Miekedmr's build thread

[miekedmr]

I've got a fair amount of fabrication to do (brackets galore, making hoses, and welding up the actual IC piping) before I can share installed pictures.
Next time I get a weekend to go work on it I should be able to get some progress pictures at least.

Thanks for the encouragement.

One more thing, I have been taking a class on using a CNC router -- my first project is to create a new transmission-to-bellhousing spacer from a single piece of stock to replace the one I welded together (which after welding, only sits flat when it is bolted down -- not ideal)

 

[miekedmr]

A JZA70 style compressor hotside merge pipe came in the mail from another member here.
Instead of turning 90* to the left toward the passenger fender like the Chaser pipe that I have, it bends forward and downward.
I picked it up because it will result in fewer bends in my IC piping. There will be a pie-cut section from a cast 2.25" elbow that will get welded to the front of it, so that I can have the V-band clamp pointed in a better direction.



I noticed there was some pretty bad shrouding around the port to the front turbo, so I ground it out with the dremel using a coarse sanding wheel bit.
Hopefully it was from imperfect casting and not an intentional thing -- it definitely seemed that way.
I'll probably pull the back pipe when I get a chance to make sure it's not shrouded in the same way.

 

[miekedmr]

Look what I got!

 

[Rollus]

Yeah, I have the same:
- Yellow fronts
- Red Rears
- Orange steering rack

For the A-arms and sway bars I went with Energy Suspension bushings (bought from ebay). If I had to change it, after readings, I may prefer SuperPros

 

[miekedmr]

Haha, very close. My rears are actually orange! I got the orange steering rack bushings too, though they are not pictured.

My reasoning for the rears was that while the durometer of the orange polyurethane is not that much higher than OEM rubber, the OEM bushings have air gaps in them to allow them to flex...
These are solid, and I believe that means they will still be substantially stiffer than stock.
Hopefully I get the happy medium I was aiming for in terms of the noise/vibration versus stiffness.

I have the Energy Suspension bushings as well. They were installed into arms from one of my previous cars, and I will be re-using some of them when I get around to overhauling the suspension on this one...

 

[miekedmr]

This is a spare set of turbos I bought from a member here. I ground off some casting flash and smoothed the bumps on the turbine housings, just because I can.
I've also done a little bit of porting on the manifolds and plan to do more.
Tonight, these will get boxed up tonight and mailed off to Driftmotion.

The stock twins that came on the engine are still installed, so I can still drive the car in the mean time. Hopefully I will have this upgraded set back before they blow.
I will also try get the car on a dyno before then, for a good before/after comparison with the upgraded twins.

Coming up this weekend, I'm making a trip out to see the car and work on my IC setup. I foresee many hours with the TIG.

 

[miekedmr]

Came down with a cold just in time for my work-on-the-car vacation, so I didn't get as much done as I hoped.
First thing on getting there the car wouldn't start even though the battery had a good charge. Checked the spark plugs and they were wet.
I put a fresh set of spark plugs in, installed the heatshrink spark plug boot covers I had got from driftmotion previously, used anti-sieze and appled lots of dialectric grease around the boot, then it started up fine.
I drove it just a little ways down the road and back, enough for the oil thermostat to open and the oil cooler to get toasty. The idle seemed smooth with it warm, too.

I did get the post-pump heat exchangers installed. In a stroke of luck, the brackets for the intercooler the previous owner installed were exactly the right distance apart to attach these to.
Those are push-lock fittings that are missing the hoses. The upper hose will come from the pump and the lower will run to the intercooler cores.





That's the oil cooler mounted behind them.

 

[miekedmr]

The intercooler cores and throttle body got their lips cut off to fit the v-band flanges.
After the flanges are welded on I'll go back and blend the edges inside.

 

[Rollus]

Wahou !

Nice work, I can't wait see IC piping installed.

Keep up the good work!

 

[miekedmr]

Thank you, Rollus, for your continued thread patronage and encouragement, haha. I can't wait to have it together either.

I'm working on getting access to a TIG welder at a local "maker space" (http://artisansasylum.com/) to speed up the project since I have to travel a long way to use my own. (I'd like to rent/buy a garage locally with 220v power but that's not in the cards yet... space is very expensive here)

 

[miekedmr]

update!

This part has been a pain. I could have probably made a jig of some kind and done the work on the lathe but that felt like it was going to be just as much work, so I did it manually with the dremel using cutting wheel + sander attachments.

The Y-pipe that joins the compressor outlets was cast with the inner diameter non-concentric with the outer diameter, and the O.D. was too large to fit into one of the v-band clamps, so I had to reduce the diameter while making it concentric to the inner diameter:



I'm almost there, just need to sand down some high spots. I've been using one of the stainless flanges for test-fitting since it has the same dimensions and it's less likely to get damaged repeatedly jamming it on.



As you can see the inner diameters line up well:



Originally, my plan was to first weld a 2.25" cast aluminum elbow on to the end of the pipe before the v-band, but I found the elbow on arriving was too narrow internally and generally low in quality. On top of that I don't think it was going to give me enough space for the pipe transitions between there and the IC cores. So, I picked up a 2.25" stainless 180+45 pipe to give me enough pipe to do the bend on the stainless side instead.

 

[miekedmr]

baby steps... it's not welded yet but it's a snug fit now.



You can see the supra xmas ornament my lady made for me in the background in the above picture.



This one just shows up close that the gap there is pretty much gone.

 

[miekedmr]

Updates from last weekend!

#1: My upgraded 1JZ twins came in from driftmotion!



#2: I drove the car a few miles and let it get up to temp and found some things:

• there's an oil leak at rear of block, either crank bolt holes, just-replaced rear main seal, or maybe half moon seals in head. I'm hoping I just didn't seal the flywheel bolts well enough, or it's the head seals.
• clutch not fully disengaging? difficult to get in and out of gear, probably just needs to be bled better...
• starting circuit issues (the starter relay or wiring needs replacing - starter is brand new and spins 100% of time when given 12v right to the solenoid.)
• it's a 5 cylinder most of the time.

At low load and high rpm it sounded as if all 6 were firing and it had a great sound and good response. Medium load, it sounds angry and lacks oomph, even for a lil ol' 1jz.
I didn't floor it at all, tried to stay out of boost, because the intercooler setup is still a work in progress, and this was my stand-in:



As for the non-firing cylinder, it's got to either be injectors or spark. I haven't done the necessary unplugging-of-things to diagnose it yet.
Whatever it is, I will probably replace with used-good parts as opposed to buying new ones. I want to go Megasquirt 3 later and any money spent on the stock injectors or ignition is going to basically be a loss.

 

[BrandonW]

the twins look awesome

hope you get the bugs worked out and it doesn't become anything major

 

[miekedmr]

the twins look awesome
hope you get the bugs worked out and it doesn't become anything major

Thanks!

Good(-ish) news: I pulled the codes and it has a 12 and a 14, which are for the CPS and ignitor, respectively.
I also checked ignition coil resistance and it was pretty uniform across the board. I didn't really expect to find anything but it was easy to do.

I think I will try to address the CPS issue first and reassess after that's dealt with. I'll check to make sure grounds and battery voltage to the ignitor are sufficient, too, before I go off and buy a replacement.

 

[miekedmr]

Update!

So I made a little bit of progress with fabricating my IC piping, but most of my time has gone towards troubleshooting EFI issues, which are:

• engine doesn't usually idle on its own, idles very slow when it does
• Lots of missing/hesitation, even when all 6 cylinders appear to be at least partially operating
• Intermittently, one or more cylinders won't fire, confirmed by disconnecting coils
• strange behavior from check engine light - at one point was always-off, another point was always-on and wouldnt flash with TE1-E1 jumper
• strange behavior on M-REL wire, sometimes the main relay was stuck on and fuel pump would run continuously with key in OFF position
• detaching ecu from battery to reset it seems to trigger the coming and going of said strange behavior

I've done a lot of resistance testing on sensors, swapped out CPS sensors, swapped igniters, looked at signals to/from the igniter with an oscilliscope, and so on... Now, I have visually inspected my ECU several times looking for blown capacitors and everything looked fine, but that's no guarantee. My best guess at this point is that my ECU is junk, based on all the weirdness. I DON'T want to spend a bunch on a replacement OEM computer, so the plan is:

1. Replace all the capacitors just like driftmotion does. (My dad is going to do this because he's got a retirees free time and is handy with the soldering iron)

2. Plug the repaired ECU in, and if at least SOME of the weird issues dont go away at that point, I am going to say fuck it and get an MS3Pro.

 

[miekedmr]

The ECU repair is underway with low ESR caps --hopefully I end up with a working ECU. [edit: appears so!]
I've been pretty busy in and outside of work so no additional progress on IC piping.
I did collect some stuff for some wiring... 4 ground-triggered solid state relays (I have NPN transistors so they can be triggered by 12v too.)
I cut a little mount from wood to attach the fuse case to the relay case. (with super glue)



My plan is to use one for the 12v oil pump, two for the water to air IC pump circuit, and one will be part of my redone starter circuit (it ELIMINATES the normal relay while maintaining its function, turns the wire from the ignition switch into a low-current one, and greatly reduces the length of wire between my trunk-relocated battery and the solenoid)

 

[miekedmr]

Got around to milling my bellhousing spacer plate that I showed the model for earlier.
My first attempt broke the only bit I had so I had to order more.
This time I did my surface clearing and contours with less depth/more passes and it worked great.

[video=youtube;qBQ4vy9QLLg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBQ4vy9QLLg[/video]

 

[miekedmr]

So: the car runs great with the repaired ECU.

:icon_bigg

On my last trip I also started to pull the motor so I can figure out where the oil leak is coming from. I think I just didn't do a good enough job of sealing the flywheel bolts, but we'll see.



I got a better welding helmet (The auto-darkening one I had wasn't strong enough to keep my eyes from getting flashed) and some tungstens.
I also got some 4943 aluminum filler rod delivered, way more than I need, because I couldn't find it for sale anywhere in less than 10lb quantities.
It doesn't depend as much on dissolving the base metal for strength the way 4043 does so I should have stronger welds with aluminum, in spite of imperfect technique on my part.

Oh, and... I picked up an aluminum bumper support from a mercedes on ebay. I want to try to do what josbeat did at some point in the distant future -- replace the steel bumper support with a modified aluminum one from another car to lose some mass off the front end.

 

[BrandonW]

Good job on getting the car running good

Im interested on seeing what you do with the aluminum bumper support the pic is really small in the thread you linked