Mistakes were made, my R34 Story

[DaymoR32]

On 8/2/2021 at 5:41 PM, admS15 said:

Nice, video of over 9k rpm pull not loading.. VTEC YO.

seems to load fine for me...

 

 

[Kinkstaah]

I continue to drive around that Type R with it's Quaife diff and POD and VTEC and wonder, is this peak car? Is this literally the most fun you can have in a car realistically? There's something about 8200+ rpm in 2nd gear just being under the state sanctioned speed limit to be really entertaining as far as a road car goes.

But because I'm a fking idiot, my R34 is back after it's clutch adventure in January. I have spent 30 hours in the past three
days as it's been back and likely to spend more tomorrow.

I had a list of things to look into and parts I had accumulated since January..

After sending my dipstick into my engine bay and painting said engine bay with oil multiple times, I rrealised I put a one way valve in an area where a one way valve should not be. I also bought valve covers with extra slots and Elite Racing's oil catch cap and breather to the intake. I also bought the cowl seal which mostly went in okay.

After replacing my valve covers and running new lines for this PCV system, I realised I couldn't use these valve covers that I had wrinkle painted black during my away-car-time, because

a) They were in crap condition when I looked at them closely on the underside. Didn't much like the idea of flaking paint (no, I painted the correct side) in my rockers and springs which looked great
b) My original valve covers were already painted black, I had forgotten
c) My original valve covers had nice baffling in them, the replacement ones, well ONE of them did, and the other one didn't.
d) The replacement ones I painted didn't actually fit. They fouled on things attempting to fit.

So hooray, I changed valve covers twice for no reason.

I was also greeted with an Airbag light, my horn not working, and my steering wheel buttons not working. This is mysterious issues to have after the car not being driven at all since it came off the road.

I pulled off my newly fitted carbon cooling panel thing, checked the horn, all seeeemd okay. I checked my Varex with the handheld thing, and no, didn't seem to work. I removed my entire center console looking for the control box which is mounted near the airbag box, only to rememeber it's actually mounted in the boot.

Then when I checked the actual muffler itself, the wires leading to it were actually broken from the plug, likely as a side effect from the "Heatshield the entire exhaust under the car" thing.

Wired that back together, found that the dongle worked as expected. At this point I had an airbag light and a non working horn, and buttons.

Without the correct tools I eventually got the steering wheel off, airbag off, and the clock spring off, to find it damaged. Luckily I had a spare, which I bought many years ago when an Autoelec told me that that was the problem with an airbag issue I had in 2014. (it wasn't the issue).

Clockspring replaced, my steering wheel buttons working, and my horn working as I found out about 217 times while replacing the airbag... I still had an airbag light.

I consulted the service manual. It was no help, as diagnostics didn't work, the car didn't enter diagnostic mode. I then went to the internet, attempting to find out if anyone had a similar problem, and found this:
 

Only to find myself with the same issue from 2014, with no recollection of what the fix was.

IF I FORGET AGAIN, OR ANYONE EVER SEARCHES FOR THIS

THE NISSAN SKYLINE R34 SERIES II HAS A DIFFERENT AIRBAG RESET METHOD THAN OTHER SKYLINES, INCLUDING THE R34 SERIES I. INSTEAD OF USING THE DOOR SWITCH MULTIPLE TIMES ON KEY ON METHOD DOCUMENTED EVERYWHERE INCLUDING THE WORKSHOP MANUAL, THE R34 SERIES II SKYLINE GTT NISSAN USES THE LATER 2003-2010 NISSAN STYLE, WHERE YOU KEY ON, WAIT FOR THE LIGHT TO DISAPPEAR AND BEGIN ITS FIRST FLASH. BEFORE THE FIRST FLASH, TURN THE CAR IMMEDIATELY OFF, REPEAT THIS SEQUENCE 5 (FIVE) TIMES.

ON THE SIXTH TIME START THE CAR. THE LIGHT WILL STAY ON FOR 7 SECONDS THEN CLEAR. THIS ONLY CLEARS THE AIRBAG ECU OF FAULTS. IF YOU HAVE A FAULT FROM HERE IT SHOULD BE ABLE TO BE DIAGNOSED USING THE METHOD DESCRIBED IN THE WORKSHOP MANUAL WITH REGARDS TO USER MODE AND DIAGNOSTIC MODE.

f**k

While the dash was entirely apart, I attacked the rats nest of wiring for my head unit, trying to determine why my GPS and DAB do not work very well (at all in regards to GPS). I had hilariously mounted them upside down (sticky side to windscreen) when they are clearly meant to go on the dash, and point up.

In any case it was for naught, as I found that someone had cut my GPS wire, and spliced in a 1 meter length of... CAT6 networking cable. I also found that my cigarette lighter wiring was also freshly broken. Excellent.

I then decided to drive the car, because it was on the light, my tyres had been at 20psi from the track day for the better part of a year, and the driveway was about to be full again. You know what's amazing, I found five different servos with out of action air services. Pretty excellent for a 5km radius.

I also un-spliced my traction control wiring, as I had linked the rears. This really worked great with the 1.5 way, but not so much with the helical, at low speed especially. This was worth doing considering I had cleared out the boot entirely after actually finding the Varex control box.

On the list now was to put my road brakes back in, and install the Whiteline Swaybars that I also previously owned in the past but sold because why only do something once in life?

I am writing this at 10PM on day three, and I'm not done yet. So I'll update that with some actual impressions of how it all is, once it actually some what resembles a functioning car.

TLDR:

Greg received car back
This happened: 

 

 

[Duncan]

You have the most amazing imagination....it is not possible for all these things to happen to 1 person 

[No Crust Racing]

This does sound a lot like me working on a car TBH.

 

That lightbulb clip hits very close to home lol

[admS15]

Sounds like you're Greggin it again. It does seem like you've nearly sorted everything. Onwards and upwards. 

 

P.s thanks for the chuckle and making me feel good about my own car diy misadventures, lol. Carry on sir.

[GTSBoy]

Well. Fu(k.

[Kinkstaah]

So what happened from that point was.. actually.. pretty straight forward.

The road brakes went in really easily except for ONE GOD DAMNED WIRE AT THE REAR THAT TOOK ABOUT 45 MINUTES TO GET OUT but all in all pretty good, for me.

I did the rear sway bar first because, it'd fit. I knew it'd fit, and it was also generally less painful.

Suprisingly, reading the manual as to how the links work, a little bit of fiddling it all went in pretty perfectly.

Suspiciously I moved to the front.

I swore a lot attempting to remove the front sway bar, and in the end resigned myself to having to remove the castor arms to get to them, which is probably what normal people have to do in any case.

I also noticed one obvious thing, which made me wonder, was I on drugs for the last 14 years of owning this car?

It's very apparent that:

The Whiteline bar is .. 24mm? Instead of the OEM 22.

It bolts to the same point on the car, using the same brackets, with the same bolt holes.

Thus, it can only ever at any point, have 1mm less clearance to say a sump, than a stock swaybar.
I also noticed that the 'tightness' of the bar does not, and can not affect where the sway bar sits relative to the sump due to the above line.

I also noticed that there was plenty of clearance for all four of the adjustment tabs in regards to the rest of the steering/knuckle/suspension components.



Pictured: Me looking up at the mounting brackets from under the car, realising I sold and re-bought sway bars (at a loss) for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Also removing and re-adding them to the car for no reason whatsoever. And hacking them up in the past for no reason whatsoever.

I put a bit of tape there for lols, but given I have about 22mm of clearance to the sump at the closest point, AND the fact that I have only affected my clearance by 1mm, I can't imagine it being any different than the OEM swaybar was.

Note: That mark on the sump was there prior to anything I did to the car. It doesn't line up with the sway bar either, so I don't know what's going on there, and the OEM swaybar had no damage on it in that general region. Yes, I very much checked it.

I then got to drive the thing, properly, with the interior in, and sway bars on (The sway bars are also excellent. They feel just like they used to..) to do some road tuning given I had changed some injector characteristics to combat overlap issues with cammed LS's. As a result, a positive one - Some of the very low load areas were very rich now, meaning fuel is going into the cylinder instead of out the exhaust valve.

Excellent. The car also drives pretty damn smoothly now. Even more excellent.

This could also be because the clutch actually is fully disengaging.. it now has a VERY high bite point and drives like a stock clutch which is a little disconcerting. And I drove it back to back with the Type R - It really does have a stock feeling clutch.

As for the T56 Magnum, with the Mal Wood Shifter, this has got to be the best manual gearbox ever. 70mm of throws is ludicrous, and there is no (and I mean... no, 0.0%) play in this shifter. When it's in gear, it feels like you could jack the entire car up by the shifter sideways, this thing feels actually bolted in. The center spring is ridiculously strong, and the whole thing needs nearly no effort to shift at all.

It is lighter than the Civic shifter, though you do have to be more precise, because as I said, 0.0% play. It is the most H of H patterned things I've ever seen. It does make some very mechanical clacking sounds when being operated though. To say it's worlds apart from a T56 is an understatement, but again.. my clutch is actually working now so take that with a pinch of salt.

The Magnum Synchros are reportedly much better but before I basically didn't have any, though no fault of the T56 😛

Still, I have to do a lot of kms to run the gearbox in, and then drop the oil and put Transmax Z in it, after about ~1000-1500kms. Then suppsoedly it's 'much nicer'. So that'll be something to look forward to, but as it is, very very happy and I wouldn't be buying a 2nd hand T56 for $3k when you can buy a new magnum. Even in my case where I needed a new tailshaft because I have a different rear case on mine. It's possible to buy a Magnum F which will bolt right up, but for 'reasons' I didn't go that route.

Next up: This

You know, that sensor we decided to keep although

1) It leaks
2) We didn't know what it was for
3) I have not gone to plug it in
4) I have no means to plug it in as there was no suitable plug/wire when we were doing the conversion

Why didn't we just make the line straight, and not include it? No no no, that would be too sensible, I must now drain and flush my power steering solution and cap a sensor with a plug that will hopefully be the same pitch/thread and seal with a suitable O ring.

Yes, this is another S2 R34 Only sensor used in random 2003 onward maximas and random cars from f**king russia.

This is the official part picture from the Nissan parts diagram.



....

 

[GTSBoy]

On 9/15/2021 at 11:52 AM, Kinkstaah said:

I put a bit of tape there for lols, but given I have about 22mm of clearance to the sump at the closest point, AND the fact that I have only affected my clearance by 1mm, I can't imagine it being any different than the OEM swaybar was.

Man.....you're worrying about the wrong things!

Do you have body bushes for the ARB with big enough holes in, or did you try to jam the 24mm bar into the 22mm bushes? Because you know what you're supposed to do, right? I don't even know if it would be physically possible to jam them if you tried. Just asking for the potential lols.

[Kinkstaah]

(the whiteline kit comes with those bushes)

It also came with heavy duty links for the front, replacing the heavy duty links I already had.

I thought about moving these pre-used heavy duty links to the back, to replace the new 'pin' style ones but thought .. no.. I CBF and I'm sure it's fine...

[Kinkstaah]

FML.

[No Crust Racing]

Was the other bar rubbing also? 

Surely you had more than the 1mm clearance? 

unless it moves more than you think by rotating on a different plan or something due to end link design/location? 

[Kinkstaah]

I checked the other bar.. and yes there's a tiny but not insignifigant mark on it. It appears the marks on the sump were indeed caused by the OEM Swaybar. There was about 20mm of clearance between the bar and the sump.

So I guess the answer is... no front sway bar.

Unless there's any other option!

[No Crust Racing]

Space D bush mounts down 10mm and test again

[Kinkstaah]

Quote

Space D bush mounts down 10mm and test again

This is an excellent plan.

[No Crust Racing]

Just be mindful of what impact it's having on the end links. 

Once you know if it clears then you can look at what you do there. 

You can also always slip a little washer/spacer on the engine mounts to bump the sump up 10mm etc depending on clearance everywhere. 

But you should only need 10-20mm to clear it. 

Edited September 16, 2021 by ActionDan

[Kinkstaah]

I'm not sure what impact it'd have on the end links. Luckily they are threaded and can extend down a fair amount to keep the mounting bolts/studs at right angles.. so that should hopefully have the room there to mount the bar lower (or the engine higher).

One of these is significantly easier while under there looking at PS lines/sensors.. and well, I'd be a little happier to use my FSB as the lowest point of the engine bay rather than the sump in any case. There is hope for some semblance of handling, yet!

[No Crust Racing]

Send it. 

[The Bogan]

IIRC I spaced the bush mounting points down with a 5mm bit of flatbar to stop it hitting

But that was a farkn long time ago, in a garage far far away

[Kinkstaah]

This will sadly have to be revisited. Mate came to the rescue with some 12mm plates, lovingly crafted to fit the underside of the car after taking the bushes away while giving a quote for some home renovations (actually did though, Mr Andrews)

Unfortunately the Whiteline bush has a little /\ in it, causing issues, needs to have a groove cut in the new saddle.
Unfortunately even if it did, the studs off the body just aren't long enough and need to be (somehow?) extended, as they only seem to come down... the exact length of the saddle, which is about 12mm thick.

Funnily, the car drives really great without a front sway bar at all. I was quite alarmed at this because you'd think it would be a complete wallowy mess, but it drives well, to the point where you'd not get into it and think "Man this needs more swaybar at the front".

Someone putting it up on a hoist to discover no sway bar at all would be very very suprised.

I've also learned some places do custom swaybars. Thats also another option if providing the whiteline one as a template. I don't believe it's a great idea for a fabricator to modify a swaybar to change the bar itself.

Yay/Nay?

In other news, using a sump plug with copper crush washer seems to have sorted my power steering leak from a sensor I don't need and have never used, and could not use, but made provisions for.. for no reason.

I am missing a dipstick bracket which has gone wandering since I got the car back, still need a battery as this optima one has shattered terminals, need to install a plug so my rear muffler can actually be disconnected without ripping out wiring, and I have a new GPS cable for the headunit, one without CAT6 cable spliced into it.

On that note: Anyone here a magician with Magnetic Reluctors? Info on the ground is tiny on this, and my traction control seems to still do impossible things with the Rear Left sensor only.

However, I have replaced the diff (so have different tone rings)
Replaced the sensors themselves (twice, and once again with the new diff)
Checked all the wiring, at least until where it comes into the boot.

The troublesome wire from the traction control unit has been wired to the (working) rear right sensor and it behaves as expected. Unfortunately with a Helical rear diff, I need independent rear speed sensors. Not so much an issue when they physically move the same speed, but that is not the case anymore.

 

Here's a graph I drew. imagine it in terms of Road Speed over Time. At a certain speed the sensor goes haywire.

I have temporarily used a washer to space it out. This makes it work from 40-130?ish KMH instead of working from 0-70kmh without the spacer.

Ideally I'd be happy with it working from 20kmh to .. 130? kmh, so I'll try a thinner spacer as a dodgo method.

[The Bogan]

Try spacing it by only 5mm.

I'm sure that worked and was painless

Again IIRC, whiskey takes it's toll on the memory