Okay, so I bought this car...

[jn1cz]

Rained all weekend and I broke my camera yesterday so no pics for now. There's no wheel mounted on the cam gear. There is a small disk (a magnet?) mounted on the gear where the L7 or whatever was stamped on it. I haven't gone through the manual yet but it would be great if I could ditch that sensor so I can use an upper t-belt cover.

[SATAN]

jn1cz wrote: Rained all weekend and I broke my camera yesterday so no pics for now. There's no wheel mounted on the cam gear. There is a small disk (a magnet?) mounted on the gear where the L7 or whatever was stamped on it. I haven't gone through the manual yet but it would be great if I could ditch that sensor so I can use an upper t-belt cover.

I promise you, you can ditch that sensor. I dont know what the F a magnetic sensor is doing reading a magnet anyways. I'll tell you this, the tec only needs to know the degree and rpm of the engine. If you have your sensor on the H balancer then that is all you NEED. I have no clue what they were doing with the cam and a magnet along with the magnetic sensor. I've never heard of that before. :shock:

[jn1cz]

SATAN wrote: Its amazing to me that somone took the time and money to install a TEC3 but did such a crappy job installing it and everything else. WTF? Sorry I just cant get over that.

That just needed to be repeated. Okay if full sequential injection is used it requires a cam sensor but...a 120(-4) wheel need to be installed. I don't know yet if full sequential injection is set up here but there's obviously no 120(-4) wheel. On another note, I didn't see a MAT sensor and that seems to be a necessity if I'm understanding the PDF manual right. And the 60(-2) wheel was installed exactly as the manual recommended that it not be installed. Hope TDC was set before the crank wheel and sensor was installed. If it's off but not too much off the settings can be manipulated with wintec to compensate but that seems halfassed too. And the wiring...geezus, if you're going to spend 2500 bux or whatever the brain and coil packs cost it seems like another 150 for a wiring harness would be a smart investment. Or at least spend a few bucks on some good wire and weatherpack connectors and some new injector plugs to replace the crappy broken and frayed ones on there.

[SATAN]

Right, thats what I was saying about the 120 tooth wheel. It needs to know the what stroke the engine is on in order to do the sequential injection. But like you and I both pointed out, there is no 120-4 tooth wheel on that cam so I dont know what the hell they were doing or trying to do.

What is the story on the car? Does it run? if so does it run ok? I hope you got a smokin deal on it. The TEC3 is an amazing computer but one would never know with a shoddy install like that. I hope you get it going and wired up right.

What I did for my 60-2 tooth wheel was took the harmonic balancer to a machine shop and had them lathe out a "ledge" on the back side for the trigger wheel to sit on. On the first one I did they machined it too deep(dont do that) and the inner part of the balancer broke away from the outer part while I was racing some crotch rockets, throwing off my ignition timing completely and killing my car and causing it not to start. I thought I slipped the timing belt VERY badly because I tried to line up the 11th tooth but cams were way off. then I took it apart and realized what had happened.

[jn1cz]

I thought it was a pretty sweet deal but I'm not as sure now. I'll give you some history. It took me a long time to buy this car but I'll try to make it brief.
ad on z31.com...SS in Delaware: price $5300...too much for me but I emailed anyway. Saw some pics and it looked great so I started getting interested. Got the price down to 4000. Then the owner decided to have a shop install the tec3 and play around with it and I forgot all about it.
A month or two later he asked me if I was interested at 6000. I told him 4 was what we agreed on before and that was my limit. He agreed and I asked him if it ran well and still looked like the pics he sent me. Everything was cool so I started making plans to fly up and drive it back. Then he emails me that he doesn't think I'll want the car anymore because he blew a HG. Said the car had sat too much. Whatever. He said he'd cut me a deal to get it, ship it, and have it fixed for less than the original price. That was a tough decision cuz I didn't know what I'd see roll off that transport when it got here. When the driver called and asked me to meet him down the street I was sweatin what I was going to see but the car looked great even after 1500 mi on an open transport. The driver had left the lites on or something and ran the battery down so we had to roll it off the truck and I pulled it to my sisters house with my Jeep. Anyway I got it for 1800 plus 800 in shipping. Got an extra seat, nose, doorskin, gauges, and other stuff. Now I've spent about 300 in parts for the gaskets and t-belt parts but I haven't had time to do anything with it.
So yeah it ran but I don't know what I'll find when I pull the heads. The PO said he changed the oil 3 times to make sure there was no water in it.
And he drained the water before it was shipped. Both of us stressed to the driver that the car had no coolant and couldn't be idled and only driven onto and off the trailer but the driver was a putz so who knows what happened on the way. Anyway that's the story of how I got it. I always wanted to make my 85t a little faster but I never wanted to take it to this level. I never had any problem with basci repairs and stuff but when I read the really high tech posts in the upper section yall might as well be speaking Greek. Now I have to learn all this crap or at least get a good understanding of the basics. This car is supposed to be tuned but who knows what I'll find after I do the repairs and crank it up. I might have to ask you to draw me a simple diagram of where the ledge is machined on the balancer and some idea of how deep to get it. After I get past this flu thing I'm going to keep cleaning up the engine bay and do something about that wiring find better places to mount the FPR and coil packs and then when I get a whole weekend with good weather I'll do the real work. Oh and when I was removing the ic piping I found about a 1" gap where two of the pipes are welded together that wsn't even welded at all. And the pipes are 2" and 2.25" mixed together so I think I'll just redo most of it since I have some 2.25 bends that I had planned to use on my 85t.
I dunno, there's just a lot of expensive parts on this car put together in a halfassed way. It's tempting to remove all the aftermarket stuff and sell it and put the car back to stock but right now I'm just looking at this as a challenge.

[SATAN]

So you bought the car for 2600 and it came with a TEC3 that was working. TEC3 alone is worth 2k. Not to mention the fact that you didnt have to do most of the grunt work of installing it. Yeah you gotta move some shit and make some shit better. Prolly would be a good idea to double check everything too since it doesnt look like anything on the car was done right. Just go through the user's manual of the TEC and go over all the wiring. Its really not that bad. I run my TEC off of 6 sensors. throttle position,coolant temp,air temp,MAP,Crank angle, damn maybe its only five. I dont even run a exhaust sensor. Even if you had to replace Both head gaskets and rings and stuff I still think its a good deal. Just needs some work is all. I'm sure it has other goodies to like a clutch, exhaust, boost controller, came with an IC so... What about turbo? stock upgraded? Oh, and you now have an extra mag sensor in case yours goes out (extra is the one on the cam). Either way just stick with it learn all you can about the TEC and learn how to use it and you WONT be disapointed. You will soon be lightyears ahead of where you were a few months ago. Go through and read the whole manual. You can learn a lot about engines just on the manual that they provide or that you download. Took me two or three times just to understand the whole thing, but you will get it. just dont get discoraged.

Over all even if the car needs the work, I say you got a extreemly smokin deal.

When it comes to the engine just remember not to get overwelmed. Its all just nuts and bolts Do a good job the first time so you dont have to do it over.

[Firehawk]

Sounds like you got a good deal if you are willing to fix it right.

[jn1cz]

Firehawk wrote: Sounds like you got a good deal if you are willing to fix it right.

Yeah I'm willing. I love the car and it's not hard to get motivated to work on it. It's the patience and money part that are tough.
And hey Satan the engine mods are back in the first post. Those are what the PO said he had done anyway. He sent enough receipts that I tend to believe it and everything else he said about the car has been right. I dunno about that turbo though. Can't see inside the housings and theres an elbow that seems to be welded on the compressor inlet so I can't get a peek in there. Still wondering wtf that screw in the TB plate is for. Never seen anything like it.

[SATAN]

yeah, after re-reading that again, if it really does have cams and pistons you got a screaming deal. Dont doubt it for a second! And a spearco along with a the TEC3. Dude all of those parts alone add up to WELL over the $2600 you dished out for the car.

I dont know what screw on the throttle plate or whatever you are talking about though. Maybe you can post a picture of it and circle it or somthing? I went back and looked at the pic but nothing grabs my attention. NOT like that cam sensor anyways LOL.

[jn1cz]

Cool. I guess I'll get a look at the tops of the pistons at least here in a few days and I can compare them to OEM. I wish I had a pic of that screw. Camera is busted right now so I'll have to see if I can borrow one when I can get out and about again. Hey I found these connectors on ebay. They seem to be the same kind that electromotive uses in their harness and they're dirt cheap compared to what they sell for everywhere else. I'm thinking about picking up a few. Looks like they'd be good replacements for any z31 with 20 year old heat damaged connectors. Check em out.
http://stores.ebay.com/Hi-Tech-Supply_W ... idZ2QQtZkm

[SATAN]

Yeah those are just like the standard GM connectors that damn near every aftermarket engine managment company uses. That is a good price though!