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Thanks Terolla 


 


I'll spare you the gruesome details on what we paid that crook, or should I say I'll spare myself the embarrassment of having paid it. I almost talked myself into omitting the entire episome, but I thought it's a valuable precautionary tale. Trust your gut my friends. If it don't smell right, chances are it's shit. The wise thing to do is not to step in it.


 


 I'm trying to get this story up to date so I can start posting real time progress reports here. To that end...


 


 Jun 18, 2012


 


 Good weekend, I got to work on the car all day Friday, and took it to a car show with the kids for fathers day. Nothing too fancy, just a weekly meet and great down the street from my place. My car stood out in the sea of American classics, but we were welcomed all the same and the car got a lot of attention. Over the weekend I was able to isolate most of the rattles and bumps and found more BS left hanging from the boys at FLI. I installed the safety harnesses and was able to get the seats moved back another 3", Any further and the shoulder bump out would make contact with the B pillar, but that seems to be enough.


 


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 Jul 02, 2012


 


At this point there is a lot of stuff thats still needs to be shaken out of the car and although I'd love to start racing it, I know it's not ready. Driving the car still feels like anything could happen. The biggest thing for me is not knowing how strong or weak the bottom end is. For now, we're having fun street bombing around the neighborhood. I've already picked off a few unsuspecting fish. A tricked out 90s 5.0 stang and a 60s Chevell.  No contest either one. Just driving it around it's hard to gauge how fast it is. It's not until I went up against another car and Woop Fuckedy this thing is fast.


 


Me and my little... or should I say younger brother took the car to the San Leandro Bayline Japanese Classics car show. And Yep, we saw Indy510 there. Great turn out. I've never seen so many Datsuns in one place. Including an entire row of JDM skylines. I was in heaven. Ken drove the 510 and I followed behind in his Tesla roadster S. It was great to hear it from the outside for once, It sounded absolutely tits. With those poly motor mounts, from the inside it sounds like the motor's broke loose and trying to gnaw its way through the firewall.  BTW Indy's shot describes the color of the car much more accurate than my POS phone camera.


 


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 Sep 17, 2012


 


Besides the ongoing electrical brain teaser issues with the stock chassis harness, I've been making progress on the interior. I reinstalled the Pare Composites carbon fiber door panels and thresholds and they look and sound much better. To keep them insulated from the unholy poly motor mount vibration I used stick on rubber spacers at every screw and 1/4" adhesive neoprene pieces throughout, Not a peep now. Unfortunately I had to rotate the door handles up a few degrees, otherwise they would be flush against to horizontal door bar on the cage. In fact the little notch at the bottom of the handle gives just enough clearance. if I tried to rotate them 90 it would make contact with the bar. Tight fit but it works. In a few weeks I'll install the carpet and do a custom headliner.


 


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Sense the carpet went in there was nothing standing in the way of FINALLY putting in the kick panels Joel made me. Getting them in was no picnic, but I think they turned out nice. Unfortunately the finish I put on them is too reflective so they just blend into the darkness down there. I think I'll sandblasting them to see if they'll pick up more light.


 


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May 11, 2013


 


I'm taking the 510 to a big car show (for the area) and I'm excited to represent classic Japanese Datsun style. I've spent the last two Thursdays detailing the car and taking care of a bunch of odds and ends. I'm really psyched to see how well she's cleaned up. My little yellow car really stands out in the American Hotrod scene around here, so I want to represent as best I can.


 


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Aug 29, 2014 


 


So the other day I saw the dreaded white cloudy coolant. Really, It came as no shock that I'd finally blown my stock head gasket. This actually gave me an opportunity to put some fears to rest, and make some necessary repairs and upgrades. Once I can see what shape the cylinders are in I'll feel much more confident in pushing the car on a track. Some may recall that during the build there were questions razed by FLI about the freshness of the motor, I was also tripping on how that lash pad got into the oil pan, and whether it cause any damage on it's way down there. Once the head came off though it was a huge relief to clearly see the cylinders and pistons are in great shape. Fresh honing marks are visible on all four cylinders, and there,s no vertical scoring or blow by stains whatsoever. Looking at the exhaust valves the number one cylinder was much darker than the other three. I believe this was due to compression loss at the valves though. 


 


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I took the head to get pressure tested and have it decked. Turns out the head was fine and only need 10/1000 to clean it up. Sense everything appeared to be in good shape, that with some low budget repairs and upgrades I can push on this motor with more confidence. I decided to get a minimal valve job with new seats, guides and seals. I got a Toemi multi layered metal gasket, and ARP studs. I figure as long as I keep the redline at 7500 rpm, I feel comfortable switching over to e85 now and pushing boost to 14-16 psi.. Obviously, I will not attempt this tweaking on my own, so we're saving up for some dyno time.


 


While the head was out and everything more accessible, I took care of some other loose ends. I finally installed a steering brace that I'd bought two years ago. Super easy. I replaced the Revolution water temp gauge sending unit, lowered the boost controller on the strut tower so I could reinstall the VID plate, reran the bulk of the wiring harness along the bottom rail to the front grill, and relocated the igniter chip so I could make it more accessible. 


 


Before I convert to e85 I want to swap the SR coils to LS2 coil packs. With this setup, you bypass the igniter chip all together at the plug as the LS2 coils have the igniter integrated in each unit. Super cheap, way more powerful, and easy to install. I figured with the cold start issues, and lower overall efficiency of e85, I could use all the help I can get. With the O2 sensor being monitored by the ECU I should be able to safely run a very tight and efficient tune. Also if any failure in the mixture should occur at WFO, the ECU will shut things down long before I ever could. 


 


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Although this car will never be a daily driver, I'll finally have confidence taking it out for the occasional fun run. There were just too many things hanging out there to drive it too far from home. Now I know what I have, and I know how far I can push it, Canby may be within reach. My lack of confidence in this motor really dampened the feeling of satisfaction with the car and feeling as though it was truly complete. Finally taking away all those doubts and questions is a damn good feeling. In hindsight I really should have pulled the head before I installed the motor. Lesson learned.


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For those two members who splashed Christmas greetings and video in everyone else's posts... they were removed. How would you like graffiti painted in your serious build threads and others???  There were several acceptable places like Christmas Greetings, Insomniacs, what's wrong with Ratsun, Random Daily etc. If you can't figure out where it is acceptable then this should tell you not to post there. Stay out. WTF were you thinking? DON'T ANSWER!!!

 

I'm very aware it is Christmas so don't remind me of this as your poor excuse. There is a post for trolls, shenanigans and general fuckery. Stay out of other people's topics unless contributing or someone will earn an extended holiday. 

 

Hopefully nothing more needs to be said about this.

 
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  • 1 month later...

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They finally had an opening at Rebello Racing, so I sent the car off today to get some dyno tuning done. The next stage requires WAY more programming and tuning skill than I have. Bryan Rebello will be tuning the car for 16 psi on e85. Along with that, we are installing a flex fuel sensor and voltage output module so the ECU can safely adjust tune for any blend of gas/ethanol. I have no idea how much power we were making before, but I'm thinking the car should produce at least 350 rwhp with this new tune. Sure it's more than we can use, but sometimes a bit more is just what you need.

 

I'm not too proud to admit we'll need help keeping this thing under control. We plan on programming graduated boost for each gear, maybe 60% in first, 80 in second and 100% in third. Right now Link ECU is developing a firmware update that supports electronic traction control. Not sure how it's going to work but I assume real time monitoring of the gear position, rpm, and speed comparison of a drive wheel vs a non-drive wheel. Shit, it was a hand fullI  before, so we'll need all the help we can get.

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Looking good, don't get your hopes up that 350hp number, that's pretty high for 16lbs on E85. You would probably need some more boost for those numbers, but I'd think you can hit 280-300hp pretty easy. Good luck with it, looking forward to hearing the results and how things went for you. 

 

 

Andrew

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Thanks Andrew,

 

As you can see by the direction I'm going, I picked up some of your ideas from the Yellow 510 thread. That's a very well thought out build and I learned a lot reading it. We'll see how things go at Rebello. To be honest I'm sure I'd be happy with anything approaching 300hp. Once Link delivers their firmware update we'll definitely be adding traction control. How effective it will be is left to be seen, but I hope to maintain, maybe even improve the drivability and fun factor. 

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  • 1 month later...

Got the car back from Rebello this weekend, and things went OK. Kind of a mixed bag actually. At 14 psi the car is making 280 HP, 250 ft lbs. on e85, but failed to make anything more than that when pushed to 16 psi. I’m pretty sure the limiter here is the stock s13 cam. 

 

We drove the car back from Antioch (about 40 miles) and spun it around a bit to see how it feels. One word… eeeEEEWooofuuuuuuuuSHIIIIT. Once we got the car back in the garage and it sat for about 30 minutes I found a 6” puddle of oil under the left side of the motor. Groping around I found evidence it was coming from the drain plug on the Gretty pan. I checked and both the allen bolt plugs were loose. The guys at Rebello changed the oil and must have slipped. While tightening them, I reached back further and found the X member soaked in oil. WTF? I checked the dipstick and the oil level was at the bottom. Maybe 2 1/2 quarts low. Very unlikely it lost that much from loose plugs, so I need to get it on a lift and start searching. Talked with Bryan and he check the oil before testing, and saw no oil leaks at all at his shop.

 

On the dyno, even with the timing and mixture dialed up more aggressively, boost is still showing up a bit late. It starts coming on at about 3000 rpm and reaches max boost at 4500. With a twin scroll Garett 3071R that seems slow. I’m hoping this is due to the stock cam as well. 

 

 To be honest, I don’t think it needs any more power. The thing is stoopid fast already, BUT I sure would like to get shit to spool up quicker. Although the pedal response is super positive, and power delivery is pretty linear, on a tight autocross course it’ll be a hand full to try and keep the motor wound up to 4K and still be in control. To put it in perspective, the car is able to hit close to 60 mph in second, and coming out of a tight elbow is the only time you’d downshift into first. Most of the course is spent in second, so without gobs of torque, it’s really critical to get positive boost as early as possible. I’m hoping for positive boost at 2500 and full at 4000. That way at 3K the car will launch hard at the peddle without the need for feathering the clutch.

 

After dealing with the oil leak, I think the next big step will be to swap out the asthmatic cam. Maybe a stage one cam with titanium springs and retainers. In the mean time we’ll run it in a few events and see what we really got.

 

A quick buzz around Treasure Island Naval Station.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybv_NnBVAv4

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That is along the lines of what I would expect for power on that boost level with stock cams. The stock cams do suck, but also make It much safer to push the boost a little on pump gas.

 

How much timing did they end up putting in it to make 280hp?

 

Don't get too caught up in numbers...everyone wants to talk hp number and in the end they mean absolutely nothing.

 

 

 

Andrew

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Hey Andrew,

 

I don't have the dyno sheet yet, so I'm not sure, but Bryan mention 4 degrees from the 91 pump tune. I totally agree with your reasoning as far as numbers go. Knowing what 280RWHP feels like, I can't imagine 350 would be any fun. No I'm satisfied with the amount, but I'd like to improve the accessibility and control.

 

Do you think a mild street cam would quicken spooling, and flatten the power curve a bit? And if so, what would you recommend?

 

 

Oil leak update, 

 

After tightening the drain plugs I topped off the oil today and ran the car with a fresh piece of cardboard under it. Looks good so far, but I'm still dubious. Time will tell.

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If you are happy with the power, then I'd leave it alone. changing cams adds quite a bit of cost and unless you really want to turn it up a bunch its probably not worth it.

 

 

You won't really be able to speed up spool time much. The thing is that if you get above about 10-12 psi, you have to go with a bigger turbo to be efficient. However that efficiency comes from more charge flow and more charge flow is made from bigger compressor which requires a bigger turbine which requires more exhaust flow, heat and pressure. Because of this you really need to run a turbo that is kind of too big in terms of what will be seamless and easy for the engine to spin on its own. When you start raising the amount of boost you are trying to run the turbo ends up needing to be quite a bit bigger than the engine can spin efficiently so, until some boost starts to build, it really doesn't make enough exhaust flow, heat and pressure on its own to get you spooled quickly. This is always the downfall of upgrading to a more efficient turbo, however there are lots of features that can help. Launch control and anti-lag are some of those. One of the biggest things is learning the car and what gear you should be in to try and get it where it can build boost more quickly. If you try and roll into the throttle in 2nd at 10-15 MPH when you were only about 2000 rpm, then its going to lag pretty hard. If you were holding 1st at 3500 it'll hit real hard and ramp immediately.  

 

Don't get me wrong, cams would help some, but probably not nearly as much as you are hoping. So it all depends on what your budget is and what you want the car to do. 

 

 

 

Andrew

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Hey Andrew,

 

Understood regarding downside of a bigger turbo. The 3071R I have is an asymmetric set up with a smaller exhaust turbine and bigger intake. This is intentionally designed to produce more low end, while sacrificing top end peak HP. The kind of cam I'm considering would have a bit more lift and duration, and some degree of overlap. With a cam like this, when rolling into the throttle at 2500 rpm, it quickly increases cylinder pressure and exhaust gas through the turbine.

 

the stock cam is designed around a T25 producing 7 psi, emission standards, and street use. It's reasonable to assume that at 14 psi it gets overwhelmed and becomes restrictive. For my setup, it's minimal lift and no overlap doesn't push enough exhaust gas through the larger turbine until much latter in the rpm. When it does come on, shit happens fast and is hard to control. I've been racing cars long enough to know this configuration ante right. I'm thinking a mild stage 1 cam would be better matched to my turbo set up, and would yield quicker spool up, and smoother throttle response. Will it solve all the control issues? No, but if it'll wake up boost and straighten out the power curve a bit, I'm happy.

 

I've invested a lot trying to get this car right, so at this point it would be stupid to stop a few bucks short. Getting the turbo properly dialed would be safer for the car. Then the electronic control measures wouldn't have to fight as hard. This seam like a prudent step.

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Everything is a compromise. I have built and tuned multiple SR setups and one of the first ones I did had some stage 1 cams I believe..maybe stage 2 I can't remember exactly. They weren't radical, but they were noticeable. Don't get me wrong an SR with cams wakes up the engine, but every decision should come down to what your goals are with the car and what you want it to do. The SR I did with cams had an 18G turbo on it. It would start making some boost (meaning greater than 100kpa) in the 3100-3300 rpm range (this was when boost controller was set to 20psi on E85) depending on how you were driving it primarily. When on pump gas and 10 psi it would ramp in the same 3100-3300 range and peak at 10psi at about 5000 rpm. The Yellow car is all stock SR except has external wastegate and GT2871 knock off ebay turbo. Currently set to right at 10psi on pump gas. It starts making some (greater than 100kpa) boost about 2800 and it fully ramps to 10psi at about 4700 rpm. Now before you get all up in arms about how this all seems backwards, keep reading to the next paragraph.

 

So here is where everything gets confusing and tricky and you should question everything I just wrote. If you are trying to DIRECTLY compare boost/RPM numbers and when it spools, between a cammed engine and stock you will be wasting your time! And this is why "Turbo Lag" is a crappy way to decide what makes power or not. Boost is the result of a restriction! The biggest benefit to cams is that you help increase the efficiency of the engine. That means it will be better suited to take in more air than it was before. (There are some other very complicated concepts with cylinder pressure, overlap, lobe center-line that I'm not even going to touch, but they do make a difference, just not in this quick overview) The result with a cammed engine is typically LESS boost at the same RPM as before. The reason for this is that it is consuming more CFM than it was before, which is creating LESS restriction which means LESS boost. What this does mean, it MORE power at the same RPM, and typically MORE power at LESS boost. The only thing that actually creates more power is the consumption of more CFM of air, which is what is happening because it flows more as a result of less restriction.

 

Now, what this all means is that trying to assume the kind of power you make based on boost isn't so easy when you start dealing with cams and head work being done. I can pretty much guarantee that the cammed SR I tuned made more power pretty much everywhere over the stock SR, even though based on boost ramp you never would have guessed it. This is some of the reason why I was saying spool time really won't be effected much by cams. The turbo size based on the engine size is the biggest factor that determines spool speed. The most noticable benefit of the cams were the gained power above 6k RPM. Stock SR's are done at 61-6200...the cams give you a good 500 rpm of useable power. The cammed SR without a doubt hit so much harder when boost started to ramp, it was so much more of the light switch you say you don't like than the stock setup is, so that is something to consider. 

 

Everything comes back to the goals of the car, and what you want it to do. 

 

 

Hope this helps a little,

 

Andrew   

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  • 2 weeks later...

FINALLY I got the raw Dynojet files from Rebello, uploaded the PC viewer software, I updated my Mac's OS to 10.10 , so this required updating Parallels Windows XP to get everything running. After all that BS, the end result was seriously disappointing. No torque displayed, no RPM, throttle position, and no peak output. Pretty sure this is a third gear run up to the rev limiter at 7500rpm. At 50mph the tack is at about 2500rpm.

 

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