Tassuperkarts Tragedies

[tassuperkart]

Ahh kay.
I did a bit of fiddling around today and removed the TB's and plenum to get to the plugs and coils.
Once the covers and plenum are out of the way this is what you see under there.
COP's bolt down. The coloured leads are actually individual thermocouples under eachy plug tube.



The wiring looms have to be stripped open sos i can sort out the colour codes to the injectors and coils for each cylinder.
heres the mess Im presented with half way thru the stripping.



Oce the looms are stripped open it becomes much clearer to me what is going where and connecting everything up will be a simple affair.
Im going to go and see Petroject and see if I can source the original plugs sos i dont have to cut and shut the loom.
Unlike the ET loom which quickly disconnects from the engine, the VG30 one is a right bastard and you need fingers about the diameter of a pencil and about as long in order to actually get the injector plugs off the injectors themselves so ill try to preserve the original plugs.

I made some headway with the variable valve timing setup on the inlet cams tho.
The inlet cam timing is altered by oil pressure and is simply advanced or retarded. Its not progressive. On for advanced and off for retarded.
The solenoids for the contol valves are mounted to the back of each cam box and so it will be a simple matter of utilising an aux output of the MT-8 to be switched on at a predetermined rpm.

Heres the control solenoids on the back of the cam boxes.



The cam belt need replacing along with the thermostat a couple of short but well hidden water hoses and the only way to get to them is by removing all the cam belt covers giving access to the front and underside of the "valley" cover.
After about 30 bloody shouldered M6 bolts, front pulley and other bracketry his is what is hidden in there:



So, wiring wise, its a straightforward task along with the setup of the CAS which is similar, if not the same to the E15 being a photoelectric affair.
this means that the Microtech will understand the output of the cas with no reconfiguring.

What i have to determine is whether I can parrallel up pairs triggers to fire coils in pairs for waste spark configuration or will I have to loose the COP's and run external twin tower coils.
The Nissan trigger is a six channel affair and if it can have pair of channels parralleled then ill be laughing.

If not, then ill try and unload the stock COP's and ignition trigger and run some Hyundai twin tower coils along with 3 x 2 channel Bosch triggers.
Thing is those triggers are pretty exxie to buy in 3's. Coils are worth nothing really but the triggers are the killers.

All things being equal, i reckon Ill buy a new Microtech loom rather than rob the one offen the FJ20 and adapt it. That loom has been spliced into an old stock FJ engine loom sos will be too short anyway. best off leave that with the FJ when it comes time to go.

More later.
E

[Kimmo]

Interesting thought on the LHS rack upside down.........never would have thought of that!!
Thing is I reckon it might be more of a headfuck to find a LHD powered rack to begin with tho...... Not too many of those around here.

The Z31 rack will mount up easily and quickly, but its all subject to the stubs being able to be swapped from side to side.

The following would appear to put the kybosh on the Z31 rack...

A closer look at the steering stubs reveals the stubs are not symmetrical with a significantly rearset top balljoint (of course it is...fukfukfuk) and its not a simple matter of swapping stubs from side to side to reverse the steering pickups as i had hoped for...fukkit. Nothings that easy eh?

However, it appears that the upper "A" arms have offset upper balljoint mountings but symmetrical inner pivot points which might mean I can swap the upper arms as well as the stubs to keep the steering geometry under control.
Closer measuring will reveal.
I could get all tricky and fabricate some custom tubular "A" arms.........ummmm mebbe not. I gotta get this thing engineered.....lol!

If you swap your upper arms and the stubs, you'll go from positive castor to negative castor, and put the point where the steering axis touches the ground behind the contact patch! Not advisable...

I'm thinking you're looking at either custom stub axles or a front-mounted rack. Maybe a good place to find a LHD rack would be a joint that does proper LHD to RHD conversions...

And I thought there's only one right amount of Ackerman...? Shouldn't the tie-rod balljoint be in a line with the steering axis and the center point between the rear wheels?

And move that tube and mount the donk 3" further back FTFW ; )

[tassuperkart]

If you swap your upper arms and the stubs, you'll go from positive castor to negative castor, and put the point where the steering axis touches the ground behind the contact patch! Not advisable...

Correct, but since the "A" arms and are adjustable by shims, this may not be such a drama as it appears. Theres a mighty lot of adjustment there and going from 1 or 2 degrees -ive to the opposite is a relatively minor change. We shall see.

Ackerman? Yer pretty much but it can be moved around and there isnt really a hard and fast "correct" setting.

If it came to custom stubs then no, the frontend will stay stock with a Toyota powered box.
Ill only go with a powered rack if I can find one to fit easily enough. Its just that powered racks that live in front of the axles are few and far between.
I havent researched exactly what I can use yet until I have exhausted all other avenues with the stuff I already have on hand.

Im not interested in saving that couple of inches of engine position when it will require the fabrication of an entirely new custom turbo manifold system. The existing manifolds actually turn around the back of the motor before they split apart and have a flexible joint in there. They cant be changed easily.
I have thought about finding a left side turbo mount offen a VG30dett and using a right side manifold off an atmo VG30 and running the crosstube down and under the bellhousing.
But, when you add up the headfuck of finding manifolds and fabricating the crosstube...I think Id rather mover the engine position forward 75mm and be done with it.
That takes NO work and costs nothing!!
We are not talking a nice little rigid sports car here where any weight distribution rearwards would be a benefit!

We are talking a light commercial day cab ute built on a chassis with little or no torsional rigidity from the cab back and the thing currently scuttle shakes that much its a joke.
Its a tow vehicle for my race car and something playful enough to teach unsuspecting young blokes in their ricers a lesson or two!
not all old silver haired fuckers are easybeats in the traffic light derbies. After all, i have enough fun now with the FJ20!!!
Nah... if the weight bias moves forward a couple of percent Im not going to give a shit in the slightest!

L8tr
E

[Panda_ET]

yeh gotta watch out for those old pricks that are hoons

[tassuperkart]

Scored myself today a blown VG30e engine.
This has the sump "bowl" to the rear of the engine rather than at the front with the VG30det and will save me so much work reversing the sump and building a new oil pickup pipe!! Yay!
Added thing is there is a temp sensor built into the sump as well!!

RE: Steering.
had anothyer look under the car today and the steering pickups are bolted to the stubs!
This may mean I can simply onbolt the arms, reverse them, bend for ackerman and we're good to go!!

There might be an issue with clearance for the balljoints from the disk calipers but this may not be a drama after the arms are bent for Ackerman.
We shall see!!

I have priced a GoTech MFI Pro ECU, loom and software as well.
This ECU will handle sequential firing and multiple coils and has various AUX outputs to cope with VVT and IAC control which I need and the kit comes for just on $600 AUD
However, I have to add external ignition triggers (same as Microtech) along with a new Hall Effect 60/2 crank trigger.
Sadly, the GoTech cannot "read" a Nissan 360 degree CAS..........bah!

Even so, it is still an attractively priced ECU. There is a bargain basement bbatch fired kit available which would be perfect for the ET still usng a dissy and thats $400. Very good value.

Ill see how the Microtech works with my engine. Ill have no IAC or engine fan control tho as I only have the single AUX output on the MT-8 which will be configured for the VVT solenoids.

Once the sump is changed, I can set about looming it up and give it a test run on the ground!

L8tr
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[tassuperkart]

Damn I hate mixing and matching things.

I pulled the sump off the donor VG30et single cammer. All good. Except that the bolt holse are subtly different to the 4 cammer....go figger this.

It means some egging out of the bolt holes but fuck me...how hard does it need to be for fucks sake!

Next headfuck.
Startermotor wont work.....
The gearbox I have is from a VG30et out of a Z31
The Vg30det I have has no flywheel. Cant use the older Z31 flywheel as it only has 6 bolt holes. The 4 cammer has 8 bolts holding the fly.

Sos i was sitting there looking at shit and I happened to measure the flywheels just for the hell of it.
Glad I did.
Seems Nissan, in their infinite wisdom, decided to use a different flywheel OD in the Z32 to just about EVERY other engine they make. The 4 cammer I have is an auto and even the flex plate OD is the same as the Z31

So bottom line is that the ring gear OD on the TT Z32 fly is about 12mm bigger than the Z31 and so the Z31 starter wont fit.

The Z32 box has the starter mounted wider out with a deeper cutout in the bellhousing to allow it.

I cant fit the Z31 ring gear to the Z32 fly, dont ask, it just wont fit. Not easily neway.
Cant use the Z31 fly as it does not have enough mounting holes. Big job to weld the fucker up and re-machine to suit the det crank.

So I have a couple of outs:
1: have a new custom fly machined to carry the Z32 clutch and the Z31 ring gear..ouch, this will hurt!

2: try and find an affordable Z32 gearbox and then try to flog my Z31 box 'n bits. This will hurt as well. Z32 boxes are not exactly growing on trees in tassie and itll cost me about the same as a new fly to changeover, assuming I can flog my Z31 box.

3: There is a pretty dodgey workaround I found on the net where one of the starter holes is grubbed out, the starter locating bracket ring is ground out and the starter swing out to clear the ring gear.
Evidently it works OK in the long term but I dont really like it.

Dont you just love this?!!!!! Arrrrgh..........

L8tr
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[BennyET]

now it really is a tragedy eh? ..............LOL

sorry mate, looking forward to see how you sort it out

[tassuperkart]

Had a bit of a score this week.

Ive been looking for a decent clutch kit but fuck me swingnin 250mm clutches are pricey.
Retail for an RPM organic clutch kit is close to a grand.
I found an Exedy kit for just under 600. farrrk that!

I was surfing around and came upon a yank outfit called Gripforce Clutches.
Thru them I scored an F1Racing stage 2 clutch kit for a VG30dett. Theres a pretty healthy aftermarket over there for twin turbo Zeds!
Uprated pressure plate 20% and a carbon/kevlar full faced clutch disk.
Good for over 400 Hp along with a release bearing and a plate aligning tool.
Good enough for me.

On special for 198 USD plus post @ 109 USD

With the current exchange rate of around $0.92 in the US dollar thats a pretty decent clutch for under 400 bucks AU delivered!

Gotta be happy with that.

L8tr
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[tassuperkart]

Yay!
My twin turbo clutch arrived this week.
The pressure plate is japanese and the clutch plate is made in the US.

I have been tossing up how to run the ignition system as well.

The engine is setup with 6 coil on plugs (COP) which are bolted into the area between the cam covers and hidden by a plastic plate which makes the engine look nice and neat.

I wanted to preserve the tidy look rather than remove the COP's and use external coils.

The MT-8 has a maximum of 4 ignition outputs and so I am limited to wasted spark config.

The issue has been whether to use the Nissan 6 channel trigger which came with the engine or use external triggers like an X6 Microtech or the like...Hmmmmm!

One of the questions I have been posing are can i parallel the inputs of ignition triggers.
I know I cant really run 2 coils from the one trigger in parallel but I might possibly run them in series. This works in CDI setups but im not sure with an inductive setup.
So I was hunting around different aftermarket EFI manufacturers browsing their tech files and I happened upon a diagramme of a Twin turbo Zed ignition trigger which is a six channel item and the same as what i already have.
Motech handily supplied me with enough information to completely setup my ignition system using 3 ignition outputs and the ECU configged for 6 cylinder mode.
The ignition modules can be parallelled up, or "ganged" onto a single ECU ignition output.
Seems the normal thing to do with most aftermarket ECU's but I have not been able to get much info to date.
This works on Bosch modules as well and along with that the drawing gave me the ignition dwell settings as well!

Imagine having to buy 3 x "200" Bosch 2 channel modules @ 180 big ones each to trigger the 6 coils.............bah!

Must have pretty low internal resistance coils on the VG30 as a mere 1.5Ms dwell time is specified which is mighty short compared to the 3.5Ms we use on a stock Nissan or Bosch electronic coils and miles away from the LS-1 coils I use on the FJ20et which require 5Ms dwell time!

The Nissan trigger module is actually powered by the coil negative wire (which has constant +12v at the other end of it) which means no extra and messy power wiring and I can use al the stock Nissan (JECS) wiring plugs as well making it nice and neat and stock looking.

Im almost at the end of the research shit part now *phweeew* and Im awaiting a deal on an old Mazda shitter as a runaround for 250 bucks while the 'Lux is off the road and the real work begins!

I have not forgotten the GoTech ECU just yet.

I was having a think about the CAS setup.
The Gotech uses a 60/2 crank mounted timing disk with Hall effect sensor.
Now, the Nissan optical sensor is a 360 slot synch timer and a 6 slot trigger .
This runs at half crank speed.
For those that actually give a shit, the Hall and otical type sensors produce the same squarewave 0v rising to +5v output waveform.

This got me thinking that I could make the Gotech understand the Nissan CAS by removing 2 slot then leaving one to create a 120 slot trigger and then remove a further 2 slots @ 180 degrees from one another for the reference point.
This would produce and equivalent of a 60/2 timer because the 120 slot disk turns at 1/2 crank speed, hence the 2 reference slots @ 180 degrees which the Gotech could use without the further purchase of a timing disk and Hall sensor.

I know there are aftermarket timing wheels as well that can be gotten which may do the job for me.
We shall see.

L8tr
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[Paul Smith]

I only just discovered this thread. Where are the fucking pics?

[seagull]

I found you

Gday all , I am new to this forum

Well I have just landed a VG30 DET ( JDM test motor ) done 25 metres to the wall

Now to find a project for it

talk to you soon mate , has been some time



stay cool Seagull

[tassuperkart]

Onya Niell
catch up eh?
L8tr
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[seagull]

Yes mate will have to

I have a s13 silvia these days for the track , full on rocket ship that I have been building since the dragon bug has gone .I have to send you some photos over of it , I have hand built all the arms front & rear , the cage , zorst , cooler pipe work , brakets ( you know me well over the top )

not sure what the VG30 will go in at this point of time , I am still collecting parts along the way for a long term project with my son .

O the mistres trike is finished & for sale

seagull

[Timmzy]

Hi Tas,

I was reading this thread and thought I could suggest something. Front mounted power racks - Old cortina like TE, TF - have them. They were only factory options, but I have seen 2 in the last 12months sitting in old wrecking yards.

A friend I used to work with snaffled one to put into his hot rod project. He has similar clearance problems with vehicle height vs. engine position vs. subframe clearance.

I know old cortina's, I have owned one since I was 16

anyway just a suggestion - you probably already know.

Darren.

[tassuperkart]

Niel
yer M8 send some pix. Yup. I know what ur like LMAO!!
How did the trike end up going??? LOL.

Darren
yer M8 I know about the Cortina racks
i think the very latest Commodores have a leading rack along with plenty of BMW's and others. Finding them in tassie for less than an arm and leg is the hard part.

However, with the Cortina racks, if you can find one for me then ill owe you big time.
There are none available down here. Every snoozer with a Torana has gotten them. As you say, the vast majority of them are at the tip and the rest have been snaffled.

L8tr
E