Murph

Very interesting! Thanks Richard.

Hey nick. Just wondering what the weight is (roughly)?

Agreed. It looks fantastic!

Wow! That's more rain than we get in most years up here. Hope it isn't raining when I'm down that way in august.

Thanks Nacks. Might look into that in the future when my budget permits.

Your quite right, the skyline stuff is cheap as chips here. Especially the RB20 computers. You wouldn't have any trouble picking one up for well under AU$200 (~US$150), if not for a carton of beer or even free.

Hmmm I remember a mate made some back at school and ended up setting a garden bed on fire. I'm sure I have the recipe here somewhere. *looking*

You actually can do all that with the stock ECU, BUT it's not going to be as user friendly as the mega squirt and you need the right gear to do the job. What you'd do is use a RB20 ECU as it's easily programable, where as the 25 ECU isn't. You then use the stock RB25 maps (readily available) and you'd have it up and running very nicely straight away, still have perfect cold start, economy, closed loop etc without having to do any tuning. There's a few really good things with the stock ECU too, eg if it detects pinging it will drop back to the low octane ign and fuel maps, which we'll usually set to mimic the high octane maps, but with about 3 deg ign timing pulled out. Works a charm. There's a million other things the stock ECU will do that most aftermarket units can't. It isn't too hard to run multiple tunes on the one chip either. On the mates old RB20 powered skyline we had four different setups. We've been using this system on another mates modified RB20 powered R32 skyline now for sometime, tuned only by us (using a WB O2 sensor). The RB20 ECU has no trouble controling the 550cc injectors, using the Z32 AFM, big turbo etc etc and spat out 225rwkw on 17psi. It's now reliably running 22psi or so. Don't see too many turning that sorta power on a factory ecu do ya! But yeah, at the end of the day, that's useless if you don't have access to the gear needed to do it, and don't know someone that understands the software. It wouldn't have your advatage of being able to use cheaper parts either. I say good on ya for having a crack at it yourself! There's a lot of people over here in australia using the megasquirt and love it. It's certainly a good feeling when you get it all working right, isn't it!

toletero: Just curious as to why you chose to go with the megasquirt over a stock RB25 ECU, on what (seems to be) a stock engine? Cool project though! That'd be a total hoot to drive.

Despite hearing that most people are happy with them, I've been quite unhappy with my KYBs. They're harsh over small bumps yet blow through their travel over large ones. The konis (or tokicos) would be well worth the extra $.

Wow! Love the bluebird! If that was anywhere remotely close here, I would have hit that buy it now button already! That's a pretty cheap price for a good nick 410.

I'm another one keeping an eye out for tires for 14x7 rims. I'm currently running 225/60-14 Yokahama A509s. Great tire, but unfortunatly when I bought them about a year and a half ago they'd just gone out of production....good luck finding them now. Back then I think I found one other tire in a 225/60-14, a falken IIRC. It was pretty dear though. Also, I do remember there were a decent few choices in 215/65-14 back then.

? Wouldn't it be the same thing really? At higher revs you have more power at WOT and more engine braking off the throttle = better control over the cars attitude with the right foot? Also, a smaller change in throttle position will have a larger change in power output than at lower revs = better responsivness. Is that what you mean?

Yeah of course, makes sense....I should have known that. :nervous: From memory, I'm getting ~ 5V to the coil with the balast resistor, so I'll give it a crack with the resistor bypassed....see how I go.

gramercyjam: Wouldn't that simply be because you have more power 'on tap' so to speak, in the higher gear, than in the lower gear? If you had an engine with double the capacity, making the same power at half the revs (everything else being equal) it'd behave much the same around the corner at that lower rev point.

Hmm interesting. 1. Might give that a try. I know I have a pretty large voltage drop between the alternator/battery and the coil (and the alternator is pretty shagged), so I might get that sorted first. Low voltage = high current, so keeping the ballast resistor for current limiting might not be a bad thing. 2. Phasing could be an issue. I have to turn the dizzy pretty much to one extreme to get the timing down into the sub 10 region. I had trouble simply finding a good position for the optical sensor as that offset "screw/cam" that you used to adjust the points gap is in the road. Maybe I'll have to pull that out.

Hey, can everyone that's posted a vid/sound give us a quick run down on engine and exhaust specs. I think it'll be quite interesting to see how the difference in sound relates to the different setups.

That's what I do (no vac adv) on the A12 in my sunny.....runs a million times better without it. Mind you, from the factory it wont allow any vac advance unless the engine is up to temperature and you're in 4th gear. It still doesn't explain why the zed is running like a dog at WOT, with the base timing at 10 degrees? I think I might have to pull the dizzy down and give it a really good clean up, check that everything moves freely etc. On the topic of pinging, I've never heard the sunny or the zed do it, ever. If the timing is over advanced they just lose power. Maybe my ears just aren't well tuned to it on these engines; although I do hear it find on my mates various turbo imports.

DIY....yeah I recon you can do it. Do remember things like suspension and brakes will also need to be done. I'd be weary of a 4k zed though...unless you're very lucky it'll end up costing you more than buying one that someone has already done.

Arrrhhh! I hate that car at times! I went to change the timing from 7 -> 10 degrees today, chuck the timing light on.....15 degrees!? So...I figure I just knocked the dizzy when undoing the locking bolt. Put the timing back to 10....feels dead.....put timing back to 7, feels really dead. Like it didn't want to rev over 4k sorta dead. Put it back upto 15, feels sorta like it did before. What the hell is going on?! What can cause this? Maybe the vac advance mechanism is binding and isn't able to fully return? I checked and it is still working btw.

Mr. Parrot.

Good good!

Timing was last set by my mechanic, to what he said was stock....I assume 10. When I first installed the XR700 I didn't have the timing light at my place....so i set it to what sounded fairly retarded then drove it to my mates place. It felt down on power on this drive. Turned out it was at around 15º! I change the vac advance back to where it should be, seems to run fine. Timing it still sitting at 7º. I'll change that back to 10º later in the week.