ChrisB

Micro update as heavy rain and gale force winds prevent me from painting or doing anything engine wise outside.. The brass plate in the lower plenum does a good job at catching and pooling the PCV oil - there was quite a puddle underneath it.. Application of STP carb cleaner to the plenums and throttle body - note that this was coked - the difference in looking through the butterfly towards light was huge after cleaning. And then some blingification with an electric drill, wire wheels and grit, of top surfaces and throttle body before painting (tomorrow?). Looks nice and shiny now, but I will be sticking with painting as I'm not one of natures polishers

Shiny bits. Yep, sometimes it's easier to ask forgiveness than get permission. It's a bit easier when you bring new clean bits into the lounge - smelly old car parts cause more flak They love it really...

Thanks chaps - I find it quite pleasing keeping a record of progress Glad it's shining a light for you too. Looks like I will have a weather hold coming up though - or get high in paint and carb spray fumes indoors We're watching 4 seasons of Game of Thrones on AppleTV on the plasma in the dark at the moment

... I've had a mechanical day This means adding more to my install and some tweeks to the existing fitment after nearly 4000 miles of reliability testing. Also it gave me a chance to service some long overdue items (looking at you plugs). First up I'm very impressed by the effectiveness of my indulgent Mishimoto catch can.. excellent separation with some very dark looking oil in the can and bone dry in the pipes and bronze filter thingy down-stream. I know it was expensive (money under the bridge now), but it's working perfectly Changed the Fuchs Titan Pro S with another 6.5l of fresh stuff. I will need to top it up again later - expanded sumps and oil cooler add about 2l to the volume Here are the re-fettled pipes with some new Mishimoto silicone long couplings, and spring clip for the re-routed vac/boost ref line (blue). It seems to sit much better now, and with some extra pipe separators (red of course), my pipe work is looking quite tidy now. I think it will be good practice to have an occasional reassemble of bits and tighten clamp threads every service now. Next thing was to whip the plenums off for servicing, to get to the plugs and fuel rails / injectors and ultimately replace with Wasso plenum spacer, HKS 3 step cooler plugs, and ID725 injectors. I separated the intake from the throttle body, then fought with the insanely stuck water pipe, then fought with the insanely stuck throttle body bolts. And it rained a bit, but it all came good First, this is the level of oil contamination which must have built up before the catch can protection Upper Lower Oooh look - valves. The inlet ports are now covered up with strips of masking tape for protection. I keep all bolts in separate zip-lock bags for each group - I'd hate to think what damage would occur if a bolt was lost down a tube (I do have a magic borescope - just in case though, complete with handy magnetic tip) I'm really pleased to find NO oil in my plug tubes!! So then I sorted my plugs but ran out of time for the injectors.. Plugs came out looking like this - they were well past their sell by date as close up the tips look a bit shrunken and there is a combination of carbon and grey deposit on them - but all in all not *that* bad - so good health, even though my fueling must be all over the place at the moment with unmapped fuel and exhaust mods I've bought all my metal housings in for cleaning and painting tomorrow as it's going to pee it down. The wife is not very impressed at the moment as my dog friendly lounge has one or two additional ornaments. I think they look great.. The giant box behind the sofa, full of front Nismo V2 bumper skin, really sets it off Word to the wise, throttle bodies might look lovely and clean from the outside (58000 miles so far) ..but oh my gawd.. look at the other side! So, tomorrow then will be clean, clean, clean and paint. I am still going for a coat of Bilt Hamber Etchweld primer followed by Hammerite Silver (Hammered) Direct to rust over the top. It will be silver and a bit shimmery. Both paints should be good up to 150C so plenty safe for plenum usage. Froze my butt off too on the coldest day this autumn - I never knew baths could feel so good (more of a shower man myself) Edit: fix autospell

ROTFLMAO .. so much want

Train horn... quality!

^^ Yep, that's the one. DTC is diagnostic trouble codes - ie Pxxxx numbers, check engine codes etc PIDs are parameters readable from the ECM - ie the live data that is viewed in the torque app for OBD II euro etc. As far as I know, there aren't any readers apart from Consult II (which is expensive) that can read JOBD PIDs or indeed which PIDs are even exposed by a JDM ECM. it's all a bit opaque unfortunately - which is the only thing negative about Jap import in my opinion - crimps the nerdiness.

Search OM500 on eBay. There are a few vendors now, about £24, comes straight from China, takes a couple of weeks, reads/resets DTCs but not PIDs, plugs into the OBDII port but reads JOBD for JDM, yellow with buttons and LCD display. I think that's all

^^ Best story

I am one of the many Chris' on here. Most people on here are infact Chris it seems, but sometimes under stealthy usernames. I chose to display my Chris to the world and make it B. My surname starts with a B so I wasn't actually that imaginative..

That looks lovely, top work. I had the pleasure of RT's work a few years ago, and won't hesitate to book in with them for a paint refresh next year

Good reuse of that annoying redundant intake mounting point with a P clip. I would have stolen that cool P clip idea for mine - except my breather is buried well underneath with the Vortech airfilter..

It's more that you've just bought it and have only just noticed the oil light. A previous owner could have ignored the oil light for ages - damage done then

Hehe - can't wait - thanks for the heads up on the ground out point in the lane I always liked Thunderbird 2 out of all Thunderbirds with it's hump back and jet noises... Zeds do resemble that shape, now with the noise, maybe I should get a doll of Lady Penelope to stick to my dashboard.. Thunderbirds were real weren't they? Ok TMI

Looks like a nice car, I'd leave as is if it's still working adequately. If feel is going rather than actual clutch operation, it could benefit from the common slave/line upgrades instead (assuming you've not chaged these already) - much cheaper

It's gross, but I must have watched that video 30 times in a row

^^ He's never been called Graham. He got saddled with the name Gareth Only joking

AWESOME - Zed gets Battlestar Gallactica 'turbo' mode* - love it * except of course we have classy superchargers' but F=ma in any language

..although not in that order..

I must admit, your gauges are very cool and very pretty I almost sent Keyser a PM for his gauge pod for-sale when I saw your Defis in - but I procrastinated for more than one day, which was too long Remember though, keep your eyes on the road

Yes - saw Guy Martin on Pikes Peak - completely brilliant! Love the whole bespoke engineering bias complete with fueling problems I won't tell you where he came as you are on +1

Clearly testing his new forced induction build

From now on, every reversing camera should be tested like that

My turn for a weenie update.. I have a firm date at the Holy Dyno Sanctum at the Church of Abbey on the 12th November... ..no really After lack of progress over the last month or so, I will be back on the case soon to get it finished. Today was a bit of dismantling, a minor fettle of the PCV pipery, adding some line stays and a test of the vacuum/boost reference lines. Vacuum/boost source is via uncapping the plenum nipple. I am using eBay spring clips from China - 100 of various sizes for only £7.49 delivered ! How is this possible? I have a MAP sensor the other side of the brake/clutch divider, so drilled a convenient hole into the rubber spacer - funny stuff to drill btw - used to locate the brake booster hose. I re-tensioned the serpentine and connected up the gilmer belt to the charger for giggles and after seeing fuel pressure move with vacuum nicely, idle remaining rock steady ...went for a *short* low revs / low load test ride to see what would happen with all the air circuits active.. Even though I have not fitted injectors or plugs etc yet, I could feel and hear the system and bypass valve operating beautifully with throttle So ..the jobs for the coming week (weather and commitments permitting - but the 12th will be met) which will take the car off the road . Change engine oil (a bit tragic as there aren't that many miles on the current oil - I use Fuchs Titan Pro S 5W/30, so not cheap) . Disconnect battery, disconnect intake, pull off the plenum upper and lower, . Have a quick fettle of the FPR mount - it's not 100% level . Pull off fuel rails . Fit 350Z ID725 injectors. I have plug and play leads for the least invasive route, but I also have pins and clips for backup . Fit an AAM fuel pressure port bought from Chris (Keyser) . Change the plugs to 3 step cooler HKS plugs. Abbey recommend this as the best practice over 1 step . Depending on plug tubes, order cam covers - but who knows - they may be fine as I have not looked in ages . Clean plenum and throttle body of any carbon or oil deposits . Half an idea to scrub the upper plenum and paint it with a suitable colour. I'm trying not to be drawn to Hammerite silver, but a trip to Halfords should sort out colour . On its way back together, fit my red Wasso plenum spacer and new lower plenum gasket . Possibly fit the new coloured dress bolts. Just to be different, Blue in the air bits (plenum etc), red elsewhere (I've scored 2 sets discounted via Tarmac).. unless mixing it looks pants.. . Fit the new GT MAF into the intake tube, and reconnect it . Maybe fit a new Vortech air-filter bought from Gareth (GMBallistic) - but the old one's fine, and replacement is a faff (as is re-checking the s/c micro-dipstick ) . Top up and burp the coolant (as the extracting plenum breaks the coolant circuit) Externally will be . Have a pair of new MPSS 245/40/18 97 ZR(Y) fitted onto the front wheels to replace the excellent Avon ZZ3's which are coming to the end of their lives. I currently have 275/40 MPS2's on the back. Event tyres are booked for Thursday . Pull front bumper off again . Fit pipe clamps to the oil cooler lines, strategically placed to prevent anything rubbing . Fit a longer Mishimoto silicone coupling to the intercooler to help sort out the slight kink in the U-bend/BPV to downpipe line . Put it back together with a new Z-Speed under tray Mark is going to send me an UpRev cable and licence to allow me to install an Abbey safe base map for the drive to Surrey next week. Still pending are my sensors project and wiring all the new sensor leads. I have chosen Zeitronics ZT3 wideband controllers to handle the AFR signal generation. Using an Arduino Due, I have written some mapping code to convert the non-linear temperature and model the linear pressure sensors and analogue linear wideband to ultimately provide a small TFT, low profile, coloured info-screen rather than going down the cockpit display route with loads of distracting gauges (OK I admit the Defi gauges in GMB's zed do look great, but I'm chasing boring practicality with 7 sensors). My system gives integrated monitoring and runs in parallel to normal car systems as I don't really fancy risking noise injection or current loading onto ECM signal lines - and as my car is JOBD the OBDII route isn't as straight forward as it could be. More of all that at a later date though. Blinking marvellous - I can't wait - another VQ35DESC is nearly there