DJZ's 280ZX

[DJZ]

Swapped the 200ZR red top rocker covers over today for some polished RB26 ones that Greg tidied up for me, they do look a lot better but now everything else in the engine bay looks sad. Need to finish off the breather hoses once I remember how I had it and where I put everything. I'm thinking about making a catch can to go in the left hand rear corner of the engine bay and getting some black braided line.

I had to take the crank pulley etc off again as I stupidly put on a bottom timing belt cover that was painted the same red as the R34 top cover so I tweaked the cam belt tension very slightly again, there was still a faint hint of noise and it felt very slightly loose to me.

[DJZ]

I couldn't think of a way to plumb up the breathers with rubber hose without it looking dumb so I've ordered a set of these push in fittings for -10 AN line, the plan will be to make up a catch can to sit in the back left corner of the engine bay combined with a compartment for the windscreen washer fluid. It'll sit kind of similar to the motor shown below. I really want to have some positive suction on it so will have to figure out of a way of replicating the way I have it set up now and of course I'll be running black braided line

[DJZ]

Bought a decent clutch finally, got a 2nd hand Quartermaster twin plate for a reasonably good price, it's done around 3000Ks including one trip from Auckland to Wellington in an R32 GTR. Not sure when I'll get around to actually putting it in the car.

[Bartman]

The night before the Akraoa cruise would be the perfect time!

[DJZ]

Haha, yeah, don't really need it for cruising though I forgot to say it came with the flywheel which looks to be custom made and it has the "rally" plates which are thicker than the standard ones so can handle a bit of slippage and will hopefully be a bit better for driving in traffic. It's the final piece of the puzzle before I can get the car back on the dyno and make a bit more power hopefully.

[Bartman]

Maybe you should save it for the "final" engine?
Any dollars spent on a motor which doesn't have the biggest cam, biggets ports, and most built bottom end is dead oney is it not?

[DJZ]

I was going to make my own shroud for radiator fan(s) but then saw one 2nd hand on Trademe so bought that instead, not too bad, $100 for the shroud and two fans, they are $175 new. The wiring was a complete mess, they'd done the old twist and tape method. I'm not sure what kind of radiator it's actually for, I had to modify it a little bit to get it to fit and I think it's actually upside down compared to the way it was last mounted.




I spent all of yesterday mucking around with it and redoing the wiring, upgrading the wiring to the fan relay and fitting a fuse, I bled the cooling system and the good news is I refitted the silicone top hose and it doesn't leak! After replacing the fuse which either blew the first time the fans came on or was blown from the last time I used the fuse holder the fans were doing something really weird, only one was going but then it switched to the other one but it kept going even when the key was off, took me a while to realise I'd swapped the two relays that were next to each other, one was the relay for the headlights.

[DJZ]

Should have really done this before Nationals but I finally put the sticker that I've had for a year or more on the car. It's actually pretty good as being at the top of the screen you can't actually see it when you're sitting in the car.

[Bartman]

Best improvement yet!

[DJZ]

Thought I'd adjust the cam gears on this and swap to the new water pump and alternator pulleys that came with the new motor. Apparently the best place to start for a reasonably standard RB26 is +4 inlet and -2 exhaust, the inlet cam was set to 2 degrees advanced so I adjusted that to +4, the exhaust cam was already at -2.

I put the water pump pulley on no problems but the alternator pulley doesn't fit as the shaft is too short and the offset is wrong, the new motor came with 2 alternators so I'll bring them home tomorrow and have a look.