So the fan clutch was a super easy install, I was worried itd be difficult. But, Im going to be installing my trans cooler soon but was wondering what other items can I add to improve how healthy my precious lil 2J stays. Also catch cans are being looked at.
I heard water sprayers were good for helping the engine a small amount as well as helping preformance by a small amount as well.
another option was to add oil coolers? But since Im still in the foundation building stage of this build and am still running very low boost (still love it tho) I dont know if my stock radiator needs added oil cooling? Unless I should just get a koyorad and call it a day?
Last thing I had reccomended to me was for much more gauges? This makes sense as I would see when something is going wrong, but this wouldnt be too necessary due to low power and the SO ecu correct?
give me as much knowledge as you can my friends!

 

Do you have any gauges at the moment? At the least, I would say get an oil pressure gauge and a wideband gauge. One other gauge is a boost gauge to make sure that you aren't over boosting.

 

^^ This. Vince, an oil pressure gauge, oil temperature gauge, wideband O2 gauge, voltmeter and a good make and model boost/vac gauge (mechanical type is probably your best bet for accuracy) which has a maximum boost recall switch so that you can review the highest pressure you reached during a pull since you probably won’t be looking right at the boost gauge while accelerating your SC.

If you have an automatic transmission you could add a trans oil temp gauge if you really need it but if the external cooler system is set up well and reliably it probably won’t be needed.

The 52mm gauges I have on my basic setup are oil temp, oil pressure and volts. Primarily at full operating temperature you will see 20-25 psi of oil pressure at idle and oil temp between 200-220F.

Adding a wideband O2 and boost gauge to a layout like that shouldn’t crowd things. I am using the AutoExtrude panels for all my mounting locations. There are pods to mount two gauges over the SC steering column and a couple of side windshield pillar pods available as well.

Alternatively you could install one of those BTI canbus style gauges but I think those require an aftermarket programmable ECU. You can’t use a BTI gauge with any factory Toyota ECU.

 

So I do have AEM boost and wideband gauges. Those were a must as keeping an eye on AFR is crucial 24/7 especially during pulls. My boost gauge was working but after working on some wiring it went out so I just need to rewire it real quick no biggie but I want to tidy up the wiring a bit while Im at it. The oil pressure gauge may be the next priority tho. So you guys think gauges would be the best invesment for making more safety for the engine? Even with the AEM v1 provided fuel cuts for when things go wrong?

 

The oil pressure and oil temperature gauges serve a couple of purposes:

At cold startup you will be able to know when your oil pressure has normalized enough to start driving and you'll know when your oil is actually up to temperature after you've been driving for a bit (about 190-200F) before you start boosting heavily or doing any aggressive driving.

While you're driving the oil pressure will go up with higher RPMs and lower back again when the RPMs drop but if anything totally abnormal ever happens with your oiling system's pressure you're going to know immediately on that gauge.

If you do a lot of hard driving and/or many pulls one after another or sustained track driving and encounter oil temperatures that become far too elevated... that oil temp gauge will alert you so that you can either back off a little or pull into the pit area to deal with any issue. It can also let you know if your track SC's oil cooling system needs an upgrade at that point based on how you're using the car.

Similarly it can also tell you if any custom oil cooling system is actually making your oil temperature too low (which would probably mean you'd need a thermostatic oil cooler sandwich plate to divert into the extra oil cooler only when a certain high temperature is reached but not before. Basically for race/track cars and/or extreme high horsepower 2JZ cars).

But for even simple JZ turbo setups the basic oil temp and oil pressure gauges are useful instrumentation, yes. And a voltmeter you can install as a 52mm gauge or a small LCD or LED screen or even as a DC accessory plug if you want to. The AEM V1's fuel cut control is definitely a good feature to have as well. Even with their fuel control limitations the Toyota factory ECUs having this feature built in is good.

I think you'll have your basic instrumentation covered with the addition of the oil temp and pressure. Just as with boost and AFR or Wideband O2 it is a good thing to have an indication of how the oiling system of your engine is behaving at any given time in a modified performance car.

Being able to monitor the most important vitals of your modified turbo car at a glance is a very good thing but your ECU's tune will be the biggest factor for engine safety and good running. The tune and safety parameters are just covered already (with ultimate power limitations and the inability to change any core settings) with a factory GTE ECU. Both the ECU tune being fully dialed in and the basic gauge/sender vitals should go hand in hand.

But oil temp, oil pressure, volts, boost/vac and wideband O2 are the major ones.

You can just install an oil filter sandwich plate that has spots for two 1/8" NPT senders for the oil pressure and oil temperature. On a JZ block that isn't using a VVT-i head you can also use the IS300 Union Bolt swap with an Earls BSPT-to-NPT adapter for the oil pressure sender only (not oil temp). But keeping it simple just do them both via an oil filter sandwich plate.

 

Hey thanks for the big write kahn! I always thought oil temp and pressure gauges were something only used in high power applications but after reading I see that theres not really anything that can be added that would be more of a safety than those gauges. Once money is stable again due to all this COVID stuff I will invest into a nice gauge set. Just hoping I can find some tiny ones

 

I dont know if I brought these up before but these gauges look like exactly what I need. Thoughts?

http://zada-tech.com/products/single...perature-gauge

 

For high horsepower builds you *definitely* want them. For extremely basic stock-ish GTE builds I'd say you can probably do with no gauges at all so long as you know the condition of the engine and are staying stock although IMO the more you deviate from stock with any setup I think they're good gauges to have. If for instance you had your short block specially built with forged pistons, aftermarket rods, aftermarket bearings, etc. then I think you'd definitely want to have oil pressure and oil temp readouts in addition to boost/vac and wideband O2 and/or AFR.

I don't think you need to go too crazy on populating your car with gauges. These basic ones we've talked about are the most common important ones I think. It's not like they need to paid attention to all the time but when you do happen to need a particular reading any one of them can be a big help to tell you about the current health of the engine. The other big factor in engine safety and health is, again, going to be the quality and thoroughness of your ECU tune (if using an aftermarket ECU or even some combination of piggyback add-on controllers to a factory ECU). Gerrb drilled that into me.


Zada tech makes some very good products! When I was looking everywhere to decide what style of additional instrumentation I wanted to go with I did consider ZT's digital screen gauges. The only problem I had was all the curved surfaces in the SC's interior! I'm not complaining mind you-- I have always liked the total commitment to non-angular surfaces throughout the SC/Soarer Z30 but it does make mounting gauge readouts like that one difficult. Just speaking aesthetically. In a different car with flatter surfaces in its interior (say, a Grand National, Supra MKIII, MX83 Cressida, AW11 MR2, etc.) I'd consider their stuff very appropriate.

I went with traditional analog dial 52mm gauges in my car. However... spec for spec Zada Tech's stuff or any other good 52mm or 60mm gauge from a good brand will achieve the same goal.

I have to say that personally I don't like their single gauge mount:
http://zada-tech.com/products/access...ure-with-mount

If I were to use their flat panel screen gauges in any car I'd want to design a custom dash panel to house them specifically for the project car they'd go into.

 

Hey all, me and my father decided to tackle the exhaust leak as it got louder. We found a few things wrong. One, the last cylinder closest to the fire wall was leaking. So we pulled the header to check the status of it and found that the wastgate was held onto the manifold by one bolt, hence the louder noise. We also found that the downpipe gasket blew and leaked too.

what follows may worry those who do builds carefully

after a few days we did a few things. One is that we cute the manifold flange in half, somewhat like the OEM exhaust. The cutt is not big and is the size of the edge of a penny. This way it is less weight on the entire flange and may prevent future leaks. Not only that but we did a double manifold gasket set up to make up for any warpage if its present, of which we could not find.

now, after installing everything back on. I still feel my engine has an exhaust leak. I felt around the downpipe, no leak. The headers, no leak. But. The wastegate does have a very faint amount of air coming out of it and it may be the source of the leak. Does a wastegate without a dump pipe result in a loud engine bay?

 

Well, good news is that it seems the WG is okay. Bad news is it seems to be the turbo flange gasket thats leaking and now I gotta do everything over again. Shouldve just replaced it when it was off but hindsight is 20/20

 

Check the manifold itself for cracks.

 

checked it, seemed all okay. Got everything back together and it all seems good now. Got a much better gasket on it for the turbo flange. It seems the wastegate is leaking tho. It seems that maybe the gasket is not good enough or not tight enough. Its in a tricky place sadly

 

So, found the leak, or something of the sort. My wastegate is open at idle. Not sure how open but it is. Could it be opening at idle because of the 3psi spring? Its tuned to open at 6psi. Ideas?

 

Do you have a way to mount 52mm gauges? I have an autoextrude dual steering column pod i'm trying to get rid of that installed and never used lol.

 

Sounds like either your wastegate spring or wastegate itself is failing. You may try a heavier spring to start, but I'd consider replacing the cheap wastegate with a nicer unit.