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Thread: Almost-a-Kouki 180SX

  1. #61
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    Having sorted the climate control out Monday night and got the exhaust on yesterday, I thought I'd give it another whirl and try and get the coolant system all bled-in.

    Started it up again, ran like a champ for about 2 minutes then started getting white smoke out the exhaust. Not shit loads, but enough to worry me. Shortly afterward it dropped to 3 cylinders Need to diagnose what's gone wrong for it to start running on 3 so do the usual air/fuel/spark and see if it's something obvious. I'm concerned that the head may have been damaged during removal however. I didn't exactly follow the runoff procedure for the head bolts so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that it has warped slightly. May crank it over with the plugs out to see if anything comes out of the cylinders (coolant mostly) but if there isn't anything... well I may just warm it through properly and see whether it clears.

  2. #62
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    Well lots has happened since my last update...

    The reason it dropped to 3 cylinders was that the engine somehow managed to nuke a guide on cylinder 4 exhaust. Cracked clean in two! I checked the shimming all round and it was within spec so very confused about that. Bought a new shim, put it all back together and it's been fine since. Very bizarre.

    I then had a huge oil leak from the tensioner so I opted to buy a new gasket (the most recent ones are two-layer metal gaskets) and a new tensioner as I know the newer design has a bigger chamber where the oil feed is and also the adjustment teeth are not as coarse:



    Now no leaks. Almost felt like I was getting somewhere at this point!

    After a lot more faffing about, I finally got the thing going again. It was starting up and then stalling shortly afterwards - odd. I had put new plugs in, and had run out of things to look for so decided to chuck the old iridiums back in to see if it would get going and lo and behold - it did. Right through to warm-up with no issues, all the smoke cleared too so I think it's fair to assume that the smoke was from the lubricant for the head studs. No idea what was wrong with the new plugs I bought - gaps were good and they were new... Warrants an investigation at some point.

    With the engine woes mostly (probably) behind me, I can start getting on with the wiring. It's on all 4 wheels again right now so I could spin it round on the drive to have better access to the drivers side front arch. I may just drive it down to my dad though and pinch a spot in his garage for a weekend and a spot of electrical assistance.

    Looking forward to driving it again. I have a few other things in the pipeline for it depending on what the state of the engine is in the long term - I'm still dubious about the head sealing for a few reasons. It's not going anywhere so I'm in no hurry to get too stuck into anything in the short term.

  3. #63
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    I'm having a proper mare with this engine. Wish I hadn't taken the bloody thing out!

    Turns out that the guide snapping originally was because I had installed all of the guides on the side of the rocker on the exhaust side. Dumb. They had all broken apart from cylinder 4 (which was the one I originally replaced) so I ordered 3 more. Went to fit those and when torquing up the cam cap bolts two of them sheared!

    ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I took the head off this weekend and will be retiring it for spares. When I get some money (or capitulate into my overdraft in a vain attempt to get the damn thing on the road again) I will be buying a spare complete head to slap on. Praying to every god there is or has ever been that nothing else goes wrong!

    I had some interesting engine plans in the pipeline following some lucky parts acquisition however I just want to drive the thing and cannot really be bothered to do much else to it. I'll get the electrical stuff sorted and then it's a case of driving it. I hope.

    I'm probably misguided in thinking that I'll ever be allowed to drive it again though

  4. #64
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    Is it not worth trying to get the sheared bolts out?

  5. #65
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    I'm taking it to a shop tomorrow but Nissan don't seem to have a current part number for the short cap bolts. Having a ton of spares would be nice with the luck I've had so far...

  6. #66
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    Nice work on the engine! Nice buid! And is nice to see what a clean kouki you have.

  7. #67
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    Turns out cam cap bolts are some of the hardest things known to man. Local place had a go with the cutter and it didn't even make the slightest impression on them!

    Had to take them somewhere else to get them spark eroded. Should be ready for pick-up tomorrow or Friday.

    I can't find a current part number from Nissan for the short cap bolts but there is a place just up the way from me that can apparently make bolts etc up from rolled steel to any specification so I'm going to get in contact with them and hopefully they can turn round some replacements in short order. Debating getting the whole engine set replaced... That will depend on cost however.

    Tantalizingly close to being able to drive it in reality. In the intermediate term I've been dreaming of ways to make it a little less... well early 90s inside. Classy more than flashy with a bit of luck...!

  8. #68
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    Good to hear this is close to being back!

    I did a few bits to my interior to make it less 90's, made it much much better to live with. Mainly led lights, throughout, footwell lights and timed fade out interior lights. Surprising how much they made a difference. Will be keeping an eye on what you get up to


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

  9. #69
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    I need a spare dash and centre console so I can try and work out what I can do.

    Got a few ideas in mind but they may be quite involved...

  10. #70
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    More nonsense.
    Last edited by zeppelin101; 07-05-2015 at 10:23.

  11. #71
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    Finally got everything back in one piece last night. New battery, some brand new plugs, all the lifters bled and all checked over... Fired straight to life in to a solid idle with no valvetrain noise!

    Although I did forget to tighten up the oil feed to the turbo so that has made a bit of a mess of my driveway Noticed it was pissing out everywhere quick enough so the sump didn't run dry fortunately!

  12. #72
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    So, it works. I've even driven it a bit. Done around 120 miles in it this weekend and so far no real problems



    See? Not of my driveway!

    I also took the opportunity to get rid of the rose jointed arms on Friday afternoon and replace them with some bushed ones.



    Needs a bit of a clean up back there.

    I think the gearbox I bought has actually got CA18 ratios in it as 5th seems shorter than I recall but all the other gears are similar. Where before I was doing ~3000rpm at 70, it's now closer to 3300rpm which ties up with the different 5th gears in the two boxes. Not too major, actually it helps because now the horrific exhaust drone at 70 is no longer there!

    Next things on my list:

    • Electrics

    • Much quieter exhaust

    • Coilover options (either respring and revalve the current Teins or buy something else)

    • Modernise the audio setup. I won a 32gb Nexus 7 for £75 yesterday which I'm planning on doing some bits and bobs with... See how that works out!


    Very happy to be driving it again though, I'd forgotten how wonderful they were

  13. #73
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    Looks beautiful man.

  14. #74
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    Thanks Ross, it will look less like a drift car one day though with the wheels!

    Updates...

    Car keeps breaking. Stupid shit mostly, but none the less...

    Broke down last week. The clip that holds the fuel feed onto the pressure regulator has apparently disintegrated. I have no idea how. The hose popped off while on the motorway. I ended up getting the car recovered as I didn't notice it in the dark and had little to no patience to be chasing round the bay at the time. At least it was an easy fix.

    However when checking that everything was ok yesterday, I lost all boost pressure. There was a bang, and then no boost. The engine still functions just fine, although it is slow as shit as you can probably imagine. I haven't investigated in any great detail as I'm having a hard time processing how this car can keep breaking things at the rate it is currently doing so. I suspect the actuator arm or something more serious.

    In the mean time I messed about with the Nexus, installed a few bits and bobs on it and arsed about with an interface in Photoshop for a couple of days. This is the result...



    Using something called Desktop Visualizer I've managed to make it so that the "buttons" that are actually the background behave as actual buttons so I can link to spotify, navigation, EQ, settings, netflix and SDR touch (for FM radio through USB) through the icons. I'm pretty happy with it so far, just working out the best way of integrating it into the dash. I figure with the ROM and kernel I'm running I can probably daisy chain a few things through a powered USB hub so that it can charge, get FM signal and have a USB slot for additional memory (read: playing external files). The only thing it's missing is mobile data, however that isn't necessarily the end of the world and can be easily. Obviously this makes Netflix slightly redundant as things stand (I download playlists from Spotify anyway) but it was just to fill the screen up for a first pass!
    Last edited by zeppelin101; 30-03-2015 at 11:30.

  15. #75
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    My dad has done a sterling job on the electrics for me over the last couple of weeks, pretty much everything works:

    Electric folding mirrors - these now fold, and move as they should
    Climate control - holds last function and we replaced the bulbs in the back with LEDs as 3 of them had shorted out and getting replacements was a pain
    Door sensor no longer wired into clock
    Sidelights both functioning
    All indicators functioning
    Rear lights mostly functioning - just need to get some bulb holders for the reverse lights and then it's ready!

    The loom looks like this now after tweaking:



    Also made a bracket up out of aluminium to hold the washer bottle.

    Plans mostly revolve around getting it MOTd and doing something about the tragic exhaust. I was looking into doing something different, and quite liked the look of the original 240Z exhaust:



    Would almost certainly need some mods to the bumper though. So long as it is a) tucked up into the body and b) not so bloody noisy then I'm easy really.

    After that... make up some protection for the arches and a splitter from ABS and start looking at the modifications I want to make to the interior starting with the audio. Power wise it's fine for now and I'm not keen on chasing much more. I'd rather just enjoy the car and maybe optimise what's there rather than number chasing.

  16. #76
    Guest Sean-B's Avatar
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    Lovely car mate. Fair play for your persistence

    What was the bang - no boost issue in the end?

  17. #77
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    Thanks I gave up on my last one and regretted it so I refuse to let this one go unless I have absolutely no other option!

    The circlip holding the wastegate actuator made a break for freedom and the arm popped off the wastegate penny so it was basically open all the time. A new circlip was 50p

  18. #78
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    MOT booked for 3 tomorrow. I'm not all that confident, but maybe I'll get lucky?

    Wish me luck

    Accumulation of bits for project audio is going well though...



    Mobile 4G WIFI router for the car. 3gb of data should be sufficient for internet radio and stuff!

    Just need to order a USB DAC converter, powered USB hub, amp and some speakers then I can set about working the best way of fitting it.
    Last edited by zeppelin101; 14-05-2015 at 10:54.

  19. #79
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    Good job on keeping the project going despite the tough times Zep, well done! My brother and I almost got our S14 out of the workshop yard yesterday before spotting an issue... We last updated our project thread in 2011 I think, so you're streets ahead of us!

  20. #80
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    The car look's mint I imagine it'll pass MOT. Good luck anyway.

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