Lp's Track Pulsar

[Leroy Peterson]

crank sensor is mounted, fitted 6 long bolts to the flywheel as markers. the sensors maximum distance to the markers is 2mm :| all the bolts where within 0.4mm length of each other but its tough to measure exact clearance. during run in ill remove the sensor to see if theres any chunks taken out of it...

following up from a previous photo of the coolant lines under the plenum, now the vac lines and air control ontop of that.

I've made up and fitted the new braided brake and clutch lines in -3AN speedflow teflon. switched to a master cylinder of the same size (15/16") but more 4 ports on it instead of 2. made life easier.

For some reason I had it in my head the MSD 6A was up to the job of driving the CDI coils, having a think about how the wiring was going to work made me realise why theyre a $300 unit and the M&W PRO14 is $1200. So returned the MSD and sourced an Autronic CDI 500R, cheaper than M&W and no hassles receiving inputs/triggers from the SM4. Which leads to my next error: measuring the pencil coils. I was confident they would fit, but turns out they're too long.

Have trimmed some plastics and with shorter spark plugs and making a nylon bush to seal the well it should be good to go.

Lesson learnt: dont bother comparing real life to the CAD drawings, just measure your previous unit.

Removed stereo which was 3kg's + headunit and over 5kgs of dynamat from the 4 doors. i should check to the boot...

Currently working with the auto elec planning ECU mounting and the looms. bulk connectors are a gift from the gods. cant wait to fit it up.

Still to sort out:

Bosch 4.9 wideband o2 sensor & AEM AFR gauge.

Front brake caliper banjo bolt thread fked

Finalise bonnet pin mounting

put motor in (still waiting)

[Leroy Peterson]

With the car back at the engine shop, motor went, in so ive been busy getting everything back together. has taken a bit longer than expected due to a) coming up with solutions for new issues and b) planning the current temporary-permanent way to do things.

I'll be running the motor in with old PowerFC and wiring loom, then will take it off the road to fit the new wiring, ECU and ignition system, then off for tune. but thats a while off yet...

Temp mounted the coolant overflow and catch-can, custom mount for the new GKtech oil filter relocation, mounted new Bosch knock sensor and new Honeywell oil pressure sensor.

Car started for the first time in 15 months, this time monitoring oil pressure in the head using a tap in an oil gallery made during the build. Car ran ok, but there was no oil pressure in the head? turned it off and found the oil cooler was empty and the lines coming out of the oil filter kit were dry. After drawing a diagram of how the oil lines should be hooked up, I realised I had f**ked up, so rectified that and tried again. Started the car, STILL no oil pressure in the head. immediately turn the car off. big pool of oil starts forming under the car... put it up on a hoist and confirm its leaking out of the new Mazworx oil block. probably a damaged O-ring.

Will look into it on Monday.

In the meantime, Jason at Advanced Motorsport Electrics has been busy making up the ECU, CDI and engine looms. Will be so much neater and smaller.

[Count Grantleyish]

Man, that wiring is so neat.

[Leroy Peterson]

Been driving the car for a little while, so far as good. Still needs a lot of work to get it to where I'm happy, but slowly getting closer.

Jason has finished his looms, so now we'll sort out the bit and pieces.

Bulk connectors into the firewall:

The sound deadening between the 2 layers of steel made it difficult to fit. Some hammering did the job, but next time crushing it with a G-clamp or simply cutting 1 layer of steel and the sound deadening would work.

The relay unit pictured above, in its new home underneath the centre console:

Next up is securing the new engine looms and then sort out under the dash + fuel pump.

[Leroy Peterson]

Wiring is done for the moment, though there are still some things to finish.
Ran into issues with the Defi DIN gauges. Seems they dont like to "piggy-back" the sensor values from the ECU. Defi products want their own voltage and signal to the sensor and no-one else... so will need to find another set of DIN gauges.
Later I'll hook-up a Bosch 4.9 wideband o2 sensor and a gauge. The tuner will be tuning the car in closed-loop so O2 isnt necessary and it seems the autronic doesnt have the capability anyway, but it would be smart to run a wideband gauge in the car just for piece of mind.
Will also swap out the factory-style fuel filter and put an aftermarket micron filter in its place. Will probably require doing most of the engine bay fuel lines in braid as it will make mounting the fuel pressure sensor easier.

Should have done some before/after shots as its hard to appreciate the difference. The wiring was a bird's nest everywhere. With the stereo and alarm/immobiliser removed, plus a loom less than half the size of before... makes a world of difference.

Coils and injectors

Once a new intake pipe is fitted and re-do the fuel lines, should be a lot tidier. Just need to make a cover for the distributor and make a mount for the ECU & CDI.

Some of the piles leftover, there was more.

Jason from Advanced Motorsports Electrics does some amazing work.

[Leroy Peterson]

Things are starting to roll again with this car... Tackled the fuel lines, and for the sake of convenience in trying to mate-up the factor hard lines, a beefy aeromotive fuel filter, SARD FPR and the factory fuel rail I just went with quality 8mm (5/16") biofuel-rated hose. Few speedflow fittings later and it was sorted. I looked into the sausage-style fuel filters and they were too long and hard to fit in the engine bay. Too much effort trying to mount it under the car too, so settled for the can-style with a 10 micron filter. Its a big bastard so was fiddly making up a mount for it.

Then it was off to Havoc Fabrication, who did a good job of sorting a lot of the remaining To Do List.

Distributor delete cover:

Catch can (still need to make up the hoses)

Intake pipe. GTX28 compressor is 80mm, dodges the radiator hose then goes to 4". Apparently had good results with that el cheapo pod filter and 4" to 3" pipe. I dunno, we'll see how it goes.

Mounted fuel pressure sensor to the SARD fuel regulator, had to tap out a brass fitting I sourced from Pirtek. Hopefully no leaks! Mounted to the firewall.

and this is where we're up to now. just missing catch can hoses then engine bay is done.

I damaged all the rubber ends on the CDI pencil coils while doing test fits and then the rubber ends getting trapped in the spark plug well. Grabbed some rubber ends from a wrecked SSS and have glued them onto the coils. Used like an epoxy super glue or something, should do fine hopefully.

New intercooler piping dodges the tow hook a lot better than the old one (once tightened it doesnt touch the piping), but ideally i would like the hook to poke out infront of the bumper. I haven't really looked at whats available on ebay to fit hondas and what not just yet. I suspect the current one fitted is off an N14 as the N15 hooks dont have the bend in it.

Finally I had some chrome-orange indicator bulbs lying around so chucked them in. yay no more orange.

[Leroy Peterson]

the gloria needed to be put aside for a while and I needed to shift my attention back to the pulsar...

catch-can hoses run and fitted.

 

Lot of troubleshooting and problem solving with the fuel system. Snapping old plastic in-tank hose fittings and find a replacement was time consuming. Then spending a lot of time trying to figure out why I wasn't getting fuel to the rail: a new pump strainer and running the pump long enough to get air out of the system sorted that out.

Welsh plugs into the firewall holes. we'll see if they'll hold with some decent body flex. Behind those fits the old A/C interior air box. Needed to be cut up to allow room for the bulk connectors.

The interior went back together, and finally fitted the Nissan DIN blanks I've had lying around for years.

 

Off to the tuners tonight, where it will probably be for some time. Lots of unproven things that need to be setup and established. I tried my best to program the Autronic but its not as user friendly as I assumed. I've set as many inputs and outputs as I could, I didnt really know what to do when it came to setting up the new crank trigger and CDI box (plus ignition settings and fuel map stuff). So at the moment car cranks and has fuel, its a start lol

[Leroy Peterson]

The pulsar was at the tuners for a while. Wiring had to be changed for a few things, which is a real shame. Autronic manual can be vague and unprofessionally written... also auto elec made some errors.

It's been tuned and I have a dyno graph, but dont want to share any info until I've actually driven it properly. I picked it up from the workshop and started to have issues a few mins down the road without really putting my foot down. Long story short: it shouldnt have left the workshop, but I was lucky to get it home under its own power. I'd been in contact with the tuner, altered a setting for coolant-temp vs rev-limit that improved the car at low rpm dramatically, but something is still amiss. Then it wouldnt start. then 2 weeks later it started first time. Then it doesnt start again. The autronic had an error for "too few cyl pls/s" but it could be cleared and didnt come up again if the car started. When idling the Sync/Cyl is at 53% or so, so im suspecting something isnt right with the new crank trigger or CAS disc.

All this is annoying, but everything else is fine: engine temps are great, fans kick in and work wonders, vented bonnet does its job, intercooler piping is secure, exhaust sounds good, brakes work great, new 340L/h pump still has head room, no fuel leaks, catch can works well and stock electrics still work (minus central locking, which went with the old alarm system).

The shifter linkages need some adjustment as slotting into second is a bit rough. 

[blah_blah]

Go go go

 

Need a few peeps to track with next year

[Leroy Peterson]

well after some diagnosing, its turns out there just wasn't enough petrol in the fuel tank :| it was a bit under 1/4 on the gauge, and was all sorted once I put half a tank or more into it. I suspect something about the fuel pump pick-up isnt right, so will look into that. There were issues (i may have mentioned it earlier in the thread) with the new fuel pump strainer not being an ideal shape, and the existing one not fitting it properly.
someone suggested a hose kit like this: https://www.efihardware.com/products/2578/Walbro-In-Tank-Fuel-Pump-Extension-KIt

Did a few km's this weekend, and so far everything is good. Bit of a small oil weep from what looks like the rocker cover, near the distributor, will pop the rocker cover and investigate in the future.
Gave it a decent squirt, certainly feels slower coming onto power than I remember, but its not turbo lag (same setup, different tune). But overall its still a monster, I suspect my tyres are a bit old and hard but wheelspin is just everywhere with boost at the moment (RE002's fitted maybe 4 years ago). I wanted to give the AD08R's a run but one of them wont hold air.

So few things regarding the tune/dyno time:
1) ~270+fwkw on Edge Motorworks dyno vs 244fwkw on Springy Motors dyno (same setup, different ECU, different ignition system, AFM v MAP). Which is really interesting... but once I told people, they weren't really surprised. I'm not too fussed on the numbers, as long as making power consistently and safely.
2) the minor tapering off at rpm limit and the under 250kw makes me wonder if I need cams so aggressive (JUN 272/11-12mm). I do remember a slight sacrifice on low-down going from 260 Tomei to 272 JUN, but I'm curious how different it would drive with even smaller cams (Kent 250's or even stock). Drive-ability with the clutch, cams and high idle has never been fun, but now tuned for high rpm mostly, it bugs me a fair bit.
3) The boost reading fluctuating apparently has to do with where I've connected the MAP, before the throttles is not ideal. Tuner recommended I re-position it to AFTER the throttles, supposedly will improve response a bit. Something to do in 2017.

Pic from a meet on Friday. On the way home decided to give the brakes a firm push at speed to see how they'd go (not on public roads) and it was instant lock-up, which I've never experienced before. First time getting worked hard since I'd removed the ABS, so I'll do some research and look into driving style or mechanical solutions that could help.

Old dyno sheet, bit hard to compare with a massive exhaust leak on the dyno, hence the graph skewed to the right.

Can confirm though, that since old motor with GT2871 vs new motor with GTX28 is definitely a different beast. From what I can recall, harsher/faster turbo ramp rate, and definitely significant power increase. Original motor pulled 235fwkw on a mainline dyno at RE Customs, then 235fwkw at Chequered Tuning (hub dyno) then 199fwkw (with wheelspin) at RTR roller dyno, but comparing how it drove then to how it drives now, it would have had to have been on the lower end of 200fwkw.

[Count Grantleyish]

It's pretty fun little car. I'd struggle to drive it with the amount of wheelspin this thing make on song.

[admS15]

So when is this thing hitting the track. There was an turbo orange n14 sss at sandown a couple of weeks ago running mid 1.26's. Some competition for you. No pressure[emoji3]

[Leroy Peterson]

1.28's on RSR's and less power, so 1.26 should be achievable

would like to do a shakedown at a hillclimb event or something, so hopefully Broadford with SAU or Haunted Hills in the coming months.

[Leroy Peterson]

Well, its been extremely slow going for a bunch of reasons, but no need to get stuck into too many details.

Long story short: intake side came off, installed new vacuum fittings into the intake runners, re-positioned aftermarket coolant sensor to stock location (which is underneath the ITBs), stripped some threads in the head while doing this... bit of stuffing around later and its all back together and running!

So running industrial vacuum lines and fittings from Pirtek. They were compact and cheap. So far they seem to do the job.

When on the road I've noticed high intake temps, which had me concerned about engine airflow issues or even intercooler issues, but when I was running the engine for ~10mins in the garage after putting coolant back in the motor, I had a look at the ECU...

(engine was off when taking the photo, hence the voltage). The intercooler piping was cold, so not sure how or why im getting 80 degrees on charge temp sensor. The sensor is brand new, so I'll look into the ECU config and see what standard its set to.

Went to a Nissan/Datsun meet last weekend with some pulsars.

I've sold the OZ wheels so once I get a leaking AD08R fixed I can put the TE37's back on. Then after I take it to the DownShift meet later in the month, I'll book it in to a motorsport wiring place to get my new Racetech DASH2 wired up. Probably get a combo AFR/boost gauge installed as well.

I picked it because it takes RS232 and will (hopefully) be plug'n'play with the Autronic ECU. Bought it directly from Racetechnology in the UK and wound up around $850AUD delivered, which I was pretty happy with.

I'm also starting to look into sourcing some OEM camshafts and possibly installing them +re-tune and see how different the dyno graph and driveability is. Hopefully that happens before the end of the year.

[admS15]

Looks like the air temp sensor is heat soaking. May need to find another spot for it. Where exactly is it mounted? Does it read correctly when the car is driving around normally?

[Leroy Peterson]

Looks like the air temp sensor is heat soaking. May need to find another spot for it. Where exactly is it mounted? Does it read correctly when the car is driving around normally?

Heat soak? If the piping it's mounted to is cold?

I was driving it on a mild 20's degree afternoon a few months ago and it was showing ~45 degrees when cruising at 80, so something is not right. It's mounted to the piping maybe 10cm from the mouth of the plenum

 

[admS15]

16 minutes ago, Leroy Peterson said:

Heat soak? If the piping it's mounted to is cold?

I was driving it on a mild 20's degree afternoon a few months ago and it was showing ~45 degrees when cruising at 80, so something is not right. It's mounted to the piping maybe 10cm from the mouth of the plenum

 

Well, wont be heat soak if the pipe is cold. Have you tried removing the sensor from the pipe to see what it registers in open air? Maybe its a dud or needs to be calibrated for your ecu. Btw image isn't showing coz of the extorsion crap thats happening with photobucket. Dont need photobucket to post images on here anyways.

[Leroy Peterson]

7 hours ago, admS15 said:

Well, wont be heat soak if the pipe is cold. Have you tried removing the sensor from the pipe to see what it registers in open air?

Thats not a bad idea.

f**k you photobucket.

[Leroy Peterson]

FYI - I still have this car believe it or not.

The Gloria is gone ( ) but 90s manual cars are worth holding onto and heavily modified pulsars arent worth much. Priorities have changed, my plans for track work have taken a toll on me and the car... now im a boomer and just wanting a street car.

Updates since 2017:

2018: I was working interstate and went to start the car after 5+ months: wouldnt run.

2019: get it sussed out and turns out to be a lose wire at ignition barrel. 2nd gear under WOT has issues, not sure why.

2023: move house, go to move car and doesnt start. Looks to be fuel pump. Might look into eventually.

The main things are: no rust. rolls ok. 

I'm going to struggle to get a roadworthy on this thing for classic car rego down the line. Thinking about re-shelling it down the line, not sure if I can be bothered though.
So I'll just continue to sit on it and occasionally think about working on it.