Mistakes were made, my R34 Story

[The Bogan]

#Damnit

There there, there there

[The Bogan]

What engine oil are you using mate?

[Kinkstaah]

A mix of two different oils, 10-50 (Penrite racing) because I aim to give it a belting at the track and wasn't sure how hot it'd get with an oil cooler (just over 100C is the answer!).

I put 10-40 racing from penrite in the accusump/topup area because LS and 'its probably fine'. The manual calls for 0-30 but I still get shaky actually putting that in. Blame the RB in me who likes 10-60 when things get hot!

[The Bogan]

19 minutes ago, Kinkstaah said:

A mix of two different oils, 10-50 (Penrite racing) because I aim to give it a belting at the track and wasn't sure how hot it'd get with an oil cooler (just over 100C is the answer!).

I put 10-40 racing from penrite in the accusump/topup area because LS and 'its probably fine'. The manual calls for 0-30 but I still get shaky actually putting that in. Blame the RB in me who likes 10-60 when things get hot!

Cheers mate, I'm currently using Penrite 10w40 but am going to try Castrol edge 10w60 

Oils for the LS, chop and change I've found, OEM are 0w30 to 10w40, dependant on country of release and what variants they were used in

I was talking to a fellow bogan at work who has a few cars with LS1's in them, he runs and recommends 10w60 in all of them

Further googling for the LS has seen 10w60 Maineline or Castrol edge recommended, alot

Anyways, Supercheap has 5ltrs of Edge 10w60 for $60 so I grabbed 2 bottles and a filter to see how she runs with it over summer 

Cheers

[Kinkstaah]

Story time!

I find a guy on MP with a bonnet for sale, in my colour, in great condition.
I go there with car to pick up, across other side of town, peak traffic.
Look at bonnet. Seems great. We put bonnet on car. Wrong colour.

Seller very confused, checks his bonnet stash (has a few), and there is one in WV2 that is unopened from Japan.

We excitedly open it. It has damage.

We put my original bonnet back on and I say sorry etc etc.

Then I notice this:

Time to limp home religiously checking every valve and praying the leak was in the accusump directly. I switched the valve off as the leaking looked to be coming before the valve anyway.

Luckily this turned out to be the case, and there was no further leaking on the way home, as I took my plastic trays off multiple times on the multiple hour drive home.

Good times.

After pulling the thing apart on the weekend my mate and I found a few things.


Turns out this was the leak, air leaking from the air side at the gauge. This means the cylinder can get hydrolocked, and puke out the 175psi relief valve (which is where it was coming from).

We then pressurized the air side to 60psi to make sure it was sealing. It was.
My friend had a great idea to open the valve at 60psi to depressurize it.

I did tell him I had the valve open to put the oil into the motor on the drive home a few days ago, then closed the valve, so the cylinder should be empty. However if you're reading you can already see where this logic went wrong. (the hoist was originally entirely yellow)

With the accusump professionally emptied, and pressurized to 60psi we confirmed it is no longer leaking with soap and a spray bottle. Re-mounted into car and everything is fine.

At least today, as it held pressure fine overnight.

However now there's a power steering leak, maybe. Continuing my true LS1 ownership experience.

The car is going to Carbuilders.com.au tomorrow to get the entire kit and caboodle (I mean $2500+) of sound deadening thrown at it. I figured as they actually do installs, they will know the products, know how much to apply, and know how to apply it better than anyone. Especially me.

LS exhaust sounds awesome. LS1 engine bay sounds and T56 gearbox sounds just yeah. Box full of bolts and nuts in a washing machine. Lets have less of that.

[No Crust Racing]

I continue to have my reservations about accusumps, have seen a couple engines spin a bearing when they failed to operate and have seen lots of leaks/mess.

I realise they are substantially cheaper than a baller dry sump setup, but how do they stack up against a a used/DIY dry sump setup or maybe a hybrid, wet sump but external pump which I've seen around (solves oil pump failure issue for Nissan ppl and allows at least a basic reservoir to be added on the return side for extra capacity?). I suppose those external pumps are not really designed to move air so if you get oil surge it's not going to push the extra oil back in anyway, hence the accumsump pressurised design... hmm.. 

I did buy a new OEM pump for my setup because of the accusump plans but now I'm not so sure if I'd be better finding a good used dry sump setup instead, selling the new sump and pump. 

[Kinkstaah]

I think its best to think of it as extra oil volume on demand.. RB's like to keep oil in the head and don't drain down..

TBH I got mine because LS's have notorious issues on left hand sweepers, less so the LS"6" but it became a big issue on the GENIV's, enough for me to go with the GENIII for this reason alone..

That said, I don't think I generate the cornering force to really necessitate the use of one, but I have got the space to fit it, and a short line to the cooler which is a MUCH simpler install compared to what it'd be if there was a RB25/26 with intercoolers and pipes in that location.

I don't know if it'd cope with full slicks and aero, but I will only ever have R comps and a shitty ebay wing one day.

It is worth noting that when working, with the engine OFF, discharging the accusump gives a good 58 seconds seconds of oil pressure before the oil light comes on with the engine off entirely (i.e ZERO pressure, not 'low' pressure).

I think if I take 58 seconds to get around the sweeper the accusump won't be being triggered 😛

[No Crust Racing]

When it works of course

[Kinkstaah]

On 12/8/2020 at 9:14 AM, ActionDan said:

When it works of course

This is true. I am still operating under the proviso that "I dont really need it" due to well, non R comp tyres, and hopefully the fact I picked the 'better' LS with regards to oil consumption. With R comps or slicks and aero I think this is a bigger concern but I think I should be alright, I will slide off the track before I get real oil starvation.

But there was space there!

(and it seems to still be holding the correct amount of charge a week later, as it gets religiously monitored).

[Kinkstaah]

So driving the car round still had some issues after I sold the Megane and really HAD to use this for daily duties.

I noticed the following things:

It's hot.
It's loud.

The loudness isn't actually an issue when it's novel, 'oh lol cool muscle car, no radio needed, yeeaaah!' but over time living with it sometimes you want to chill with the windows down, listening to music without being 'that guy' in traffic where everyone can hear your sweet spotify playlist.

I had always been keen on products from https://www.carbuilders.com.au after watching their youtube stuff, and my friend had a great result with his 1979 BMW using just their stage 1 (sound deadener) product.

I never knew what product to buy for my car (there's many) for many different applications. Eventually I got on the chat line with them on their website and asked if they did installs in my questions about what product I need to buy for X application etc.

Turns out they do indeed do installs, and had a great chat about what product to use where, when, how, etc etc.

This was one I decided I'd let the pros do.
Turns out Skylines have a lot of anti vibration sound deadening in the cabin, so while I was quoted a lot of their 'Stage 1' material

They pretty much said they didn't want to install it on the floor given the R34 has a lot already there, and they went around knocking panels like musicians, looking for resonance and said it wasn't required.

They did however put some heat shielding in on the transmission tunnel as I had professed its pretty damn hot there.

Also note how much OEM 'Stage1' style stuff is there.

They did however put some Stage1 stuff on the back of the bonnet and in the boot, as this stuff aint there.

They also added this Stage1 stuff to the inside of the (all 4) doors. There were photos but they never got to me, as I only tended to get about 2/3rd of em (tested while standing next to them...)

For stage "2" options I ended up opting for the light "heavy" sound deadening option.
There's a super light acoustic foam, which is more of a foam, a really really heavy Vinyl loaded stuff, and this in the middle.

 

This went over the top of the rest, as shown below:

... and some for the arches

The bonnet got the "Premium Underbonnet" stuff.

 

Which looks like this when installed:

Because the above photo is crap, you can now see how it follows the bonnet.

Given I didn't need to buy as many boxes of the stage 1 stuff, the guys spent a bit of time putting foam/other materials between the plastic pieces in the boot and the metal. The guys seemed stunned with the vibrations between the plastic liner 'panels' and the metal panels. As though the nissan clips didn't clamp down hard enough etc.

Again with their finely tuned tuning knuckles they demonstrated this, and I said "Oh yeah thats .. the exact resonance my bass has from my sub" much to their disgust.

Anyway, I was pretty happy with letting them do it because I am very confident it couldn't have been done any better.
Was it worth it?

I still have an engine that can't be muffled, and maybe someone who drives the car infrequently may not be able to pick it, but for me it was noticable. I was able to do exotic things like "Open the window" and still be able to listen to my stereo, and have said Stereo be interrupted with v8 noises when I got on the loud pedal.

Oddly enough the exhaust now sounds way better with the windows down. Previously it did not. So there's definitely been some change, but it's been subtle. I would say there's much less soundS then less total overall sound.

Luckily that was all I was after, I can do things I previously couldn't do, so I'll count it a win.

Next up, depending on how mlr goes I may or may not be able to address the fact that the 'fresh' air intake in my AC blows at about 50C, and the heater blows at approximately Venus temperature.

Long term goal is still make car look not like a joke, and heads, but these are both $7500-10,000 adventures so they'll be postponed near indefinitely I suspect.

[Unzipped Composites]

Jesus. From someone who has just suffered through the removal of all the sound deadening from their car - this hurts me. If you ever sell this car, someone is going to turn it into a full-time race car and hate you immensely 🤣

 

Glad it somewhat achieved what you wanted though. I'll never admit it verbally, but there were times I wished my car wasn't 'F1 car leaving the pits' loud. Lucky I never succumbed to this though, cos I'd have absolutely hated removing it all again! 

[Kinkstaah]

The 2nd layer stuff is removable, it's not stuck down actually. So can just lift it out after you lift out the carpet 😛

Exhaust noise is awesome. The rest is less awesome. The car sounded better with the windows up than the windows down. Opening the 3.5in Varex rear muffler changed the sound by about 10%. This is not a very fun effect to have.

I promise you it's a much better experience at full throttle now than it was before. Which isn't sort of what I expected to happen, but really "It's a much better experience at full throttle" isn't a sentence I should argue with as far as results go.

[The Bogan]

And?????

[Kinkstaah]

Someone broke into my car and conveniently stole all my tools out of it.

I am currently on the search for anyone in Melbourne who can remove my wheel nuts (so I can change my brake pads/rotate my tyres for the track day on the 17th) It is not looking hopeful and all other avenues regarding smashing sockets onto the nuts etc have failed.

Good times.

[admS15]

Pic and rough size in mm of said locknuts

[Kinkstaah]

17mm.

17mm 6 sided socket could be hammered on.
17mm 12 sided socket slips over
16mm 12 sided socket does not slip over and cant be hammered on (oh I have tried)
5/8 would probably be perfect to hammer on, if it was 12 sided. My 6 sided 5/8 won't be hammered on.

And by "my" I mean my gf's tools because mine are are no longer mine.



I have been to about 8 tyre shops now to no avail, and done a lot of hammering, also to no avail. Got one of those lock nut removal kits which would work, if they were deep socket removal kits, which they also aren't.

Bonnet being fixed on the 11th and yeah, track day on  the 17th makes this a less "fun" level of general f**kups that I am accustomed to!

[admS15]

I'll check my arsenal of tools and see if i have something that may be of use.

[Rusty Nuts]

Hey Greg looks like one of those metrinch sockets might work.

[Kinkstaah]

Due to my lovely partner working for Ultratune, she called in a favour at Bob Jane (after I went there incognito and they couldnt help me, though they tried)

They then offered to smash sockets for $50, then found a 7 sided 17mm socket which they gave to her to loan out to me for free.

This took many many hours of not quite fitting, attempting to smash sockets on again, but we eventually got it settled like this.

Behold our special tool

Yes, the power of a cut up hose clamp and sticky tape made it get 'stuck' enough to break the nuts loose and now my wheels are again free.

I will be very happy to pull them off again soon to swap the fronts and rears and put in some track day brake pads where my car will definitely not break and I will have a fantastic, happy day.

 

[MoMnDadGTR]

nice work mate what a mess around. go smack through some gears and enjoy