Gareth87

Interesting topic to read.. I had almost exactly the same issue years ago when I had a split pulse 0.86 diesel rear housing on my GT3040. Made boost early and power came on strong, then the power flat lined from about 5k to 8k. Changed the housing to a normal open housing and it made another 70hp and climbed till the limiter. Would be interested to read an update.

For those interested in the full write up.. Swapping over to E85 wasn't just a matter of dropping in a Walbro 460 and a set of injectors for me. Last time the car was tuned was 2007 and it made 360hp at the wheels on 17psi on the PITS dyno (395hp on the 101 dyno) with the 550cc injectors maxed out. So I needed a full fuel system upgrade. I wanted to do it correctly and only once. Engine is an FJ20 full house build by Mark Ashford. I set it up so that I could drive to the dyno with my old fuel setup and swap everything over at the dyno and drain the tank to swap it for E85. First things first.. I looked at all the options for external an external Fuel pump that was capable of supporting 600hp and while there are a few options that support E85, all of them were expensive and potentially had issues with over heating. I also needed a single pump otherwise a would have to upgrade my surge tank as well. In the end I decided to go with an in tank Walbro 460 as they are 100% proven and quiet. SURGE TANK AND PUMPS I needed to build a tank capable of housing the Wabro so I had my fuel cell design folded and welded by a fabricator without a lid from 3mm alloy.. I wanted the lid to be 5mm alloy so I could tap a decent thread into it in order to pull the lid down tight. The box is about 5L in capacity. I also had a 50mm wide strip welded inside that was the depth of the box to mount the pump as you can see in the pics. Pump is mounted with a simple stainless saddle screwed to the plate. I also ran 50 amp wire down to the pump to account for big current draw. The brass fittings are from a local nuts and bolts shop, I used threaded rod with a ½” hole through it and a nut on the other side with copper washers, (fuel washers don't work) and barb fittings to match the hose size. Point the barb in the right direction and lock it off. The gasket was cut out from a sheet of cork. The bulkhead terminals were hard to find but I eventually sourced them at EFI hardware. The lift pump is a Holley mighty mite 35gph low pressure lift pump to replace the standard 35+ years old bluebird item. Many people seem to use an EFI lift pump but I see no use for this and is serious overkill. Sourced from VPW in Melbourne. FUEL LINE, INJECTORS AND REG Now the fuel line size was something I was concerned about so I measured the steel feed line to the fuel rail in order to determine the biggest restriction. The steel had been upgraded in the past and was 10mm OD but only 6mm ID. Turns out, this did not cause any kind of restriction, as most of you said on this forum. The E85 fuel line was bought from Repco and I used ½” hose from the pump to the steel under car line and up to the rail. Fuel reg is a SARD and I total forgot about replacing this with an E85 compliant item.. Hoping it won’t die on me. The injectors were a big problem for me as some of you may recall from previous posts, however, after a lot of stuffing around, I ended up with a set of ID1300s. These are a fantastic injector and the engine now has better low end and idle response than the RX7 550s. Even with an ancient Wolf V4 driving them. My tuner was very happy with how nice they were to tune. Worth a mention though that they are quite a noisy injector. I thought it was tappit noise at first. IGNITION The initial tune came up ok, but we hit a huge wall with the ignition system. Anymore than 14psi of boost and it wouldn’t reach the rev limit of 8200. For each PSI of boost added, the spark would be blown out earlier in the rev range. At 22psi it would reach 6400rpm. After looking into several options with LS1 coils etc I decided to go with an MSD 6A and Matching coil, sourced from Rocket Ind which would wire straight in to my stock dizzy. Back to the dyno and it made another 30hp first run and gave us another 500rpm before hitting the ignition wall again. After a few runs trying to resolve this I decided to try another set of leads I had borrowed. 8.8mm Top Gun leads to replace the original 7mm factory items. The very first pull it revved another 1400rpm and made another 35hp taking it to 485. Never thought a set of leads would have made such a massive difference. Also worth a mention, I drained the fuel after a few hundred km and found what was left was a little rusty looking. I checked the fuel filter which was clear and re drained the tank a few hundred km later and it was clean. As per the information here on the forum, E85 seems to clean the tank. I was very happy with the end result and we didn’t bother tuning any further because the map sensor was limiting us after that. Besides, the power was certainly enough. I have run on other dynos in the past that have shown a fair bit more power so it would interesting to see if it went over 500. Anyway, street feeling is really quick. 3rd gear is useless over 4500rpm and 4th gear lets go and bounces straight to the limiter at about 6k rpm.. 5th gear hooks up though J So to recap, ID1300cc injectors x 4 Sard reg ½” fuel line to rail with 6mm smallest point in feed to rail Walbro 460 Holley mighty mite 35gph lift pump 40 micron sintered brass fuel filter after pump Self made fuel box MSD 6A and HVC coil Top Gun 8.8mm leads Tuned by Matty Spry at PITS If anyone wants any more info, just let me know, hope the post wasn’t too long!

@scotty, I think it could make quite a lot more power! the turbo is a 10+ year old GT3040 and the inlet plenum alone with 55mm TB must be holding back flow. (I built it as a school project when I was 16!)

Few months ago I swapped over the E85 and with a lot of help from people on this forum it made the whole thing much easier. Unfortunately, an FJ20 in a Bluebird doesn't have a whole heap of bolt on parts so I had to fabricate a fair bit. 1st tune I had injector issues, 2nd tune I ran out of ignition, but 3rd tune it went on to make 485hp at 22psi. I found out a lot over the course of the conversion but one of the things I am particularly happy with is the surge tank that runs a Walbro 460 in it. (Thanks for the ideas on that Scotty). Also the ignition setup I ended up going with. If anyone would like to know a step by step break down of the parts used to add to the E85 wealth of knowledge on this forum, I will be happy to write it up just let me know. Matty Spry from PITS did an awesome job on the tune and extracted what I think was is an awesome power level at 22psi! G

Hi Guys, thanks for the input. I agree that the caliper spacers will be the biggest issue in regard to legality. My car is registered in QLD so I would of course be dealing with QLD engineer certs etc. As is, with just brake bolt on upgrades, is their any needs for a mod plate? or is a mod plate required only when it's been adapted to suit? Cheers for the help. Gareth

Hi all, I have Z32 rotors and calipers on S13 coilovers mounted in my bluebird. What are the rules regarding this as far as legality goes? They are all bolt on mods for my car. I want to upgrade to R33 GTR 324mm rotors with a caliper spacer so I thought I would ask the question before I went further.. I've been running the upgraded brakes and suspension nearly 10 years now. Thanks, Gareth

I've been running a GT3040 turbo for years now and recently made just under 500 at the wheels with it on 22psi of boost. I'm thinking that it's probably pretty efficient right about now but I doubt there is much left in it. I always want more bottom end so I was thinking about twin scroll housings.. The manifold it's perched on was built for a twin scroll flange but I only ever had a open flange rear housing on it except for years ago when I had a diesel rear housing on the 3040 that killed 100hp. Anyway, I see Garrett offer a twin scroll housing for a GT30 turbo and I'm wondering if the gains in response would be worth switching housings for? Or, will the twin scroll housing cause restriction? Any one know anything or tested this?

YB's must be a pretty good engine then haha

No, if you read my second last paragraph about my setup, that's the wet sump setup, pump was 900.. custom sump about 300, brackets etc and the pulley is driven by the harmonic balancer. I machined the 3rd v belt pulley wheel off so it was a flat surface, then mounted a flat plate on it with a shaft to press the pulley on.. pics are quite easy to work out how it's done. The internal oil pump is removed and a hole drilled and tapped into the front cover for the oil pressure feed.. I'll still take your 4k lol..

I that what a dry sump setup is going to cost??!! Wow, that is pricey. Where is the cost in it? Personally, if I was doing a dry sump setup, I wouldn't be burning money on shiny fittings or something like that. I recently flew a late model cessna style light plane and they have a brilliant little dry sump setup. I thought about trying to find a price on one of the tanks they had mounted in the engine bay or trying to find a second hand one. Anyway, I run a single stage BDG wet sump pump driven off the crank and because you can then mount you pickup anywhere you like in the sump, you can built a sump around the pickup. I run my oil level to the full line on the standard stick marking and it works brilliantly. My pickup is a dash 12 size tube with a big slot cut down it and it faces downwards to the lowest part of the sump. It then has trap doors around it channeling the oil.. Complete setup cost about 2k including the pump. I still want an accumulator, but only for pre oiling on startup because the downside is that the line that runs from the pump to the block drains back through the pump after a few mins and ends of pushing a line full of air into it first.

I rekon running 2 accumulators might be a little over kill. I think if you're going to build a big HP drag car, it might be easier to run a dry sump setup. Have you considered that or is the price a turn off? Other thing, not entirely on topic but something to think about, increasing the oil capacity more an more just increases the time it takes to warm the oil. (As we all know). Now running my car on E85 with a big radiator and 7.5litre sump etc.. I can take up to 20 mins of normal speed limit driving before the oil is at temp. With an 800hp drag car, I would definitely want 80 degrees or more in the oil before launching it. Can you run a dry sump setup with a small oil tank perhaps? Keeps warm up minimal and pressure perfect that way.. Just a thought..

Hey Scotty, Haven't had issues yet, but I don't want to come home and find something is stuffed because I let it sit. From what you have written in this post, I have certainly become less concerned about it that's for sure. I just want to be on the safe side. If you and most other people here feel that replacing the old E85 with new stuff will be ok... then I'll most likely do that. I am concerned about my fuel reg which is why I wanted to flush it with 98.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm thinking at this stage as I run a surge tank, I will hook up an old fuel pump to the feed line with just enough 98 octane to start the engine and so it will only sit with 98 in the feed and return line. I will get my Dad to drive it at least every 2 weeks with E85 in it then. Should be a good solution in case it does go a month sitting still.

I will be leaving to go O/S for 7 months shortly and I am unsure about what to do with my fuel system while I am away and my car is in storage. I can have my Dad drive it from time to time but it will still sit for a few weeks between drives most likely. Plan was to drain the E85 and run 98 in it until it runs like shit and then shut it down... I have ID1300 stainless injectors and a Walbro 460 along with Barricade fuel line. Only thing that isn't E85 compliant is my fuel reg. Interested to hear some ideas... Thanks in advance for the feeback.

$250... keen to move them

Originally from a track day car, I've only used 2 of them on the front of my car for about 300km. Easily over 50% tread left on all 4. Changing back to a normal street tyre as the side walls are fairly hard and my suspension setup is already on the over dampened side. Heaps of grip and much less understeer than a normal tyre. $300 for the set of 4.. Located on the Gold Coast Call or text 0408 896 482 for fastest reply. Gareth

Hi all, These springs are for sale.. or swap for a pair of 7kg springs. $50 plus postage. Call or msg 0408 896 482 for fastest reply, or reply here. Cheers, G

Just saw your calculations in the second post Scott, even if I do run an MSD with a single coil.. Does this mean the coil still needs that sort of time to recharge? which leaves me with the exact same problem.. or does the CDI system allow it to recharge faster? (I don't know a great deal about ignition systems yet)

Hi Scott, The coil I am using is an old Bosch coil. I'm not sure on the numbers. I tend to agree with you in regard to the spark issue, It certainly seems related to boost which I'm fairly sure is telling me it's a lack of spark when the coil has less time to reach saturation as you mentioned. My concern with swapping to run 4x LS1 coils is that it requires new leads, wiring, different trigger disc etc. Will an MSD CDI get me out of trouble and provide enough spark to get me to the rev limit?

yep.. got stuff all from that.. less than 500rpm

yep, got it to rev another 700 rpm on low boost. But hit the wall again..

Had my car on the dyno and as the power levels rose, we found it wasn't revving out to the set limiter. Had the limiter at 8500 and on low boost it would hit a wall (sounded like a missfire) at 7500. When we lifted the boost, it hit the missfire earlier at 6400rpm. Tuner and I think it's pretty straight up and down ignition issue, however, there is some concern that it could be a trigger issue.. I run 1 coil with my distributor and standard FJ20 leads and It's making around 450hp. Who's had ignition issues and what seems to happen? I can convert to run 4x LS1 coils but it's going to be a pain in the arse wire in. I am considering an MSD 6A CDI to make sure it's that and not a trigger disc issue or something. Looking forward to your thoughts, G

Sounds good to me. Ill run a paper filter before the lift for a while until the tank cleans out. My strainer on the pump was brown after the first tank so i guess there is a little rust in the tank..

Sounds good to me. Ill run a paper filter before the lift for a while until the tank cleans out. My strainer on the pump was brown after the first tank so i guess there is a little rust in the tank..

Thanks for the info Chris, with any luck mine will be the same.