1JZ E30 Vert Build Thread with Pastry filled wheels

[Jdesign]

My posts are random and Kind of all over the place but I am just kind of adding from pictures I have in my phone. I found these cans online for a killer deal. $35 each. Coolant overflow, PD reservoir, and a nice catch can(which I need badly due to the valve covers that came on this motor have no baffles in them). I need to make or buy some. 

This is a hilarious, yet not so hilarious spoiler. I bought this wing a few years back and was always to much of a wuss to drill into my trunk too mount it. Well...... when we had my car on the lift in Chubs shop, you can only lift a car when the garage door is closed(obvious interference issues) Well, Chubs hearing isnt the best, and I wasnt paying attention but we manged to lift the car into the garage door completely twisting the door and bending the frame. My car on the other hand only suffered minor injuries..a small scratch no bigger than a nickel. I had just the solution to cover up our mishap......

Wide band and digital boost gauges installed. The third hole will have a Oil pressure gauge to match once I order one. For now its ghetto access to my phone charger.

IAT sensor!!!! This is kind of an important part. Right now I have been driving the car and it has no idea what the intake temp is. Idle is all over and its prolly affecting my fuel ratio as well. I had to order one of these because I lost mine. Oddly enough, this little bugger is nearly impossible to find. Its very uncommon for them to fail, and its not compatible with any other motor or car. I was lucky that there was one on ebay. 

My downstar! Intake manifold mod. I needed to plug the hole in the intake manifold for my missing IAT, so until now, this is what I had in its place. sadly I have an IAT now so this crusty addition will be removed.

YASSSSSS!!! I was waiting to get this over a month before I even started my car. I have been having a misfire and really bad breakup problems and I have reason to believe this will be the solution. I have a large Walbro fuel pump (255) and a stock regulator. The car is running extremely rich to the point I was starting to worry I might be washing the cylinders. Although I dont have a gauge on the stock rail and regulator, I am certain the pressure is through the roof. I came to this consensus one day when I had the pump running but the car was off. When I went to start the car, tons of unburnt fuel came through the exhaust. This leads me to believe the the pressure is being built up so high that fuel is pushing past the injectors. I read online where there was another guy with a 1jz in a supra and he had the exact same issues as me and was running a larger than stock fuel pump on a stock regulator. 

I happened across one of these in a local salvage yard. The drivers side is the one I found as you can tell its not for a projector headlight assembly. I had to cut a hole in it, but it looks alot better than the back of the ellipsoids. 

On the passenger side you can see there is a bulge for the back of the projector headlight.

I really need to put this ugly battery in the trunk. I have since painted it black because its a giant eyesore, but its a brand new Northstar battery and I got it for a great price. If anyone needs a battery, I know a guy.

Ha! more randomness, but I had some extra time after work so I started sketching my car. I will upload a better revision of it later once I get further along. I am thinking of having prints made if anyone is interested. 

I picked these up last week. I got a tip from a fellow member on here. I wont give away his name but it rhymes with pearl. I hope to have tires on them this week so I can take the cheap Varostones or whatever they are off of my car and put them back on my civic. 

[Earl]

Billet squad=)

[wasnt m3]

And to think that I once thought that you had good taste...gross.

[Jdesign]

wasnt m3 said:

And to think that I once thought that you had good taste...gross.

You must be referring to the blue and grey battery. Don't worry, I painted it! 

[ClassE]

Looks like the exact same FPR I'm running.... Which was leaking internally (out the vacuum port) and back filled the entire vacuum manifold and all the lines... Which then started filling the intake runners.

I thought it was a leaking injector.

[Jdesign]

ClassE said:

Looks like the exact same FPR I'm running.... Which was leaking internally (out the vacuum port) and back filled the entire vacuum manifold and all the lines... Which then started filling the intake runners.

I thought it was a leaking injector.

Great, just great.  This is my biggest issue right now from making this thing rip, and then you tell me this. Were you able to fix it or did you have to get a new one? Any advice would be great....

[ClassE]

Jdesign said:

Great, just great.  This is my biggest issue right now from making this thing rip, and then you tell me this. Were you able to fix it or did you have to get a new one? Any advice would be great....

Called Aeromotive to order - ended up talking to Brett their tech director - they sent me one for free to repair.  Piece of cake to replace.

Unscrew the big top Allen screw as much as possible to relieve pressure on the internal spring.  Take the 4 screws off to remove the top portion - the diaphragm is sandwiched between the top/bottom piece - replace and reassemble (take note of internal top/bottom cap orientation).  There are YouTube videos to show how as well.

[ClassE]

Side Note after dealing with my fuel issues - adding a dial gauge on the FPR was the best money I've spent in a long time.  Can't tell you how I would have figured out my issue without it.

[Jdesign]

 

Almost have everything I need for the fuel system. I will probably need more fuel line as I only have those two small sections. This time I bought fittings online and they came surprisingly fast and were 1/3rd of the cost at Behlings and Pegasus. They do feel a little cheaper, but I cant see how they would fail any different than what I would have got elsewhere.  I did realize something kind of important though..... the OEM injectors and fuel rail are side feed. This means I cannot use this rail, or I have to buy new injectors. URGGGH.

 

I also happened across a rebuild kit for my turbo. $65 later, its in my hand. What a deal!

I also ordered a 4" 45 degree silicon coupler so I can run a filter. Not sure how well this coupler is going to work out as its just an eBay special. Its really soft and I assume its just going to get sucked shut or something. I guess we will see. I also picked up a UPGR8 filter. I read some reviews and it seems to be a nice filter I guess we will see how that works out as well. The third pic is just a velocity stack I ordered while I was at it. I might try and make this into a filter in the future.

*also note my battery is no longer blue and I started mounting the coolant overflow tank**

Mr. Young tossed me these hub caps when I was at his shop awhile back and I was just messing around and set them inside my rims. Kinda of a different look. what do you guys think?

[Jdesign]

ClassE said:

Side Note after dealing with my fuel issues - adding a dial gauge on the FPR was the best money I've spent in a long time.  Can't tell you how I would have figured out my issue without it.  

I would have to agree with you. Having a gauge is almost a necessity.

[Jdesign]

Recently was going back over the list of stuff I have done, and all the stuff I bought. There's some odds and ends I have yet to get or finish but the list is pretty mild from what I was thinking it would be. Right now the fuel system is all torn apart so I figured a nice recap to see if I can waste anymore money and time was needed. LOL

Motor mounts- Used stock M20 mounts and modified them

Inter cooler mount – steel “L” brackets welded to the core support

Oil cooler mount – Mounts to the top of the Intercooler (not yet installed)

Exhaust – Custom 3” turbo back

Ic piping – Custom 2.5” aluminum

Driveshaft – Custom modified stock E30 shaft and U-joints then used the R154 yoke

Shifter – Stock R154 fit perfect

Brake lines - Custom Steel lines

Master cylinder – 1978 Honda civic

Bias valve- I forgot what brand this is, but I do have one

Coolant tubes – Cut and modified Heater tube

Coolant lines - -16 AN lines and Stainless braided hose

Coolant sensors – Welded bungs from Pegasus and used one 1JZ sensor for tunning and one BMW sensor for the coolant temp gauge

Radiator mount- Stock hole with rubber grommet

Cut valance and Bumper for front mount -This was hard for me to do (mentally)

Trim seam welds under fenders- Not done

Engine harness – Used A chopped up harness and made it work adding and subtracting for what was needed

Port turbo – Used a die grinder and blended the split exhaust flange to mend smoothly with the T4 manifold I had

Turbo flange - Modified a cheap ebay T4 manifold and Modified an Exhaust flange for the Downpipe

Support for turbo manifold  - welded ½ stainless rod from all the corners of the T4 flange to the manifold head flange

Wastegate dump -Chopped off the square flange and welded a two bolt flange for the Delta gate II

Mount rear wing – VHB’d the shit out of an OEM wing

Turbo feed – made a custom -8AN?

Turbo return made a custom -12AN? return

Bov mount -Blitz Super sound mounted near Throttle body

Oil level unit- Still needs to be wired in

Igniter location – Located in the glove box right beside the ECU

Trans mount – Modified the stock trans mount arm to work with the R154 stock mount.

Clutch door covers – Made from stainless sheet stock and rubber edging

Slave cylinder – used the stock master with the reservoir relocated to the cowl drain tray, then made a custom line to work with the aftermarket R154 Slave

[Jdesign]

So this car has kind of been on the back burner since I lost motivation and got bored with it. I have had the entire engine harness in and out of the car about 218734567812 times trying to solve some gremlins. I'm to the point now where I wish I would have just bought a harness vs. making my own from 5 random harnesses and buying various pigtails to replace all the broken ones. But on a positive note, I have learned so much from building this harness that it was all worth it in the end. I also found a few sites along the way that sell harness building supplies(pigtails, thermo shielding, heat shrink, Etc.) for a fraction of the cost what some of those pre-made harness guys charge. My plan was to pull the motor this winter and respray and shave the bay, but we will see. I might start pulling funds from that and putting them twards some other things at this point. I just need my motivation back

[GunMetalGrey]

Once you get a fun car that you don't have to be so meticulous on every detail (your e36) working on the clean and pretty car looses some of its fun. 
I certainly ran into that this past winter with the lifted e30! 
It's just so much more fun to do all the stupid things that come to your head and not have to care about if you scratch or nic  something, or have an extension fall off your ratchet in your freshly painted engine bay.....................................

[YoungCR]

Links to all the harness part sites please!

[Jdesign]

GunMetalGrey said:

Once you get a fun car that you don't have to be so meticulous on every detail (your e36) working on the clean and pretty car looses some of its fun. 
I certainly ran into that this past winter with the lifted e30! 
It's just so much more fun to do all the stupid things that come to your head and not have to care about if you scratch or nic  something, or have an extension fall off your ratchet in your freshly painted engine bay.....................................

Yes. This. Exactly.  

YoungCR said:

Links to all the harness part sites please!

Yas! Sorry, believe it or not I used Cableorganizer for most of my supplies. They were cheap and had everything I needed. I have used them in the past for basic computer cables and such, who would have thought they had all the stuff the automotive world uses.

http://management.cableorganizer.com/search#w=BSFR025 BW

[Jdesign]

Well, the car ran last night. Due to the rain though, I did not drive it very far, just from my lift back into its corner :/. Some new issues have surfaced that are for the most part, unrelated to the harness. The ignition switch is failing, which I was aware of, but now has gotten wayyyy worse. Sometimes its doesn't work at all, others the started remains engaged. ughhhh. Anyone have suggestions on where to get a new ignition switch? FCP Euro has one for $80.

I also took out the slim fan I used that was originally for my EF civic build, and was going to replace it with the SPAL fan I bought from @Snap. Turns out I might have to modify or scratch that as well. The overall diameter of the SPAL fan is larger, so it wont sit on my tiny radiator close enough due to the end tanks. I might be able to get away with spacers, but its going to be REALLY really tight. Time to pull the whole front end apart again. 

[Jdesign]

So ignition switch, anyone replaced one of those before? Finding a write up isn't as easy as I expected and the last thing I want to do is have to deal with new lock cylinders.

[Jdesign]

Turns out I think the bad ignition was from me. I took the column apart awhile back with intentions of lowering it. E30's have fixed columns and it feels like im driving a bus and I hate it. I got all the way to the point of realizing that there were safety bolts under there and stopped. Now that I am back in there again I will successfully lower it now.

Anyone remove these bolts before? (pic for reference)

Anyways back to the Ignition. when I was removing the plastic cover for the column I unplugged the ignition harness wires from the back of the lock cylinder and broke one of the tabs unknowingly. This was causing the the cylinder the separate from the harness intermittently giving me the no start issue and the key no feedback/engagement in the column. Now the big question is, do I spend $80 on a new ignition because I broke a tab, or do I fix it?

Pic of what I am talking about:

[Bassboy3313]

In the e21 world, people take a dremel/grinder and cut a slit or cross into those safety bolts and use a screwdriver to remove them. Then they replace them with normal hex bolts when putting it all back together.

[Jdesign]

Bassboy3313 said:

In the e21 world, people take a dremel/grinder and cut a slit or cross into those safety bolts and use a screwdriver to remove them. Then they replace them with normal hex bolts when putting it all back together. 

So far that's what I have read as well. I was thinking I could probably use one of these to make it easier?