Mistakes were made, my R34 Story

[paulR32gtr]

Reading this, did I, per chance, buy your aftermarket 120amp (?) alternator, through fb marketplace?

The girlfriend I picked it up from told me a similar story... she didn’t however inform me that the alternator was quite possibly cursed ?

[admS15]

38 minutes ago, paulR32gtr said:

Reading this, did I, per chance, buy your aftermarket 120amp (?) alternator, through fb marketplace?

The girlfriend I picked it up from told me a similar story... she didn’t however inform me that the alternator was quite possibly cursed ?

If it is, you now need an exorcism performed on your car and anyone that has gone near that alternator. The Voodoo is strong, lol.

[Kinkstaah]

12 hours ago, paulR32gtr said:

Reading this, did I, per chance, buy your aftermarket 120amp (?) alternator, through fb marketplace?

The girlfriend I picked it up from told me a similar story... she didn’t however inform me that the alternator was quite possibly cursed ?

You did! But I assure that ARD alternator I bought had very little use, definitely didn't even come into the car at all in the timeframe all these stories are referencing.

Did I ever mention I used to live in the USA, and was married over there, and that my now my ex-wife is born and raised in Louisiana, which has absolutely no significance for Voodoo curses at all.

(I bought the car right when I landed in Australia, entirely unrelated)

[Kinkstaah]

HIlarious misfortunes aside, it's obviously not been all bad.
Occasionally the car runs, and joyous occasions do actually occur!

Uhhhh..... Greg... your car is blowing smoke at the track.....

Catch can was full, problem went away.... and lets be honest, the IACV motor died (they die, pinning open) and I had a misfire problem meaning I had to run 9psi of boost maximum but look honestly at this stage of my car ownership I was at the track having fun and I put them firmly in to the WIN category!

 

I put this photo in, my mental note thinking this was a time we all went out cruising the Great Ocean road and staying a few days in Warnambool..... only to be confronted by the fact I didn't bring the R34 with us on this trip because it was broken/off the road/conversion going on/something.

Which my mind totally had no recollection of. This is probably pretty good allegory of my R34 ownership..Also MX5 Turbos are just awesome, no she doesn't let me mod it more than it currently is.

I swear we did do the great alpine road with the Skyline, as I distinctly being unable to really spin the rears at the top of Hotham through the very high country noting it made suprisingly big difference, and following supercharged cars from 1979 with no cat generates one hell of a headache.

Best track mod is definitely this though!!

 

Yes, she is cooking sausages at the track day for everyone because "The canteen is no good, and boys don't eat they get up early, grab a coffee at 4am out the door and run on adrenaline and caffiene the whole day and that's no good!! People need food so they can stay focused and have fun on the track!!"

My best drag run ever was an 11.9 with the old setup, which just left a ton of everything on the table, and that 11.9 was at like 103mph because an intercooler came off at about half track.

And after every failed run (which was every run, due to intercooler pipes) a certain someone was under the car fixing it, putting hose clamps back together and generally providing relentless encouragement while I yarned on chatting to other random people at heatcote.

I think most people would have happily struggled to get into the 11's but had the pitlane support than run a 10 and be there on their own, so as many things that have gone wrong, I know some really good people to make it all worth it.

After all, all car stories are really just people stories.

In any case the car has gone from:

This:

To this: (this made 430kw through an auto in this setup!)
 

To.... this:

To... this!:

 

Actual cert number and VASS number removed for obbious reasons but ye.
At some point I will write up (with pictures) the very long process in the above!

[paulR32gtr]

3 hours ago, Kinkstaah said:

You did! But I assure that ARD alternator I bought had very little use, definitely didn't even come into the car at all in the timeframe all these stories are referencing.

Did I ever mention I used to live in the USA, and was married over there, and that my now my ex-wife is born and raised in Louisiana, which has absolutely no significance for Voodoo curses at all.

(I bought the car right when I landed in Australia, entirely unrelated)

Haha nice. I didn't realise the gravity of what you had been through at the time, was just happy to get nice discount on a virtually new up-spec alternator.

Small world, thought I would have a read of your thread on account of funny title. Surprised it triggered the memory actually, here I was thinking I was pre-alzheimers.

The alternator, while I am sure won't cause any trouble, definitely cannot harm anyone or thing in it's current state, on a shelf in my garage next to my dusty, amperely challenged car. One day will get around to fitting it.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Mashallah Greg, you have found peace in a non-Nissan motor

I will too (one day) after this Friday - might bin the motor or car or both.

[Kinkstaah]

I think they are good motors, it's just the case of blood from a stone. Any motor being asked to go 200-300% of what it left the factory with is, beyond any kind of reasonable expectation.

A RB25DET making 260rwkw with all the right mods for track work and breathing would make for a shitty dyno graph on the internet, but last way, way, way longer, and that's still asking 170% of what it left the factory with!

[Kinkstaah]

So, after driving around with an internet-happy and extremely well performing EFR and RB28 combo for awhile, as god intended (i.e manual), I had a bit of a realisation.

...... it was too much for the street. It was too laggy. In all my attempted fixes, I had always trended towards more response, less lag, faster throttle response.

I also noticed on the street, I was turning the boost down to 11psi, and a very respectable 330kw. I also noticed for any time I went to the track, I was also turning the boost down to 11psi, for safety reasons or otherwise (lol misfires.)

I then noticed that even with a 2.8, even with an EFR, that going from 0 throttle to WOT at 6000rpm still took a good ~1-1.5 seconds to actually hit full boost. I then asked myself if I would prefer that interval to be instant, for the tradeoff of only ever having about 300kw of max power.

You know, the power I kept limiting myself to anyway for actual use.

Then bad thoughts started happening. Thoughts of reading VASS Certification documentation, Vicroads laws and loopholes, earnestly researching "So yeah what exactly are the rules here?"

It seemed dumb that a EFR 330kw setup was absolutely verboten, but a V8 in the car looked entirely legal..
... and cheaper.
... and easier to replace.
... and significantly less stress on the motor..

I was a little tired of parking the car, and walking away, worrying about this noise, that clunk, that odd sound, that piece of trim falling off, etc. Truth be told, a fair bit of other things happened over the years on the car, but the priority of "please don't explode" took precedence.

This was also compounded that (as noticed by my lovely gf) that I seemed to have much more fun driving other people's cars (like hers) mainly due to the fact I could enjoy them, instead of constantly worrying about them.

This is where people usually just sell their car BUT NOT ME, CAUSE I'M STUPID!

It was also about this time I got an enquiry about selling some of my totally not cursed car parts, and it all started looking dangerously plausible. I had second thoughts. I distinctly remember driving the 34 around after I took a deposit for the engine... and felt terrible. Sad. Like I had betrayed a friend. Like driving your pet to the vet knowing they are going to be put down.

Surely it wasn't that bad was it?

I also bought this:

(which is now for sale btw)
I thought:

I will be without the 34 for a long time, I want something fun to drive around in during it, go to track days, etc with friends in the interim. It was unnervingly good, quiet, reliable, fast and most importantly... really fun. I was only about 1s slower at Winton in this Renault than I ever managed in the 34.

So it pretty much put a huge base line in the ground saying:

"You must be at LEAST this much fun/fast/generally OK to avoid being set on fire/sold"

But in the end, the car went off the road, to a different place of surgery, namely the person who rebuilt my engine in the past, because no way was I going to tackle this on my own.. the research I can handle, and I can turn bolts, and I can wire things. But I sure as hell appreciate a second opinion when shit is really important.

 

Here it is, or was, as it sat, when I took the first photo before.. uh, it's... transition.

"Are you really gonna do this?"

[PLYNX]

And now ?

[Kinkstaah]

Right after then, tools came out and things started coming out with them.

After many years of removing bits and pieces from the car it was actually a sadly very rehearsed system by now, but it is always suprising how fast it is to take a car apart when you really don't have to consider

a) It running again
b) putting it back together again ever

Obligatory "Before" picture:
 

 

eeeeasy does it

 

Ah yes, Turbo goodness.

At this point I didn't actually have anything to put in yet, however I had done my research, or at least as much research as one can do before actually doing anything.

There's various good and bad things about LS engines, and while SAU is pretty awesome, the amount of documentation across the pond in the USA about LS motors is simply staggering (it continues to surprise me).

Luckily commodores in Australia mostly have the LS6 bottom end (conformable on casting marks from GM) which is the best available one for oil control on the track, which is a revision of the earlier LS1 block. Later LS's and GEN4's have oil control issues that make RB motors problems look like happy utopian dreams.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/autocrossing-and-roadracing/2824807-let-me-ask-another-way-who-s-ls3-hasn-t-blown-up-on-the-track.html

So while POWERRRRR was on the cards with a GEN4/LS3 I opted to not go down that path in the attempt to future proof the idea, and keep things simpler and cheaper.

The whole idea was to get the car *running* with a stock engine making about ~220 kw before attempting to do anything fun for power anyway, and I figured/assumed/had learned that no matter what, this carefully budgetted build would blow out beyond all expectations, and a LS1 'should' be easy to replace from gumtree in the event that it does explode/let go/develop some problem, and I liked the simplicity of having drive by cable instead of electric throttles, one more thing to convert, tune for, make work 'properly'.

I got Engine and Transmission mounts from KE Conversions on FB, and they looked the goods and had plenty of fitment photos, as well as working with the stock Nissan Engine mounts. Given my goal was to get this engineered, being able to use a stock mount for the engine and gearbox was super beneficial. 

I also discovered my stock engine mounts were completely and utterly f**ked, so time to replace those courtesy of Kudos Motorsports.

A week or so later, this arrived:

About 4 seconds later, this happened:

Commence: 'Oh yeah this could actually work' thoughts..

[No Crust Racing]

Aren't earlier LS just as bad? 

A trendy thing to do here in my local car club is LS swap everything and the Silvia/BMW guys have been through a heap of bearings and engines as they realise any engine spun hard on the track can have issues. 

They're now mostly all running accumulators/built engines with oil control mods. These were all earlier LS1s, though there's now a few 6 and 6.2L getting about as well. 

 

[PLYNX]

Something to consider:

High Performance Ford 4L Krogdahl twin cam engine based on AU block:

[DivHunter]

26 minutes ago, PLYNX said:

Something to consider:

High Performance Ford 4L Krogdahl twin cam engine based on AU block:

I see there has been a $5000 price drop, bargain. Developed a twin cam head that Ford had already made (there were E series test mules with twin cam heads early 90s) but didn't need to use because Holden stayed pushrod for so long. Then out comes the BA and all his shit is essentially worthless.

[Kinkstaah]

1 hour ago, ActionDan said:

Aren't earlier LS just as bad? 

A trendy thing to do here in my local car club is LS swap everything and the Silvia/BMW guys have been through a heap of bearings and engines as they realise any engine spun hard on the track can have issues. 

They're now mostly all running accumulators/built engines with oil control mods. These were all earlier LS1s, though there's now a few 6 and 6.2L getting about as well. 

 

The pick of the litter is the later block/LS6 bottom ends for 5.7's.

All the 6.0's are derived from LS3's (i.e GENIVs)

Initial LS1's from 99-00-01 etc aren't great in regards to oil control, piston slap etc.

GM fixed these when they introduced the LS6 for the C5 Z06, then updated the block and its updates for all LS1's, so the differentiation between a LS6 was the 243 LS6 heads. But later LS1's were LS6's from the bottom end side of things.

These LS1's in Australia got LS1 heads on "LS6" blocks. They were in the VY and VZ Commodores.

You're looking for

12561168
12561166

Stamped on the block.

[No Crust Racing]

No, I'm not looking for that at all. 

[Kinkstaah]

Well maybe not you specifically - But people in that situation wanting to do it, is gonna be well served by looking for this.

The later LS1's definitely hold up better than the gen3 (L98, L99 6.0's, and GENIV 6.3LS3)

That said, the data seems to show you need to hold 1.2G+ for 4 seconds to start having oil pressure problems in the most plagued of them, being the LS3. This is a bit more relevent to a vette on 335 slicks turning left on say, an oval track or really really big sweeper than it would be in my scenario in 200 treadwear tyres.

The only real corner that could be a problem with in Victoria is the sweeper at Winton.

But yes, any engine spun hard on the track can (realistically will) have issues. Unless it's a MX5 motor basically.

[No Crust Racing]

MX5 has other issues. 

[Kinkstaah]

MX5's have issues of "What do I need to do, my car is working, there's nothing to fix" and "I don't have a lot of power". The stock SE one can do 190rwkw on the OEM turbo and Brendan Beavis has clearly shown its reliable in doing more track days than the entire of SAU combined, and being faster than 99.9% of people in them.

GF still won't let me track her MX5 yet, though. So I needed another plan.

I actually did make a note in a spreadsheet as to how much this conversion cost, how much I bought things for (and how much I sold RB bits for!, and a timeline!) and quickly realised that the big killer in all these builds is the friends you make along the way.

By this, the level of 'while we're there....' is extreme to the nth degree.

With the engine in the car, we needed headers.

This wasn't a great deal of space, and this is with everything removed/relocated as best as we possibly could.

However, the block hugger manifolds I bought were approximately this flat.
They also didn't fit, pointing directly to the engine mount...

^--- above picture with the other side of the manifold touching the bar.. Both side like this.
The supplier replaced both of them without complaint. Getting my money back instead of a store creidit though.. took many many hours of waiting in the store for the manager to get back from wherever he was, though..

At this point we had also removed the sump, because we were going to have to notch it in order to reach the crossmember. So we were looking at needing manifolds, a cable TB, Water pump/Gaskets, oil pump, rear main seal, front seal, sump gaskets, the lot. The "While we're there" started on the engine stand but it quickly accumulated.

During this time a lot (almost all) of the RB stuff sold, so I more or less had a shell sitting on stands. The desire to just cut ties and walk away was very strong, an underutilized MX5 was in my hands, but then I thought

"What if...., I'll never know if it was actually gonna be awesome...."

So I started the search for a gearbox.

[admS15]

Continue please 

[iruvyouskyrine]

Reading about gregs bad luck is the best thing on SAU in a long time.

 

Poor greg.