Gareth87

Thanks for the replies everyone. Definitely a coolant push. Oil catch can is empty and always has been. As the engine is out now I'll be having a good look over things. I do have some detonation on the piston tops from a trigger issue back about 5 years ago. I felt it and shut off then bought a new ecu and changed the trigger. Never been an issue since. It never hurt the power, its made almost 80hp more since that incident but I will pull the bearing caps to take a look. If the bearings are damaged I will do a bottom end refresh. Head is being re conditioned at the moment and the block will be cleaned and checked to ensure it's flat. I'll go with a kameari gasket and see how it ends up. The other thing I'm not super keen on is the cylinder colours. I suspect this is from the inlet manifold. The plan will be to put it back together, retune and then stick a plazmaman billet inlet on it and retune. I'm happy with the power, if it makes a little more, then great, but I would rather just make everything more efficient at this stage.

I can see between the water jacket and cyl 3 there wasn't a hard line of combustion gas. It certainly appears that the issue is coming from there. Yes, checked the tension. All at 100ft lbs where I set them 5 years ago. These blocks can crack but generally when they have been over bored. Mine is only 0.5mm oversize at 89.5mm. They break between cylinders around the 91mm mark. No sign of that with mine. My gut feeling is the head gasket lifted a while back when the studs stretched and i bandaided it by retorquing the studs. It's finally let go.

Had my rig on Matt's dyno at PITS the other day. After a few years between tunes I added a few sensors and swapped intercoolers. Result. 553hp at 26psi. Not bad for an FJ20 that was built in 2007. The problem.. It filled the overflow bottle on hard runs which leads me to believe the head gasket isn't sealing. I have a coolant pressure sensor which was reading cap pressure at 22psi and occasionally overrunning to 23/24 psi on deceleration after a pull. It was not spiking. It has arp2000 head studs and a cometic gasket. As its been 18 years in service, I pulled the engine out and head off. Everything looks good but we obviously have an issue. Where I'm at.. Years ago I had the same issue, I checked the stud tension and they were all over the place. Some at 60 to 70 and some up near 90. I nipped them all to 100ft lbs and this stopped the water push until now. I believe this compromised the gasket back then. What do I do? 2 options are.. 1) I bought arp 625+s, which I could put in with a new gasket. Thinking Kameari this time, reassemble and try again. 2) strip the block, get fire rings machined in with copper gasket and try that. I do not want to push it more than 28 to 30psi. I think the turbo will be out by then anyway. (G30-770). My other concern is the long term ability of a copper head gasket. Are they streetable for years? I feel like a new gasket with the new studs will probably suffice, but I don't know. Any thoughts welcome and advice on copper gaskets and fire rings. Thanks!

Just checked it out, The shipping is nearly $200 AUD. I'm sure a local supplier on the GC will have stock of genuines. Thanks for your reply though.

Hi all, Looking at upgrading my LS1 coils as I'm just about on the limit with them. I want to go with the IGN - 1A coils but I'm seeing a few different brands. Gut feeling it telling me to go with the haltech version. However, I see Aeroflow advertise them as well and I don't want to end up buying the wrong part and ended up with wasted dyno time. Can anyone shed some light on it? Thanks in advance.

Very nice! Hopefully it fits in the tunnel ok..

All starting to come together! Can't you use the RB adapter kit rather than making one for the FJ? Should just need to machine the top holes to suit the FJ.

Definitely keep the thread alive mate. Following with great interest. Where are you located. Would be keen to check it out as you progress. Yes.. the Can performance GCU seems to be the go. A lot more sorted the the HTG so I hear.

I've looked into this and the answer I came up with was that the potential risk of restriction and causing engine damage was too much risk. Haha. It's already 40yrs old and people look at me weird when it's cranking over for ages before starting.. I'm currently looking to see if an assembly lube pump hardwired in with work. Can't find the right pump yet..

Bit of a task to do every start up.. lol No, pump is too high and lower control arm in the way unfortunately. If the pump is small enough and doesn't even need to do much pressure. Just needs to fill the lines. Finding it hard to locate something to do that job..

Been having this problem for years and I'm over it. Have an FJ20 with external oil pump. The pump is mounted slightly higher than the sump and it has a -10 oil feed line to the front cover where the internal pump used to be. Each start up, it rattles it's head off until oil pressure comes up. My solution is to set a start delay in the ecu until it sees oil pressure. Problem with this, it takes ages to start each time as the longer it sits, the more prime it looses. I looked at an accusump as a solution which would of course work, but are there any other fixes? I've been looking at small electric oil pumps that i could fill the system with first but nothing seems specific for the problem. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

Sorry for the slow reply.. I know exactly what you mean about using the steel in the strongest orientation. That was one of my considerations for going with such a chunky piece of steel. I had to double check the photo of the deflection and yes, it does look like its bowing a lot.. but if you look very carefully, that's actually a shaddow. It was barely any perceivable deflection. I'll measure it with my laser next time it's in the air. As for stability, it's rock solid. I lifted it just off the ground and gave it an earthquake test before going higher. I don't take chances with stuff like that!

Problem resolved. Thanks for the help everyone. Went with 2 lengths of 2.5m steel 125x75x6mm to use to reach the lift points. Works perfectly. Just need some caster wheels on the steel sections to move them into place a little easier. I can lift a standard height car to 2m and my van to about 1.5m before hitting the portal frames.

Ok. So I've taken everyones input and come up with the best option of a length of steel.. something like 100x75x3mm and sitting the rubber blocks on top of it. Its 1950mm between mounting points on my van ans less on my datsun. So the overhang is going to be less than 500mm over each end.. but being 1 length of steel and a large contact face in the middle. It will be certainly safe enough. I'll pickup the steel tomorrow and post some results. Thanks everyone

Yeah exactly! Great idea. I'll most likely have to punch a hole through the face of the lift to get a fixing. However.. the I beam scenario might be ok as there is only a small over hang either side of the lift face needed to reach a lift point. Need something like this but length ways Thanks for the input everyone.