Refreshing The Intake

[rossiz]

the z is parked while i wait for a replacement head, so i figured it's a good time to tackle the intake.

the egr had rotted out, so i hacked off the bad parts and ground it flat to take a blank off plate underneath. then the whole thing went into the vice and i went beast on it with the sawzall, hacksaw, die grinder, scotchbrite, steel wool and buffing wheel. webs gone, vestigial bosses ground off, lookin' good.

i've been thinking about a pallnet fuel rail for a while, but i decided to take a page from blue's book and modify the oem. hacked it apart, re-routed the flow and plugged the end - really cleaned it up. it's not super fancy, but i like it better than the trumpet...

ordered a new set of injectors and seals, which should come in next week. cleaned up the injector clamps and spent some time making things look a little nicer.

nasty, rotted egr before blank-off

sst wire brush on the drill to clean the runners out

this is the crap that poured out after the brushing

gettin' a shine on!

injector clamps before cleaning

fresh!

fuel rail cut up

re-configured as a straight rail

Edited June 22, 2014 by rossiz

[madkaw]

Nice job- that will make a big difference in the way the engine looks

[HuD 91gt]

Wow, Looks great. Mind listing a little more detail on the polishing job?

[siteunseen]

Bigger exhaust and intake bolts, I put big ones on each end and 2 in the middle. Now I wish I had done them all, it's a lot sturdier. I think Rebello puts the bigger ones on their re-builds from the pictures I've seen. If you want the part #s I have them, kind of hard to see on the receipt.

New plug in connectors and clips for the fuel injectors, a guy on e-bay has a kit for 6 injectors, CSV and the coolant temp sender with the heat shrink included.

Hex head hold down screws for the injectors, also have that part number in my file.

[rossiz]

Bigger exhaust and intake bolts...

when you say "bigger" do you mean drilling out the block and tapping for a larger bolt and/or stud?

i've already replaced all the connectors & clips, will probably do a little clean-up of the harness on the install though.

[siteunseen]

Not the block, the cylinder head. It's aluminium and easy to do, 10x1.25 to 12x1.25 threads. At least you could do the 1st and the last one, they'll be wallerd out anyway. It sure feels better clamping down on those MSA headers. Those stud kits you get with it are Chinese junk, they'll rust over in no time.

[rossiz]

right - head... duh.

good idea, i already ordered the stud kit, but i suppose i could just get some SST studs.

will i need to drill out the header and intake manifold for clearance? and what about the big washers that share the load between the two - just get some bigass SST washers to fit the new studs?

[siteunseen]

No, you have to use those same doughnut washers that cover both intakes. The header holes are big enough too. I got the stud kit when I got the 6to1 ceramic header too. When I was playing with them I noticed that they would spin up & down without any effort. That made me think they'd come loose just as easy? So I got into this whole out of round nut locking nut thing. I went to my Nissan parts manager and he said to not use the ones that spin down. Get specific exhaust stud nuts, out of round is what he called them. Once you tighten them down they won't back off, no lock washers needed as they cause an uneven torque. I decided to get the big ones and tap out the holes. I only did 4, I wish I had done them all. Hindsight! Ask Phillip's opinion, I tend to over do it myself.

[rossiz]

getting closer...

all new injectors (thanks Zed!), o-rings, hoses, clamps are in, throttle-body and linkage cleaned up, just waiting for the exhaust header to arrive so i can put her all back together.

at HuD 91gt: sorry, just noticed your post - the polish job is really just about time and elbow grease. i cut out the webbing with a combination of sawzall, hack saw, die grinder and hand file, same with the vestigial tabs for the egr. then it was much time with small sanding disks on the die grinder (scotch brite of various grits) and some hand sanding and steel wool, then a little bit of clean-up with a buffing wheel. it's far from perfect, wouldn't really call it a polish, more of a bright cleaning. you can spend forever getting it mirror-beautiful, but my car is a DD, not a concours specimen. i was just going for the "nice!" effect vs. "wow!!"...

Edited July 9, 2014 by rossiz

[Zed Head]

I see that you're using a "straight-shot" modified fuel rail. It's possible that you might have fuel pressure pulsing issues, or pressure degradation at the last few injectors. I think that's why Nissan fed the injectors from both sides and installed a damper in the back.

I've read that the large volume of more modern rails helps counteract those problems. It will be interesting to see if you have heat soak problems with the smaller rail volume, but with headers. Hope you don't but the set of parts is interesting since nobody has that combination.

p.s. I assume that you found one more injector to go with the eBay set?

[S30Driver]

How did the weld on the intake work out, and what was the cost? Just curious because I probably would have just sourced another N47 intake that was undamaged, the non egr ones are probably getting hard to find.

Can't wait for the first fire up with new head! Best of luck ....

[rossiz]

yes - found another injector, oddly it cost almost as much for the last one as the whole first set! still a bargain though.

the fuel rail is an experiment, may wind up building a higher volume rail later, but wanted to give it a try and see how it works - cost was nothing but a little time, so why not?

we'll see how this odd combination of parts fares with the hot-start issue...