mattdavies Posted November 21, 2022 Share Posted November 21, 2022 The progress on this is good. What will you not run through the PDM if I/O are limited ? Lights, Wipers etc ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted November 21, 2022 Author Share Posted November 21, 2022 Only lights controlled via PDM is the brake lights as I dont have a traditional brake light switch on the pedal anymore. Will use brake pressure threshold to activate an output on PDM that will join the factory loom like a brake light switch and feed power to rear brake lights that way. Otherwise stuff like Wipers, Power to interior looms, Interior loom, steering stalks, ignition switch & dash switches, illumination etc will all be factory still (will all be replaced or removed eventually) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WayneW Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 Crazy man you are ! This article (like your older one) clearly makes me wanting to keep an eye on the website, thanks Keep the good work man ! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 3, 2022 Author Share Posted December 3, 2022 (edited) Supra has been at RRS for a week now and james & kane have been making some good progress It turns out me eyeing a set of pedals and thinking yeah that will probably fit was off the mark by a few inches, measure twice cut once and all that. With the constrains of the cage and the pedalbox position, the seat had to be moved lower, further back and closer to the trans tunnel, and the firewall needed a small extension built into it to allow the pedals to be mounted further back. Luckily james is similar in size to me, so he was able to place and fabricate all components in a location that suited him well, which ended up working perfectly for me. Next the firewall inserts were welded into place Fast forward a week and I joined the party at RRS for a couple of days. Pretending to be useful with some of the prep work on the car and allowing James to dial in the position of a few bits with me in the car. Steering column was mounted slightly too far to the right by the cage builders, so James on his favourite tool cutting the column out. Then welding it back into place after aligning it with me in the driverseat. Speaking of the driverseat, changed from my corbeau to an OMP 400R after an evening of comparing dimensions between lots of available seats and opting for these as they seemed to be the best fit for myself and the available space in the cabin. Specced something right for once and seat fits lovely for me & very comfortable to sit in. With the seat, pedals and column in place the final piece of the puzzle was getting the new 6 point harnesses installed. Heres me sitting pretty whilst James contorts himself around the bars to get the straps mounted and tight. With the new seat setup I have tons of room between me and any part of the cage even with the padding, helmet and hans deviced installed, so once strapped in should be adequately safe. Here you can see the new framework and fabrication for the driverside. Opted to leave passngerside on the stock setup as there is more room that side so can use normal mounts and probably wont have a passenger seat installed most of the time, so not high on the priority list. With the main interior parts done for now, the rest of the panels and parts still on the car were removed in order to start prepartion for upcoming paintjob. Next we moved to the paint booth to finish few last jobs and start prepping Master painter kane was feeling the love at all my previous layers of engine bay paint jobs as he started prepping for the next round of paint. Should probably bare metal it at some point, but maybe on the next refresh. After a day of preparation we were left with Engine bay prep is nearly finished. Had some 5'' holes cut out for the incoming intercooler & air inlet setup. Still some more work to do on them before they are completely ready, but end is in sight. Also added some AN8 Bulkhead coolant fittings into firewall in stock location so can pass coolant through to new heater core. I did a thing and started cleaning the interior of remaining sound deadening, bitchumen and anything else that was not required. After a few too many beers the night before I was feeling the burn today, but felt like a new man after a few hours of moaning about the cold weather and cleaning up with some power tools. Got another day of prepartion and last minute jobs on the interior to go before its ready for its paint, so more soon! Edited December 3, 2022 by Mike2JZ (see edit history) 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noz Posted December 3, 2022 Share Posted December 3, 2022 Fucking cool mate. No other words for it. Legendary cage work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 4, 2022 Author Share Posted December 4, 2022 Manged to squeeze in a few more hours of prep work on saturday with Kane before I had to head home. Kane sheeted up parts of the car that needed protection from the incoming paint job and I removed the rear panel in the boot so I could get some more clearance for fitting some components in the boot. Interior got its first pass with a sander and panelwipe to key up all the various panels and parts. Hopefully the next large update will be with the new paint in place, but the guys at RRS still have some more time to continue prepping and doing some last minute jobs before that can happen. Looking forward to the paint being done as I wont have to worry about the cage or interior rusting out over the coming months whilst I piece together the rest of the build. If all goes to plan then might be done by next weekend. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattdavies Posted December 5, 2022 Share Posted December 5, 2022 Looking good !! You are making some good progress on this at a good pace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evinX Posted December 5, 2022 Share Posted December 5, 2022 Insane work Mike! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 8, 2022 Author Share Posted December 8, 2022 After removing the head a few months ago I stripped the block down to inspect the state of the rotating assembly components shortly after. The engine didnt do a lot of miles but used to get the shit kicked out it and occasionally had around 900ft.lbs of torque going through it, so I was expecting some accelerated wear in places. Back when I built this engine, the machinist found some slight egging in the center main journals on the crank and wanted to sort this by undersizing the crank. Depending on who you speak to this is a nono with 2J cranks, but I was up for an experiment so he ground the main journals down and I've been running 0.25 oversize bearings since. I thought for sure after the abuse it had gone through I would see some sort of wear on the mains, but upon inspection they were still in great shape, so decided to run them again with the same bearings and continue to monitor how they get on. The rod bearings had some slight wear on the edges of the bearing, but nothing abnormal or anything to made me worried so decided to keep them again. So as everything is in good enough condition to reuse it will serve perfectly as my test mule whilst I gather some data once its up and running Specs are: Stock 3.0 Crank (0.25 Mains, STD Rods) Factory Main Caps with ARP Main Studs Manley Platinum Pistons 9:1 87mm Manley H-Tuff Rods Clevite Bearings OEM Oil Pump The aim of this shortblock is to support this next stage of development as best it can, getting abused mainly on the dyno and maybe a few events in the real world. I'm sure it will meet its demise at some point as the components arent exactly all that exotic so will be interesting to see where the breaking point is. Whilst the engine was in pieces I had to block sent to machinist just to give the bores the tiniest bore/hone possible, compared to the last bore finish we are going to try and very coarse finish on this to see what it looks like after seeing lots of E85, and if ring seal is any different with lots of boost relative to the last bore finish. Other than this rest of the block is going back together exactly how it was. I want to forget how many sets of core plugs I've changed on my engines over the years as I normally install a new set when building a new engine. Luckily PHR to the rescue with this with their stainless core plug kit. A bit pricey, but reusable so hopefully can transfer to any future blocks in future. Install/Removal is super simple with the threaded hole. Stuck them in the freezer for an hour to let them shrink slightly, then using a long M8 bolt, knocked each one into place on the block in seconds. Was done in a few minutes, awesome! Gave the block a clean and quick lick of paint and looks great with new core plugs Then installed the crank back into block Got pistons to go next and headwork at machinist was just finished, so might have a longblock ready to go by the end of the week. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 9, 2022 Author Share Posted December 9, 2022 RRS teasing me with more progress. Have had some slight damage to my front bumper frame support for many years. Luckily it was just cosmetic and I've always worked around it. Also had some bonnet pins installed in a weird location due to the bonnet I bought many years ago that I wasnt happy with, so after some gentle persuation by James it was decided to replace the whole thing whilst we were at it. New frame installed and now engine bay is primed ready for paint. I'm not really a christmas kind of guy, but these daily updates are as close to an advent calendar as I'm gonna get. Can't wait for the next day! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 9, 2022 Author Share Posted December 9, 2022 And we are white. Engine bay done. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supraleeturbo Posted December 9, 2022 Share Posted December 9, 2022 A nice bed time read this lol Looking good mate can’t wait to see this when it’s back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swampy442 Posted December 9, 2022 Share Posted December 9, 2022 Lovely work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pudsey Posted December 10, 2022 Share Posted December 10, 2022 What a great project thread, plenty of action going on here. Super impressive looking cage, prep work, and loving the excel spreadsheets for the wiring. Will look forward to following progress. Cool looking race decals on the helmet by the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noz Posted December 10, 2022 Share Posted December 10, 2022 Agree this is a great thread. Not the usual stuff we see on a build. Thanks for keeping us up to date with the build. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 11, 2022 Author Share Posted December 11, 2022 (edited) Thanks for the kind words fellas. Had a fairly productive weekend, but forgot my phone at home on saturday so missing lots of photos of the assembly of the longblock unfortunantely. Picked up from where I left off the other day and installed the pistons & rods back into the motor. Then installed my head and called it for the day. Starting today I got to install some new fancy parts which I've been looking forward to. First on the list was a new JUN cam pulley with ARP bolt There are argueably more modern and more secure cam pulleys on the market these days, but I can't get over how cool this pulley looks to me, so opted to get a fresh one in from Japan for the build. As I'm reusing my shortblock that originally came from an NA supra, the block is early style forging that was not provisioned for VVTi, so had to use one of these PHR adapters to allow me to install the factory vvti oil feed line. Had to bend the oil feed line slightly in places to reach this adapter and avoid the powersteering brace but fairly easy install otherwise. And la piece de resistance is this Plazmaman intake manifold This is specced for a 2JZGE, 12 Injectors on a single rail, nitrous burst plate & DBW throttle. Seemed a bit rude not to include the burst plate as I'll be dabbling a bit with nitrous on this setup. I only plan to run a dry shot pre throttle for spool aid/midrange torque, so the chance of a nitrous backfire is less than a full wet system, but for $100 it seemed like a good insurance just in case. Quite a cool piece I think. The quality of the machining and welding are certainly up there. The Plazmaman seems to be designed primarily for high power drag applications, so there are a few details in the way its been constructed which seem heavy duty. For example the runners are a single piece billet, the fuel rail has the beefiest mounts I've seen for a 2J. The rail itself has 3 AN12 Orifices that can be configured in multiple ways to supply/return fuel. The runner port size are larger than the factory head ports, and there are provisions under the runners for direct port nitrous should that be required. Probably a bit OTT for what I need, but I appreciate having something over-engineered. The idea of this was to have an intake that I realistically never have to change in future, and the setup can grow into what the inlet can support should it go that direction in future. The plenum can support multiple different style of throttles. I opted for a LS flange for a few reasons, compared to going with a bosch DBW which argueably are some of the best DBW's on the market. The LS flange can support both LS Cable & LS DBW throttles, so multipurpose in that respect. I don't see myself ever going back to a throttle cable, but nice to have it as a backup without having to weld on a different flange. In terms of DBW support with the LS flange there are a handful of OEM & aftermarket LS DBW throttles that have been used over the generations of LS motors, so plenty to pick from. However most of these are 10 years old + in terms of design. As mentioned, the Bosch DBW's are really prominent in the aftermarket for their reliability and ease of use, but I wanted to try something different that could hopefully match the standard of Bosch. So I started digging into what the modern day equivalent OEM's like GM are using for DBW. This lead me to the LT5 engine used in modern corvettes. Compared to the earlier LS DBW's that used a voltage divider on a wiper contact which can wear out over time. The LT5 DBW uses contactless inductive sensors to operate the throttle. Compared to the old throttles this is "state of the art" and is rated "for life" operation. So on paper the LT5 unit should be better in every way. Interestingly, the LT5 throttle does not use analog inputs for the TPS1a/TPS1b tracking. Instead it uses a digital signal communicating over the SENT protocol to send data regarding throttle position. Luckily the Motec ECU supports this so should be able to make this throttle work. Another thing that interested me was the size of the throttle housing being 4'' and the butterfly being 95mm. Again, although its a bit OTT for my setup having a 4'' throttle housing, it means I could run a 4'' pipe from my intercooler outlet straight to the throttle without any need for reducers in the pipework. The idea again being that once this setup is in, I won't have to redo the intake side of the pipework in future if I go for more power. By contrast the bosch DBW units "only" go to 83mm throttle size, which is still sufficient for more power than I'll ever need but in case there is any doubts on restriction, a 95mm throttle will allow for further headroom. Having played with 102mm cable throttles on high powered 2J's before, it can be hard to get them to drive off idle as smooth as the OEM setup as cracking open such a large throttle even at small opening angles proportionally lets in a large amount of chargeair to the engine, so it can feel a bit like an on/off switch. I think the engineers at GM were thinking along a similar line as the LT5 throttle has been produced with a small ridge that reduces the amount of airflow through the throttle at small opening angles, so you can have a decent balance between low throttle driveability whilst having the airflow required at WOT on a large supercharged V8. Between this ridge and the pedal to throttle mapping control on the ECU, I'm hoping I can have my cake and eat it in terms of airflow versus drivability at low engine speeds. Can't wait to see how this all plays out when I get round to calibrating it. So back to business at hand. With the longblock assembled, I started test fitting various components to the engine. This isnt the final fit, as once the car is back from RRS I want an engine to drop into the bay so I can start making decisions on a few things mechanically and cosmetically thinking about what colour scheme to go for. Then I can pull the engine back out, do some cleaning/painting and install whatever else needs to go on before going back in for real. So mainly test fitting what components I have spare from the last setup for now. Starting with the front of the engine This time round I've decided not to run any front covers on the engine. With the cam covers I plan on running I wont be able to seal the top half of the engine with a cover like OEM, so theres little point running the lower covers as if there is anything that goes near the cambelt at least now it will have somewhere to go rather than getting stuck inside a timing cover and causing havoc. I can also keep an eye on and service various components a little easier this way round. The other big change on the front end is the alternator relocation, using a Tomei alternator relocation kit. I haven't run an A/C in years, so always had a free spot under the powersteering pump. The relocation kit serves a few purposes for me. Firstly, it keeps the alternator away from the heat of the turbo & manifold, whilst also streamlining the wiring more towards the inlet side of the engine. Secondly, with no alternator on the exhaust side I now I have more room to play with for turbos and intercooler pipework as it can sometimes be a bit of a squeeze with the alternator in the way. I actually prefer the GE's coolant inlet/outlet locations to a GTE, as there is no longer a waterneck & pipework that has to cross the front of the engine. The in/out to the radiator is more of a straight shot and gives better accessibility to the front of the engine. Previously I had run the manual aux tensioner dampener, but with the tomei relocation kit I think I will have to go without this and go back to an auto tensioner, unless I can get a fancy billet mount made up. Maybe a side project for the future, not the end of the world currently though. Between the GE waterneck, rotated thermostat housing and the alternator being removed, it allows for the most compact setup I can manage whilst keeping the factory water pump. Haven't decided yet on what style water pump hardline I'm going to run. I need to make some provisions for coolant feed/returns for the turbo and electronic wastegate. I will probably wait till the manifold and turbo are in place then figure out what sort of design is needed. The only thing for sure currently is that the coolant & oil lines on the exhaust side of the engine will be made from steel hardlines. Although there will be a few flexible sections I want hardlines to cover most of the areas where the heat is going to be most prominant to increase reliability. Nothing too sexy happening on the intake side just yet, other than mounting the PS & Alternator relocation. Between the mechman alternator having a slightly larger housing than the OEM alternator and the VVTi adapter sitting further out than OEM, I had to modify the mounting brackets of the tomei kit slightly as it was fouling in places. Still have a bit more work to do on the rear alternator brace to the block, but it all fits as it should now. Previously I had run a mocal oil thermostatic housing for my oil cooler, but the route of the oil lines went where the alternator now lives. So for the moment have just mounted an oil filter straight to the block. I will still retain a oil filter sandwich plate with a thermostat, but I think I'll move to a different product for this. The head is a 2JZGE VVTi, running stock ports, stock valves and stock buckets with shims. Camshafts are Kelford T202-D (272/278) with ~10mm lift, with Kelford Beehive valve springs. The valve lift is probably cutting it a bit close with a stock bucket/shim setup, but for a baseline this setup will fit the bill. Also switched to some L19 head studs for that extra bit of clamping goodness. The head is a bit grotty on the outside still, but for the moment is not a priority for me. Once the baseline of this setup has been established on the dyno, I'll remove the head and have valve seats, valve guides, valves and portwork done, so will save the cleaning/blasting of the head until then when the whole head has to come to pieces. A few months ago I had ordered some plazmaman billet valve covers, and they were super nice. Compared to other billet covers I have seen, they designed a really good baffle system. Only problem was the covers I ordered were for a GTE non vvti, which obviously wouldnt work with a VVTi head. Annoyingly, Plazmaman haven't got VVTi valve covers ready yet. I've been told they will be available at the start of 2023, but if they dont come through in time then might have to go with hypertune or OEM VVTi covers. So for the moment I dont have any sexy covers. In the next few days I'll get the sumps and some other components back onto the engine, ready for when the car is done being painted. Edited December 12, 2022 by Mike2JZ (see edit history) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattdavies Posted December 12, 2022 Share Posted December 12, 2022 You are really progressing with some pace. Enjoy reading what your are doing and why, the why is the insteresting bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 12, 2022 Author Share Posted December 12, 2022 Getting close now Stage 1 of interior paint done, basically an epoxy layer for the next coat of paint to sit on Going with a satin black paint layer on top of this. Although the car is white and I like the idea of white interior but every track car I've been in with white always gets super dirty and I cant be bothered with the upkeep on that. So black it goes, will make it easier for everthing to blend in inside. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noz Posted December 12, 2022 Share Posted December 12, 2022 That intake is magic. Literally can't get enough angles of that. I spotted the intense beefy nature of that rail from the central port. Jesus. What an animal. Is the nitrous burst plane some sort of pressure fuse. I could google it buts of course good to chat. Not seen one before. Always wanted a prespool shot also. 50 shot most likely. Are you going to port match due to the runner oversize against the head? Cage is looking ace. Even in that colour. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 12, 2022 Author Share Posted December 12, 2022 10 minutes ago, Noz said: That intake is magic. Literally can't get enough angles of that. I spotted the intense beefy nature of that rail from the central port. Jesus. What an animal. Is the nitrous burst plane some sort of pressure fuse. I could google it buts of course good to chat. Not seen one before. Always wanted a prespool shot also. 50 shot most likely. Are you going to port match due to the runner oversize against the head? Cage is looking ace. Even in that colour. Yeah, in the event of a nitrous backfire through the intake manifold, the pressure spike will blow the burst plate first, allowing for the offending air charge to escape through there. Without something like this in place then its possible to do a lot of damage. Personally I've seen a backfire blow an intercooler and intake pipework to shreds, which I'd rather avoid in the event of a backfire. The only problem with the burst plate is that if it does blow open and the engine is still running then the engine will draw air through the blown plate, bypassing the throttle body and could lead the engine wanting to accelerate or hit to RPM limiter very quickly. Haven't though of a failsafe that I can implement around this currently but I'm sure I can come up with something. Might run the engine without the burst plate and see how bad the air leak is then figure out something from there. The plan is to run a progressive nitrous system directed through the Motec using a solid state relay that controls the solenoid. So I could run say a 100hp nitrous jet, then use PWM control to pulse the solenoid to give me a range of 0-100hp depending on the frequency of operation, so the nitrous can flow in steadily rather than having an instant hit of whatever the jet can supply. Yeah head isn't ported currently, but after baseline is established then head will come off for porting and valves, so will get it matched to the intake then. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mugello Posted December 13, 2022 Share Posted December 13, 2022 Epic build Mike - Can't wait to see this build finished! Some very tasty parts going into this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noz Posted December 13, 2022 Share Posted December 13, 2022 Did you specifically go for a Motec for the PWM control for nitrous. Have you done much research into nozzle efficiency then with a pulsed output. While I know injectors work well on that basis, didn't know an open nozzle would operate in the same way. You could always fit a strain gauge type setup over the plate face. If it blew, you'd then have a signal to notify the plates moved / exploded into a billion pieces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 13, 2022 Author Share Posted December 13, 2022 3 hours ago, Noz said: Did you specifically go for a Motec for the PWM control for nitrous. Have you done much research into nozzle efficiency then with a pulsed output. While I know injectors work well on that basis, didn't know an open nozzle would operate in the same way. You could always fit a strain gauge type setup over the plate face. If it blew, you'd then have a signal to notify the plates moved / exploded into a billion pieces. No not really, I just went Motec to learn a new platform. Most modern ECU's have strategies in place to control a nitrous solenoid progressively as it its core its just a high frequency PWM function versus whatever variable you deem fit. The nozzle isnt a solenoid. Its literally just a jet with an orifice thats been drilled to deliver 'X' amount of horsepower based on the size of the orifice. There are no moving parts to it. The nitrous solenoid output is connected to the nozzle. The solenoid is the part that does the hard work. In the past these solenoids were just used as an on/off switch to pass the nitrous through it, but as technology as gotten better these solenoids can now be pulsed via PWM using external h bridges which will allow control on how much nitrous is delivered through it. I'm not sure on efficiency or range of operations as I'm sure it will be dependant on the hardware setup, but so long as I can have a ramping style of nitrous delivery rather than one big hit then it will serve its purpose. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noz Posted December 14, 2022 Share Posted December 14, 2022 Cool mate. Yeah I was aware it's an open port. Why I was curious on how you'd get it to flow, suppose solenoid technology allows the nozzle to work in a similar way. Very cool can do that now. No need for multiple nozzle sides and multiple feeds. Looking forward to seeing your research on this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike2JZ Posted December 14, 2022 Author Share Posted December 14, 2022 The work at RRS is finished, James & Kane smashed it out. A coat of satin black went on the other day After a day to let the paint settle the re-assembly begun Hopefully pickup the car this weekend then the next journey begins. Will see if I can sandwich my dash back in and go from there. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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