S12 Track Car Bendigo

[shamus11]

Have been working away from home for the last few weeks and barely touched the gazelle. I did manage to make a portable wash trough to clean this engine block on. It will come in handy for lots of other jobs but it takes up a fair bit of space. Took me ages to get the block stripped down and cleaned and painted, so much grease!!! I'm replacing front and rear crank seals, fitting factory turbo oil cooler/filter block, reseal water pump and sump to hopefully prevent any leaks. They are pretty heavy to lift and I can't put it on the engine stand until I've replaced the rear main seal so it's been a pain. I thought I had everything I needed but I ended up having to remove the alloy housing that the rear main seal goes into to get the seal out so now I'm waiting on a gasket to arrive that goes behind the alloy housing.

DE block painted.JPG (197.56 KiB) Viewed 29 times

I also noticed that the CA18DE and CA18DET sumps have identical baffles inside them. The DE even has the hole where oil would drain thru if it had the turbo oil drain fitting installed. I thought I'd had read that there were differences between some of the CA18 sumps but I've found the S13 ones to be the same. That means I can weld a fitting into the DE sump and use it on a turbo engine if needed.

ca18det vs ca18de sump.JPG (93.12 KiB) Viewed 27 times

I also picked up a Blitz BOV off Ebay just for a little bit of retail therapy. It was cheap and I've always liked this style of BOV the best.

blitz bov.JPG (88.88 KiB) Viewed 27 times

I've also shelved the idea of fitting the alloy H190 at this stage. I need the gazelle to be rolling so I've pulled an iron 4.11 center out of the Nomad diff I had and will weld this up and fit it for the time being. The crown wheel and pinion gear teeth look good but the spider gears have some wear marks on them but hopefully this won't give any trouble once welded.

4.1 worn diff gears.JPG (112.63 KiB) Viewed 27 times

[james]

Draining into the sump is not a bad thing anyway.


 


Love the backyard parts bath. Reminds me of using 4x 40 gallon drums and an engine crane in the driveway to lift my cars up to work underneath. Whatever gets it done.


 


Good luck with the rear main seal - about 1 in 4 seem to leak/weep anyway post-replacement.


 


The car looks like it'll be great when it's done. Keep it up!

[shamus11]

Thanks for the encouragement, it will be great when it's done but definitely won't be everything I want it to be straight away. The time everything is taking is making me drop some aspects of the build just to make sure it gets going some time soon. Once it's up and running I'll then complete the extra mods as I get time and money.


Have had a couple of days on the car since the last update. Have started reassembling the motor and managed to finally get the head on this afternoon. Definitely a more enjoyable part of the build is bolting things back together.

head fitted 1.jpg (130.06 KiB) Viewed 29 times

As I'm working away all thru the week I decided to soak my intake manifold in a tub of fairly concentrated water/detergent for the week and took them out today and cleaned them up with the pressure washer. Worked OK but still a couple of spots that needed a scrub with steel wool.

soaked manifold.jpg (73.54 KiB) Viewed 29 times

The next part of the build is a little more controversial. When I stripped the intake manifold down and after a fair bit of deliberation I've decided to remove the butterflies that are closed at low rpm to increase air speed and torque and reduce turbo lag. I understand they are fully open at about 3500rpm and don't create any intake restriction on motors below 400hp so it's not necessarily a performance gain to remove them but although the butterfly is activated by vacuum it's actually the nissan ECU that controls the vacuum to the actuator and I won't be running a factory ECU so I'd have to control this another way. The other reason I'm deleting them is to simplify the engine and make getting tools on the engine as easy as possible.


If you were building a street car I'd probably recommend leaving these in place but as a track only car the engine should be up over 3500rpm most of the time. I've got 5 of these manifolds so if it turns out to be too laggy I can always fit another manifold that still has them in place.


I've seen a few different ways of performing this mod and I did mine slightly differently so here's how I did mine.


I won't go into the detail of removing the butterflies because there are already good detailed threads on this but here you can see one of the three holes you need to plug. Once you pop out the rubber seal it has a nice flat surface machined around the hole.

butterfly seal face.jpg (90.23 KiB) Viewed 27 times

An 8mm bolt is too small so I went up to a M10x1.5 cap screw. I should have drilled the hole out to 8.5mm but I didn't have a starting tap and I couldn't get my tap started in the hole so I went up to 9mm which meant the bolt was a bit loose in the thread. I tapped the hole all the way thru into the manifold.

tapped manifold.jpg (138.32 KiB) Viewed 27 times

Then I measured the depth of each hole and cut the bolts so they would be just poke thru into the manifold runner. Two of the holes are about 7mm and the third hole was about 12mm. Then I used some thread tape on the bolts and fitted them up tight. If you manage to tap the hole with an 8.5mm drill you might be better off sealing with thread locker which is what I had originally planned to do. They look quite neat once fitted.

cap screw fitted.jpg (99.58 KiB) Viewed 27 times

Then I used a die grinder to grind the end of the bolt flush with the manifold. The inside of these manifolds is pretty rough so I didn't spend too much time trying to get it too smooth but down the track I might clean up the castings on one of the other manifolds. No time for that at the moment though.

grinded cap screw.jpg (97.85 KiB) Viewed 27 times

That's all for now. Next jobs are joining the manifolds back together and doweling them to keep the runners aligned and fitting the cams to the head. Can't wait to have this back in the car. Will also have to start thinking about a flywheel and clutch.


 

[shamus11]

Had the afternoon to work on the car today and got a bit done but have also struck another annoying setback.


Firstly I had disassembled my diff center a while ago and had left it soaking in petrol thru the week so that it was easy to clean today when I removed it.


Because I planned to weld it up I wanted it as clean as I could get it for the welding process and also for preheating.


This is the first diff I've welded up so I sought some advice from good friend and this is how I was shown to do it. I removed the bearings and spider gears and cut a piece of thick walled pipe to an interference fit between the side gears to basically jam them tightly in place. This is so if an axle is broken it can be tapped out from the other side and replaced.

diff parts cleaned.jpg (103.78 KiB) Viewed 28 times

Here is how it looks assembled.

diff parts assembled.jpg (109.83 KiB) Viewed 28 times

Then I waited until the wife had gone out and got the oven cranking flat out. This is the other reason for getting the diff absolutely clean to avoid stinking out the oven and the kitchen.

diff in oven.jpg (132.6 KiB) Viewed 28 times

Once preheated I took it out and cranked the welder as high as it would go and welded the pipe to the side gears and the side gears to the center housing. I probably went a bit over the top with the welding but it definitely won't break and is still lighter than a standard diff with the extra gears in it that I threw away.

welded diff.jpg (188.74 KiB) Viewed 27 times

Lastly I filled a steel bucket with lime and dropped the hot diff into the center and covered it to the top of the bucket and sealed the lid on to keep the heat in. This will allow the diff to cool very slowly over a couple of days which gives the welds more strength and less likelihood of cracking.


Now the setback has been my head bolts. After fitting the head a week ago I torqued it down with brand new permaseal bolts to 29Nm then 103Nm and broke the 9th bolt. Thankfully it came out in one piece.

broken bolt.jpg (75.79 KiB) Viewed 29 times

I took the bolts back to the retailer and they sent them back for replacements which were free of charge. A week later I've just got a chance to put the new ones in and I have broken the 7th bolt (a different hole) at a lower torque setting. Now here is the process I used and I can't see what I'm doing wrong.


Ran tap down threads while prepping block.


Blew WD40 and air to clean out threads.


New head bolts


Lightly greased threads and put plenty of grease under bolt head and washer.


Torqued to all bolts 29Nm in correct sequence then 103Nm when 9th bolt broke.


Returned bolts and tested my torque wrench at 80ft lb against the engine place I bought the bolts from. Was slightly lower than his.


New bolts again.


This time greased under heads and washers and used oil supplied with bolts to lightly lubricate the threads.


Torqued all bolts to 29Nm in correct sequence then 95Nm and the 7th bolt broke in the same manner.


Removed the broken bolts and measured the depth of the hole and it is approx 10mm deeper than the stretched bolt so the bolt is not bottoming out.

torquing head.jpg (125 KiB) Viewed 27 times

measuring bolt hole depth.jpg (111.63 KiB) Viewed 27 times

I'm really frustrated with this situation and it will cost me another week of delay before I can get another set of bolts. My torque wrench is a click style that does not have to be reset so there is no chance I've forgotten to reset it and over torqued the bolts. It's also just about brand new and this is the first head I've used it on.


I don't know what could be going wrong and I doubt the bolt supplier is going to give me another set of bolts for free so I'm pretty disappointed with the situation.


 

[james]

Sucks about the bolts. The process for torquing that you're describing is correct.


Might be worth trying ARP instead of Permaseal?


 


 


It may seem like a silly question, but have you got the washers all up the correct way?


(See photo from manual below)


 

[spiderwebfx]

They shouldn't be breaking where they are either.

Either the bolts are the wrong ones, or something is stopping the bolt from going down any further.  They're not even going into the block far enough if that's where they're snapping.

[shamus11]

I must admit I didn't pay particular attention to the orientation of the washers when I put them in so I've checked the two holes which broke bolts and one was the right way and the other was upside down however I don't think this will be the cause because if the bolt head was catching on the washer at all it would create more resistance and click the torque wrench sooner than required. The sensation when torquing the bolt down is that the bolt feels really soft and you can feel it stretching and then the effort to turn the wrench decreases slightly and the bolt turns maybe 180deg more than it feels like it should then breaks.


The bolts are definitely going all the way into the holes and are pulling the head down, I have also compared lengths and they are identical to the ones I removed. Technically they are not snapping but stretching and this can occur inside the threaded hole. Just for comparison I put one of the original nissan bolts back into hole 7 and torqued it down and the difference was stark. The bolt felt really solid and clicked the torque wrench very quickly with no stretching sensation. I'm going to go back to the engine place and see if I can get a refund and buy ARP head studs.I didn't realise they were reusable and didn't want to spend too much on this NA bottom end build because it's just a chuck together motor to get the car running until I can afford to build a decent turbo bottom end down the track. Looking at the forums there seems to be a few people who got ARP studs and either had the wrong thread pitch or were too long. Has anyone bought ARPs lately and have a part number they know is correct. I've seen at least 3 different part numbers listed.

[spiderwebfx]

Ahh it's faulty bolts then.
I don't know the part numbers, but you will be able to find the right ones based on the specs of the Permaseal ones if you're sure they're correct.  ARP as far as I know, has always been the 'go to' for anything bolt related with motors.  The quality is top notch.

[shamus11]

Picked up another parts car today. Think I'm going to park this one for a while and not touch it, don't want to get sidetracked but have always wanted a car with a digital dash and it was cheap.

IMG_0667.jpg (107.17 KiB) Viewed 28 times

 

[shamus11]

Still no progress with the head bolts, the shop hasn't got replacement ones in yet so I'm going to have to give them a hurry up soon. In the mean time I have welded baffles in my diff housing to help look after this center I have just welded up. The baffles stop most of the oil running down the axle tubes when cornering which can starve the center of oil. A small drain hole is kept at the bottom to allow oil to return to the center.


It was just about the worst job I've done on this car so far in terms of enjoyment but I'm glad it's done now. I wasted a whole day trying to do this under the car and after 2 failed attempts I pulled the housing out and did it properly (as good as I could).


First job was wire brush and clean the housing and rust treat/paint. Makes working on things much nicer.

H190 painted housing.jpg (196.69 KiB) Viewed 28 times

Then I had to figure out a way of making sure the holes in the baffles would be exactly centered on the axles when the center and axles were fitted. Without the center fitted the axles droop a little bit so you can't just fit the axles and go off that. I fixed a laser pointer at one end of the diff and sat the diff on two screw jacks for fine adjustment up and down. I used a paper circle with a center point marked and lined the laser up with that.

diff laser setup.jpg (140.68 KiB) Viewed 28 times

At the other end the laser shines thru the paper so once it's in the center at both ends it's aligned.

diff laser setup2.jpg (144.88 KiB) Viewed 28 times

I ended up using quite thick material for the baffle because I had a terrible time welding it because it was really hard to see what I was doing and my welder torch wouldn't fit inside the housing to weld the near side. The thicker material made sure I didn't burn any holes and could run the welder a bit higher.

baffle material.jpg (115.25 KiB) Viewed 28 times

The tube is to help stop the oil rushing past the axle when cornering. It's the closest tolerance to the axle piece of tube I had in stock. About 37mm ID.

tube ID.jpg (116.63 KiB) Viewed 28 times

The diff has a 1/2 baffle from factory which I left in place and welded the lower half of my new baffle to this.

factory half baffle.jpg (94.23 KiB) Viewed 28 times

Once the baffle was made I used a smaller circle of paper to get it in the right position and tacked into place. Then I fitted the diff center and axles to make sure they did fit thru the tubes and then removed and welded up fully.

lining up baffle.jpg (109.18 KiB) Viewed 28 times

Very ugly welds so I cleaned them up a bit and painted some rust treatment primer. Next step will be to clean out the housing thoroughly and reassemble.

H190 diff baffle finished.jpg (93.07 KiB) Viewed 28 times