine and was much more controllable.  However under light throttle input and higher speed, it was downright spooky. It wouldn't exactly push on entry like I was expecting, but if I coasted through a constant corner, it would start pushing mid-corner.  It's certainly going to take some getting used to on the street.   The Acclera tires have such poor grip on pavement that it wasn't very 'chirpy' in parking or tight maneuvers, but you could certainly feel the car bind up and not want to rotate without the gas.

I may have to finally put some alignment tools on the car and see where I'm at, and take it to work a few times to get used to the difference.  I think with the much higher revs in 5th, I'm also going to look into getting a trailer over the next couple weeks.

Also continuing to ruin the daily:

I fell in love with these Enkei PF05's after seeing them on Speed Academy's Evo, and it turns out that rear fitment on Furs&Burs run a 17x9 +40 that seemed like a good fit for my Outback...

But I might need a spacer in the rear 

Spent some more quality time in the garage with the POS13

First order of business was to replace the caliper I couldn't back out to fit both new brake pads into, swap was fairly straight foward:

While hooking the e-brake cables back up, and it was struggling to stretch on. In the previous post, the little pivot piece was all cockeyed in there.  So on a hunch, I ordered a new set of ebrake cables from GKTech.  Sure enough, the two cables I removed were different lenghts, had different looking bellows, and were very strange.  So now, despite the fact that the welded diff fixed this, if I've gotta go for the oversteer handle, both brakes will grab at the same time.

I joked in a previous post about "D Best" parts, but in the 240 realm, it really has been a race to the bottom.  Most parts on Rock Auto or FLAPS are dozens or casting generations behind and I've had all sorts of fitment and quality issues.  Right now, the clutch feels weird, and fluid is very black, these were supposedly "exedy" brand parts, and I had assumed were to a certain quality.  These new clutch parts came from an ex-moderator of Zilvia who was posting on all the facespace groups.  He had found the OEM manufacturer, Nabco and was importing small quantities of the good stuff to enthusiasts. 3rd time installing these, so it went smoothly, and I added a braided clutch line from GKtech.

With the car in the air, I got rid of the last chunk of poly driving vibration into the car with another quality part I'd picked up along the way and installed a Nismo transmission mount.

Another item I wanted to address prior to the RallyCross this coming weekend was a rattle from the top end.  This is almost always plastic timing chain guides that die from heat and poor oiling, so I ordered a new timing set.  Again, got a good kit with Japanese made parts from FRSport:

When I pulled the valve cover and front timing cover, I found all the guides were still intact (they often break off when brittle), and the tensioner still had oil flow... so I was hesitant to dive into this, but hey, once you've gone this far...

I pulled the guides, and sure enough, they'd been worn, and were starting to crack:

I didn't feel like pulling the motor again to do the lower guides, so I replaced the upper guides, tensioner, gears and chain.  However, as I was putting things back together, it seemed like the TDC position that I removed the gears and chain from wasn't quite lining up with slot in the new chain and gears.  Perhaps there was some stretch or wear that was causing some of the power things in the back of my mind....

One last thing I wanted to address, was some sediment in the coolant.  The motor was kind of hastily installed, the radiator was second hand, and it was all run without looking into the coolant system.  Well I'm glad I started down this path!

The output is above, it's almost backwards, with the first one on the right and moving to the left as I put a couple gallons of distilled water with some 'coolant flush' through the motor, let it heat up to thermostat opening, then drain.  5 cycles of distilled water through this heap, and the 'water' still looks like almost half rust (maybe dirt/clay?), and none of the flushes look any cleaner than the one before it!

I ran out of daylight and distilled water before the rusty/dirty water quit coming.  So I'll pick up a few more gallons tomorrow and keep cycling this until it comes out clean.  Maybe see if the FLAPS has a thermostat and gasket to I can get that out of the way of the Cradle of Filth.

rallyxPOS13 said:

 

 

 

Is this pic from Siesta Key, FL?

Lof8 - Andy said:

 

Is this pic from Siesta Key, FL?

Yes it is!

Nostalgia time again:  I had saved up enough summer job money to afford my own car, and was searching high and low for the right 240SX back in the summer of 2001, I had a budget of about $2k, and was looking for a hatch, 5speed, <100kmiles, and not red.   As the summer rolled on, I'd looked at a few but they were either too expensive or rusty.  Just before the semester was about to begin, I saw a car on eBay that checked all the boxes!   Black on Black 5 speed 89 SE.  Problem was it was in Flordia, and I was in Missouri.   Luckily enough, my grandmother lived in Sarasota.  So I hatched a crazy scheme to use all the money I had, fly out to Floridia with my dad, purchase a car sight unseen off eBay, hang out on the beach with my gran, then drive it 1200 miles back home.

Upon picking it up in Tampa, the heavens opened up, and we got a torrential August afternoon FL downpour, I quickly realized what I'd bought: nubs of nonexistent wiper blades, three different brands of tires, blown shocks, etc.  I think I had the good fortune of spinning out into an Autozone parking lot, and loaded the credit card up with all the tools and fluids. 

After that quick visit to the beach to take that pic, hang out with my grandmother, we headed out the next day.

This is where the story ties into my current predicament:  We made it only to Gainesville.  The car was overheating bad after about 20 mins on the highway.  I knew little about working on cars or troubleshooting, but coolant boiling out of the overflow was bad.  Limped it to Nissan of Gainesville, and they tried to flush the system and send us back on our way.... 20 mins later, overheating again, so let it cool off and headed back.   This is where I learned my first valuable lesson on car ownership:  learn how to fix it, don't count on others.   The story they told us was that the radiator was clogged, and they didn't have any in stock, but could order one from Japan, it'd take 5 days to arrive, and cost a little over a grand.  I foolishly agreed, and Dad and I headed back to the beach in a rental.  With having paid >50% of my cars value in replacement parts I made it back a day or two before classes.

Once back home and researching it a bit, I realized I could have undone two bolts, two hose clamps, and paid an autoparts store <$100 and fixed it myself, I felt like a fool.  Ever since, I've taken it on myself to do almost everything DIY on my cars, and have had a rewarding time understanding the mechanical and electrical systems and working through troubleshooting.

In reply to rallyxPOS13 :

Great story!  The beach has been completely redone now but I was pretty sure I recognized some of the details in that photo! :)

rallyxPOS13 said:

if I've gotta go for the oversteer handle, 

The oversteer handle is below your right foot lol..