This season's plans were to focus on making the 510 more friendly to daily duties. Throughout the spring I focused on a lot of little to-do things that didn't impact the ability to drive, but added up to impact the driveability.
Brakes were upgraded to stainless lines front and rear along with a booster. WOW! Massive change and just like that it's now one of the best attibutes to my car.
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I've added helper springs to the front coilovers and am still tinkering with the steering - which has yet to get an alignment and front sway so the feel is sub-par.
For the engine, I've gone ahead and bit the bullet on a Megasquirt PnP unit from DIYAuto. First off, it's a brilliant bit of tech, that worked exactly as promised for littler setup time. Idle quality improved instantly and that's with little tuning.
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Probably the biggest time investment for the PnP swap was in assembling the 26 pin connector. Frankly I don't know why it wasn't assembled in advance, but it was still fun to go through the process and learn of the optional features (W02 and GM IAT inputs in my case)
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To run this PnP, simply swap with the OEM ECU, open TunerStudio (which, as a formed GUI designer, is quite well laid out) and set Timing to 'fixed' instead of referencing the supplied default KA24e maps. Run a vacuum source from the intake manifold to the MAP nipple on the PnP unit and you're done! The car fired right up, I used a timing light to match Tunerstudio/PnP to actual timing and that was it! Set Tunerstudio timing back to table reference and you're ready to start tuning, that simple.
I'm running an iterative approach for the aftermarket ECU implementation:
- Install PnP and get it running
- Plumb in my Innovate wide band 02 sensor to 'auto-tune' (Tune Analyze Live) the supplied default maps
- Swap to the DIYAuto supplied Nissan timing trigger wheel, tune as required.
- Swap to an improved GM Intake Air Temperature (IAT) sensor, tune as required.
- Swap to LS coil, tune as required.
- 2021: T28BB turbo install, tune as required.
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I got as far as step 3 & 4 when some issues appeared. The DIYAutoTune Nissan Trigger wheel allows for more precise timing and future sequential injector & coil timing. Unfortunately the required 54mm replacement wheel wasn't shipped and, somewhat stupidly on my part, I didn't measure in advance and installed the wrong 50mm wheel (KA24de).
Stock wheel:
- OEM_Wheel_3.jpg (122.11 KiB) Viewed 3675 times
Wrong DIYAutoTune wheel (KA24de):
- DIY_Wheel_2.jpg (149.46 KiB) Viewed 3675 times
Naturally, the car didn't start. Thinking it was because the wiring got pulled/kinked when cleaning things up, I reverted back to the stock wheel. The car ran ok, at first. After 10 minutes the KA would begin to misfire.
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Turns out when I ran the wrong trigger wheel, it was also missing hole cutouts to allow the trigger wheel to properly seat onto the rotating distributor shaft. This caused the wheel to touch the distributor's optical reading light and likely damage it. You can clearly see the scrape marks on the DIY wheel and the OEM wheel. It might seem weird why the damage was so extensive but the DIY wheel is 6 times thicker than stock (.6mm vs .1mm) so there's less room for error.
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Thankfully I had a spare KAe distributor and replacement stock trigger wheel and reader allowed the PnP to work perfectly once again. I've since ordered the proper DIYAutowheel and will ensure the hole cut-outs are in place before attempting once again.
What that solved, I still had two more issues to address:
The first is the on-going hydraulic valve lifters issue. I've been struggling with this for years and it's one of the biggest flaws to the KA24e design IMO. Despite being relatively new (~7000km) they're still EXTREMELY sensitive to oil used, and sitting for too long w/o running. Somewhat stupidly I forgot about this and changed oil to 10w30 Mobile 1 Synthetic. Almost instantly the lifters ticked and power dropped. I've picked up a bottle of Valve Medic and Rotella 15w40 T4 diesel oil which did the trick last time. Once issue #2 is addressed below, I'll see if I can quiet the engine down.
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The second issue has been the alternator. I heard a few belt-like squeals this spring despite the belt being sufficiently tight. It was likely a final call for help because the battery has since died a couple of times and testing has showed that the alternator is not charging. I'm suspicious of the shop which refurbished the stock alternator ~5 years ago because the refurbished starter had several issues before finally being fixed. Having said that, I'm also wondering if the extra electrical load from the electric fans, MS PnP, and the electric power steering have put too much demand on the stock ~70A alternator.
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I've since pulled the trigger for a 125A 2000 Nissan Quest alternator from RockAuto. Apparently it's fairly a straightforward swap and should fix my issues once and for all.
After this weekend I'll hopefully have the engine stable enough to focus on the steering. I desperately need an alignment, then I can address the challenge of a front sway bar to clear the front-sump and JB Coachworks cross member. I find my 510 looses a lot of that initial steering response when there's no sway bar. I know Icehouse is working on a solution, and I found a 3/4" solid bar DIY kit which could work but I'm not sure if it's enough stiffness to meet my handling goals.
The alignment and sway bar should give me a better baseline for testing my electric power steering with the JB setup. The JB version of the steering kit has necessitated an extra bearing support and double U-Joint along the steering shaft. This is a big enough change that I want to test the setup thoroughly before giving it the OK for production. I can say that the assist has helped a ton. When my alternator was dead I ran the car for a bit w/o assist and I was shocked at the effort required LOL. It's easy to get spoiled and adjust perceptions.