F31 welcome here?

[HowlerMonkey]

Stupid image host went down so trying to edit in new addresses of the images.

Two years ago, I bought a M30 with a spun rod bearing and just went to a junkyard and got another cap and used bearing so I could move it around without it throwing a rod and ruining the block.

So......I suspended the engine on a sling I made from a 4x4 with some chains and large eye bolts with long threaded shanks so I could do the measurements needed to attempt a VG30et since I have every part to do so.

In the mean time, I bought another crank but soon found the VG30et swap would not be a fun road to go down because of the already too steep steering shaft angles which are made worse by trying to fit a Z31 turbo crossmember........and I wasn't interested in laying down the rack....which again makes the angles more steep.

The other alternative is making one's own turbo manifolds to relocate the turbo and possibly losing power steering or A/C.

I got discouraged and it sat for 2 years.

Upon getting fired and my landlord putting the house up for sale, I needed to make this car mobile so I just installed what I had lying around which is a L28et and a built 3n71b.

I had already converted it to a front sump by relocating the oil pickup and fitting a front sump oil pan from a first generation maxima (l24e) as well as drilling a new dipstick hole (not in the front blank dipstick boss because it goes through an oil galley which is drilled deeper in the rear sump iteration of the L28).

I just extended the stock pickup to reach the new front sump pan and made sure it was tucked as close to the engine as possible so it would allow the pan to clear it.

I also cut a notch in a baffle to clear the tube.

Really bad picture but I simply drilled a hole at a steep angle about 1.5 inches above the boss for the oil pan midway between two bolts and used a stock bracket meant to hold an automatic transmission line that bolts to the pan..........then I bent it up and used the threaded hole already there to hold  the tang on the mr. gasket chrome dipstick for small block ford.

Oh.....ignore that fram oil filter.

They've never let me down but they are rated far below the Purolator filters.....which are what you should be running.

Check the reviews on filters.

Also made a small 3/4 inch hole so it wouldn't bottom on the pan baffle.......then filled it with the proper oil change as dictated, ran it, and marked the stick for "full" level.

Beware chrome sticks as I had chrome flaking off and decided to remove all of it from the stick before using it.

It fits!...........so now time to make mounts.

I also own a 1984 rear wheel drive maxima which is similar to the M30 in many dimensions and I also had spare engine mount brackets as well as the sump because this L28et was supposed to go in that car but I just bolted turbo manifolds onto the stock L24e and drove it 50,000 miles that way.

The maxima mounts were perfect for front to rear location but had the engine 2 inches too high so I found that S30 or S130 mounts would mount the engine (kind of) closer to the proper height and had the proper front to back location........but not ready for prime time.

Time to cut and weld the S30 mounts which seem damn weak as delivered from factory compared to the S130 (280zx) mount.

Right side is actually a S130 mount but they are same dimension but with extra bracing in between.

Turns out is is a lot more of a pain in the ass and requries mucho time on the grinder but I was able to drill a hole through both the stock portion and my welded pad which will have a bolt in case my welds turn out be metal caulking (not likely as I used a torch to preheat the work area)

  

I cut them shorter and re-angeled them rather than molest the crossmember since I may want to fit the soon to be rebuilt VG30.

I do have a spare crossmember that might be for sale soon.

Left side mount made from s30 (no webbing between legs).

On the left mount, I cut a slot in the added pad and fed the front portion through it for an extra measure of safety.

I would have done the right side that way but I cut the wrong leg off and had to end up cutting both.....Doh!!

If I don't mount something to the extra bit of pad, I will probably cut of the extra bit but it does clear the 280zx a/c compressor.

Next was my ghetto turbo drain I have put on many a car but this time I actually had the engine out of the car when I installed it..........3 pics of process.

Find an old oil pickup tube.......it's evident from the pics what type will work for this.

Grind the periphery to get rid of the screen.....

Now you have a flange with a turn immediately after but make sure it is as vertical as your car will allow because turbo oil returns don't like horizontal sections at all.

Yes, that's a 428 "cobra lemans" engine in a 67 fastback with top loader (one step below cobrajet tune)

Here it is installed and slathered with permatex ultra copper.

(edit:.....still not leaking 50,000 miles later)

Then it was time to mount a 3n71b tranny which isn't longer than the stock tranny but the bellhousing has to move back a few inches to restore stock L engine clearance to firewall.

That one shiny bolt is ground such that it fits like a glove into a countersunk hole.

Yes I will be tying the two individual mounts together on that one side........someday if necessary.

(edit:   50k miles later, it hasn't been an issue)

More pics to follow of clearance between s30 fan/clutch assembly and stock radiator as well as 280zx turbo radiator which seems to fit.

My plan was to run a 1987 300zx turbo ecu first since I have one and an adapter made from the connector of a m30 ecu and 300zx harness plugs but it sure was easy to simply cut the vg30 harness that is already in the car since the M30 has a superior sequential injection ecu with a consult port.

I have not cut anything on the car itself other than the stock exhaust pipe just after it collects though I will cut the harness since I have a spare.

The stock 280zx turbo turbo elbow/downpipe clears the steering shaft like the car was made for it.

Soon I will slightly move the receiver/dryer from it's stupid location so I can adapt the M30 power steering pump to fit the 280zx bracket but for now it can hang out where it is.

So far, this hasn't cost me jack shit since I already had this stuff laying around and I've only spent like 4 full days working on it.

 

 

[HowlerMonkey]

No money but plenty of time so I tied up some loose ends.

Still waiting for front driveshaft from a S13 to be fitted with 280zx turbo 3n71b yoke and a distributor shaft so I worked on some details like the fan and such and ran it for 1 hour twice a day for the last 3 days mostly idling and it seems pretty ok.

Zero smoke and no dead holes.

I'm surprised since the pistons came out of a 90,000 mile 280zx n/a that was filled with water and rusted the bores.

I hammered them out with a 3 foot pry bar right through the rusty bores and, when I realized I was sold an engine missing a few piston skirts and broken ring lands, I just cleaned them up by soaking each in carb cleaner until the rings unstuck and then I worked them until they were clean without removing the rings and honed the f54 turbo block and slapped them in.........crazy......I couldn't find even the slightest scratch on the ring surfaces after their trip through rusty bores.

I realized I needed a throttle when I got in the car and stupidly stood on the gas pedal as it ran.............DoH!!!.......not much worse than a flaccid pedal.

The stock L-engines use a linkage rather than a cable.

I had both a 240sx and a 1992 stanza throttle body (stanza one is better for fitment to 300zx....it says "nissan" rather than "Jecs" on it) and contemplated fitting them but I have zero cash for piping to the larger diameter throttle body so I used stock 280zx pipe and I then decided to remove the cruise control portion of the throttle cam and cut a little out of it a bit rather than try to fit it to the throttle body itself.

If you use it and the plastic bushing it fits over, it will slide right over the stock L28 throttle linkage in a place where the stock M30 cable only has to make a "S bend" and it doesn't bind at all.

Then you just drill it where it sits (once in proper position) and feed a bolt through it.

If you look close, I left on enough of the round portion to keep the throttle action as linear as possible since the L28 linkage that links the shaft to the throttle body already takes a bit of linearity away and not keeping the round portion would exaggerate it to the point that the car would not be fun to drive.

Feels like stock....but bracket looks cheesy.

It's one of the brackets from the VG30 that came off of the VG30 cut down and put upside down.

That took an unbelievable amount of time in the burning hot sun routing the throttle cable here and there and everywhere to come to that solution but the actual work was only a few minutes.

I did find out that the throttle cable still works smoothly when tied in a loose knot.

More time permitting, I will make it look good.

 

 

Engine bay pics.

 

 

Stock 280zx turbo turbo elbow clears steering shaft easily........made quick adaptor for smaller o2 sensor required by either m30 or late z31 turbo ecu but I may run an early z31 turbo ecu rather than wire in dropping resistors so two bolts later, I can screw in large sensor.

 

 

Money is tight so it's all labor......except a bit I set aside for the driveshaft shop.

 

Both the engine and the car have suffered years of hackery at the hands of chumps so I have a bit of work in front of me to undo it before I start on a very stout L28et build with the FS5r30 tranny using austin hoke's adapter.

FEW DAYS LATER.....

Did some cutting on the M30 harness in preparation for using the M30 ecu with the L28et.

I used the dropping resistors but wired it and used plugs so I can just unplug them and plug in a loopback in case I want to use high impedance later on.

I may just drop in the stock M30 high impedance injectors and see what happens since I will be running minimal boost.............non-turbo injectors worked fine on my L24 maxima with a turbo so........

Funny how injectors 1,3, and 5 each have their own power wire but 2, 4, and six all use a single red wire for all three to feed the positive side.

I put them all together to feed a block and then ran individual power feeds to the injectors.

I also spent forever trying to figure out a mystery wire that was blue with white stripe.

My wiring diagram for the ecu says it is a comm line but it turned out to be the a/c compressor clutch wire.......LOL.......forgot about that in my frenzy.

I also found you can fit the M30 power steering pump to the stock 280zx (1981 and later rack cars) bracket with 5/8 inches of spacers and welding in a brace.

Then you replace the ribbed belt pulley with one from an early pathfinder or Z31 so the V belt can work with the stock 280zx crank pulley and tensioner though I will have to find a longer low pressure line (return line) from another car that will allow me to keep the power steering Res. in the stock location........it seems to hover where it is just fine for now.

I'm amazed at how easy this has been so far.
 

 

 

 

[HowlerMonkey]

Finally got a 280zx turbo distributor shaft so I swapped over the disc from the Z31 distributor to the 280zx turbo distributor and got the wiring harness sorted to reach the bare neccessities to run.

 

I felt really bad cutting the 280zx turbo specific connector off of the distributor but better that than ruining the harness of the standalone 280zx turbo system I made to initially run the engine.

 

I used the M30 tps but it has a narrower distance between the mounting holes so I cut and ground the 280zx turbo tps until only about 50% of the metal backing remained and tacked it to the m30 tps.........good to go and adjusted easily.

 

I have the air cleaner/maf for the vg30 setup in stock location and used the intake pipe off of a 1984 toyota camry.

 

One side fits the turbo exactly and the other fits very snugly inside the extension rubber tube on the M30 maf.

 

It's tight enough that it leaks no air.

 

It starts up and runs fine even with the turbo injectors.........but I had to bypass the dropping resistors to get it started the first time since I had replaced some injectors with some that had sat in a box for 5 years.

 

I haven't hooked up a knock sensor to the car may be falling back to a lame ignition curve because the ecu doesn't see the sensor.

 

It seems fine everywhere else in the rpm range with zero missing or popping but I haven't driven it since I still lack the driveshaft.

 

I'm sure idle would be better once work out a way to use the idle control circuitry with the 280zx hardware.

 

Next is making all the rest of the circuitry working that the ecu expects like egr, a/c idle up, idle air control, temp gauge..etc..........that and soldering on the connectors the 280zx turbo specific alternator and tranny expect....but at least I can now start the car from inside and it would run fine if I had a driveshaft.

 

More pics once the harness is fully taped, splitloomed, and routed.

 

FEW DAYS LATER......

 

No more pics yet but, while contemplating 3.54 diff from 280zx, I found that the pinion yoke from the 280zx turbo or z31 300zx will bolt right in.

 

I did remove the abs sensor that is on the nose of the long nose r200 but it didn't look like it would interfere with the 208zx rectangular flange (of course....no tone wheel for abs).......but why have it there if there is no tone wheel acting on it?

 

Both of those flanges make the overall driveshaft length needed to be about 1/2 inch longer than with the M30 flange on the diff. but, if you have a one piece driveshaft made that is long enough for proper penetration into the tranny for use with the M30 flange, then the 1/2 inch less penetration with the z31/280zx turbo flange is no big deal.

 

The 280zx n/a is the same dimension and will work as well but it features M8 bolts instead of M10.

 

R180 use a thinner pinion shaft so you cannot swap on a flange from one of them.

 

I just had a 280zx turbo driveshaft lengthened for this car and should get it back next week early.

 

I'll still pick up the 3.54 from the 280zx turbo in the junkyard since I doubt 3.9 with no overdrive will be much fun on the highway.

 

It also seems the 280zx C/V type axles are the same length with the only difference being the flange on the stub axle being a smaller bolt circle on the 280zx than the M30 so I'll guess you can put M30 axles and flange into a 280zx turbo just fine or the other way around......as long as you bring the flanges on the stub axles.

 

I haven't checked the spline count on the flanges so see whether they are swappable back and forth so measure first before jumping into that.

 

The reason you might want to use M30 axles on the 280zx turbo is that the 280zx turbo c/v axles have to be cut open in order to replace boots while the M30 slip over and are clamped.

 

 

[HowlerMonkey]

Got driveshaft back.

 

Drove it..........seemed pretty smooth and fast.

 

Lost all gears in tranny.......Called wrecker.

 

Started car back up.........tranny acted fine........for about 500 yards........no gears at all.

 

Turned off......started back up........good for 500 yards before no drive whatsoever.

 

No shuddering or slippage so I surmised it was some debris floating into the filter which removed all pressure........glad I didn't rev the piss out of it when it failed or it would have burnt and sent debris all through the tranny......Lucky.

 

Took off pan and found a mini-mountain of rear clutch particles just under the pickup of the filter.

Removed and took apart tranny................everything except the low/reverse clutch are fine which is good.

 

Ordering friction materials and new band........everything else was fine and since there was no burning.

I guess sitting for 5 years twice was a bit hard on the friction material.

 

 

This gives me the opportunity to modify the valve body while it's apart so it should be good for near 500hp after it goes back together......probably next weekend.

 

Amazingly easy and only used a pair of snap ring pliers to take it apart.

 

It seems if the jatco 3n71b and 4n71b trannies don't burn and overheat, then there is almost zero wear inside since everything else was at like new specs.

 

I replaced all frictions in all clutches but only replaced a few of the steel frictions that were damaged by metal to metal as in the picture, some o' rings, the modulator, and the plastic thrust bushing.

(edit: still running strong 50k  miles later and doing low 15 second quarter miles.....often)

[bonvo]

welcom to ratsun any pics of the complete car?

[HowlerMonkey]

I added the 280zx turbo injector cooling fan after experiencing vapor lock after parking it for 15 minutes and trying to restart it after a hot soak.

 

From the 280zx up until the late early 1986 Z31s Nissan used injector cooling fans to blow air over the injectors and rail for 17 minutes after you shut off the car.

 

The late 1986-on Z31 and the M30 get around this by using dual inlet injectors and some ZX turbos can get away without running them because they have a huge hole right above the turbo where hot air convectively flows out rather than being trapped in the engine compartment.

 

The late Z31s and other VG30 went to dual inlet injectors which makes the hole in the hood and the fan non-necessary.

 

Fuel comes in the side and goes out the top toward the regulator where it is sent back to the tank.

This ensures cool fuel is quickly sent through the injectors and rails rather than the old way which only flushed part of the rail while leaving boiling fuel in the injectors.

 

So...I installed the 280zx fan, sourced a timer unit from a Z31, and wired it up per the manual....

 

Wrong....the Z31 manual is wrong because they just copied over the wiring pinout and diagrams from the 280zx manuals....which were also wrong.

 

I used the schematic supplied in the 280zx manual and followed the board traces through the components to determine the correct pin out and now it works.

 

Luckily, the manual being wrong caused no smoke when connecting it that way........It just did nothing.

It works correctly with the wiring on the right side of the diagram.

 

 

[HowlerMonkey]

Yeah.....I let my datsun brothers down so I will make amends.

 

Pictured below are the 240sx sensor out of a RE4R01a tranny that happens to have the exact same diameter

as the sensors/drives that fit the 3n71b and 4n71b.....they are both jatco trannies so it makes sense.

 

I installed the black gear on it in anticipation of my 3.54 gearing but put the pink gear (came on it) back on and it is in my 3n71b now and pretty accurate.

 

You can see how nissan offset the housing depending on the gearing and the amount of offset is actually visible if without removing the sensor from the car....if you can look closely.

 

To run the black gear on that sensor, I had to clock it 90 degrees which makes the gear tips flush with the housing like the sensor on the right.

 

 

Another view

 

 

I'm sure there is a proper offset sensor housing but I've only found them in 28mm outside diameter on the RE4R03 trannnies out of Q45 and J30 infiniti.

 

I haven't confirmed it yet but it seems the 28mm sensors from the q45 and j30 might fit the FS5w71c tranny....not sure yet.

 

As far as FS5R30 trannies, here is the sensor out of my pathfinder shorty tranny.....it is actually a speedo drive housing but the sensors and drives out of these trannies seem to follow the same offset and gear relationship as the shorter sensors on the other trannies.

 

Sadly, the fs5r30 transmission is pretty large and has trouble fitting the m30 transmission tunnel when you have the bellhousing flange way back as in when you use an inline engine.

 

A Z31 FS5r30 trans will fit if the flange is way forward as in the stock location as others have shown on these forums.

[hellamikey]

I dig.

 

always had a soft spot for those, I plan on buying one some day.

 

Welcome to Ratsun!!

[HowlerMonkey]

Even though they didn't make many, I am seeing them in the junkyards much like the Z31 was all over the yards 5 years ago.

The Z31s are slowly fading away so I expect the M30 to share the same sort of cycle.

It's posible that now is the time to pick one up and strip the ones you find in the yards before they become really scarce.

That said, I think the easiest nissan platform is still the S13 so I may put the LD28 in that instead since the s13 sure is easier to keep on the road with so many in the wrecking yards.

 

Dropping resistors are required if you run low impedence injectors such as the stock L28et injectors on an ecu that expects high impedence injectors.

 

 

 

[HowlerMonkey]

Had a little time on my hands so........Added a supra intercooler using various saab and volvo intercooler piping and stock volvo/saab hoses (cut to proper lengths for a stock look) that allowed me to route through the headlight openings in the core support without cutting anything or moving the stock air filter box and intake tubing.

A little black paint on the one non-black tube in the system should look damn near like the intercooler came from the factory.........maybe a little dirt on the one silicone coupler I used would blend it into looking more stock.



Boost is now referenced from the intake manifold because the intercooler system has a pressure drop across it that takes away 1.5 pounds of boost at redline and 10psi.

Stock nissan L28et "blow off" (vacuum control valve) is augmented by much larger recirculation valve that routes the backed up boost that stacks up in front of the throttle plate to the turbo inlet.

This is necessary because of the larger volume of pressurized air in the intercooler system versus the stock "j-pipe".

Now that the entire factory infiniti M30 induction system is installed, I can no longer hear the recirculation valve operating.........all you hear from this car is a little bit of fan noise and turbo whine.........well....and tires burning.

Wastegate actuator arm was threaded for length adjustment but is set to 6psi and the car's been run to 10psi using the boost control valve (my limit for flat top engine with 93 octane) without any pinging and the boost shoots right up to 10psi and stays steady all the way to redline.

A "grainger valve" was used for boost control.



With this "grainger valve", the wastegate actuator diaphragm does not see any boost at all until boost climbs to the value you have set by adjusting the valve.

It's also good to run this if you have moved the wastegate actuator's boost reference from the turbo housing to the intake manifold because this valve is also a one way valve which means your wastegate actuator doesn't see the intake manifold's 25 to 30 inches of vacuum when you drop throttle at high rpms. (good for a 20 year old actuator diaphragm that has never seen any vacuum).

Grainger part number 5Z763 for $9.73.

http://www.grainger....5&cm_vc=IDPBBZ2

I swapped the orientation of the ball and spring around so the ball seats on the body end rather than the knob end as delivered by grainger and drilled a 1/8 inch hole almost all the way through the body of the valve (not all the way through) with the .025 inch hole drilled inside the larger hole for the final 1/16 of an inch.

Most I have seen on the internet are drilled on an adapter.........but I did not want an adapter.

You can just see the hole near the orange loctite in the pic.

Sure you can try to drill that tiny and fragile bit all the way through but I was doing this in a vise with a standard and relatively large hand drill so the 1/8 inch hole minimized the amount of .025 drilling required.

The hole is in the body in a place that would not interfere with operation of the valve.

I wanted a more streamlined installation with minimal size and parts so I got a double ended hose barp, cut it in half, drilled the hole in the knurled portion of the grainger valve larger, and pounded the barb through from the inside to keep it captive unlike most I've seen on the internet where it is pounded in from the outside.

I did have to grind the barb lip formed by cutting the double ended barb in half so it would go into the knurled adjuster of the valve as well as shorten the spring a bit (might not have been necessary to shorten the spring but the bit of hose barb does shorten the compartment by 1/8 inch where the spring seats).

I also sourced the proper hose barb for the other end and did not need an adapter.

This leaves you with a grainger valve that won't spit out the barb that some recommend you pound in from the outside.

$80 total expenditure on intercooler, boost control, and boost recirculation system........all sourced in two 1 hour junkyard trips, one trip to lowes, and one trip to grainger........and some vacuum hose.

I need to do a couple of things like making the EGR work, the IAC, and deleting the aux air regulator as well as routing the water lines from the regulator/throttle body to the water cooled center section of the new turbo slated for installation.

Waiting on custom a/c lines and finishing a support for the rear mount of the power steering pump......well....that and a proper upper radiator hose.

Nistune will be purchased with DLP designs 8 channel usb data acquisition system as well as a dished piston L28et for higher boost levels.

Note the walmart "neverstart" marine battery which has two extra terminals and, for some reason, cost considerably less than the automotive use battery of the same specs..........at least when I bought it 2 years ago.

http://www.walmart.c...attery/16782694

Currently, the extra ground cable makes battery to body and battery to engine connections redundant and the extra positive terminal can be used for something that draws big current such as amps for a subwoofer or maybe a huge laser to blind chumps who cut me off.

I mentioned a subwoofer but I found that putting 6x9s in the rear deck of a car with a decent sized trunk offers up some pretty tight bass and enough volume to leave my ears ringing after a loud song.

I had originally tried infiniti kappa 6 1/2 components but it was not nearly loud enough behind a $75 buck pioneer head unit without supplemental amps so in went some 8 year old (6 years in a box) pioneer 4 way 6X9s that were purchased because they had the LOWEST wattage rating I could find for that speaker size.

Sometimes you get lucky with stereo installations and sometimes you spend tons of time and money for something that never does sound good.

Since the car originally had bose speakers, I had to fashion 1 inch thick shims carefully cut into bizarre shapes as to minimize any obstruction of the 6x9 speaker through the very odd shaped speaker holes.

While the front 6 1/2s in the doors are pathetic in comparison, the 6x9s are shockingly loud and friends make me open up my trunk to prove I have no subwoofer or supplemental amps.

Fronts also used 1 inch thick shims because the door holes are somewhere between 5 inch aftermarket speakers and 6 1/2 speakers........pretty easy....bolt speakers to shims and bolt entire assembly to the door though I may be tempted to play around with the factory bose enclosures with an aftermarket speaker installed later on.

All speakers are under the stock covers so any sideways baseball cap wearin' thieving ass'd nimrod will see nothing worth breaking into the car for.

I'll try to add pics of the speaker install for the M30 guys because I have shared in their pain.

At least 25,000 daily driven miles so far and here's how it looked during my trip to kennedy space center to do some aero testing on the twin turbo ford GT.



It is parked under a tree I used 22 years earlier to pull an engine in my 1969 ss chevelle (455 olds) that broke an oil pump as I was moving and had only money for gas........but plenty of tools and the parts necessary to pull off the job.

This is located in a state picnic area on Indrio road just east of I95 in florida and the engine was pulled during a monster lightning storm.

Sadly, moving the seat forward to get my tools out poked a hole in my can of "off" initiating a panic stricken and can tearing application of the insect repellent but the downpour of rain washed it off I was eaten alive by mosquitos anyway.

[HowlerMonkey]

Fixed up the thread because the picture host evaporated.

 

Will someday add more pictures and make it a bit more readable.

 

Before intercooling.

 

Yes, I found a proper hose that doesn't kink but the current Mitsubishi galant hose is still doing the job so the proper hose still sits in the trunk.

 

 

I put it on the dyno in September 2013 and it put down 209hp to the wheels on a dyno dynamics unit we call "the dream crusher" because every guy who brings in his "500hp  big block" ends up putting down around 380hp.

 

For the dyno run it was stock L28et but with flattop pistons from the N/A model and a supra intercooler on 7 pounds of boost.

 

Yeah....that extra 1.1 of compression makes a difference as does the intercooler vs the stock non-intercooled setup.

 

It's still unturned but I have nistune and will soon detail how well it works on the M30 as it should not matter whether L28 or VG30 as far as the ecu is concerned.

 

This is how it sits now in case I need to try to sneak it past an emissions inspector or cop.

 

 

Better detail of what's going on with blow off valve right in front of throttle body and stealthy stuff painted to look as if it came that way from the factory.

 

The goal is to look boring to a potential cop or inspector and keep him from looking too closely.

 

 

The stock intake fits but get's heated by it's proximity to the unshrouded radiator so I simply turned the air cleaner top around and it breathes cold air that comes in along the unibody and I get zero water intrusion even through pounding the biggest puddles when I splash the unfortunate people at the bus stops.

 

The intercooler pipes go through the headlight wiring hole and it has a recirculation valve that vents blowoff back to the turbo inlet so you don't hear any "phoshss" noises.

 

I did pull the stock exhaust behind the cat and put it on the silver car....which I have decided not to sell yet.

 

I got the piping between the cat and the rear muffler from a car at the junkyard that strangely had a slightly larger diameter piping and I removed the resonator and welded in straight piping all the way back.

 

Sounds great as the turbo and the catalytic convertor get rid of all the raspiness  and harshness leaving a nice low rumble that is still pretty quiet but I will eventually put in a big two chamber muffler or possibly two if I go to the eventual 450hp L28et.

 

 

And a picture of the previous car that brought me to the F31 M30 because I wanted a two door car.

 

Was an automatic but I changed it to manual, added 300zx wheels with 215/50s, and slapped L28et manifolds and turbo onto it using stock N/A injectors and engine management but I did have to replace the air flow meter and ecu because they were flakey later on and it seems 1982 280zx n/a ecu and air flow meter are pin compatible.

 

No spacers were required to fit the z31 4 lug wheels though the stock 215/60s did rub at full suspension compression since the assembly was larger diameter than stock for that car.

 

215/50s solved that but I could not find 215/55s-15s which would have been stock diameter.

 

Oh yeah.....added a R200 differential and simply cut off the exhaust after the crossmember........sounded exactly like the M30 does now.

 

Replacing the R180 with R200 only required I get the rear diff mount from a S12, 200sx turbo that came with a R200 and used stock 280zx cv type axle shafts.

 

It all bolted in and no modifying rest of the car at all.

 

Drove this one 45,000 tire burning miles.