Dave WM

it was a California car, has use unleaded gas on the gauge, I assumed they would have accounted for that, maybe not.

well the verdict is in..... 80 psi on #6 the rest were about 155-160. using a leak down test I found it to be in the exhaust (lots of blow by coming from the tail pipe, intake and crank case were negligible. Looked with a bore scope, cant see the valve itself as its only a look down type, but the piston crown was very clean (I used some redline injector cleaner for the trip). starting to wonder if its possible the carbon could be knocked loose and is fouling the valve. I tried tapping the exhaust valve from the top while under pressure to see if it would seal better on rebound, no joy. The lash pads are in place and the lash is correct at .010 for the exhaust. Before diving into pulling the head I am going to try an Italian tune up. I drive like a little old lady so will give it a go and see if there is any change. worse case I have a backup head N42 head and a MN42 head. I know the MN is ok, the N42 may need some work as IIRC it was just a tad out of spec for warpage. Videos will be posted soon...

Power test, remove the plug wire from #6, no noticeable drop in rpm. the rest of the plugs had a drop when HT lead pulled.

hmm did not think to check the gap on #6 reluctor, will add that to the list. Maybe pull two plugs and crank to compare spark visually as well.

while on a long road trip I pulled into a stop and with the AC off (rarely around here) I pick up on a hard miss fire. AC on idle up goes largely away, Idle up take it to about 1.1k while AC is on. I do this to maintain battery voltage under the heavy load while sitting in traffic with AC on. Helps with the rad cooling as well. thoughts leaking fuel injector, result in rich idle but not enough to cause issue when more air flow at higher rates. poor spark (new plug same deal) could see a spark but did not compare to a good running plug to see if it was weak. (cap/HT lead) Compression loss (valve lash checked ok) Place your bets... My diag is going to start with a cold startup to see if the miss is on a hot engine and not on a cold (fuel mix issue, leaking injector not a prob due to eng needing more fuel anyway when cold). Will read plug (new installed 100 miles ago) Will install color tune to see combustion process. Install fuel pressure gauge if it looks like an injector issue, watch for bleed down. IF FI is a likely problem may try to pinch off the rubber line on the #6 injector with some bent needle nose while looking at the color tune to see if it comes alive. This is operating under the idea that the mix is too rich and pinching the line will lean it out. I can hear the injector clicking so I know its not stuck open. Not sure if that rubber line is long enough to pinch though. will prob swap the cap and wires with known good before diving too deep as its pretty quick. Same with ECU.

if you decide you need to drill it out, I would recommend you get a OTC drill guide, its a small bolt and I think it would be hard to drill without a guide. Sorry to hear about the breakage, but as already mentioned you really need to follow the torque spec on those skinny bolts. Same goes for stuff like pan bolts, valve cover bolts etc. You may be in for a timing chain removal as well as I think you will have a hard time getting good access. A welded on nut would prob be the prefered method over drilling IMHO. I doubt its stuck since in broke on installation, so should come out easy if you can just get it started.

I sent out a couple PM's to check in on Yarb and JSM, hope those guys are ok.

all clear, no damage.

there is a two piece with the sender mounting into a separate screw in brass holder and then there is the one piece where the sender and the screws are all one brass piece. the OE is the two piece with separate screw in / sender bits. I did not know about this, ended up with the one piece which fitment is the same, came with a O ring (not used not sure why its included). It seems the seal is made by the conical shaped end of the sender in both types.

make sure you have the dash installed as deeply onto the frame as you can.IIRC the holes on the metal frame are large enough for some wiggle room. You want that wiggle to be biased as far back (on the frame, forward from the driver posistion that is) as possible. The issue is the door opening, The dash is just big enough, if you have it forward at all you risk the edge of the dash being visible with the door open. It should tuck in behind the opening. This was the way it was on a 280z anyway.

test fit the glove box door on the new dash once installed on the frame BEFORE reinstalling the dash. You may need some tweeking to get it to open and close smoothly, much easier with the dash out.

just curious is then temp sending unit the one piece type or the two piece? I recently installed the 1 piece and it seems to indicate higher than the actual water temp using a thermometer.

I attached a breaker bar on the front crank nut 27mm IIRC. then with the air pressure on low about 15-20 psi I would hand crank it until i would feel pressure, then slowly continue until the pressure would just go away then a bit more (trying to get the piston dwell in the middle). remove the breaker bar (you dont want it attached when full pressure is added as it can suddenly move if the TDC is not just right), and then pump up to about 90-100 psi. getting the TDC setting just right takes a little bit of practice but not hard.

I would second not using a sealer, but I have no experience with it either. IIRC its alum so maybe one of the alum braze rods would be the ticket.

are you using a auto ranging multimeter?

no better after restart, it would run for a few seconds then die, there is a alt compesation circuit on some, but not mine. Looks like a little bellows under the dash. I ahve toyed with the idea of trying to hook something up, assuming all the ECU's have the ability to use it. going to lay out all the stuff I have and give it a good clean up then start taking inventory, eventually build a new stand for it.

I crapped out with my NA at 12,500 not fun as I had to turn around on a part that was very scary with an engine that would run for a few seconds only.

I installed a could long guide bolts with the heads cut off (and sloted for later removal) that I could slip the trans over taking the weight and guiding it in. Still a bit of a battle sometimes its a skirmish sometimes its a war but it will just all of a sudden pop in. I try to avg the slop in the install tool, as it tends to droop under the weight of the clutch disk. repeatedly check for easy insertion of the tool while tightening up the pressure plate and see if it seems centered (again the droop of a plastic tool and some clearance needed to make it work). make sure dowels are in good shape (maybe thats been covered). biggest advice is to NEVER use the bolts to pull it together.

no worries, ditching the idea of trying it with the stock EFI setup. I I was doing a thought experiment to answer my own question about why its not spooling up and making boost on the test stand. I assume it takes a LOT of power to spool a compressor wheel up enough to create boost at the volume needed by an engine. With that in mind the amount of drag I am seeing is minimal, assuming that is the drag does not go up with RPM. I just wanted to see if it would spool up, I have seen a lot of turbos where the guy just spins it with fingers and round she goes, but the more I read the more I find out about the differences in journals vs ball bearings and even more about the drag of a carbon seal vs what is called a "dynamic" seal. I seems the carbon seal is used for very good sealing on the intake side (I have also read that carbon seals are used on ac compressors, that would need a very good seal indeed to not lose refrigerant). Anyway back to my setup. I do have the stock turbo manifold/harness/ECU and sundry sensors, got them with the engine. So the plan now is to stop futzing around and start by sorting all out to a diagram to make sure I am not missing any parts for the EFI, then I will just build another test stand dedicated to the turbo. If the stock setup eludes me I will consider an aftermarket setup, but the data on those is fast moving, I can see some ads for complete plug and play but those seem like a lot to me (2k+) maybe that's just the way it is but I would rather try the stock setup which I have 1st. I am not in a hurry since my stock NA engine is pretty solid and I have a better NA engine as a spare. Its the one with the MN47 head that has much higher compression. Anyway its the journey that motivates me at this point so no real needs for short cuts like the plug and play at least for now. I would however like to tackle pikes peak again and not run out of power above 12.5k feet....

I am considering just hooking the manifold up to my car if I can figure out an easy solution to the exhaust, and running it like on the test stand. That way I can get some real world experience as far as getting it under loads and see if the break in is the issue. Yes Please guys with exp on these types of turbos (carbon seal) chime in. I have found some other old post from sites like Hybrid Z that would tend to agree with the carbon seat very tight turbo, but I am not a member there and the post are often quite old, still seems that was the deal.

I am kind of leaning toward bagging the idea of running the turbo with the stock efi, just too much to go wrong there. this leaves me with 2 options. just get a COTS efi that can support a turbo with modern sensors OR delve into the OE turbo EFI stuff (which i got with the engine) and try to hook it all up. Its in pieces so it will take some work to figure out, and hope its all there, will not know for sure until I do some research. Either way I think I will build a new engine test stand. I really like having the NA stand as its very easy to setup a engine on it, building the stand it not that hard and does not take up any more room than engine stand used for tear down. I am kinda running out of steam on the project, as cooler temps approach and more outside temptations present. Cycling in Florida gets real nice in the coming months, and I have to think about my hiking and road trip plans. I may try for my east coast road trip soon before winter sets in.

will shoot a video of the naked turbine soon it will spin on its own once you get a bit over idle, just not fast enough to generate any real airflow from the compressor side.

I have a narrow band O2 that I was monitoring with a voltmeter, I was adjusting the temp sensor to try and keep the voltage right around .5v do not have an EGT gauge, did not know about that will look and see what I can find.