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Kenny's 1990 740 GL

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linuxman51

Railspeeder Enthusiast #1
300+ Club
Joined
Dec 25, 2002
Location
mont, AL
:tux: Why not, since everyone else is whoring their rides out, might as well eh? :)

Current mods breakdown..
Engine:
Heebspeed intake manifold/Q45 throttle body
Ported and flow matched 1000262 16v head
Folksracing FS324 cams, stock gears
RSI pistons and rods, with a target CR of ~ 9:1 (shoulda gone higher, oh well...)
1995 block, Aq171 crank, block pinned per Jonathan@RSI's recommendation
MS II v3.0, Error/Glensgarage daughter card v2.1, 4 bar rs-auto MAP, etc.
T3/T-67, .83 A/r housing
Go-Autoworks intercooler piping, custom intercooler designed for a skyline
TiAL BOV y0...(I honestly haven't heard it yet, the car is too damn loud)
Nitrous Express dry kit (approx 75hp shot) controlled by MS
Profec-b SpecII
Custom fuel system.. fuel cell in the trunk, two bosch 044 pumps, -8 feed and return, all AN.
1000cc injectors
Dale's under drive pulley, but the jury is still out (its a wonderful piece, but the way I have my accessories mounted might require a re-think due to size. the weight difference however from stock to dale's is night and day. until I run into belt slip issues, it stays)
Fidel's billet crank gear, because the oem stuff sucks.
sdturbo's timing belt tensioner kit and solid accessory bushings

19psi, 480rwhp.
26psi, 576rwhp.
Nitrous + 30psi--boiling bfg geforceTA's in 3rd and totaled

Exhaust:
3 inch turbo back, tial waste gate with an open dump, single mangaflow muffler.

Drivetrain:
Modified AW71. Th350 in the bullpen

3.73 millerlocked rearend
Spherical bearing torque rods and a reinforced rear subframe. we shall see....

Suspension:
Bilstein HD's on all four corners
poly radius rod bushings
ipd swaybars (25/25)
tme lowering springs

Cosmetics: not much..
fresh paint
side marker lights. Had. Need new ones.
a few discrete, yet in-your-face stickers.
Not sure what kind of 240sx wheels they are, but they were cheap. Yes, you need adapters.



Other noteable mention: It was big pimpin in the new york times on march 4th, 2005

pics (oldest to newest):
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So that brings things up to july 2005. Obviously there has been more going on since then....

hung a turbo off a modified SSA manifold
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this had ok results, but fell apart shortly afterwards
7psi:
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14psi running out of injector:
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new manifold:
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installed:
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then it was time to ditch the npr:
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the net effect:
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then there was some downtime after SE 6, I got rear-ended which jarred the radiator out of its moorings, the car probably overheated, and a few days later it was apparent that I'd roached a headgasket. It sat up from the fall of 06 to around may-june of 07, when a whole new slew of ideas was put into effect-

ported head ~1 inch into runners, for a planned intake upgrade
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engine went in
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pump gas powa
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Ran 12's at the SE meet with a busted t5, put a new transmission in and ran 11.8@120 about two months later, but then I killed the new transmission and clutch on consecutive runs
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So I went in and spent most of 08 mucking around with automatics, building intake manifolds, tracing down issues from previous work, and basically didn't get **** done. Car dynoed 500 rwhp lookin' like this:
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lower power is off the spray
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in hind sight, we probably jacked something up on the dyno when MSLVV mis-burned the maps and ****ed up the nitrous timing, but the car didn't appear to suffer anything immediately, so we pressed on. A second far more violent mistake involving the nitrous pressure proved to be the final episode of what was largely a disappointing year for team heebspeed.
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I did get some bling:
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Although really, it was a set of almost new tires and wheels for $200. They could have been pink and I would have bought them for the rubber alone.

So with a blown motor comes progress, usually-
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I took the down time to clean up as much under the car as I could (since I have to work on it, and I'd much rather not constantly be covered in tar-y black ****)
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sanded down the engine bay
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de-coated the wheel arches (as well as most of the under carriage)
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picked up some baller RSI hardware:
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Drilled a few holes in my block
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bed-liner'd the wheel wells
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bought a flow sensor setup and started building my flowbench
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put **** together:
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bedlinered the engine bay (it got touch-ups after this)
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And started putting stuff where it goes.
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A bit of undesireable (but doesn't slip!) belt routing.. never mind the oil feed..
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on its way:
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A quick way to blow $1000:
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(no worries, the jack-leg setup was for mock-up only. I got a BALLER T1 dual 044 bracket setup. make that a quick way to blow $1100....)

oops wait where'd the belt go?
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(I was probably shimming the cams at this stage in the game)

And its out and running! I'll let you figure out which one is faster
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New intercooler piping, 'in race trim' as they say.
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Really fast AFR tuning on the dyno, the day before SE 8.0
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horrendous torque curve, this is the result of pulling a lot of timing out of the whole map, and then not going back and touching the timing map again (except to pull out more for the nitous-which is the 511 run).

You might ask- why all the work for an 11 hp gain? Well, the previous numbers were made at 25psi and a warm bottle (500), and then the 465 number was made at 27psi no spray.
This time, I got the boost controller set to a reasonable 19psi and didn't touch it again (in fact, I still haven't). So the numbers will eventually be made, for those who care to know them, but the only digits I'm really concerned with were these:
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Two 11.0's with 1.9-2.0 60's, an 11.4 (Sam) with a 1.8 60 (he forgot to click it into 2nd), and then sam ran the 10.8, but had to let off so the transmission would shift into 3rd.

Thats 4 hits and done, for the aw71 (heeyy that rhymes!)


Remember kids, its not how much boost you run, its what you do with the boost you run that counts.

latest dyno graph:
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Yo Kenny, is that side picture before the lowering springs? And when're you going to get wheels for that thing? It'll look sooooooo much more better. Otherwise, mad props, you know it, great paint color... Gonna be schweet.
 
klr142 said:
Yo Kenny, is that side picture before the lowering springs? And when're you going to get wheels for that thing? It'll look sooooooo much more better. Otherwise, mad props, you know it, great paint color... Gonna be schweet.


that would be like two months before i even purchased the lowering springs. it looks a little odd atm, but i reckon i can snap a pic or two. perhaps when i get the nos situated, grab an underhood shot as well.

Additional info, notes, and errata
Since there's a 55 image/smiley max in a single post, and my thread is about 450,000 posts deep, I thought I would put further pertinent information on page one, along with some extra pictures, etc. That way it's easier to read the meat of the thread, with the fun and fluff later :-D

First off, Airflow is horsepower. Its not about how much boost you run (boost is merely a means to an end), but what you do with what you've got. To that end, a number of things were planned/have been planned/some have been executed with this build.. It started off as a means to an end, the old 8v engine retired itself from service after a rapid series of unfortunate events, and I had this 16v setup hanging out in what was the 'race car' at the time. Some stuff done in haste at that point did and occasionally continues to bite me in the ass now. The old adage of 'fast, reliable, cheap - pick two' has never been more appropriate at times.

Stock for stock, the volvo 16v head rapes any oem 8v head, and it was foretold that with some cleanup work, a decent port job on a 16v head could easily smoke a pretty heavily worked 8v. Being that I was, at the time, broke (and a junkie for trying different things to this day), the logical progression after my 531 checked out was to of course step up to the next better production piece. A stock head suited me well for quite a while (and in fact, I would postulate that anyone building a mild street turbo setup would need to go no further than a stock head and cams, stiffer valve springs, and a nice intake and exhaust manifold-plenty of fun to be had there).

But after four years of playing meddling trying breaking and trying again, it was becoming apparent that the stock head was starting to hold me back. Running obscene amounts of boost is fun, and for those who partake in that thing, throwing out a large boost number is the internet equivalent of saying you've got a big dick. Again, however, what good is it if you can't use it effectively; or conversely; if you're not getting where you want to go with it. So around 2007, after hitting the first of many 'walls' with the oem intake manifold, we set out to see what could be accomplished with a better, more balanced, and most importantly, higher flowing intake manifold. Not much was changed on the cylinder head during this process, I port matched (sorta) the head to fit the runners, and then promptly put the oem intake manifold back on while we built the new manifold. This, as has been documented, joked, snide-commented, etc; took quite some time, far more than initially anticipated, and at a much higher cost than initially calculated. But hey, life is a learning experience right?

Armed with a more appropriately sized turbo for my goals (T04r aka T67/t3), and with this finally completed intake manifold, we attacked the dyno in late summer 2008, and learned that we had in fact, killed one of the large impediments to making power. Where the setup before hit its torque peak and promptly headed south, it now gracefully tapered for quite a while (another ~ 1000 rpms or so), even with the 'lame' stock cams. Boost was a comfortable 1.0-1.1 bar. I forget what power it made, probably upper 300's. Not one to leave well enough alone, shortly before the SE meet (and right in the middle of a move) I decided that I needed hotter cams, so I borrowed a set from Ken Lanham. This kicked off a three month period of trouble and trouble shooting, capped by the discovery that years ago when the engine was first assembled, we machined the valve reliefs on one of the pistons in the wrong place. Oops.

Back on the dyno in late december, it was the last hurrah for 08, and we fully intended to go out with a bang. Pump gas numbers on a fairly decent tune yielded 400hp at about 20psi, race gas was swapped in, the nitrous bottle was hooked up, and the sky was (theoretically) the limit. With the boost turned up to an at the time huge amount - 27-28psi, the power the car made was a less than stellar 465. not to be deterred, we tuned for the nitrous, and stacking a large amount of nitrous on top of slightly less boost (24-25psi) allowed me to break the 500 mark.. but only just. I was simultaneously thrilled by the results and disappointed. There remained a significant bottle neck, quick tuning alone was not to blame here. The car rewarded my abuse the next day with four broken pistons (o.k., so it wasn't the abuse, it was a faulty nitrous gauge). A full build was in order, and things needed to change, somewhat drastically.

At this point a side note is required.. it is worth mentioning that when things went pop, my DD evo was encroaching on the volvo's previous best mph, with similar boost and no nitrous. And my best friend's nissan was sitting well north of 500 rwhp, another buddy's civic was almost to the 700 fwhp mark, in short, I was (and still am) getting my ass kicked by anyone with four tires. This will not do.

Enter the 'build'. Efficiency and abuse were the key parts of this build. I wanted to increase power across the board (as much as one can do with a huge turbo and laggy ass turbine wheel), but I also wanted something that could take the heat if need be. A fair amount of research went into a number of different things, a lot of time was spent reading and looking at what the swedes were doing (at least the ones that were getting things done), and a plan was drawn up. I still don't like the idea of handing someone a big wad of cash to do something that I might be able to do, and I'm still a tinkerer; so- I bought the stuff to set up a flow bench, got a couple spare junk 16v heads, and went to town. (well, after reading as much about porting and airflow as I could get my hands on). If I'd had to pay myself I would still be in the hole, but the results were in line with what I was looking for -
~40% better intake flow and ~25% better exhaust flow.
I also sourced a different set of cams from Folks Racing (FS324's), said to be a somewhat mild rally cam, the specs worked out to be fairly similar to the camshafts that I now have in my EVO.
Intercooler piping was vastly improved, both in size and consistency as well as fluidity.
The block was reinforced a bit (pined), tanked and checked and bored out for the new lower profile pistons (shorter pistons longer rods) everything was double and tripple checked during assembly, and aside from some growing pains regarding the solid lifter conversion I did (valve noise after its warmed up-kinda like an 8v without silencers) things seem to have worked out.

I have not yet gotten a chance to really tune the car out on the dyno, it was suspected and confirmed, that after the above work, the volvo automatic just would not stick around for any amount of time.. so with that in mind, we set the boost to a moderate 19psi, put the race gas in, and tuned the air fuel ratios (~4-5 passes total), and settled for an ugly 435rwhp. Looking at the torque curve, I imagine the same number of pulls spent on ignition timing would pick up another 25 rwhp, if not more. uuuugly. Given the powerband the car has, we needed to tune the nitrous as well (high rpm powerband, low rpm stall converter = dog off the line), mainly to get the car off the line at the drag strip. We took the same shot as before (75), pulled more timing out of the already sad timing map, dropped in ~10% more fuel, did a test pass with the bottle off to verify that it was going extremely rich, and then did a single pass on the nitrous. 512 rwhp. pulled the car off the dyno, drove home, and swapped in a new transmission for the 1/4 part of SE 8.0

Now, it is currently waiting for the next round of upgrades. It will get a th350 with a higher stall converter, I really need to build/buy/find a better exhaust manifold before too long, and the intercooler is going to get upgraded. I haven't decided if I want a really nice air to water, or just a high-flow garrett core.
 
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Looking good. I like the body matched valve cover. Nice touch. Any plans for the wheels? I'm thinking of sticking with steelies too, but maybe getting a set of the old chrome hub caps(not wheel covers). Sort of a Swedish Caprice Classic look.

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throw some tintz on so you can have a little privacy when you're in the back loving up a lady.
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tint is definitly on the shortlist, now that the a/c is finito. the wheelz i got are 740 turbo wheels to be refinished in gunmetal, since i dont want black and i dont think theres a dark enough grey to match the car (and body color wheels are kinda odd anyway. I suppose i could paint em bronze-anyone wanna pchop that on there?)
 
The culmination of almost a year and a half of work finally runs in the 90, not the choice of vehicle but time and money constraints led the charge on this one.

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what i didnt take a pic of, the pistons were then balanced and cc'd (they're +- 2 grams or so, i dont recall anymore), the rods all weighed out the same, the crank looked like a crank, the chambers were polished a little, the valves were polished front and back.
 
Are you running EDIS?

EDIT: is that a blaster hiding underneath your intake mani?
EDIT2: And a capless dizzy? What are you doing to make the cap clear the thermostat housing?
 
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Matt Dupuis said:
Answer to all three quesitons: Kenny hates 240s.

244's i'm looking to buy a 242 ;).

i'm not putting a cap on the 240 distro, its being used for reference only. look towards the back of the motor. its the same coil that was on the 8v
 
linuxman51 said:
244's i'm looking to buy a 242 ;).

i'm not putting a cap on the 240 distro, its being used for reference only. look towards the back of the motor. its the same coil that was on the 8v

buy mine.
 
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