GTSBoy

Per Duncan's post, Street version has no VCT, doesn't do AC, DOESN'T HAVE KNOCK SENSORS. OK, so you can use the higher end ECUs to claw those things back. But.... if I'm going aftermarket ECU, I'm not using a cable throttle. And...where is that? Um...

Sounds like VCT actuator.

Just go to a quality workshop that has a quality scan tool and ask to plug it in for a few minutes. Throw them a six pack.

Get a scan tool on the Consult port and see what the TCU has to say for itself.

Seeing as they don't have one at all, yes, must be added. I think that MaxxECU is one ECU that I would not consider using. There is no shortage of good choices, so why use something that appears to not be a good choice. I mean, shit - I'd use a Speeduino before I used the Maxx.

I dunno. Maybe. There's a crowd here in Oz called Precision Shims that I'd probably look to first. Although NIssan might be surprisingly cheap enough. Trouble with the process is you have to take all the existing shims out to measure them to know what you need to order.

I'm going to vote for considering going to the effort to close the lash down to the minimum. My bro-in-law got around to checking the clearances on the 3SGE in his Caldina. Was a bit fat all over. New shims at lowest allowable lash, and the car is remarkably better to drive. It appears that the increase in both total lift and duration that you get from doing this is worth a lot more than you might expect. I have been having evil (and expensive and time consuming) thoughts about doing it to mine, and I don't even think I have a problem. Not that I'd know, though.

Perhaps more the word "sheet metal" rather than aluminium. Because, you know, the stock one is cast ali.

Doesn't seem like it should cause them to be too noisy. Circa 0.4 is on the wider end of the range though. You can probably target more like 0.3 on the inlets.

You can't post images until you have like 10 posts or something.

I don't imagine so. It's less about "parts" than it is about process. You just have to screw on adapter ports, because R143a systems have different port valves to R12. Then you need to pump down the system, inert it and extract the old oil and replace with new R134a compatible oil and the refrigerant itself. All done by an AC mechanic (who are the only people licensed to handle refrigerants in Oz). Yes. Absolutely. 60km/day to/from work and whenever else needed. I don't care what anyone else thinks. They're just dirty old Datsuns that were built to be used**. Not f**ken' hero cars to be kept in a shed. **Says he who has one of the nicest, cleanest ones around.

Yeah. Particularly on cars where the maintenance, particularly the coolant maintenance, has not been up to scratch. Coolant turns acidic, eats the HX out, and at some point it becomes too thin to resist the pressure and you get horrible things happen. RBs are moderately famous for it. It's not like it's a problem that happens to all of them. But there've been enough events that people fear it.

Yeah, but I reckon the number (fraction?) of oil containers that actually get recycled would be pretty small. They are, after all, at least contaminated with clean oil, more likely contaminated with dirty oil. And if they go to an oil recycling depot of some sort to be emptied into the big tanks....I'd put coin on the probability that they just get pitched into the bin at that point. Even though we're talking about a "recycling facility".... have you seen the sort of oiks that work in places like that? Unlikely to be thinking about the prospect of recycling the bottles too.

It's not a gasket failure. AFIAK, there are no gaskets separating the two fluids. If it lets one into the other, it is broken metal.

No. That is totally illegal. Punters are not permitted to buy most refrigerants in Australia. Certainly not old not-very-nice ones like R134a. (I converted my car to R134a from R12 many years ago. I think the Neo compressor I have now is native R134a anyway, so I would have had to convert the gas when I did the engine swap anyway, if it was not already done, which it was). The evaporator is under the dash, and being a heat exchanger is made of thin section aluminium that is prone to eventually giving up the structural fight and cracking. There are also joints between it and the plumbing and the TX valve and so on. Every other connection and seal in the system is a potential leak point. There's rotary seals in the compressor, o-rings and similar seals at the hose connections to the compressor, the receiver dryer and condensor.

A goon bag? Can't see it being a bad thing. A little more environmentally friendly than the normal thick plastic bottle packaging. But, for home gamers....where do you put the dirty oil you drained out? That's what the empty bottle from last time is for.

Arguably all this is true. But the reason I asked about boosts is that placing highly in hillclimb with NA means that it is doing real well.

I'm a frustrated audiophile. My "listening room" is also the big TV/movie room. So the stereo speakers are also the front pair for the surround. They are Ascension Summoners, by Adelaide Speakers. The guy who runs Adelaide Speakers designed and built for a couple of the renowned speaker manufacturers that were based in SA back in the day. The centre channel ends up looking a lot like yours. It's the same driver setup as this type But I got him to put them into a sideways oriented cab the same size as the side/rears I got. The fronts are flat down to ~20Hz, so I don't have a sub. This is all driven by a very high end Pioneer receiver - so nice but nothing special. And worse, because the fronts can draw so much power at high volume levels, the bloody amp goes into self protection and shuts down if you turn it up too high. 8 ohm nominal can easily mean 6 and modern consumer oriented amplifiers are not as well reinforced on the supply side as they could be. I keep meaning to do something about it, but somewhat like my earlier obsession with DSLRs and Lenvy, I actively resisted dropping more money in there until the urge decreased. If I keep listening to music at really high volume levels I'll just cut more notches in my hearing anyway. They one at 6kHz is bad enough - I need to behave myself now.

After a few weeks with the new layout, I'm thinking.... Change "Engines & Forced Induction" to "Brooom brooom pssht!" Change "Suspension, braking, tyres and drivetrain" to "Rattle rattle, shriek, crunch". Will be better.

Boosts?

AAAaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh! Following on from OP's AC woes....mine got regassed last year and at some point I discovered it had lost enough gas to not switch on any more. It had dye in it, but we never saw any trace of dye, perhaps because it all fell out long enough before we looked that it washed away. (Or, shudder, it's under the dash in a hard to see/reach spot!). I almost never run the AC because I just drive with the windows down even when it's 40+ outside. Only occasionally want it when I just can't take the heat or if I need some defog. So, got it gassed up again with more dye and oil so I could run it a bit to provoke the leak to show. And the compressor is noisy. So, now I am staring down the barrel of having to fit a rebuild kit to the compressor (or maybe the spare that is on the shelf). And hope that the leak is at the comp, and not under the bloody dash.

Well, get the plugs out, put a borescope into the holes and have a look, particularly at the sus cylinder. Look for nasties. You can get a cheapy USB inspection camera that connects to your phone or lappy for ~$25 off Aliexpress, if your mechanic doesn't have one. You can also throw a can of Subaru upper cylinder cleaner into the engine to try to clean out any deposits in the cylinders. Might not work so well on piston crown adhesions, but usually does a good job on crap that gets stuck elsewhere, so worth a shot.

Does it do it at light throttle as well as high throttle opening? Only large throttle opening? If the answer is "No, it doesn't do it at light throttle opening", then (part of) the answer is as it has always been. Don't stamp on the throttle at low revs. Open is with some discretion. Roll into it. Now, because it's not a turbo, it shouldn't demand the highest octane fuel....but even 91 MON (equivalent to ~95 RON in the metric world) is only so-so for NA Jap engines. The 10% ethanol won't make any difference forwards or backwards. 10% is just filler. OK, actually, it is a little bit bad. Ethanol adds some (effectively) free octane. It allows the blend to reach the 91 octane rating without the petrol it is mixed with being that high octane to start with. But ethanol needs less air to burn than petrol does. So when a blend has ethanol in it, the fuel-air mix will always be a bit lean (except when running in closed loop cruise where the O2 sensor will add fuel to bring the stoichiometry back to target). When yo stamp on the throttle, you are not in closed loop and so a lean condition may well exist. Lean can (and will) cause pinging. The low compression cylinder may be a concern. If the rings (and in particular the oil control ring) are poor, and it is ingesting oil into that cylinder, that can cause it to ping. Oil reduces the effective octane rating of the fuel that is squirted into that cylinder, and rattle rattle rattle is the result. It's unlikely to be a bad MAF. You should make sure that the harmonic balancer is not in the process of failing. The outer hub can slip around relative to the inner. This makes the timing marks on it wrong. If you set the timing to a target, as read with a timing light from those marks, then the timing can be very wrong. You need to take out #1 spark plug and use a screwdriver or similar rod as an indicator and turn the engine over (which will be easier with all the plugs out) by hand so that you can see the screwdriver rise up, dwell around TDC and start falling again. It is difficult for the uninitiated to accurately find TDC that way, but it will do in a pinch. When you are pretty sure you know where TDC is, you need to check the timing marks. If it is not real bloody close to TDC, then you have to question the health of the balancer. Another thing that can go wrong is carbon build up on piston crowns or on the combustion chamber face of the head. These can glow hot and cause pre-ignition, and will tend to do it on light throttle as well as heavy.

It's not going to differ from the T measured at the cast pipe by more than 0.5°C, under any conditions where it matters. Not sure, but it's either in the floor or the side, in the main body of the plenum.

It's worse than that. They cannot even picture the full scope of what it is that they are pitching or wanting. They see the core idea and cannot conceive of any of the side effects, compromises, losses of existing functionality that needs to be replaced somehow, etc etc, that come with doing these things. So how can they do a cost/benefit when they don't even know what the full set of changes actually looks like?