Dr. Marus or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the RB26DETT

[MarusGTR]

i learned a long time ago that te only way to get the exact fastners you want quickly (next day delivery) is to go with McMasterCarr, but i think they only ship to businesses now, but thats a small hurdle imo http://www.mcmaster.com/# these guys have it all, almost

Yeah, I can confirm that McMaster doesn't sell to residential adresses. I tried contacting them directly for an order but they weren't able to help me.

Spaenaur is also another good option. We use them all the time for fasteners/ hardware that we don't vender manage.

A bit far from me, wouldn't you say? Also the problem with these suppliers is that you need to buy in bulk.

Although, we'll see a bit later that I found a solution with Fastenal; they had just recently (to my surprise and relief) enabled by-unit purchases through their retailers on select fasteners, for the rarer ones. You drop by a retailer with a number from their database and they order what you need in the amount you want. Free shipping.

aaahh. One day Marc you'll look back on all of this and think "those were the days". Good job man. Keep it up because nothing worth doing is ever easy.

Thanks Rob, that means a lot. Sadly though, there's a good chance it won't happen soon... I'm on the verge of choosing a PhD. I'm in discussion with two universities right now. Nuclear at one place or sustainable energy at the other (lol). I can't even choose what I want, it's pick your poison and live another 4-5 years on bread and milk. It's just gut wrenching to think about it. I was really hoping to find a job and start living.

But you can be sure that if someday I make it, I'll have my own garage with ample supplies of shiny industrial fasteners and hardware, right at the fingertips.

[R33-East]

I admire your dedication, keep up the hard work!

[MarusGTR]

2013 - Pick me up; sprucing things up (Part 3)

So on my short run I had picked a few short M6 bolts and nylock nuts.

It would have to hold for the time being, as I started looking on the internet again for more appropriate fasteners. I'd find myself often on the Fastenal site, where I was dissapointed to see that they did sell by the unit, but only to retail. So I called my local Fastenal retailer to figure if there was a way for me to get access to the hardware, where they happily told me that they could make special orders as per the website database. If I saw it on the site, I could order it.

Me gusta.

So I went ahead and went with slim black oxide nuts to hold the QR, and yellow zinc plated hardware to hold the wheel to the QR. I wanted all black, but it would be the next best thing. But for now, it was time to get my new steering setup assembled with the off-the counter hardware. One issue I had to deal with beforehand; I wouldn't be able to use a conventional horn button with the QR. I had, again, figured the solution early, although the implementation was going to be by the seat of my pants.

First and foremost. Locating the horn wire. From what I gathered, the horn button was running on a signal wire connected to a relay which took the brunt of the amperage load. So I bought a 1$ low amp button on ebay and I was looking to relocate the horn by completing the circuit with it in a remote location. Where and how, that was going to be figured out as I went along.

Naturally, part of the dash and the steering surround had to be removed:



One thing that bugged me, is that I would have preferred to relocate the horn on the steering surround; that way, being a smaller piece of plastic, it could be easily replaced if I want to go back totally OEM (which I doubt will be the case). That made for a problem; I'd have one of the pieces permanently tethered to the chunk of plastic, not exactly fun if I'd ever need to go around that spot again. That is, until I realized where this connector went to:



The connector pictured here was simply lighting one small LED that would light up the key fob. Huh. No wonder I hadn't accounted for that wiring, the LED was burnt. This gave me an idea.



I could simply cut the power for the LED right before the male connector, isolate the freshly cut leads, and use the rest of the connector to complete the horn circuit. The ground of the male connector would be grounded to the body. I couldn't find where the LED was powered from or how much voltage the horn relay signal used, so I preferred to make a new ground instead of using the LED's dedicated ground.

This way, the LED would be removed and the whole female part of the connector would be soldered on to the button. I'd simply need to disconnect the horn button when removing the cover. Absolutely perfect!



With the button now soldered, I went to the clockspring. I wanted to find which terminal had the horn.



As you can see on this picture, I noticed (and subsequently clipped) the far left terminal, as I was able to sound the horn by shorting it. Its worth noting that the wire was found after I played trial and error with the harness as per recommended on some 240sx forums... regretted that decision, since it required cutting through some insulation. Also it didn't help that the wire I was looking for was in reality yellow when I had been looking for an orange one (you can see some of those candidates in the background, the orange and the striped orange).

I think my way of just grounding the clockspring terminal to check my suspicion was more straightforward. What else could it have been? No clue what the other empty terminals were for though.

So now it was just a case of pulling the wire back to the bottom of the column and completing the circuit. I found that in this spot, the button wouldn't be interfering with the wiring or the rest of the column:





With the column back together I proceeded to think about my shifter knob. The short throw's now thicker solid shaft was great, but the ball knob wasn't feeling that great in my hand [I am aware of the double entendre]. That was because I had made the shaft longer and the throw had been reduced, so the shifting pattern was totally not fitting for a ball knob. Ironically, this meant I was in the opposite state of mind to back in 2011, where I had thought my original nismo knob wasn't quite right.

So it was time for a change.

The threaded part of the shifter had been machined a bit skewed from the axis; I wasn't going to be able to use the nismo knob. Since the nismo knob was so worn, I figured I could never sell it, might as well modify it to my needs. I had noticed that (coincidentally) the shifter's diameter was a hair off the inner diameter of the nismo knob. So I gutted it and bored the inside of the knob with a rock bit on my powerdrill. It was going to be permanent that's for sure, because it was going to need to be hammered on. Can't be more fitted than that.

I was surprised by the turnout, it felt damn right for sure. It was rough, but that could be fixed later.

Now I turned my attention to the wheel. Like I had said, it had a bit of grime, but it had been stamped in 2005, so it was relatively new. I washed the suede with handsoap and used goo gone to remove traces of glue from the wheel's face. It seems to me that the previous owner had an attachment to his Suzuka sticker, since he had secured it with transparent tape. I'd like to think that maybe this wheel saw some Suzuka asphalt in its day.



So the interior now looked like this. Not bad, but it would need some more work. At least it was drivable.

[kyledude351]

This thread is great! I'm very inspired to tidy up my GTR now!
Can't wait to see what's next.
Gonna get my thread started soon.

[MarusGTR]

2013 - Pick me up; sprucing things up (Part 4)

So now, about that additional work.

No not paint, not quite yet. I wanted to paint everything at the same time.

That's because as you may remember, I had also purchased a new grip skin for my handbrake from Kunio at GTRGARAGE. You may have had noticed that I had also been running the handbrake lever without a skirt for quite a while. I wanted to change that. Now, what I wanted to do was clean and lean up the area; the rubber grip is glued on and actually extends all the way back to the lever and without the skirt, it looks like sagging cellulite. So I wondered what it looked like under there. So I google searched for naked R32-R33 handbrake levers to see what I was dealing with. A bit strange to say yes but I eventually found what I was looking for.

So I evaluated my options, and given my skills this was the best I could come up with.

That's all nice and peachy but when I tried to remove the lever the guiding peg that aligned its direction wouldn't move. It had expanded in its hole. I swear I pried like a mother on it, actually broke a screwdrive doing it too. I finally resolved in drilling the peg out and managed to get it off.

So, first I'd carefully cut the excess rubber sag with a knife:



Then smoothen the newly exposed rubber:



Okay, we were going places. Now, this left a big ugly bucktooth gap at the bottom end of the lever, being that it was made from riveting two ends of one moulded piece of sheetmetal. So I figured I could make it look a bit more proper (and considerably more solid) by filling the gap like so with aluminium. Oh right, I also sandblasted the plating again to make a proper surface for paint, yes paint.





The plating was roughly cut to dimentions and then body hammered to shape. The final outline would be easier to do by following the creases.



IS IT TIME FOR PAINT NOW? NO.

So why did I have aluminium plating in the first place? Well I had bought some used ZZ pedal covers from a GTRC member and I was hoping to do something nice with them. Or more specifically, the gas pedal, because I prefer smaller clutch and brake pedals. I was looking to increase the gas pedal's area and length, so that I'd catch it more easily with my heel. While I thought the function over form would look nice, I didn't like the 'speedholes'.

The following pictures are for posterity's sake. These would have made my life easier. Instead I had to use my phone to take pictures of the backs so that I could figure out how to remove the pedal.







Basically you unclip the top towards the driver door and slide it out from the bottom pivot, again towards the driver's door. The reason why I took it off was to get the most solid setup I could out of the 4 clamps. It sounds easy but it wasn't. I actually came to the conclusion that the bottom left corner clamp was absolutely useless and would hook on my heel, so I needed to make a 5th hole which would properly secure the overlay in place. So now:







At this point the pedal was actually grinded to make the ends a bit rounder. This was also the time to make the holes in the plating and to drill the 5th hole. In hindsight I should have chamfered the opening of the 5th hole, before the next step, which was to punch the sheetmetal to chamfer the said holes.





Now that's slick.

And yes now it was time for paint. I threw in my Cusco brake master stopper and my strutbar ends in the mix, as the paint was peeling. The cause had been poor prepping on my part, so they were sanded as much as I could (pretty impressive that still some of the paint effectively had cured to the surface, I was unable to remove it all.)



And the pièce of résistance, the completed handbrake lever with the suede skin:





There was still much left to do though.

[MarusGTR]

2013 - Creative sidenote

With the interior now functional (but incomplete) I was faced with a dire crisis: what should I do with the rest of the aluminium sheetmetal?

Buy another sheet.

Doesn't make sense? I agree, it doesn't. But over here, I only had access to one supply of aluminium sheetmetal (all my auto shops carried the same sheets) and it was thin. Like, pliable with one hand thin. So, the reason why I bought another sheet was to see if I could pull off another idea.

If you've been around the forum you may have come across my interest in a cold box for my RB26's intakes, or at least a heatshield to cut the hot air and radiation from the turbo area. With the sheetmetal in hand I wanted to see if I had the savoir-faire to design something functional and to my liking. So because I only had very thin metal, why not laminate two of the sheets together?

Though, I am again getting ahead of myself. Of course, the intakes had to be taken out so that I could better see the available space. I also took the washer tank out. It was an eyesore, I don't drive in mud, and it had been empty for the past 3 years.

*chuck*



Obviously I had set myself a few objectives with the plate design.

-It should be functional (that's a given), that is, it should effectively encase the intakes or at least block most of the turbos radiating heat and/or hot air intake.*
-It should give ample access to key maintenance areas, such as the HKS IC pipe and the bottom turbo's MAF worm clamp.
-It shouldn't interfere with tool vectoring (I was accounting for the direction in which I'd use tools/extensions around the plate to reach fasteners).

*Actually if any of you experienced race car builders out there are reading this, is there any actual chance for turbulent hot air from the turbos to get sucked by the intakes?



So since I only had a "single" sheet and a table vice to work with, I came up with a simple design using cardboard mockup. It was going to be bolted in between the rear MAF and its intake and close the space between the IC pipe and the shocktower, straddling the recirculation piping.

So, it obeyed the first and second objectives.

But its position would have disobeyed my third objective by blocking the front MAF's clamp. So the blue tape on the mockup was used as a hinge to tweak the angle of the plating. It would also enable me to graft different shapes to that corner and see what fit best without damaging the rest of the mockup. The blue tape on the prototype was so that I wouldn't scratch the paint in the engine bay by knocking it around and checking for inteference with the recirculation piping.



Oh yeah, I forgot. So how did I laminate the plates?

*cough* glue *cough*

Super strong stuff though, said on the bottle it could be used to stick greased items. Was used (and often stolen) at the mine where my dad worked. He was able to get a box of it from the inventory (legally) when the mine closed that summer.

So halfway there. In this step I was trying to find the neutral position of the MAF and outline it's body when the intake would be bolted in securely. Ended up as a slight dissapointment with the angular corner with the tower. Also turns out that my eyeballing was a bit off and the plate would have been shaffing on the PS reservoir. So it would require a final adjustment anyway.





I'd also make sure to have the hole section totally planar. I box sanded it, just to be safe. Any irregularities would be sealed by the MAF's O ring and on the intake side by my custom gasket, made from a sheet of fel-pro intake manifold gasket material.



And with this setup:



I was able to do the following:



Not too shabby.

[frankiman]

pretty nice setup, i think the idea to sandwhich the plate between the MAF and the air filter is impressive, it really seals the air and radiation from the turbos

but honestly i dont think you needed to double-ply your aluminum sheet, a paper thin sheet of aluminium could have done the job perfectly, it only blocks heat transfer thru radiation and convection, not conduction

i did something similar this summer, but my idea was to isolate the intake filters from the rest of the engine bay, mostly to keep hot air out since most of the radiation from the turbos is isolated lower and the radiation from the exhaust manifolds is already blocked by the stock heat shields

i used 1/32" aluminium and made 2 seperate pieces that would be absolutely easy to remove





one piece screws into a hole originally made for the charcoal canister, the other screws to the PS reservoir's mount and goes all the way under the top MAF, and i used rubber edge trim all round to avoid scratching parts,

the cool thing is that i ajusted the height so that the hood closes against the sheild to better seal the area,
and i used gloss epoxy paint since it reflects more heat radiation than a matte surface


p.s. I just realized we have the exact same intercooler hardpipe and intake kit,

[rob_96]

Should u not but them after the Maf, this would reduce the amount of heat on the MAF as well as the air filters ?

[bobbo]

Wouldn't make any difference. Minute detail. I'm holding out for an ARC air box.

[MarusGTR]

Blocking off the whole area like Franki's so that the exhaust-side and firewall can be air-cooled, is a better idea, yes. But I didn't know if the intake piping is fed enough air from the little box intake under the passenger light, so I conceided in making it more as a shield to block off excessive heat from the turbo side (and I found that it was actually noticibly cooler to the touch on the intake-side of the plate than the hot-to-the-touch exhaust side of the plate). But this brought a flaw in its simplicity; less cooling/venting for the turbos. Although, I did partially account for it. You may notice that there is a little flap on the big inward bend, the one that goes under the IC pipe; the flap blocks air from hot turbo-side air coming out to the intakes but lets air in.

For the double plating, it actually wasn't for the sake of cutting conduction. I thought the additional stiffness was necessary so that I could properly control my bends without warping the planes, make the lines straight and sharp in addition to making it structurally sound after installation. Also with some added thickness I was able to smooth out all the edges and with the paint it really looks like a proper big production item, it looks like it belongs in the engine bay. With one sheet just sanding it by hand it would have lost its shape, the grinder would have simply mauled it.

Also I think one plate by itself, painted, would have chipped off from wobbling/vibrating at high speeds.

I'm sure I could have made a better design with more than a 30$ budget. I had actually started with another design idea, a fully functional three-piece box design for the apex'i intakes that could be easily dissasembled at the track, but it would have required some proper CNCing and industrial bending. But if I'd go ever go that far, I'd be better off designing my own intake -box- from scratch and use a rectangular apex'i filter. Simpler and more efficient (I think?).

[bobbo]

Also I think one plate by itself, painted, would have chipped off from wobbling/vibrating at high speeds.

I've seen you drive. It's safe

[MarusGTR]

I've seen you drive. It's safe

Shots fired SHOTS FIRED!

For those of you, including our resident nautical chrome-dome here, who forgot about the issues I've raised on AMS control arms we'll soon see that I found some surprises that showed I was right for bleeding off so much speed for the corners. At least going slow I kept the car in one piece, not in pieces.

BTW, put your money where your mouth is and give me your car for a spin around the track sometimes (seriously I'd love to gauge it). If I'm so slow, there'd be nothing to worry about, right?

I had actually tried early in 2013 to figure out with 240sxcollector how we could lease a whole vacant parking lot or the old airfield used by MMSC to for a day during the summer, to do a custom skidpad and see the car's limits. Obviously, it didn't happen. I had expected to have some sort of income by then.

PS: I've said before, one day I'll take you up on a race. But this time, its for money. Lets say for the value of a used set of coilpacks and a couple sets of spark plugs? Those BKRs made a shitshow with my ignition btw . Give me a few years and I'll get back to you.

[bobbo]

"Over reaction stations-Over reaction stations"
I'm just picking on you Marc. Hence the winky face. I would never sincerely comment on someone's speed on a track or anywhere else for that matter. Unless it was a Porsche owner. They never seem to be able to drive.
If I'm to be completely honest it doesn't appear to be your driving or HP with your car. I'd take that bet you want to make and put it on your spring rate being too high for that track. It's very common for Japanese a/m suspension to have high rates. Their tracks a very flat and smooth. AMP is a logging trail in comparison.

[MarusGTR]

Hahaha oh I knew it was a joke, hence why I took a jab back (actually, I had ment to put a smiley in there). Hey, tts the only thing I can do to save face right now, honestly I don't even know if I can drive truly fast since I purposely do not.

You're absolutely spot on about the logging trail analogy, the inconsistent loading in those corners just psyched me out, I didn't want to break anything. You also might be on to something with the spring rate, again it would be great to compare with your car. Although, I think my car with ZEALs is softer than when you tried it at the HPDS, as it had the old KYB shocks. I dip the car around 5mm on the driver side when I'm in it. That makes me think about damping rate too... too much bound would make the car jittery in inconsistent loading.

[bobbo]

If your ever back this way we could take your car to my buddy Steve. For $100 he'll corner balance your car and give it a basic set up.
He sets up suspensions for a Porsche Cup team. He's got skills.
... and yes. I'd be happy to take you out for a lapping session so you can compare.
BTW your build thread is way more interesting than mine. So much passion!