Downunder turbo oval & Datsun 510 adventures

[66brm]

We don't have Buick here Kenric

[woodsbuggy1]

That would make it even better, would be happy to locate and help ship one. Those cars have always impressed me, RWD 2 door car with turbocharged and intercooled 3.8L V6 GM motor.

[petew]

We got the buick V6 in all our commodores (Pontiac GTOs to you guys). We also got the L67 supercharged motor in a few cars. None of them ever came with a turbo though, which is a shame. There's a guy down here doing Ecotec V6s with turbos...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxDza8krGRw

Stock L67 internals. 737rwhp and 10sec quarters. It's a shame so many people hate on these motors. There are literally junkyards full of them, like the ford 'barra' six or LS v8s in the states.

[madmike]

convert that old swing to an IRS transaxle? to me that would be less expensive

[petew]

So, long time no post. The beetle has been on the market for a few weeks now. Had a steady stream of tyre kickers but no serious enquiries really. Grrr…

And then yesterday had an adventure. Got the car out to go to work, left it idling in the driveway. Came out to drive it to work and suddenly it drops a cylinder and starts pumping weird fog out the exhaust, like a blown head gasket. Only this fog smells strongly of petrol. VERY strongly. I look at my watch and toss up driving it or trying to get to work some other way. FAIL. I'm gonna have to drive it. So here I am, driving along Pennant Hills road in peak hour traffic. Petrol fog pouring out the exhaust. Just as I got to church the car dies. Took me 8 goes to get it started again. Very weird. Still running on 3 cyls. So I pulled up in the church car park and vapour is drifting out of a wet exhaust. Hmm.

Five hours later I come back. In the mean time I'd figured out it was a wide open injector and ordered some. Went to restart the car and it's hydro-locked with fuel in the cyl. So, first every time, the car is tilt-trayed home.

Spent most of the day working on the car today. Dumped the oil. Changed the injectors, fuel filter, rocker cover gaskets (which were both haemoraging), oil filter. I could see petrol evaporating off the oil in the drain tray! Remaining oil was quite thin. The inside of the heads were clean as a whistle! No.2 cyl was totally full of fuel. That all went according to plan.

Where I ran into an issue was my new injectors. I ordered VT Commodore supercharged (L67) injectors. What got had 0280 155 811. What came out was 0280 155 868 (which I think now is LS1). I wasn't aware of this. Both are SUPPOSED to flow 380cc approx. However, as soon as I tried to start the car, it was running DEAD lean. Like AFR of 21. Punching up the idle from 26 to 30 got me back where it should be. But there's something weird going on. Again under load it was dead lean again. In the end I bumped up all my VE figures by 20%. This got me back in usable territory. Then I started tuning. My new house is surrounded by streets with BIG hills. Which was awesome. Autotune was able to help me get things right very fast. Which is the other interesting thing.

At no point did my wideband drop out!

As a few of you know, I've been having wideband issues for some time now. I thought it was distance from the turbo. Or vibration. Or who knows what. Now I know the issue. The LS1 injectors I had in the car were running pig rich a LOT of the time. All the plugs (except one) were quite black and fuelly. I've also been having issues with starting the car cold. I think No.2 injector has been leaking for some time. That would explain a few weird things recently and just how rich it's been running at idle. That would also hurt AFRs.

The other interesting thing that I found was, the fuel filter (EFI high pressure) rattled around when it was empty. I think it failed and dumped junk into the injectors. However, I also kinda think cheap Chinese injectors are probably some of the issue too.

So fun times. And I'm REALLY keen to sell the damn thing now.

[madmike]

"Go F.I "they say so sorry for your problems Pete but I'll stick with my carb's

[petew]

"Go F.I "they say so sorry for your problems Pete but I'll stick with my carb's

How many times have you changed jets? I bet it's more times than I've changed injectors.

[madmike]

keeps the old hands flexible,, that's the story and I'm sticking to it,

[buguy]

Haha! Lady's love the scent too!

[woodsbuggy1]

Hey Pete,
So sorry to hear of your misfortune, sure hope you get things figured soon. Have you used an ohm meter to check your injectors? It is a quick and dirty test but has worked well for me to identify bad injectors. Keep your chin up, something good is in the works.
Kenric

[rubenski]

Why not set the car aside for a while?

Maybe a break of working and driving it will give you fresh look on it.

Or just sell it, do what YOU want!
I did too when i sold my 64 bug and buyed the manx

[madmike]

what ever you do Pete 'please' check back in with us now and then , so we know your all OK ?

[Piledriver]

Bummer, sorry to hear that...
perhaps take a break?

Unless you are running leaded fuel, sensors are not that easy to kill*--- unless you have it installed where it will get hit with water or raw fuel---water is much worse.
Sensor needs to be above level and on the id of any curve where it will not get sprayed with condensate.

Even lead takes awhile...weeks/months not seconds.
The only think that I know of that can kill a sensor very quickly is water hitting a hot sensor.(internally, condensate)

A dead pig rich misfire looks exactly like a dead lean misfire to a lambda sensor.

[Clonebug]

I've had my O2 sensor on the outside of the bend radius since I installed it. The PLX has been on my exhaust since 2014 and I'm still on the first sensor. It has probably 20,000 plus miles on it.
I see a LOT of water coming out of my exhaust when I start it cold and it's never killed my sensor.
How do you have the power wired up to it???
Is it connected to the ignition power and not straight battery?
I always start my engine without letting the sensor warm up first......I have read that will ruin them if they are hot and then the water hits them.
Let it warm up along with the engine.

[buguy]

Interesting. Never thought much about starting it before the sensor was warm. Kinda makes sense though. I always started mine when the PLX screen was powered up and set. I don't know if it was warm by then or not. I have mine on the outside of the radius too. Like this:
https://youtu.be/uybLYH6APS0