tsuokun

I would like to add that at least in my car, the RPM gauge shows around 200RPM above of what I can see at nistune.

Yep, so far most have said that it looks like corrosion on the wall from piston not moving. Which then has probably damaged the oil rings and caused those vertical marks. The longest the engine was still after the rebuild, was the winter of 2018 - 2019, plus the boat trip to Japan. When I shipped the car, it had normal gas in the tank but before that winter pause, it had E85 in tank. In any case, even if either one of those was the cause, it happened close to 6 years ago and the car has been driven something like 30 000kms after the fact. Again, apart from the plugs and the dip stick, there is nothing in the way the car runs that would indicate what has been going on in the engine. I am going to consult a shop and ask their opinion, what would be the best approach. I do have some access to a garage I could use to diagnose further myself, but time is very restrictive. Might end up buying another engine that could be used while this one is being remedied. Without pulling the head, it will be impossible to find out if it needs another bore, but here's to hoping a hone would suffice. Goddamnit, I would really have preferred this not happening.

Put an endoscope down the hole and saw this. Not quite all around the bore but a good 60% at least. Chin to the chest and towards further disappointments I guess.

Throwing my spoon to the soup here a bit. When I installed a 044 back in 2012, along with the direct power mod, the car became very difficult to start. To a point I burned one starter motor as I was late for work and tried to get the thing going. With some tuning and careful use of gas pedal when cranking it became bearable. Trying to make this short as possible, but the 044 died after 2-3 years, after which I went with an AEM 320lph pump, which also died after about 4 years to my dismay. After that I went with a Nismo pump, and while trying diagnose an emissions problem, I noticed for the first time that my fuel pressure was 5bar/72psi on idle, and that removing the vacuum line did nothing. After monitoring the situation, and removing the direct power feed and going back to FPCM in attempts to remedy it, I noticed there was fuel in the pressure regulator vac line. Kept the FPCM, installed AEM external regu and the car became sooo much better in every way, including starting. And I had driven it like it was for 11 years.. Anyway, I agree these are likely two different problems, and the FP problem you just haven't noticed before. I do not know much about haltecs, but what first came to mind was the CAS, which probably is not there any more. So how is the wiring from haltec to gauge cluster? How is the battery voltage and alternator?

Any updates on this? Although not a stroker, nor built especially loose, my car has the exact same symptoms. Although I feel they were not there to begin with. Since rebuild with forged parts I have done about 40k kms and it feels like during the last 15k or so, the oil consumption has gotten progressively worse. Compression test showed - what I thought at least - similar 10-10.5bars in each hole without oil. I have not yet done blowby test though, due to limited garage access. #2 plug is the looks the most foul and that was the one with 10bars. Nothing in the breather tank. I only recently disabled PCV and left only the hoses running from the valve cover via smallish tank to turbo intake pipe there and did some mildish 2nd gear pulls so the car was definitely on boost (1.4bar or so). Removed a hose from the tank and it was basically dry - meaning, the wipe I used had basically no oil on it. Last time I checked, the turbo and IC piping seemed dry as well (will have to see about that again after those pulls). For the past year and a half though, the car has been driven like a granny would for 99.99% of the time, since it mainly serves the purpose of carrying the family around nowadays. A lot of slow, stop and go city driving and most of the trips it barely sees any boost, but gets up to temp properly every time. Although there can be weeks it is not started at all. The car does not smoke, or at least not that I can see. (CAT is in place though). There is slight visible sweating at the Ex cam cover seal and I recently tightened the oil cooler lines as there was some mist on them too. It runs and idles extremely nicely and feels all around healthy. Like TurboTapin, I too am suspicious of my turbo. I have had IC pipes pop out from 1.6-2bars of boost a half a dozen times during the years. The turbo is a HX35/40 hybrid. So, a very similar mystery. Around 1500kms and a litre of oil surely cannot disappear to thin air. Apologies for the wall of text, not sure if any of the above is useful for best guesses/things to check next.

I for one would love to see this. Save the HICAS locker and subframe inserts, I haven't done anything to the rear suspension. Factory camber adjustment is dialed all the way out though.

On my box I just put the welsh plugs in and after that the annoying slipping was gone. I don't think there was a huge difference in the response time to manual shifts, but since the rubber band effect was gone, the delay that was left didn't bother much. Here's a vid from the last track day I did with the auto box. I mainly use 2nd but in the tight right hander I drop it to 1st. Happily drove it for about 60 000kms with the plugs before finally going to stick shift.

I have had great results with The Cat soap. It is called Le Chat Savon de Marseille. I have no idea of availability in AU but I am sure there are similar products. The one I used is non-scented. I am guessing it is just pure "Marseille style" soap with no nonsense added. Used a piece of moist wax sponge to first rub the soap a bit and then rub the steering wheel. Then a wet towel to rinse the soap off. I didn't know my steering wheel had red stitching.. and the texture of the leather changed for the better too (matte).

Oh my god that head looks horrible. I would just disassemble it and clean everything up and hope there is no corrosion on the lobe surfaces. It does NOT look promising, and what about the rest of the valve train; the springs, lifters etc.. A couple of thoughts (and personal opinions, others may or may not agree): - I hope you are using some assembly lube or at least motor oil when putting that thing back together. - If you leave it sitting for a while, protect exposed surfaces with something, WD-40, CRC 5-56, motor oil (and clean up when continuing) Those machined surfaces can catch rust in minutes. - Just as Duncan said, always assume there is some shit left over from the machine shop. Always do a proper, thorough check with a good lamp for any left over swarf etc. I found pieces of the old valve guides in an oil channel by shaking the head and hearing rattling noise. Scary shit.

Sounds interesting. Could you elaborate on your project in whole? I mean what sort of setup are you aiming for. I would love to have some way of getting Arduino to talk via Consult and then display different parameters on a small display, without having to always pull out a laptop to check something small. On the topic; I am way out of my league here, but could it be that you first need to (or especially DON'T) initialize the ECU connection and then sort of "switch" to HICAS side? If I recall correctly, the Nissan DataScan SW has the ECU and HICAS very separate, meaning that you cannot just switch from one to another on the fly, but you need to reconnect to talk to HICAS. Also, have you asked Matt at Nistune forum?

You probably knew this but just in case: Did you remove the considerably larger spigot that supports the turbine from the crank first? If not, I would not be surprised if that would give you headaches. This guy, circled very poorly in the pic needs to go And the crank should look like this afterwards.

Don't sell it. Ship it back here. (seriously, with these prices..) I would say its more of an visa issue than job issue. Kind of an egg and hen thing and a good sprinkle of luck to boot. Finding a job here while living in another country is very challenging. Living here and finding a job in the IT sector might not be, but then again, you cannot really live here if you don't have a job. If you want to make it your goal, study, practice and learn the language, be prepared to think moving here in a time frame of several years and actively make contacts as much as you can (both professional and personal). But I do also want to add that this is far from the dreamland many (me included) imagine and there are a lot of hurdles and embarrassments on your way. (and of course a lot of good things, both, as in every country). I suppose the "easy" and comfortable way would be something like wiggling yourself working for a company that has an office here and work your way from there.

A bit late for the party. I got a RB25 box that had done some 160k KMs when I installed it. After the swap I decided to first go with some Castrol 75w-90/140 something-a-rather (recommended type anyway) and it was crunchy as hell. Synchros were definitely on the evening side. So I put in the MT-90 Redline and while it still tends to give you a bit of a nudge when shifting, it works like a charm now for the most of the time and allows easy mid-powerslide shifts from 2->3. There is talk of HW and LW fluids here, but are these two different from the MT-90 I'm using?

Agreed with Dobz. Cannot say I see anything unnerving there. Would love to hear the reasoning behind your friends' remark. FYI two things; Even if you somehow adjust everything on both sides to same degree and minute, the moment you bounce the suspension, everything will likely be off by a couple of minutes again. Rubber bushings. Things being in the red does not equal things are bad. Lower any car and you get christmas theme on your alignment sheet.

How about a meet up on a PA somewhere in shutoko at some point?