meerkat8701

the missus has been very nice to me this weekend and i was able to pop out and at least remove the UIM for like the millionth time and do properly what i should have done in the first place. i cleaned all the ground points to the cable harness (including the one under the intake, hence the removal) and slathered them in copious amounts of dielectric grease this time. considering it was not that long ago since the last time i did it, there had built up a fair amount of dirt and oxidisation on the spade connectors. this would be a perfect moment for an "i told you so" clokker
i also changed a fuel line that i had mangled a few too many times.

today i went to hansen racing and bought a pair of MSD blaster 2's, popped them in (a very easy and quick job for a change) and went for a test drive..

she runs much smoother in general and she felt a little more responsive and powerful but i am not out of the woods yet. when i started her up cold the idle was bouncing up and down. i waited for her to warm up a little and drove around easy until she reached full temp and she ran really good at least when i was just feathering the gas but when i stopped at the lights the idle was all the way up to 2000 and it vibrated a little which made it feel like, for want of a better description, as if the car was growling . once at full temp i got out on the motorway and let rip. im pretty sure that i DONT have the 3800 hesitation anymore. instead it felt like i got hesitations all the way through the powerband and the needle on the rev counter hopped around erratically. (its been doing this for a while). when i parked the idle had settled down and sat fairly comfortably between 750 and 900 which feels ok but i dont get why the cold start made the idle bounce. when i tried to start the engine again, (note that i had removed the fuse to the fuel pump to turn the it off) it had flooded so i still have a problem with that i geuss.

she's definately running a bit better but as you can see shes far from running as she should.. i meant to check my tps again but my time ran out and it was time to play happy families. so ill carry on tomorrow.

tbh i dont have a clue what it could be. it really feels like i know this engine very well now (compared to when i got her anyway) but it feels like im running out of things that it could be.. ill keep on keepin on nonethless..

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Like I'd squander such a rare and precious moment on something pedestrian as bad grounds.
I'm saving it for the wheels.

meerkat8701

i genuinely hope i get to dissapoint you on that one clokks
i passed by robban today and im going to meet him tomorrow at his workshop and we are gonna get a-weldin.. (well, he's gonna weld and im gonna help more like).




im wondering what we can do with the joins on the inside of the "dish". thought i might ask for some advice on here. would i be able to use some kind of filler that would be able to flex with the wheels so that i wont get any cracks in the filler/paint? any tips are welcome



im back to fiddling with the tps.
engine fully warmed up, key to off.
multimeter set to 2000 ohms, tps connector disconnected with hump pointing up, backprobed one lead on the spade connector at the top and the other lead on the one to the right (with the black wire).
adjusted to 1000 ohms. 0 on the left spade connector. went for a drive, came back and it was around 930something.
adjusted to 1000 again and repeated. next time it was at 1040something. adjusted again, went out again. then all of a sudden it was up to 1800! wierd.
not sure if its my multimeter playing up or the tps itself.. i ran out of petrol so ill have to try again when i have more gas money. such a broke-*** at the moment

the adjustments seemed to help a little. if i drive normally she is actually ran really nicely but she is still missing/hesitating loads as soon as i try to go full throttle. i originally thought that the larger secondary injectors (550cc turbo) were the culprit but this is happening as early as 2000rpm so im starting to think it must be something else.. definately an increase in power since i popped the new coils in though.. it feels like im making some small progress at least even if its finding out what things "arent" malfunctioning..

as my dreams of forced induction fade into "a later date" status, i am beginning to toy with the idea of porting my intake maybe during the summer or towards the winter as seems to be one of the effective cheap mods to do with an n/a. was thinking of match-porting and i read that you can do some kind of sandblasting on the unreacheable parts to make them smoother. thoughts on this? tips?

clokker

iTrader: (2)

You did not mention if the initial set coupler was grounded during the adjustment.

Wheels look um....very round, so, good start.

meerkat8701

well spotted! i had completely forgotten about it. good looking out clokker ill have to give that a go tomorrow.

lets hope that the wheels stay round during the welding! robban has tried to explain that the wheels arent 'exactly' round. he said that they had 8 (or was it 6? i dont rightly remember) sides from the factory and showed with his hands how they were rotating funny. i found my head rotating around too and probably looked REALLY confused. now this is either some kind of cryptic swedish lathe jargon or perhaps he is referring to the balance of aforesaid wheels.

considering my experience with all things lathey (basicly i know what one looks like) i shall just have faith in robban
its very exciting to finally see something happening to them and it will be even more fun to have a little bit of involvement in their completion!
this also means that i should probably start worrying about where im going to get some money for tyres.. roll on tomorrow!

meerkat8701

i met up with robban this morning and after a coffee and a chat it was time to weld. cut a long story short he asked me if i fancied giving it a try and i though "fuggit, why not?"

i did a couple of test welds on some spare bits and bobs and then got to it. as you can imagine it looks like ****. i have never welded before today so unless by some fluke of nature i was born with the gift, im going to assume that these are probably the worst welds you have ever seen. robban was encouraging nevertheless and i got at least half of the seams done. one thing i can say is that it was a really quite enjoyable. i used compressed air to check for leaks and apart from a couple misses which i covered up, they seem tight. if theres anything you guys can glean from these pictures to give me advice feel free to comment! ill be there tomorrrow to finish them off and ill let the pictures tell the rest of the story. be gentle with me people



















im hoping that robban can use the lathe to take away the worst of it at least to reduce weight but we'll see what he says

eage8

iTrader: (9)

Those are going to be a pain in the *** to mount tires on...

the dip is in the wheel so the metal tire bead can fall into it so the other side of the bead has enough slack to come over the side of the lip.


also, there is no way in hell I'd trust someone's first welds (including my own) to be on the most critical part of the car as far as safety is concerned.

meerkat8701

i had to put a pic of the original wheel beside a pic of it as it is now. i actually hadnt done that even though the wheels have been 'almost' ready for quite some time..

anyhoo here they are..





i see what you mean eage8. i do have access to a guy with a more modern tyre machine than the one from the jurassic era i used when i worked at a tyre shop many moons ago.. it kinda feels like im past the point of no return so i geuss i will just have to hope that he can help me otherwise it may be back to the drawing board

as for the welds i hear ya (im fully with you on the safety side of things) but my buddha-like patience has run out waiting on people. i just couldnt resist the temptation to just get it done you know? i will make sure they are checked out by a proper welder before i mount them on the car. if its not up to scratch i shall have to see if its saveable. having robbans help at his workshop will make things a little easier if it comes to that..

meerkat8701

summer is officially here! it was hot as f today i was sweating like a pig. looks like its going to be like this for a while at least yay!

i finished off the wheels today and ground down the welds a bit to take off the rough edges. with a bit of lube the tyres should pop right over the beads. the weld on the outer edge of the tyre should serve as a bead too. lets hope im right.

the insides of the dish or should i say the part of the wheel that will be seeable once the tyres are on and the wheels are mounted are going to need a bit of work. at some places the weld went through, not much but it needs to be taken care of nonetheless and once i am satisfied ill have to use a bit of filler here and there and then sand them manually. it really feels good to be making progress with them!
.
robban will be taking his semester for the next month but when he goes to the workshop he will let me know so that i can go and have a fiddle with them.

anyhoo.. heres how they look after today.
in case you are wondering why its not just one continuous weld all the way around, i was told that the wheel crimps when you weld it. so i was advised to weld it in the same fashion as you would tighten lug bolts.

varsågoda!










in case you are wondering why its not just one continuous weld all the way around, i was told that the wheel crimps when you weld it. so i was advised to weld it in the same fashion as you would tighten lug bolts.

fun fact #324.

i quit smoking 10 years ago but i still love nicotine so i converted to snus (pronounced like snooze with an s instead of a z at the end) when i moved here to svea rike. much stronger than ciggarettes and very discreet =P anyway im using "snus dosor" to demonstrate the size of the dish . what im waffling about is that in retrospect, to considering that snus can as far as i know only be bought exclusively in sweden, and maybe some swedish specialty stores in other countries, this was a very crappy way to demonstrate the depth of the dish to people from canada and the us. sorry about that.

so next time ill use something that you guys can relate to... like some chewing tobacco.. or a life size replica of john waynes hat... or a "geetarr"... or some southern hospitality. ill figure something out

88fc3sT2

iTrader: (1)

No way in hell would I ever run those wheels on my car. Best of luck to you and I do hope they work well.

meerkat8701

thanks for your honesty 88fc3sT2! i just hope its not because you think that they are ugly im sure there are many that have their reservations about the structural integrity of my wheels. (including me). so after trying to get a hold of a welder on facebook all day without any luck i remembered that an old friend of mine is an experienced welder so i dug out his number. (i cant help feeling like a bastard when i ring people that i havent rung in ages to ask for something) i sent some pics and he said that some looked good and others looked porous which means that there wasnt enough gas. he didnt want to say too much before he has seen them in the flesh (or in the steel?) but offered to help out. next time i go to robban's workshop i should have a welder with me

i forgot (or maybe just didnt hear) that the missus was going to take the little one to see her great-grandfather so i got home to an empty apartment. the weather was glorious so i decided to have a crack at the 200sx front lip again.. two years after i bought it. better late than never eh?

im not sure why i was convinced that it would be a perfect fit cos it really wasnt. i forgot to take a pic when i tried a test- fit but it was way too big or should i say too long.

fortunately the seven has a very thin kinda mini-lip on the front which has all the holes and is a perfect template and eliminates the need for incessant measuring. the sun had gone in and the mosquitos had come out so i decided to go inside and put the 200sx lip under the knife (literally) and try to bodge up some kind of hybrid lip out of the two.

before..


so far..

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Now that the wheels are taking shape, time to start knitting the tires.

meerkat8701

i had originally planned to fabricate my own but with the rising price of scandinavian squirrel weave at the moment, it may be cheaper and easier for me to just buy some
im currently in the process of gluing the original rx7 lip and the 200sx lip together. im using some stuff called 'plastic weld' at the moment but im not feeling too confident about the binding qualities of it at least for this application considering im having to force the curve on the 200sx lip into the same form as the curve on the rx7 one. definately doable but it needs to sit on there proper like. i may have to go for some pl400. or is there anything that you guys could recommmend/have experience with? (it would need to be something commonly found like pl400. and preferably cheap...like pl400 )

88fc3sT2

iTrader: (1)

Yes, I was referring to the structural design lol. That lip looks like it's going to shape out pretty nicely. I'd like to see the final result when you're finished.

meerkat8701

well thats a relief

i spoke to my mate today about the wheels and explained the situation. turns out that he works on the docks here as a civil engineer and he said that the lads there are proper professional welders and he said he would ask them if they would help out with the wheels. ill be getting a call from him during next week. fortunately he said that because its steel its not a problem to redo the bad welds. it will be interesting to see how many of my first welds will get a pass under closer inspection..

i went out around midday to see how the 'plastic weld' was holding up...and it wasnt. they almost fell apart just from me looking at them. i checked with my neighbour who is a carpenter by trade if he had any pl400 knocking around. he had a tube of pl600 in his van and kindly gave it to me. it seems to be doing a much better job. i have progressively been trying to at least get one side on during this afternoon and it seems to be holding. the corner was the hardest part really. i also popped on some reinforcement using some leftovers from the 200sx lip. ill be adding more this evening when i come back from my little family outing im about to embark on now. it has a 24 hour hardening time so ill be leaving it like this until tomorrow and see how good it is then.

heres some pics! fingers crossed that it holds this time otherwise ill be having a right royal cleaning process in front of me..

meerkat8701

so.. it looks like i fell afoul of the "bigger is better" mentality.. to my logic, pl600 definately sounded stronger than pl400, but in reality it was like chewing gum in comparison. this sucked because it took friggin ages to clean it all off and start over with the pl400.

you live and learn..

im starting to see why people were raving about this stuff on the net. it really is some good-*** goop. strong but flexible. it already feels very stable considering that the drying time said 2-30 DAYS! all good things come to those who wait i suppose. well arent i just a veritable fountain of words of wisdom today...

i was a little worried about how the join in the middle would look, but once i had one side in place i just kept the other side just a little bit longer so that i had to force it into place against the other one which kinda created pressure towards the corner which helped in turn keep the whole thing in place. the pl400 served as a sort of filler as well. (aparrently you can sand it once fully dried. im kinda counting on being able to do that.) i had also invested in a couple more of those handy clamps while i was at the hardware store which made the task alot easier this time around.

my neighbour came by to inspect my current little project and said he had some small angle irons in his car which would help with reinforcement and very graciously gave them to me. i just bent them a little with my hands and glued them into place on the back making sure to leave the screw holes free. they stuck out a bit but if my memory serves me correctly they shouldnt get in the way of anything. i also used an offfcut from the 200sx lip to reinforce the join. im going to let it cure for a day or two then ill be getting busy with some sandpaper and filler.

heres some piccys!
(apologise for the picture quality but between me and my little 1 yr old, we have killed 3 smart phones in the last 2 months or so. now thats teamwork )














the join..

meerkat8701

after me boasting about the swedish summer starting last week, it promptly rained for several days in a row.

note to self...
when the sun decides to shine. just bloody enjoy it.

fortunately i have the key to the boiler room in our apartment building so i sneaked the lip down there and have been popping down when i have had the time and tried to get the lip to look respectable with some plastic filler and sandpaper. the filler stinks to high heaven but my next door neighbour (who's apartment is directly on top of it) said they didnt smell anything so it looks like i got away with it. i had to dig out my mask again that stuff is nasty..

after alot of sanding and the return of my tennis elbow/wanking injury..













i noticed a little too late that the bottom part of the lip (top in the pictures) pushes down a bit where i had glued the joins together. im not quite sure what i can do about it. bit of a shame that really... if it bothers me that much i may have to do something about it at a later date but at the moment i have decided that it doesnt have to be perfect.. ill have to see how it looks when ive sprayed it up

concerning the engine i have begun to suspect the fuel pressure regulator. lars has a spare one at his garage so i can check if its buggered or not. the amount of times i have removed the intake is borderline perverse. if i am forced to do so again to get to it i will use the opportunity to port the intake as well, and hopefully not cause any more problems.

meerkat8701

today was a good day. i had a skate for the first time in a long time, (i sucked but it was actually fun fecking around doing shuvits) and i did a test mount of the front lip which i painted yesterday. i geuss my paintjob was just as crappy as my welding but heres the funny thing. i think i have succeeded in creating what i will be calling the "ninja lip".
that is to say it can be invisible to the naked eye in broad daylight. its really wierd but it means that it very unlikely that someone would notice the small bits and bobs i wasnt satisfied with when i had it on the table hehe ;P
im actually quite pleased considering i didnt have high hopes for the end result of my little bodge job. it looks like it should be there and gives the front a more chunky look.
the only problem that i came across was that i had forgotten that i had glued the 200sx lip to the inside of the fc3s lip, and splodged a whole heap of pl400 on it, thus not leaving much room for the screws. ill have to pop it off and try to create more space around the screwholes.. which lined up very nicely if i do say so my self. using the original rx7 was a good choice. so without further ado.. heres some pics featuring my skate buddy jose and a ratchet which did a very good job of holding up the right hand corner for the photoshoot

psyaddict

Looks nice (:
but what is that pl600 stuff? i need to fix my stock front lip also, did it already but it broke again.
and damn, i would really like some snus right now, too bad its illegal to sell it outside of Sweden.

meerkat8701

cheers psyaddict! i had made a mistake with pl600 it was actually the wrong stuff to use. its good for indoor use apparently but not for what we want to use it for. you want to use pl400 its really strong and flexible and is pretty cheap! i payed 80 crowns for a tube i think =) it takes a while to harden properly but once it does it sits like a bastard.

cant you buy snus on the talinn ferry? its duty free so it would be cheaper too

psyaddict

pl400 is loctite yes?
i have no money for ferry, i´m broke 24/7, but we have snus "dealers" here

meerkat8701

feeling you on that one man. lack of money is definately one way to slow a project almost to a dead stop. im pretty sure pl400 is just the name of the type of glue. hardware stores have theyre own brands of it. i dont know what they have in estonia but just go to your local cheap place for building materials and tools and you should find it

meerkat8701

well, i got the lip nicely screwed on today and took her for a spin to put a meagre amount of fuel in the tank. i noticed to my extreme displeasure, that the lip did nothing whatsoever towards curing the hesitations.
so the next step is to beg, borrow or steal a fuel pressure tester because i most certainly do not have the 2000kr (235 USD) to buy one.
i feel a facebook status coming on..

meerkat8701

i was by lars the other day to try swapping over to the fuel pressure regulator he had found in his garage. also swapped out my crappy makeshift vacuum plugs to some proper ones that another one of my swedish rotary brothers, magnus had sorted out for me. i owe these guys alot of beer i can tell you..

we did a test drive and it didnt make any difference but at least thats the FPR eliminated from the line of suspects. lars also noticed that silly ******** here had managed to mix up the trailing and leading cables on the coils AGAIN (yes. i am an idiot)
that made a big difference but im still not there yet. lars is leaning towards the ignition being the culprit and i am inclined to agree. i really suck at troubleshooting. im up most of the night into the early hours reading and reading but still feel like i am going in circles. here's a little video i did so that you guys can get a better idea of the symptoms i am experiencing at the moment..


if you gleaned anything from the video nomatter how small, let a brotha know

driftxsequence

iTrader: (8)

Have you checked the plugs for wear? both fuel filters been checked? timing been verified with a timing light? It could be a dying leading coil pack. I dont think the trailing coil pack has much effect besides emissions. It appears to idle fine, and makes power...The misfire leads me to think its an ignition sort of thing.

P.S. That lip is perfect!!!