Duncan

It's not that at all....I just love the R chassis too much to keep racing it! Absolutely impossible to fix the damn thing if I bend it.... That last off I had (when I neglected to do what Kel said), we removed a gum tree with the side of the boot....needed a new rear quarter, boot lid, floor straighten, rear bar, front bar, both front guards, radiator, bov return and I still haven't got it back for a proper alignment to check it is actually straight again). There are just too many ways in tarmac rally to do significant damage to a car that you can't really get parts for.

Now I'd said earlier I'd checked the fuses, and per @Stick180's suggestion I checked them all again. The check was to use the multimeter in continuity mode on the top of each fuse where the little metal tabs are available for that purpose. All good....except that very "A/T Control" fuse was actually blown when I pulled it out and looked at it. Put it back in, tested it again, there is continuity to both sides even though the fuse is blown. I'll need someone smarter than me, but my suspicion is that I was getting a circuit through a power supply, through an incandescent globe somewhere, to earth, to the shorted wire and back to the other side of the fuse, making it look like the fuse was OK when it wasn't....please anyone that understands this f**kery explain it to me. Bottom line....that suspicious purple/white wire, in an undamaged factory loom, that goes to the the wrong place in the fuse box has a dead short to earth, confirmed from both ends. How a single wire in a factory loom can be shorted, especially the best protected loom in the whole car (underneath the top of the dash) is going to keep me awake at night because surely whatever caused the damage has (or will) damaged other wires in that loom too. So, to finish this long and sad story....cut the purple/white wire where it exits the fuse box, ran a new wire from there to the ECU loom pin 31, fired it up and drove happily into the sunset. Only 4 days of head scratching and peering into footwells to get me there. Another collection of wire removed (in addition to the earlier photo) and a bunch of 10a fuses that gave their lives for the trouble shooting....thank you for their service. And, since the car was in the shed I resealed the cam cover (first time I've ever had a new seal leak on an RB, but the Stagea is that kind of lucky), and I put in the boost doc cam splash plates to try and turn down the blow by a bit while I was there. Which, was all good because it also let me find the slow coolant leak, turns out it was from the turbo water supply which I nipped up again (the banjo bolt got new washers, and I tightened the hose end and hose to banjo fitting while I was there)

So, as it turns out, a new wire was the answer I went for, but getting there was not straightforward... Firstly, I'd been told before by shops that had worked on the car that it had some weird factory wiring, and I can now confirm that is true in at least a couple of places. For example....that very purple/white wire that provides IGN power to ECU pin 31.....I traced it out of the ECU loom into a connector high on the nav's A pillar under the dash, where it headed up and out of site across the dash, then back down at driver's A pillar. After trying about 8 different relays I found it coming into the back of the fuse box, and confirmed it was the same wire with a multimeter* (more to follow on that.... So, which fuse is the ECU IGN power connected to in my car? Very top right, labelled IGN (good), 10A (good), Auto Trans Control (WTF?). It's not impossible it has been f**ked with before, but if so someone removed the pins from the back of the fuse box and moved it somewhere else, noting an AT control fuse would be functionally useless as the car was auto converted to manual long ago. It is not simply a wire cut and joined to the wrong place, both ends of the wire are the same colour just one is in the wrong location (you can see there is an IGN Engine Control fuse in the bottom row 4th from the right. Note, that is the fuse box sticker from my actual car, so either I have the wrong coin holder sticker, someone f**ked with it post factory, or factory sticker does not match the wiring.....whichever option it is just plain weird. Undermining the likelihood of someone having gone to that trouble to move a power feed when everything else in the loom had already been butchered....the fuse next to it IGN 7.5a ABS doesn't even have a wire running to it....so no idea where that fuse is on this car. All strange. But not the problem with my ECU power.

Yeah exactly how I ended in this mess, including my hurried botch jobs that I'm now paying for If I can't identify the proper source in another day's work that will be the go for sure....its is a very simple bodge. Because..... OK, so both the dealer fitter remote start and the locally fitted alarm are out. In the end it was easier than it could have been because the remote start was a plug in loom to the key, and all the butchery for the local alarm was in that flying loom...big win! I did have some stuff I just could not work out in the alarm like a pair of speaker wires tapped into something below the driver's seat (boot lock maybe?) and something running into a blue wire in the a pillar near the roof....in any case I'm sure they are not an issue so they are removed. I kept the extra central locking actuator in the driver's door for when future Duncan refits central locking.....but that did mean I had to remove all this swanky deadening from a page or 2 ago to check that's what the wires are for So, now it looks like this....hard to tell but it is much better and I cleaned up the hurried bodgy jobs while I was there (still need to find a good ignition source and connect one other wire for a gauge once I've worked out where best to run it. So, plugged it all back in, turned on the Link.....and no change, still got 9.5v at the ECU (I didn't check pin 31 for IGN power because it was late, and 4 degrees.) What I did discover while in the footwell is that Nissan decided the Stagea needed 9 separate relays in there.... So....next is to have a good physical look for a purple and white wire while hanging upside down. If I can't find it I'm taking Matt's advice and running a new wire and forgetting this whole saga ever happened.

Hey Matt, Link pointed to the 2x IGN power sources from the car as a likely issue, and sure enough pin 31 in the loom does not have power when IGN is on (24 does). So at the ECU, (and this is probably the case for R32 as well as C34) most of the ECU loom goes through the firewall behind the blower motor and there are 2 plugs (of 3 in the junction box) which go up and under the dash, the third plug heads under the carpet to places unknown (likely a body to dash loom joint) So, I started to follow that problem through yesterday. Like Johnny (and R32) I assumed that power was supplied through the 2 connectors near the left headlight so I spent some time pulling the intake etc off and cleaning of 400,000klm of dirt and oil leaks and checking those pins, but there was nothing related to the engine parts or ignition fuses there (and no purple with white trace wire in either side of the connectors) Given that the wire didn't seem to go via the engine bay, I then checked there is continuity from Pin 31 to the second connector to confirm no wiring issue in the ECU loom (it looked likely, given how much that has been hacked up over the years!). The pin marked with the purple dot is the other end of the wire to Pin 31 Then I check for IGN power in the dash loom side of that connector with the key on. Nothing. Given that loom goes up and underneath the top of the dash there is no tracing it without taking the dash out, so I went to the driver's side to see if I can find the other end of that (I'm expecting to get to big body junction boxes after I pull enough apart). However, to get to those functions, I had to pull the covers off the drivers side, I'm pretty sure the problem is in this pic Yep, factory remote start (bottom right), local immobiliser (middle) surrounded by 20 years of butchery. Plan is to totally remove the remote start and immobiliser (I think I will lose remote central locking temporarily as a result) to remove all the suspect stuff given I have other more modern security in the car It's gonna take a while, and it is both cold and uncomfortable out in the shed, not looking forward to it.

Hey David....I'll just trace this through, but if you ever find yourself at the officeworks A3 scanners with a few hours to kill the Stagea world would appreciate it Josh I looked at that too but I think it is a "conceptual" not physical diagram. The ECU pinouts on the following pages describe them differently as I posted above and the different results support Dose's theory that it is a different source/routing....not that I understand why it follows a different route when there is no engine bay ignition switch relay so it must go back to the cabin near the key anyway

Hey Matt, no I think I've misled you...I'm not sure that the ECCS power supply to ECU had 9.5v, just that the ECU reported 9.5v. Link got back to me pretty quick and suggested to check the IGN power supplies to the ECU Pin 24 is the IGN key signal, which is working OK (ie battery volts with key on IGN) Pin 31 is "IGN power supply" and sure enough that is giving 0v with IGN on So, back to a car side problem, which is good because at least I can work it out here. On the down side I don't have a wiring diagram for Stagea so its the old fashioned trace and check task. @Stick180 I did double check those fuses are OK (I double checked all IGN fuses) and I also pulled and swapped the IGN relays at the driver's knee as a quick check with no change....but something is wrong there somewhere

Awesome effort and result, well done. I understand you wanting to get that 1.30 but the reality is this is a super quick car already with road cars being in the mind 40s, its hard to realise how much is required to go that much faster! The other thing is, having done Targa a few times from NSW, the cost and effort to travel that far to a track and city you don't know, and then deal with things not going to plan, that is a huge extra effort on top of everything. And once you've got all that sorted you need to drive it too! Anyway, well done for taking on such a big adventure, I hope you enjoyed it among all the hectic pace and pressure

I'm sure you're right....but I bet when I'm at the side of a narrow road, running late and swearing in -5 temps that I just put the spare on the back and take the chance that it doesn't kill the LSD @The Bogan.....good luck with that....we were moving to the Highlands too until we found out the prices for everything that didn't have some major issue (asbestos contaminated fill down the back fence was my favourite)....so here we are in the beautiful Tablelands instead No regrets from us though Except rural roads seem to be littered with self tapping roofing screws

lol not on my budget! Interesting about the relays too....instead of 2 blue ones as shown on the wiring diagram I have a single brown one which controls 2 circuits in one relay....I did switch it out too, and also tested it by earthing the signal and it was working fine

Thanks for mentioning, especially when it is so similar. I did check all driver's knee and engine bay fuses....but will do so again now you have mentioned I think there is a relay there too so I'll sway that as well.

Yeah not sure what the warranty was, but it will be years outside it. I've shot Link a message, will see what happens, I'm told their support is good. It is a plug in, so its a Link board in a factory case, very easy to access both sides of the circuit board by removing the top or bottom cover. To be fair the the Link, although I've checked to the factory connections and wiring specs, as we learned with Neil's car in the early days not all ECUs source power the same way. He'd been running a factory ECU with no trouble for years, but when we plugged a PowerFC in it wouldn't start up, just kept cycling power on and off. We worked out that the car was missing one of the 10a fuses "Electronic Parts", and to Neil's knowledge it had never been there. Turns out the ECU pulled its main power from that source not the same place the factory ECU did. Point being....there are multiple battery and ECCS power sources in the factory ECU, and multiple grounds as well....not telling from the outside exactly what the Link uses (and doesn't use)

Now, thanks to sonicii, onto the uneven floor from a tyre sticking 100mm into the boot space. I looked into options to raise the floor to the level of the tyre, and ended up going Extruded Polystyrene (XPS). EPS is what I normally think of as polystyrene, the annoying tiny balls that get glued into a flat sheet but XPS is quite different, much firmer and doesn't crumble if you touch it with anything. I also looked at things like heavy duty seating foam but XPS seemed like the right way. I picked up 3x 1200x600x50 sheets for $40ea. Initially I was looking for 100mm sheets because I needed to make up a 100mm gap, but as it turned out 50mm was available, much easier to work with and made it simple to store the tools I used a simple 15cm foam cutter to make the shapes. With some practice I was able to make reasonably clean cuts but I don't think Clark Rubber are going to be calling me to offer a job. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/405092315205?var=675175481574 First layer in place, 3 dimensions are tricky! Second layer in place, bringing it to level with the top of the spare Cutouts in the top layer for the tools With floor back in place, nice and flat with 100mm stolen but no real impact on usability

Next was to address securing the spare. I don't think it will go anywhere unless I roll the car (which I'm not intending to do until *after* i start race/rallying it ) While there are quicker options if I had a hoist (like welding a nut under the floor and securing through the wheel stud hole or even a central bolt wide enough for the hub bore, I went the easy option on the floor. I took 2x stainless M6 eye bolts And put 2 M6 rivuts through the floor, the secured the wheel with a very short rubber strap There is nothing under the floor to worry about on my car so I just picked a flat section so the rivnuts would sit nicely. I did initially drop the exhaust heatshield but where I actually put the rivnuts cleared that anyway *flicks strap* "that ain't going anywhere!"

So, that gets me a usable spare front and rear so I ditched the run flats and got a set of (chinese) Pirelli Powergy 245/45R19 to replace then (the rears were down to the wear markers so it was due. Interestingly the run flats were 31kg per corner (wheel and tyre) and the regular tyres are way lighter at 26kg per corner. Yes, 20% lighter in the same size on the same wheel!

And that's where the problems started So it turns out that despite the Mustang having big brakes, they are lower profile than the Red Sport ones, and the 19x5 + 5 offset Mustang spare fits the rear OK but fouls the caliper in the front. A 5mm slip on spacer cleared the brake by 0.3mm (according to the feeler gauge) but not only is that way to tight for my liking, there was only about 3 1/2 threads (5mm) for the wheel nut which doesn't meet the rule of thumb as the same width of threads as the diameter of the bolt (12mm in this case) So, I grabbed a 15mm bolt on spacer that I'll carry and use if the front is flat (not required for the rear). It gives plenty of clearance and fits fine, https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/166584112103 Unfortunately they come with 19mm nuts for the spacer to hub so I need to carry a 21 to 19mm adapter in the car as well. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/194044924912 And final complexity, although the PCD for Skyline and Mustang is the same, the hub bore diameter is not. While that wouldn't worry me too much for general wheels, I wasn't happy with the spare only being located by the studs, so I bought a hub adapter as well to centre the wheel properly. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/221759295514 All in all, a bit of a pain, but better than being left with a flat one the side of the road...

Thanks Matt. Yes, at the end of a long process it will be stripped and caged assuming it all works OK, but I have a few things to sort first; most importantly wheels and race tyres and some track time to see how it goes before I commit too much. To get there though, first I need to get the spare tyre sorted so I don't need the run flats and can put some decent tyres on either the factory rims or something aftermarket. So first, size. The depression in the boot is only 660mm wide which limits the height of the spare (for example, the fuga one does not fit) p9-9 of the factory user manual says Mexico, Middle East and South America got a spare, in 145/70R18 (660mm high). Its not clear if that goes over the Red Sport brakes and in any case I couldn't find a part number so I didn't go genuine. Next, the tyre placard for mine says 245/40RF19 (678mm high) but the car has 245/45R19 fitted (704mm). I'm OK with the taller tyres day to day because they help the speedo be a little more accurate (it still reads about 2% over), but they make it hard to sort a proper spare of a similar height. Then, to sourcing a wheel and tyre. There are spare tyre listings for Infiniti Red Sport in both UK and US, but price+shipping was crazy, so I looked for local alternatives. It turns out not supplying a spare is the new black, and there are a few options listed for other cars. In particular, Mustang GT comes with big brakes from factory and our friends at ford use the same wheel stud layout as nissan (yes, fitting falcon steelies for burnouts is a potential option...) at 5x114.3 So, I bought this: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/335566379123?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=705-154756-20017-0&ssspo=ormGmo1aTQG&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=dJvnaZ11TB-&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY. I went to the shop so that I could trial fit it to both the boot space and the car, and they were able to do a little cheaper than the ebay price That tyre is 135/17R19 which is 670mm high, or about 5% smaller than the other tyres on my car. Guidelines I saw said up to 6% is OK so I'll go with it.

Well unfortunately after reviewing B-52 of the stagea manual and doing the following checks, it looks like it might be an ECU issue: Pins 25, 32, 116 and 124 have good earths (interestingly 10 and 19 don't have pins in the plug although the diagram says they should be earths Pins 80 and 109 have good battery voltage ECCS relay pins 1 and 3 have good battery voltage, and if I earth pin 2 (normally the ECU earth trigger to turn ECCS on) the relay activates and I get battery voltage at pins 67 and 72 as well. Also, when I plugged the old powerFC in it showed battery voltage on the hand controller, and started and ran the engine (poorly, since the AFM is no longer connected!) So, based on all that I'm thinking it is an internal issue in the ECU, I've contacted Link to see what they say

As I said, I assumed fuel problems, but when I checked the relay it had good +, good -, was clicking with key on and had 12v on both the outputs. So I put the mechanical fuel pressure gauge on it (need to get an electric one to the ECU when I get a free day....) and the pressure was good, so probably not a fuel issue. Looking a bit further, I noticed Real Dash was showing 9.5v from the ECU, not 11.5+. Put the laptop on the ECU and sure enough only 9.5v at the ECU. Good 11.5+ at the battery terminals and between the chassis and bat + (yes, the battery is getting a charge, she doesn't get used much). Nice to have a different problem every now and then. Following that a bit further, Link say they need 14v at pin 72, but when I back probe that only 9.5v. Pin 72 comes from the ECCS relay so I checked and there is 11.5v at the battery supply pin (and the relay + pin, it is earth triggered by ECU). Swapped the relay, still 9.5v at the ECU. So, I guess Matt is on to this already, but next I'll check continuity between pin 72 and the relay output + pin (or maybe just run a bypass wire as a test) and also see how the ECU earth is ....stay tuned for more....sometime

So, funny story. Kel and the kids and I were in the Stagea yesterday coming home from town, with the car trailer on the back coming home from a rego check, heading down the second last hill to our place.....when the engine stopped running. We managed to roll halfway up the last hill home but that left it stuck on the side of a reasonably steep uphill on a narrow dirt road. Cranks fine, doesn't fire. I assumed fuel (see last 100 odd posts). Walked home to get the Patrol and a tow rope. Note - low range 4wd and mud tyres don't produce much traction when there is no weight in the back of a ute. We managed to flat tow the Stagea with the trailer on the back over the last hill and home but it was a pretty long 4wd burnout on the way. Old cars.

I expect there will be 2 water pumps so you will need to know which one. Also I think they are much less likely to leak than a mechanical one so I hope they are confident it is from the unit not the hoses/clamps etc On a related question, does anyone have an online parts lookup that covers these, and a 400R VIN to use? I haven't been able to find an ADM VIN parts lookup for the Q50RS different setup mate, this is an external electric pump and timing chain on VR30DDTT

Having done all those calcs.....Infiniti specs lists V37 Red as weighing 1784, and my rego papers say it is 1680. Seemed like a very reasonable excuse to buy some corner weight scales and check. It came in at 1774kg with no driver, about 2/3 tank of fuel and all daily driver stuff on board including space saver spare (more to come on that). Unfortunately it is 57/43 front to rear which is not great and will be hard to improve, so those poor front tyres will be working hard. Corners: Cross Weights:

I haven't made a lot of progress on this car, per the NSW section thread I've had other stuff on my mind (and to do list...) In theory, the AEB is deactivated along with stability control when you turn off traction control...that is one of the main things to check out, they never sorted it on the A45 AMG which looked good on paper but sucked on track. Since the master cylinder is electronic these days I'm assuming I can't just pull fuses if it intervenes So, on that....luxury or not is really just a marketing term. While things like fundamental suspension geometry will have an impact, it really comes down to how much weight has to be pushed around the corners, and how much chooch it will have. In production cars regs there is very little that can be done to increase power, especially for na cars. Inlet is standard, exhaust is free from the head (na) or turbo outlet (turbo) back, ECU is free. The big thing is that for turbo peak standard boost can't be exceeded....but that boost can be made elsewhere through tuning/boost control. A key example of this was Evo X ran something like 1.5 bar standard in the midrange, but it dropped off top end from factory; in prod cars they were allowed to run that boost all the way through the rev range which gave them a big top end advantage compared to factory (I suspect the BMW M cars are similar but haven't seen the data). This is some examples of the cars the V37 is up against, based on current lap records and class points leaders (table sorted by power/weight) HSV GTS - 436kw, 1880kg - 232 *F80 BMW M3 - 317kw, 1625kg - 195 *Q50 Red Sport - 298kw, 1680kg - 177 *Civic Type R - 235kw, 1430kg - 164 *M135 BMW - 240kw, 1520kg - 158 *Sirocco R - 209kw, 1390kg - 150 *Evo X - 217kw, 1550kg - 140 Toyota 86 - 170kw, 1270kg - 133 (*again, keep in mind the turbo cars likely have a modified power advantage over na under the rules) So, I'm not saying the v37 will turn up and dominate all, but it on paper it has 3rd best power/weight of the main cars in the category which is a good start. The Evo is the only 4wd on that list so it seems the traction advantage has been eroded over time (noting, that is very track dependent, Wakefield park is 4wd friendly but Bathurst not so much).

whoa. are you trying to say we live on a sphere spinning on it's axis while rotating around the sun????

Wow, Christiaan is still there....he was looking after the SAU NSW discounts we used to get in 2010