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mosquitocoils

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mosquitocoils last won the day on July 7 2021

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About mosquitocoils

  • Birthday 10/09/1986

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    Brisbane, QLD

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    1996 C34 Stagea RS4 Auto AWD
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    Ravi

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  1. It's been a while, I've got plenty done which I'll post up in separate posts and try to keep in order. I managed to get the Stagea on the dyno but had some issues pop up. Firstly my fuel pump wasn't keeping up, we suspected from low voltage. Re-wired my new fuel pump straight to the battery using a relay and some 8AWG cable all the way from the front of the car back to the fuel pump. It looks a little messy here but this was just testing/finding the right connections. Everything was soldered and wrapped up, and the relay was tucked up in the side wall of the cargo area. Soldered in an in-line fuse as well, needed to pick up a 100w soldering iron due to the thickness of the wire. Voltage at the fuel pump was 11.2v at idle before running the new cables, then jumped up to 13.5v at idle after connecting this direct power feed up. Haven't tested the effect this has on fuel pressure or AFR yet but I'm hoping to get some of that data when I get back on the dyno. More info in the video here (if allowed):
  2. Oh man I love this thread. I only just found it and wish more of the picture links still worked, or the website he linked was still up. Definitely some big inspiration for my stagea!
  3. Walbro 460 fuel pump install time Firstly fuel pumps suck in these cars! The fuel pump in the Stagea is under the floor of the rear cargo area on the driver's side. Remove the access hatch and you'll see this. Remove the clamps/lines (remember which is which!) then undo the big nut on top. Carefully pull the tophat up taking care to not bend the fuel level float. Then, and this is the most annoying part, disconnect the fuel pump cage (dark orange above) from the cradle which sits on the floor of the tank (yellow below). There's a big clip on the bottom you have to release while sliding the cradle. This took me far longer than I want to admit... then the cradle has to come up by unclipping it from the tank. I could have left the cradle on the floor of the tank but it was full of crud so I decided to get it out to clean it. Here is everything out of the tank, including a whole bunch of decomposed black rubber stuff from in the tank. While I had this all out and since I had run my fuel level very low in preparation for doing this fuel pump install, I siphoned what was left of the fuel (along with almost all the rest of that black crap) out of the tank and replaced with fresh fuel from jerry cans. To fit the Walbro 460 I had to trim the pump cage slightly with some pliers, nothing too big though. Then I ziptied the pump in as the original cage can't clip together anymore. I realise I'll probably have to replace these and plan on doing it soon. Then I ran the new, supplied wiring loom along the same path as the original and soldered it onto the original top hat wiring. Later on, my tuner and I decided to pull it out and re-do the wiring loom by using crimp-solder connectors, just in case the solder by itself cracks in future it will still be crimped together. Overall this went well and the car started up immediately. I had to adjust the FPR slightly but after about 5 seconds I had a rock solid idle and AFRs were all good.
  4. Right! I'm glad you said that, I was wondering what I'd done wrong haha
  5. It's been a few weeks and I did in fact manage to get coilpacks done. The PRP kit is such high quality and comes with their shorter stalks so I can fit my valley cover if I ever want to again (which I likely will. The kit comes with genuine Hitachi coils, shorter stalks, replacement loom and the billet bracket as well as all bolts for fitting. It looks great once fitted... shame about my cam covers though haha The only issue I ran into was the eyelet on the new loom that's used to ground the coilpacks was the wrong size to fit where my stock ground bolts to... so I cut it off and spliced into the original ground, which I also reconnected to the same bolt. I added a spade connector so I can remove quickly and easily in future without having to also unbolt the ground wire from the back of the head (being a S2 RB25, having no igniter box etc). The finished product: Once that was all hooked up it fired up right away with no weird hesitations etc. I played with the dwell settings in the Haltech but using PRP's suggested settings made it run like crap... so I reverted to the stock dwell times and she's running mint. I'll leave that up to the tuner.
  6. In order to save a few bucks I decided to wire in a couple of things myself before dyno time which turned out to be pretty easy. I re-purposed the stock boost solenoid wiring to run the new Haltech boost solenoid and mounted it in the same place. Of course for right now I have the duty cycle turned down to 0 at all load points (so still running only wastegate pressure to drive to my tuner) but I did verify it worked by changing the DC and listening to the solenoid clicking away. Then... I committed sacrilege... I CUT THE MAF CONNECTOR OFF ...So that I could re-use two of the MAF wires for my new Intake Air Temp (IAT) sensor, following the below guide for my RB25 S2 (white wire with blue trace = ground; orange wire with black trace = signal). I terminated the remaining MAF wire (12v) and threw the connector plug in the bin where it belongs... (not really, it's sitting safely in my old MAF which is sitting in my spare parts pile) Since I'm using a Haltech Elite it was really easy to change the wiring in the software, I didn't need to re-pin anything at the ECU. I just had to "remove" the MAF input in the software then reassign that input to IAT sensor input and it seems to work perfectly I.E. about 18-20 degrees at night then shot up to 40-50 degrees instantly when I held a lighter near it and dropped down when I removed the heat source. Then I ran a long two core wire across the radiator support and down to my cold side intercooler piping where I drilled and tapped the corresponding hole for the sensor. Coilpacks and fuel pump should be in the next week...
  7. Managed to drive sedately just one suburb over to a local car meet and got some neat pics. Worked some more on my idle with the new injectors as well. I forgot I had slightly adjusted the main/base fueling table to get it running stoich at idle/cruising (with the new turbo but only standard injectors) and even though I looked over the table a bunch of times it didn't click. I adjusted those 9 or so cells related to idle and cruising and she sounds really good and sitting solidly on the rich side of stoich. It still swings lean on throttle tip-in (normal) but only for a second then drops down to the 12-13 range. Still not perfect and I'm keeping off boost/not pushing it hard, but I'm now more comfortable to drive it to my tuners shop now. Also got my base fuel pressure dialed in better by replacing the vacuum hose from inlet manifold to regular. I dunno wtf that blue hose I was using was (came with the car, looks like the kind you get in an ebay boost controller kit) but it was really flimsy thin (probably porous) "rubber" so I replaced it with some new typical black vacuum hose and also re-tightened the locking nut on top of the FPR and now it's dropping from 42-43psi down to just over 30psi which I think is about right. Sometimes it's the simple things! Anyway... pics -
  8. You're right, I will be adding a couple of sensors for engine protection. But for right now the gauge is enough to get my base pressure set and was only like $30 or something. The equivalent sensors to run to the ECU are $100-$250ea from what I've found so far, so will take a little more planning. I'm leaning towards getting my tuner to do them while he's doing everything else as I am leaving him a couple of small wiring jobs to finish off, mainly cause I don't feel comfortable hacking up the $700 Haltech harness myself hahaha.
  9. Fuel system time So my final parts pile consisted of: - Billet (BPP) top feed fuel rail - Bosch 1000cc injectors (+ loom adapters) - Turbosmart FPR800 - A bunch of fittings/adapters to make it all work The idea, at least for now, is to use the stock fuel lines and just adapt all these aftermarket bits to hook up to them. So even though the rail has a -8 size feed, I'm running stock 5/16 line up to the rail then using an adapter to go 5/16 -> -6 -> -8 into the rail haha. If I do go E85 then I'll need a new fuel filter as well and they generally have -6 inlet/outlets so my line setup would need to change then anyway. I set to work pulling all the old fuel lines off everything in the engine bay then pulling out the stock rail. The good thing about this forward facing style of manifold is that the rail was only 3 bolts and so I had it out in about a minute. Once everything was removed I put the new injector adapters into the manifold, popped the new injectors in and put the new rail on the top. I had the thought of also tucking the injector loom underneath the manifold and it makes a huge difference aesthetically, especially with the new loom adapters you can see sticking up between each runner. FPR getting set up with gauge Flex fuel sensor mounted down on the chassis/bottom of the strut tower I got to this point then realised the black paint on the manifold looked like crap... so what did I decide to do? Turned my simple single-afternoon-fuel-system-install into a week long process of stripping the paint off the manifold! I've never liked working with paint, thinners or anything of that nature... so my knowledge was limited but now I've got a good handle on things... and I think it came out really well considering I left it bolted in place! Now you can really see the different that tucking the loom underneath makes Rail back on The finished product I went into the Haltech and changed the settings to suit and basically fired right up! Ran great while cold... didn't like being started while hot though which is the opposite of what I assumed was going to happen! I'll keep working on figuring it out and also install my fuel pump soon. Then it's just R35 coilpack install and then off for a tune when money (and tuner's schedule) allows... getting excited!
  10. I recently did a manual swap on my Stagea - here is the guide I used for that and a lot of it is the same for the skyline. Of course any mention of 4WD doesn't relate to you. I also made a video of the process
  11. Haltech flex fuel sensor is here... along with a Walbro 460 Also after speaking with my tuner I decided to get the PRP R35 coilpack kit... Hitachi coilpacks along with the PRP bracket, loom and their custom-made short stalks so I can tuck it away under the valley cover if I ever decide to do so...
  12. Hi guys, I recently did a manual conversion and made a video of the process... it's had a warm reception elsewhere, I'm hoping you find it useful as well. Not sure if linking my own video is allowed so please remove if not... This forum has been such a big help to me over the years so if I can give something back that's awesome
  13. Headlights are looking good! Boost controller is here... just waiting to clear some bills before ordering the flex sensor, but should be here in time for tune in 2-3 months.
  14. While waiting my new boost controller and flex fuel sensor to arrive I thought I'd have a go at something I've had sitting on the shelf for a few months - halo headlights. Anyone can do this with pretty minimal tools and some patience (I'm still working on that last part). The longest part of this process was actually painting the housings... installing the halos was really simple. So if you're happy with the look of your headlight internals you could skip the painting altogether and save a day or so between waiting for coats to dry etc. To start, I removed all the external stuff from the headlight, any bolts and wires that can come off. As well as the couple of clips around the outside. Take out the bulbs to be safe. I preheated the oven to 180° - once at temp, placed the headlight in for 5-8 minutes (I tried 5 minutes the first time but it wasn't quite enough, so another couple of minutes helped). Once out, I laid it on a towel on a solid bench and (using an oven mitt) inserted a flathead screwdriver into a couple of spots to pry the two sections apart. It took some fiddling. I also used a (new) knife blade to help cut some of the butyl sealant in the tricky spots, although I purposely wanted to avoid doing this too much. It looks and feels like the edges may break but they take a lot of force before breaking... using a wider flathead lessened the chance of breaking. I had to keep working the flathead around, using extra flathead screwdrivers, trim tools etc to stick in places to prevent it from sealing back up. I was left with a pretty sorry looking headlight with semi-soft nuggets of butyl around the edges... now was a good time to try and smooth them along the edges a bit (if it's still soft enough). Inside is an extra fascia/housing which is held on with two screws so comes out easy. I chose to strip the paint off mine so I could black it out, although I left the actual headlight bulb housings alone so they remain the original chrome as I think that may be required by law. I soaked the plastic fascia in oven cleaner for about an hour (could be done in less but I got distracted)... it worked great! I came back and casually wiped the original paint off with no effort at all. Gave it a good wet sand to get everything off and scuff up the plastic underneath. Then some plastic primer coats Then I did a few coats of hi temp paint, though if I do this again I probably would use normal acrylic paint as the hi temp paint needs to be cured at many hundreds of degrees... far hotter than the plastic itself would let me heat it to. It started to melt/wilt slightly as I was trying to heat it enough to cure but I managed to get it out of the oven before any permanent damage was done. I didn't get any pics of the painted fascia alone, but here it is when I was just starting to fit the halos. I didn't bother sanding anything as these will be pretty hidden inside the headlight housings and it looked decent anyway. Now on to the halos themselves! I measured the ring sizes and found some 90mm LED rings on Amazon for the inner holes (surrounding the foglights) and some 150mm LED rings for the outer holes (surrounding the headlight bulb). I picked these as they were the cheapest 150mm rings I could find, just I could test proof-of-concept. This part required waiting around two weeks for shipping... I drilled some tiny holes around the edges and fed some fine jewellery wire through to wrap around the rings and tied it tightly at the back. I thought it seemed a bit ghetto but apparently this is how it's done... There isn't enough room to do the same on the outer/larger ring, but there is a perfect gap behind the fascia so I installed the LED ring directly to the headlight housing. Same deal - a couple of small holes and some wire to hold it in place. With the rings all ready and the electrical wires poking out the back near the bulb connectors, it was time to seal them up. I gave everything a good clean on the inside before doing so. I put the glass side of the headlight in the oven at 180° for 8 minutes by itself (until the butyl started running slightly), then the housing side into the oven for 3 minutes. Then I basically mashed them together and used a flathead to pick up any extra bits of butyl that squeezed out, trying to run it along the seam to help in sealing. And that's everything done! I'm really happy with how they turned out! It'll be interesting to see how long the LEDs last. I'm stoked I learnt how it all works and next time I'd be happy to step up to something higher quality but for now these look awesome haha
  15. Managed to get the Haltech wideband sensor hooked up. Got the CAN connector through the firewall grommet pretty easily... had to cut a small hole/slit in the grommet which took 75% of the time due to the way the ABS tower is mounted in front of it, not much room to work at all. Mounted the wideband controller in the engine bay and ran the new wideband O2 sensor across to the dump pipe. All up it only took 45 minutes, though the interior "install" still needs to be tidied up as you'll see from the pic The only thing I had to do other than plug the connectors together was the wire in 12v + ground. Luckily I had already worked out which wires these were in the Stagea's ECU loom from the previous attempt at wiring the Haltech in when I had the auto transmission. I still have all the pinout info printed out and sitting in the car as well haha. So I just had to look up which wire was switched 12v and piggyback off that, and same for ground. The software was foolproof to setup, just went in and enabled the wideband device (it already found it when I started the program, I basically just had to confirm it). Found out it's idling at about 12 AFR which explains the smell, also later figured out it was due to the Haltech base map containing very generic and very safe injector dead times. Once I found the values for stock RB25 injectors and plugged in values close to that (erring on the side of caution) I got the AFR up to about 13.7-14. My goal here is to gain an understanding of how each parameter of the tune affects each other, then move on to installing my 1000cc injectors, rail and FPR as that's introducing too many variables at once and if something isn't responding how I think it should, I won't know if I need to address software or hardware.
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