What fuel pump you running?

 

Was a Walbro, replacing with a Denso supra pump.

 

The best laid plans of mice and men , oft go astray..

 

Every 20b conversion I have performed were right, out of the box. Aside from triple spark plugs working on your car (4 rotor still has no issue, must have been a Wednesday machine job). Lennys car fired up the first time, made power and has been great. I'm not sure how to explain it quickly, so I'm going to list the cause and effects so Lenny doesn't have to.

Effect- Lenny gets car the first time in winter, won't start without fouling plugs.
Cause - new fuel map didn't get downloaded properly, ecu reverted to factory values.

Effect- driveabilty under light throttle keep changing as it was driven more.

Cause- Having injectors high up in the manifold, the fuel begins to vaporize more as temps rise. Makes the tune go lean. We thought it was the fuel pump.

Final fix is adding primary injectors near the port. I'm sure many will question why this wasn't done from the start. Two reasons. A) My personal 3 rotor never ran primaries and never had this problem. B) There was not enough space for top feed I.d. injectors.

This little issue took some time for me to pinpoint. I didn't want to add injectors before knowing the reason of the issue.

I hope everyone understands the pains of doing unique setups. Lenny might have the only slide throttle, drysump 20b streetcar in the world. That claim sometimes comes with more work/knowledge/skill/headache

 

completely agree. when there isn't a lot of experience with something, PP's, dry sumps, slide throttles, etc, then you don't know about the weird problems you run into doing it, and not that they aren't solvable, but they need time to come to light so they can get fixed.

and Mazda diid all this 30 years ago, but never tried to street any of it.

for what its worth my P port does the same thing, intake temps make a HUGE difference in drivability and power, but my friends P port doesn't!

 

R&D is a beast plain and simple.

Logan, was is not feasible to us the stock primary location with your intake design?

 

So, update:
Logan has had the car and has been working through a few issues for the past month or so. I could write a book going into detail, but long story short everything seems to be worked out. He dropped the car off to me a few hours ago. I rode around with Logan for a bit as he was going over some things about the car, but as of yet I have not driven it myself. Mostly because:
1- Shortly after dropping the car off it started raining
2- Dogbox combined with grabby triple plate clutch will make you feel like youre an idiot and cant drive pretty quick. Stalled it a few times, didn't want to flood it out so just put it in the garage.

But, at least she runs and is home. Weather permitting will be cleaning her up and post some pictures/videos within a few days.

 

That is great news Lenny. Can't wait to see videos!

 

Oh Im definitely planning on street driving it. Just need to get used to it a bit.

 

Something else that should probably be said. With this entire project and the many issues encountered, I have been beyond frustrated with it. As was said before, with new things come new problems and they sometimes take time to come to light. Especially in the last couple months, I've been ready to throw in the towel. I've honestly considered parting/selling the car and just moving on. Logan has pretty much been working non-stop trying battling all of the issues, and I know has spend a considerable amount of his own time and money in the past few weeks just trying to make it all right. I know he's also been having some back issues, not to mention delivering the car to me on his day off. So just wanted to say thank you to Logan for seeing it through.

 

Lenny, preaching to the choir here. 3 rotor installs are time consuming, even in the most simple form. And when you add in the technical details of your project, it is a recipe for frustrations due to time delays and costs.

Can't tell you how many times I (with a more simple build) have thought about calling it a day and parting out the car. Heck, the money spent on the build would buy a nicely equipped Porsche GT3 with some change left over. And I can drive that on a daily basis with the AC on and not look back. I know I am not alone with these thoughts on the money issue.

The beauty is you now have a one of a kind car that will be a pleasure to drive. Kudos on staying the course and the finish line is now here (if one really ever finishes projects like these). Now less typing for you and more videos of the car and that beautiful engine work by Logan.

 

I completey understand that feeling Lenny and David. It seems with these custom installs, the closer you get to the finish line, the finsh line grows a personality and a couple legs and runs AWAY from you laughing. It knows how exhausted and anxious you are to finish that race. Lol!

 

Thanks Lenny! It's the simplest issues to fix that turn out to be the hardest to solve. To keep it brief for the viewers- when I added the primary injectors it totally fixed the off throttle stumble. Downside it forced the map sensor signal to be relocated. I made a fumble and thought the oil metering hole in one rotor housing would work. So fixing one issue created another. The map reading was too lazy, and on fast shifting it had a lean surge.

Took off the intake, added three bungs and a little vacc chamber now the map reads off the chamber.

Worked like a champ!

 

Weather around here lately has been horrendous. All it does is rain. Ive had the car out for a little bit here and there, slowly getting used to it. I had spent a good few hours cleaning it up today. A good buff and a coat of wax sure makes a difference. Also spent a good deal of time trying to dial in the suspension a bit. The car.. quite honestly kinda handled like poo. It pulled a little to the right and just seemed darty mid corner. After squaring it up and taking some measurements she was all out of whack. I set all of the spring preloads equal, set ride height, and then squared up the front end with about 1/16" of toe in. Ill take it eventually to have it double checked, but seems good and made a world of difference. Quick pic of my alignment rack :

 

As I mentioned, weather has not been my friend. No fancy pictures of videos yet, maybe this weekend if rain holds off. For now here are a few cell phone pics of it in my yard.

 

Good on you for posting this, certainly speaks highly of your character

I've been on the other end more than once, spending countless hours to turn out a car that runs like a top and a little thanks goes a long way!

Really looking forward to updates, pictures and videos

 

Hard to beat a stock body black FD. Looks great and glad you are nearing the finish line. With all my trolling of 20b NA guys you always handled it well and I truly hope you enjoy the car. Once again it looks great.

 

Lenny, the car looks awesome. I like the all the personal touches like the leather seats. OEM style with a track purpose. Wheels a really nice choice as well but I am partial to the look. I really like the gauges as well.

May I ask what rollbar you have? Is it bolt in?

 

Thanks a lot! Some of the trolling was well deserved

Thanks David. The car has a real Jekyll & Hyde personality. It appears to be a nicely setup street car, but as soon as you drive it its a completely different animal... for better or worse. The roll bar is a standard RaceShop bolt in bar. Super nice piece

 

Looking forward to your OFFICIAL driving impressions Lenny.

 

Hmm.. Impressions. Ok,
As far as the engine itself- I think its awesome. At idle it sounds like a lumpy cam V8, then transitions into the 3 rotor bark we all love. It pulls super smooth all the way to about 9k. I think its deceivingly quick, as you don't get that abrupt surge of power we're used to in a turbo car, yet just a smooth push through the rev-band. I wanted to make it to the drag strip over the weekend, but unfortunately didn't make it. Just to try and get some actual useful data as far as speed. Ill try to at least get some vids of the speedo or something. Its not a rocketship by any means, but shes no slouch. I think the biggest surprise is the mid-range. I had assumed I would be winding it out to redline everywhere. I find myself on spirited back road driving leaving it in 3rd and using the engine between 3-7k rpm.
The dog-box trans isn't that bad. There's no perceivable gear whine (not that you can hear much over the engine), but it is loud and clunky when shifting. If youre used to rev-matching anyway, driving it is a non-issue.
I think my biggest thing I don't like about the car at this point, is the clutch. Its just way overkill IMO. Ive gotten used to it to the point I can pull out without stalling, but there is little to no modulation. It makes trying to drive it "normal" fairly annoying. Perhaps Ill get used to it with time, we'll see.
Even after my home-done suspension setup, the car handles great. Even with no power steering and the 285 Z2 star specs all around, the steering doesn't feel too heavy at all. The car changes direction beautifully and sticks like glue. I can go wide open even in 1st and there is no wheelspin whatsoever.
Quick synopsis- it should be a wonderfully quick and fun track day car, albeit a bit more unfriendly on the street than I had anticipated, but still manageable.

 

very nice lenny. please take some videos.

 

Yea it sounds like the clutch situation would **** me off too. At one point, I had a stage 3 clutch with sprung 6 puck disc. Stop and go was too twitchy. I then learned that all I needed to do was install a stock oem disc with the upgraded clutch and drivability has been perfect for street since were not dealing with lots of torque. The mid range also caught me by surprise because that's where a 20b's torque really starts to show up.

 

I tried looking these up last night but couldn't find them. Do you have a link, and do they make one for a FC?

 

I had an unsprung 4 puck for 4 years. and I finally switched it back to a more gentle clutch .. and honestly even though I had gotten very used to the 4 puck to the point where most people couldnt tell it was a 4 puck when driving with me . I am very happy to be rid of it haha I'm only making 300 whp at best . I dont know what you are making . BUT eventually you do get used to it LOL