| After a LENGTHY downtime, build-up, stagnation and final effort (thanks to Greg D. & Seb), the car is running again. For those of you who don't remember the catastrophic failure, see these posts:
La-Z-Link
La-Z-Link The car blew up in May of 2004. I pulled the motor out pretty quickly to assess the damage, and commenced with procurement of a replacement shortblock. I had a replacement in hand within a month, and dropped it off at Precision Speed & Machine shortly thereafter. Here is a link to a post with pics of the build-up:
La-Z-Link I picked up the longblock sometime around Nov 2002. It was not a cheap build. I decided at that point to go with SP530 turbos. In retrospect, I should have gone with SP700s. My initial decision was based on retaining streetability, which I no longer care about. I traded in the 2005 350z for an '06 STi, which is plenty of fun on the street and spanks the Z in terms of handling, braking, and tossability around corners. With the STi in the garage, the Z has become relegated to a freeway cruiser and potential drag car. SP700s would have been much more suited to this application. After procuring all of the parts needed and assembling the motor, I ran into some issues with my (now) ex-wife and had to move the car from where I was doing the build in haste. I won't say that I threw everything together, but I was definitely more interested in removing the car from the in-laws place than I was in attending to every last detail. Here's where the problem lies: somewhere in the whole build-up and assembly process, things were not done correctly. After the new EFI harness and fresh longblock were installed, the car would not run correctly. It seemed like I could not get enough rotation on the CAS to have the car idle properly. Since I quit my job at that time to finish school, the car sat undiagnosed for over a year. Since then, I finished my BS and started working again. Since I was in a much better position financially and a much worse position as far as free time, space to work on the car, etc., I made the decision to tow the car to Greg D. to have it diagnosed and repaired. Turns out, either the timing belt was improperly installed by myself, or the cams were not indexed properly when the motor was longblocked. I would like to think that it wasn't the timing belt, as I have 4 successful 60ks under my belt, but the possibility remains. I cannot point the finger at Precision due to the length of time that elapsed between the longblocking and diagnosis of the problem. Either way, regardless of where the blame lies, Greg found 2 bent (BRAND NEW) Manley SS exhaust valves, a stuck lifter, and a stuck intake valve. The lifters were recycled during the build, which, in retrospect, was a poor decision. The exhaust valves were bent due to the timing being off by quite a bit. The stuck intake valve's cause is unclear, but I have my suspicions. Greg & Seb pulled the motor, had the heads reworked with fresh valves, and installed new lifters. Additionally, new oil feed lines were installed to the SP530s to alleviate any potential blow-by of excess oil and resultant smoking. Since I traded in the 350z, I took off the Nismo LM-GT4 wheels and all power adders. I traded the wheels to Charles Park (Powertrix) for a set of traction rods and rear upper A-arms (and some cash). I dropped these off and had Seb install these as well since the car was already down there. I'd rather not disclose the amount of the bill from Specialty-Z, but it was a bit more than I had anticipated. There was quite a bit of work involved, but it was completed in a timely fashion and I have nothing but good things to say about Greg & co. As the car sits now, I have no power steering or AC. I am debating whether or not to convert the AC to R-134a, and I have the necessary bracket for the NA PS pump so the belts line up properly, so I'm looking at one solid weekend's worth of work to get the car to 100%. Next on the menu are larger intercoolers (probably the biggest bottleneck in the system at this point) and a dyno-tune by Greg once the car is properly broken in. I will take some pics later today if anyone is interested. I am still undecided on what I want to do with the car, I am thinking about stripping the interior, installing a roll-cage, and taking the car out on weekends to Buttonwillow or Famoso. Sorry for the long post. I used to be very active here and have been off the radar for some time. For those of you who care, it's nice to be back..
"It must suck for you to be the most retarded than everyone else here." -AzHeat 09:30:20 09/10/04 "So I nailed it, took off like an F18 from carrier. Of course the chase begained." -Tim_N/A 10:27:15 04/07/03 "Ps, I ate a real chocolate jesus today. it was kick ass. it was about 3" tall and solid chocolate. I was in heaven." - niXit 10:53:48 10/02/02 |
