Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

I know I should be posting this more on NS than here but I don't know them and I know you guys :laugh: Here's my problem, looking at buying a Datsun 1200 ute with full CA18 turbo conversion, all sounds good, breaks, suspension, engine all in, HOWEVER, the thing won't start. Apparently the owner can't get it to spark. They have tried the usual, coilpacks, ignitor, etc. What I'm wondering is if anyone on here can perhaps come down with me and give me an opinion on what's wrong.

Anyone able to help me out or atleast point me in the right direction?

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/177958-anyone-good-with-ca18s/
Share on other sites

I know I should be posting this more on NS than here but I don't know them and I know you guys :laugh: Here's my problem, looking at buying a Datsun 1200 ute with full CA18 turbo conversion, all sounds good, breaks, suspension, engine all in, HOWEVER, the thing won't start. Apparently the owner can't get it to spark. They have tried the usual, coilpacks, ignitor, etc. What I'm wondering is if anyone on here can perhaps come down with me and give me an opinion on what's wrong.

Anyone able to help me out or atleast point me in the right direction?

In the technical manuals there are fault finding steps that should help you. Have you got a copy of the manual?

Check for faulty relays,bad earths/wiring - that was the culprit in my old CA powered S13. You mentioned coil packs were checked.. I am assuming that they checked the wiring also? The CA coils get extremely hot and the wiring and harness gets very brittle with age. For eg when I went to remove the harness to check the coils the connector crumbled :laugh: .... first thing I did after rewiring the coil packs was drill 11ty holes into the cover for more airflow!

I also bought a datto 200B with a Z18 turbo conversion recently that wouldn't start... same issue... turns out there was a faulty relay and a hidden kill switch for the fuel :laugh:

Best bet is to take a mechanic with you.........

Cheers for the ideas guys, thought the CAS myself Shaun. Dan, I believe that they are indeed getting fuel; just no spark! :) If I do get it Dan, you'll definately get a ride in it, just need someone with a bit more knowledge than me to come down and have a gander at it

had the motor ever started since it was installed into the datto?

what computer is running the thing..

ive wired a few motors into 31's...both rb25 and rb20. just one simple wire can stop anything running...if you get hold of a wiring diagram. i could perhaps come sus it all out.

Yeah buddy, checked the fuses, all seemed good, one of the first things I looked at apart from asked if they had changed the ignitor. I have a strong feeling he did the wiring on the loom incorrectly, but alas I don't want to take a gamble on that without a bit more concrete evidence

Check CAS.

The plug needs to be pushed in all the way until you here the click.

Also check if the plugs to ignitor and coilpacks are the same.

Working on my RB20 i forgot to push these plugs in and it wouldnt start. Ended up having to double check everything.

I have the Engine manual printed out in a folder. It doesnt really have a step by step diagnosis (sp) area. But it is very helpful.

The manual is of all the R32 engines. so CA is in it.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • I had absolutely no symptoms whatsoever that anything was wrong.... I'm very happy it was all spotto'd and re-bled and re-torqued and aligned though. Will be picking it up tomorrow and undoubtedly be like "Oh, that clunk is gone" "Oh, the car really wants to drive straight" "Oh, that pedal feels better" "Oh, it feels like I've gained 25hp" "Oh, the handbrake works now" It should have been a sign that the new Project Mu shoes had 3mm of pad depth on them out of the box, and the OEM ones from 25 years ago that we took out also had 3mm of pad depth, implying the issue was not, and never was the shoes, but we put that down to it not being adjusted correctly. It wasn't, but it wasn't even adjustable at all given one side was boned and the T Junction of the cables was on a 45 degree angle, the non-working side being the one on the massive angle. Obviously when I had adjusted it and reset it and re-tensioned it I had either got it stuck or something along those lines. Oh well. Live and learn and absolutely could have been catastrophically worse so I'm rationalizing it as a win, kinda. I also got the chance to measure the distance between rear rim and the suspension arm/shocks and found a 30mm rubber block only just doesn't fit there. Which is great to know before ordering wheels, when I assumed 30mm was easy. The man with the Porsche adapters has rims that use 23.9mm of that space, so it's safe to assume I have between 23.9 and 29.9mm of space there to play with on the inside. The wheels looked pretty stupidly pokey with the 20mm spacers on the rear, only for me to find that the studs come out another 12mm and the wheel doesn't actually sit flush with the hub because you're supposed to cut your original studs. The wheels do have cutouts that kinda accomodate it, but not fully. So my 20mm spacer was anywhere between 25mm and 35mm. ~25mm and send it will determine on where the wheels sit with the spacers on. When I put the pads in for the track day I will mess around with spacers (with wheels that do not clear studs properly when mounted to spacers) and do more math, for the last time, for the 7th time.
    • Lucky pick up Best to find these things before something horrible happened to the yoke flange thingies I would hate to think what would happen if it dropped the tailshaft  Hopefully the holes are not flogged out in the yokes and it was just the bolts that got munted  As for the hand brake.....ouch, look like the disc got rather hot, and I assume smokey, I recall when I had a front caliper seize on the Commodore, there was lots of smoke and the disc was glowing cherry red when I was able to eventually stop and have a look, and stopping a big heavy car, going down a big hill with some rather high RPM down shifts and some hand brake action is something that makes you think hard about life
    • One of the things that never seemed right was the handbrake. Put in some nice new Project Mu shoes. We figured the rears were out, so why not. We're right there. My handbrake never worked well anyway. Well, this is them, 15km later. 67fdcf94-9763-4522-97a4-8f04b2ad0826.mp4 Keen eyes would note the difference in this picture too:   And this picture: Also, this was my Tailshaft bolts: 4ad3c7dd-51d0-4577-8e72-ba8bc82f6e87.mp4 It turns out my suspicions that one side of the handbrake cable was stretched all along were pretty accurate, as was my intuition that I didn't want to drop the tailshaft to swap them on jack stands and wasn't entirely sure about bolt torque. I have since bought the handbrake cables which have gone in. I'm very glad that I went to my mechanic friend who owns an alignment machine to get an alignment before the track day, because his eyes spotted these various levels of "WHAT THE f**k IS GOING ON HERE?". Turns out the alignment wasn't that bad, considering we changed the adjustable castor arms out for un-adjustable castor arms, and messed with the heights. Car drove pretty good with one side of the handbrake stuck on, unbleedable rear brakes, alignment screwy, and the tailshaft about to go flying and generally being a death trap waiting to happen! (I did have covid) (I maintain I adjusted the handbrake correctly, but movement caused shennanigans and/or I dislodged the spring on the problem side somewhat, or god knows what). G R E G G E D
    • Very interesting, im not sure how all those complications fit in to running a haltech instead of a stock ecu but I'm starting to think I'm a bit out of my league.
    • I just put 2 and 2 together. This is a Neo converted R32. The Neo ECU (in concert with the R34's AC controller) runs the AC quite differently to how the R32 ECU and AC controller do it. If you just drop it all in, it won't work. There is some tricky wiring required, including changing to the pressure switch that the Neo controllers want to see. I don't know what it is, because mine was done by a guru. It was a year or so after I did that transplant before he worked out what needed to be done.
×
×
  • Create New...