NZ R33 Long Term Build

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Nice mate, will look superb once carpet goes on!

[R3N3]

Final result:

I mean, I’m sure it could be better but I’m pretty stoked with the outcome!

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

looks good, now to find the rest of the OEM trim! 

[Looney_Head]

Looks good. nice work

[R3N3]

The quest for more comfort / less discomfort continues..

I purchased another big bulk pack of Dynamat, so I have added it to the back seat (double layered), boot lid and the panels either side of the back seat. All that’s left is the roof and under the front seats.

the sounds install is coming along nicely. I had to move the HICAS ECU from under the parcel tray to above the right rear shock, as it was just getting in the way of the sub

I have a mate that is going to 3d print me some nice new sail panels for the doors, which will incorporate the tweeters at a nice angle to the driver and passenger.

im routing all the RCA and speaker cables down the right side of the car to avoid any interference with power cables, as the fuel pump and main PDM cable run down the left side.

i have also mounted up the reverse camera as stealth as possible

 

it always seems to be slow going working on the car, with work and family life! But am keen to get this wrapped up and back on the road!

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Remember to high pass the rear speakers, so you don't have the subwoofer and rear speakers working together, you'll end up terrible bass/distortion or worse blown rear speakers. 

[R3N3]

49 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Remember to high pass the rear speakers, so you don't have the subwoofer and rear speakers working together, you'll end up terrible bass/distortion or worse blown rear speakers. 

Good tip thanks! I know nothing about setting up the amp and speakers, so I have been looking on the youtubes.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

A rough setup guide, fronts high pass then at 50hz, rear speakers at 100hz and subwoofer low pass at 80hz.

[R3N3]

Sound deadening is now complete. What a difference this makes! Not just for road/vehicle noise (which is almost non existent) but also for the speakers. I can crank the tunes with the sub and nothing can be heard from the outside and there is not one rattle.

The new sounds are great! I will get/borrow an oscilloscope to tune properly, but my amp gains are set to real low, so I don’t foresee an issue. I’m just waiting on my 3d printed door sail panels with integrated tweeters. If they turn out ok, I’ll try get the file for others to print.

I have decided I will pull the trigger on a frenchys performance aircon kit (they have just released one for the 33) and their power steering pump kit over the holidays. The PS pump isn’t 100% required, but on the quest of modernising I may as well just do it.. fortunately I ran additional wires in the loom for aircon from the PDM, so I will use that instead of relays.

[R3N3]

The guy I got my keypad mount off also makes these neat little ctek terminal charger mount/holder things for the front fusebox. I had this lying round for ages and finally installed it:

funnily enough, I noticed that the car has two 30a ABS fuses (small green ones near terminal), yet this was never an ABS car… maybe they all just have these? I checked the vehicle wiring diagram and couldn’t see any other use for them. Anyone else with a non-ABS R33 have the same?

I’ll run the new aircon via the PD16, so I can actually remove most the relays in the box, so I may look to install something a bit smaller/neater in the new year.

[R3N3]

So the FPG aircon kit has been ordered and will hopefully be shipped next week. I had previously noted I planned on utilising the PDM/ECU to control the compressor and the aux fan. @Duncan this is what I’m thinking:

- install a haltech pressure switch instead of the supplied trinary switch and connect to ECU

- run the compressor and fan directly from the PDM, then remove all relays.

i already have the ac demand switch wired to the ECU, so then the ECU can control the compressor and fans based on coolant temp/pressure. From what I see in the wiring diagram, the compressor just remains on when ac is on and doesn’t change state with air temp etc (other than pressure change)??

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

26 minutes ago, R3N3 said:

From what I see in the wiring diagram, the compressor just remains on when ac is on and doesn’t change state with air temp

It does go on and off, there's a thermo amplifier in the equation. This sensor sits inside the evaporator core and usually has a 3x pin connector.

I recall @admS15 had a similar issue and cut/shut a S15 200SX one in.

What it does, it cuts the AC request when the evaporator starts to get too cold to stop it from icing up.

These stupid thermo amps seem to fail quite a bit, I suspect mine has as the AC request will go on/off very quickly.

For now, being the lazy prick that I am, have setup a canbus key to enable the AC compressor (bypassing the HVAC controls) with a pulse setting to run the compressor for 7 secs, followed by a 3 sec pause, then back on for 7 secs. 

[R3N3]

12 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

It does go on and off, there's a thermo amplifier in the equation. This sensor sits inside the evaporator core and usually has a 3x pin connector.

I recall @admS15 had a similar issue and cut/shut a S15 200SX one in.

What it does, it cuts the AC request when the evaporator starts to get too cold to stop it from icing up.

These stupid thermo amps seem to fail quite a bit, I suspect mine has as the AC request will go on/off very quickly.

For now, being the lazy prick that I am, have setup a canbus key to enable the AC compressor (bypassing the HVAC controls) with a pulse setting to run the compressor for 7 secs, followed by a 3 sec pause, then back on for 7 secs. 

Looking at the wiring diagram though, it looks like the amp signal is managed by the ac controller, so will then switch on/off with the a/c request switch?

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

29 minutes ago, R3N3 said:

so will then switch on/off with the a/c request switch?

That's right, I have issues where the AC request is enabled but nothing is sent to input on the Haltech.

It's very intermittent in my case, so because I'm too lazy to actually fix the issue, I've just set an AC request on the keypad instead LOL.

 

[admS15]

On 03/01/2024 at 10:00 AM, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

It does go on and off, there's a thermo amplifier in the equation. This sensor sits inside the evaporator core and usually has a 3x pin connector.

I recall @admS15 had a similar issue and cut/shut a S15 200SX one in.

What it does, it cuts the AC request when the evaporator starts to get too cold to stop it from icing up.

These stupid thermo amps seem to fail quite a bit, I suspect mine has as the AC request will go on/off very quickly.

For now, being the lazy prick that I am, have setup a canbus key to enable the AC compressor (bypassing the HVAC controls) with a pulse setting to run the compressor for 7 secs, followed by a 3 sec pause, then back on for 7 secs. 

Yes I had similar issues to what dose is experiencing. Went through everything, had the system regassed, was still playing up, drained it and replaced the sensor/switch on the dryer, still same. A/C guy gave up at that point. 

As mentioned, I wired in a S15 thermistor and just let it hang on the floor and everything worked.  It turned out to be a bad connection at the plug for me, I returned to using the original thermistor. I had slight issues a couple more times but after cleaning the plug and terminals really well, it's been good for quite a few years now.

The plug for said thermistor is located just behind the glovebox area. Pretty sure it can be accessed without removing much. Small hands help. 

From my understanding all the thermistor does is work out when to turn compressor off and on as described above.

Surely the fpg kit being ordered has some more modern way to run everything and comes with solid instructions. Please let us know @R3N3 when it arrives.

 

[R3N3]

36 minutes ago, admS15 said:

Yes I had similar issues to what dose is experiencing. Went through everything, had the system regassed, was still playing up, drained it and replaced the sensor/switch on the dryer, still same. A/C guy gave up at that point. 

As mentioned, I wired in a S15 thermistor and just let it hang on the floor and everything worked.  It turned out to be a bad connection at the plug for me, I returned to using the original thermistor. I had slight issues a couple more times but after cleaning the plug and terminals really well, it's been good for quite a few years now.

The plug for said thermistor is located just behind the glovebox area. Pretty sure it can be accessed without removing much. Small hands help. 

From my understanding all the thermistor does is work out when to turn compressor off and on as described above.

Surely the fpg kit being ordered has some more modern way to run everything and comes with solid instructions. Please let us know @R3N3 when it arrives.

 

Will do. The FPG kit only replaces everything from the firewall forward, so everything else needs to function. Thanks for the info on the thermistor!

[R3N3]

So I have been slowly accumulating a bunch of parts to go on, which I’ll touch on in another future post. But in the meantime, I have been working with a mate to 3d print some sail panels (internal covers for the wing mirrors) with integrated tweeter pods. Pretty happy with the result:

The car is taking a bit of a back seat to house Renos at the moment. We have an old 1920’s villa, so we are making it more family friendly with bigger wardrobes, all new double glazed windows/doors, kitchen upgrade and most importantly a 2nd bathroom..

[R3N3]

Finished sail panel

before and after pics of the cam covers:

 

[klutched]

They both came up Mickey Mouse! Looking good mate

[R3N3]

So I have had a bit of time over the weekend and decided to make a start on the AC kit:

As usual, the FPG gear is top notch quality.

I'm glad that when I wired the car I had the forethought to provide some spare wires in the engine bay. Luckily one of these wires was a 25A high current output cable from the PDM suitable for the thermo fan.

The strategy will be to run all the pressure switch and ac clutch via the haltech, so I can have better control, like turning the compressor off at higher rpm’s, hard launches etc. I can also use the fan for general cooling duties etc.

At this point I’m also thinking I should just buy the FPG power steering pump kit because all other ancillaries are new..