Hi guys,

This is my "yet unfinished" twin turbo + engine build project I embarked on in May. After a couple years saving up, extensive research for all parts and the twin turbo kit, I decided to use Torque Development in Thurrock, for a series of reasons: reputation, experience with the VQ35DE engine and because they can help Paul @ TDI North for servicing/issues if needed. I provided all parts, after going through the build list with Mark. I sourced all parts from the US, when the $ was basically 2:1 saving quite a lot. Mind you, some parts (exhaust, some parts of the TT kit) had to be modified to fit a rhd car, and although I'd tried to do as much research as possible beforehand, TDI still had to do quite a lot of modifications (=more labour costs). Swings and roundabouts I guess.

Had my Z since new, so it's been a long journey (5 years), just hope I'm not going to regret it

























some more pics of shiny internals!

I hit some issues with the valves, so the valve seats had to be relapped and I had to buy 12 new valve shims, was essentially ripped off by Nissan UK (price for one shim £55 incl VAT) I got them from them only because they had them in stock apparently, only to find out one size was missing. When sourcing it from the US, I found out they were £18 all in each, I wish I had got them all from the US, even if it meant waiting for new stock! I'd been waiting for the 1 they didn't have in stock for 3 weeks anyway!

more progress pics....some pics of the modifications needed, showing the extremely tight spaces in the engine bay

Motor fired up ok... then there was the "small" issue with the rear diff and exhaust clearance...ended up with having to go with a JDM non finned open diff for now, plans always included Quaife anyway..












Now I have to get the rear valance modified/resprayed becuase it doesn't clear the bigger exhaust tips.... will I ever manage to get the car back?







Car is at the bodyshop as we speak, hopefully ready for Friday!

Sounds good! Cant wait to get home and see the pics!

Hi,

Awesome thread mate! weish we had more detaild threads like this one! You thought about approaching a magazine for a write up?

Cheers,

Paul.

Thanks guys, might see if anyone is interested when I have tuned it for peak power after running the engine/clutch in (~1k miles)

Have a few more plans for it, but the budget literally doubled during the build, so I need to "recover" financially a few months ahah.

Further plans include A Quaife LSD, some chassis bracing, poly bushes and ARBs, I need to get my vented bonnet resprayed and finally some subtle graphics but it's hard to find a design that's not too much in your face.

great build!! what sort of management will you be using? i didnt notice if you said but i could have missed it.

wow !

Haltech ecu, and reflash of the stock Ecu.

i think the term sh1t of a shovel comes into play here awsome mate, well done.

I hope so, although God knows when I'll be able to get it tuned for max power really... need to run the engine/clutch in for about 1k miles, then need to get the main intercooler Y pipe fabricated as the one that comes with the kit is stupidly restrictive, then drive back down to TDI and get it tuned for max power! The std springs for the wastegates aren't that strong and my plan was to change them to stronger ones while the engine was out, but I was sent wrong ones and Power Enterprise are rubbish and slow to sort these things out, so I decided to keep the std springs, they should be good for 13~ PSI, maybe in the region of 450hp at the hubs, and I should be happy!

right then...!

Picked my baby up this afternoon. First impressions: it's like driving a car that can't really restrain itself much, it's so eager to boost! I have a 4k RPM limit and also a fuel cut at about 0.4BAR of boost for safety, and it's so easy to hit it! car drives really well, tomorrow I'm off to RS Tuning in Leeds to get the idle bumped up and the speed limiter "eliminated" with Osiris.

No sign currently of the CEL light related to the O2 rear pass side sensor, which is good news.

The "bad" news is that I have an "airbag" warning light flashing, Dennis tried to get rid of it with no luck, it wasn't throwing any codes though, weird.

Workmanship is undoubtedly high quality, didn't come cheap (to date I spent about £13k in labour/installation and about £12k in part, and I sitll need to get the tuning sorted etc!) so this type of projects isn't for the faint hearted, or the light wallets!

Car is noisier than before, as expected, but I'd divide the noises in 2 categories, the good ones (the dump valve is awesome!) and the bad ones (the clutch chatter), but not much.

Looking forward to see what numbers it'll put down!!

Ok, basically finished running the engine in, I've just taken the front bumper off and dismantled the IC Y pipe and now I need to find a good place to get one fabricated that is much more free flowing than the std one which was really badly designed.

To date the car drives really well, the clutch isn't too bad but I have to most probably change the fluid (I don't think the clutch fluid has ever been done on my Z, I think it's been overlooked!) because the clutch pedal drops to the floor after multiple stop/starts when queueing. It happened twice and both time when the car has been sitting in traffic, I think it's a heat issue.

I have a CEL light that keeps popping up (P1289) and the airbag light that keeps popping up too. I've invested in this http://www.scangauge2.co.uk/ just today, as I have not got a trip computer anymore and yesterday I nearly ended up with no petrol while crossing the Pennines! The car drinks sooo much more than I remember... This should also help clearing these pesky codes...

well after getting the engine run in with about 1500 miles @ 0.2bar boost and 4k rpm (torture!) I had the car tuned today. Will post the dyno graphs later on but here are the results:

bearing in mind the turbo actuators have the std (softest) springs and the Haltech has no boost solenoid, I got (on a Rototest hub dyno)

385hp and 366lb/ft torque

the good bit is that the tq/hp are pretty much nice and flat from very low rpms, and all this at 0.5/0.6 BAR.



I'll get used to the car in this form then I'll get the stiffer springs and the Haltech boost solenoid fitted, and shoot for 1BAR boost! (expect about 430hp at the hubs then).

The engine is basically "overbuilt" for this level of power, but that was the aim from the beginning in order to try and maximise reliability and longevity.

here are the dyno graphs and pics and video.













Really happy with how the car drives on the road, on the "private road course" for legal reasons from 80-xxx mph downshift to 4th gear is absolutely immense.


1/4 miles not so much... struggled to get any traction at all off the line, although I only had 3 goes