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 Post subject: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:03 pm 
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Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Hi All,
I've started copying this in from my posts at the qpdc.info forum. Since they've gone to Facebook-only I've stopped using it.
I've included the dates in each post that were originally in the other forum.

My avatar is a pic of our old rally 1600 at an autocross, 2.1 litre, twin 45's and so on...

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:08 pm 
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Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Wed May 09, 2012

We picked up a Datsun 1600 with SR20DET and gearbox, all running and registered some time ago.
Some of you may have seen it around the Ipswich area.
I've been steadily working on it when time and budget permit.

The body has been repainted, not sure how much bog is under there....
Much of the body needs some touching up, like door seals, new bonnet, some rubber and lock bits added.

The electricals were in a bad way, working but only by some stroke of luck. I was just going to do some repairs and tidy up to keep the car going but that quickly became a case of starting over.

The engine worked OK, that too seemed amazing given the number of stripped and ill-fitting hose clamps, loose things, over-tightened things, and so on.

The gearbox and clutch seem fine, except for bit of a leaky slave cylinder. The gearbox is the SR20 5speed with electronic speedo sender. It's truly great to have a car with a gearbox and clutch that works fast and easy, unlike all the new cars that have heavy flywheels and keep the engine revs up for a while so hopeless people can drive too...

The suspension was quite low, and handling is just crazy (in a bad way). I've wound up the front spring seats as much as possible to get a "believable" ride height and fractionally improve the handling. I've ordered new spring seat spacers for the rear so I can lift it and still use the existing springs.

Brakes are woeful, they all work but only just. The vacuum booster doesn't boost. Standard old under-dash handbrake works.

[ img ]

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 8:53 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Wed May 09, 2012

The wiring was the first thing to get the treatment. I'd started to try and fix a few of the wiring issues and became annoyed in about 5 mins, with old connectors crumbling, wires taped to other wires taped to other wires... Every man and their dog had been at this thing. And apart from the old original wiring, the SR20 wiring was joined in by hook or by crook. At least the SR20 wiring was all there and in good condition under all the tape and tubing.
I ripped the lot out, everything except the interior light and tail lights. I was already very familiar with standard 1600 wiring from a past rallying life.
We disassembled the SR20DET wiring and stripped out all the unwanted wires.
It took a long time, but eventually we got it all back together. There's completely new wiring for all standard car functions (lights, wipers, horn etc) plus the SR20 ECU wiring is combined. Some of the sensor wiring has been shortened/lengthened/replaced to suit.
I've still got to do a couple of small tidy up jobs when I'm finally happy with everything on the wiring front.
The dash and gauges is still a work in progress - I've fitted up a couple of warning lights but yet to get the gauges happening. At the moment the radiator fan is manually controlled by an ordinary switch (to the fan relay of course) and the Android phone resting in the ash tray is the speedo.
The gauges will be 2 of these "Car Scrolling Display" jobs:
[ img ]
These have 4 inputs for measuring voltage or resistance, and 2 for measuring frequency or duty cycle. There are 2 outputs that can switch a relay, light or buzzer.
So the plan is to have one display showing speedo, and optionally injector duty cycle with warning light, maybe battery voltage. The other display will show temperature (and switch the fan on and off) plus show fuel level (and warning light) plus the all-important tacho.

After all the rewiring, and turning the engine over by hand for a while to circulate some oil, and running the fuel lift-pump to fill the surge tank, the engine fired first turn of the key and ran better than ever before. I've still got to tweak the idle a bit but it's bearable and the least of the problems.
All lights and blinkers and everything else works as desired.
[ img ]
This was some of the wiring in progress, now all put into place and wrapped, cable tied and hidden.
ECU is still in the glove box (believe it or not) where it was when we found it, but at least it doesn't just float around any more.
I also included an extra "sensor" shielded cable and twin power cable running out each side of the firewall into each side of the engine bay for those inevitable modifications and projects later on.
Before too many people point it out, I made the fuse panel out of some thin ply I had lying around, as much as a template, and if it ends up working out long term I'll get it done in aluminium or something. It hinges down (as shown in this photo if you can make it out through the wires) for rear access, and the heater box is gone since it was a bit beyond repair. I'll have to rig up something electric for demisting probably. There's 2 blade fuse blocks of 8 fuses each to cover off everything electrical.

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 8:57 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Wed May 09

I replaced most pipes in the engine bay, and most hose clamps too.
Had to make some gaskets for the inlet manifold and IACV.
Had to replace nearly all fuel line with the proper fuel injection hose and the correct clamps. Re-did all the hoses from the fuel tank to the lift and pressure pumps plus surge tank.
Had to sort out the oil breather system, reusing the oil-catch can that came with the car, but now at least it's not vented to the atmosphere. Got a small length of pipe made up for the inlet side of the turbo to allow the breather system to "T" into the inlet. Had to replace all those inlet pipes too and remount the AFM and filter.
[ img ]

Shawn

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 9:02 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Thu May 10, 2012

The old oil filter put up a fight, it was on way too tight. I won in the end though.
[ img ]

Phase 1 of the big brake fix-up has been started, we've removed the bad parts.
The booster doesn't boost anymore, and doesn't leak either strangely enough.
The master cylinder was already the dual-circuit 7/8in one, but the green furry patches and yellow scaly things hanging off it don't inspire confidence.
[ img ]

We have some replacement parts and whole front struts on order from Datsport.

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


Last edited by xfacta on Sat Sep 29, 2012 7:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 9:05 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Thu May 10, 2012

In this shot you can see the straight pipe with the oil breather pipe joining in. There's the 90 degree silicone pipe to the MAF and filter, and a 30 degree silicone pipe to the turbo.
[ img ]
There's the black steel outlet pipe from the turbo to the intercooler. Just out of shot it has a fitting and pipe that goes across the front of the motor to the IACV - it used to have just a weak bit of heater hose. One day I'll plumb the IACV hose in right near the throttle body as it should be.
There's no BOV.
The breather setup mimics the factory arrangement as close as I could get it given that all the original components were gone. There was just some super-stiff hydraulic hose in place in some strange configuration and just venting to the atmosphere.
I took the drain plug out of the bottom of the oil catch can and replaced it with a fitting and ran that to the sump breather pipe. One of the top fittings goes to the rocker cover breather (a new fitting glued and screwed in there too) and the other outlet goes to the afore-mentioned main intake pipe. The oil catch can is not special, there's no baffling or anything.

Shawn

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 9:06 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Mon Jun 25, 2012

I got one of the Car Scrolling Display units working, showing RPM, Fuel level in litres and coolant temp, plus switching on the fan over 90.
The calibration needs a bit of tweaking, particularly the fuel level, but Temp is not too bad.

Now for the second unit to display, Speed, Injector Duty , battery voltage and Throttle position (to save getting out the multimeter to set the idle and timing).....
I also need to mount them properly in some cut-up form of the original gauge mounting hardware, and then the dash fascia will go over that just like standard.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, these display thingies don't have to scroll across the display the whole time. There's a button to press to cycle between individual readings fixed on the display (static) or to scroll through the list. So for example my left hand display would be showing speed the whole time, and the right hand display would be scrolling through the RPM, Temp and Fuel.
Each unit has a push button plus a USB port for programming

The Datsport struts, master cylinder and booster are on the way. There was a bit of a hold up with a batch of discs.

Shawn

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 9:07 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Wed Jul 04, 2012

Datsport parts arrived and awaiting the fitting to begin...

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 8:13 am 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Here's the reason for the "new old 1600" title of the thread - we had an "old old 1600 before this:

[ img ]
That was running as "Zero" car in a QLD state round a few years ago (...well maybe more than a few)

And here's two links to video of the car in QLD round motorkhana:
The first is higher quality video of a fairly straight forward test,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtYFDGvXBfg
The second is low quality video of a much more spectacular test.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyNNY0i6S6Q
Note that the car was set up for rallying, at that time of the videos it had 13" wheels and 4.375 R180 locked, Hollinger 1st and 2nd gears and no anti-sway bar. Later it was updated to 14" wheels, 4.6 R180 locked with bigger brakes: 4 spot Landcruiser calipers, Commodore blank disks machined, rear TRX discs and calipers, 1" bore master cylinder and bias valve.

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 5:31 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Latest update:
Datsport DSK250C struts assemblies went in OK, I ended up winding the spring seats just about right up to even out the ride height since I'd added spring seat spacers in the rear to lift it to a reasonable ride height.
I adjusted the (adjustable) camber pins and toe by eye and it's actually pretty good, about 87635862489798573478% on what it was before. Bump steer (roll centre for the technical sorts) was atrocious before. Will still need a real wheel alignment soon though.
Datsport booster and master cylinder fitted, all steel lines replaced by Brisbanes No.1 brake man. Standard drums on the rear, I had to fix the adjusters a bit though. Brakes are now great and pedal effort is not even worth talking about.

The digital displays I'm using in the dash are working enough, it's bit of an ongoing process to calibrate them...
The tacho is right and working OK, the Temp is reading accurately too and controls the thermo fan.
The fuel gauge function has been a bit all over the place, with the reading swinging wildly, but I might have it now, since the Datsun just got it's first full tank of fuel.
The speedo function is sort of working but fluctuates a bit too much to be relied upon, I've got to check what my little SR20 speedo sensor home-grown adapter circuit is up to.
I'm also measuring throttle position sensor voltage and injector duty cycle. The duty cycle needs work but the TPS voltage is calibrated OK.

I'll get some photos and maybe a vid of the displays in action.
Also I'll have to post a pic of the super exhaust system - it's a beauty :lol:

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:04 am 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
The wheel alignment finally got done properly, I really only had a bit too much toe-in so I'm fairly satisfied with my "eye ball" wheel alignment which had included camber. We also went and got the rear wheels balanced and moved to the front to negate any strange wear on the front tyres. Apart from a little bit of play in the old steering box, driving and handling is pretty good now.
One thing that came out of the wheel alignment process is that the back end needs a bit of work. The rear suspension bushes all look old and tired (as they are) and we'll have to see if replacing them helps out the rear alignment. It would probably help the handling at very least. At worst we'll need some adjustment added to the rear cross member.

This car had some "invented" fuel sender, maybe a Silvia fuel sender cobbled together with a round mounting plate to go in the original fuel tank mount. During a long drive we noted that the fuel level read about 25 litres the whole way, as if the sender was sticking - even when we ran out of fuel! To be fair, I had an idea the sender was problematic and that the fuel was low. We had a 10 litre jerry can along for the ride just in case.
I think I'll have to acquire a standard Datsun 1600 fuel sender and recalibrate my gauge to use that. Hopefully I can find one on good condition from someone that has replaced the whole sender or tank.

I've added a second electric 12in fan to the radiator, one just wasn't bringing the temperature down enough. For example with highway driving, even at night, the fan would be on most of the time and only turn off during downhill stretches and similar. I have the cut-in temperature set at about 87 degrees. You can also notice this in the traffic - as soon as you stop or drive slowly behind other cars the fan would come on and stay on until you'd been cruising at reasonable speed and very light engine load. So now with the two fans we'll have to see if they can bring down the temp in a reasonable time.
The reason for using 12in fans is because the radiator is some sort of original equipment out of "I don't know what" (maybe a Silvia??) and I can't fit in a single big fan. The radiator has the plastic tanks and single aluminium core. Frontal area is quite large and probably OK but there's a whopping great intercooler stuck in front that is probably restricting a lot of air flow :)

My temperature "gauge" shows exact degrees, and the downside to that is you tend to keep looking at it and when it goes up one or two degrees you start to think "what happened? what's wrong" for no good reason. You'd never see these small variations on a normal analogue gauge. However, activating the fan at my chosen temp of 87 degrees and the amount of hysteresis is working OK. When the temp drops to about 85 the fan switches off. I've not seen the temp go over about 91 or 92 though, but we've not done any serious flogging of the car either.

To Do:
- get the spare bonnet fixed up and painted
- get something worked out for bonnet pins
- find a front bumper and brackets
- find a standard 1600 fuel sender
- sort out the speedo which is reading erratically (phone GPS speedo is relied upon)
- wire up a cigarette lighter socket for charging phones and things
- fit the stereo
- rear suspension bushes
- steering box overhaul/swap
- R180 for when the R160 explodes
- some oil seals here and there...

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:14 am 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
I've also updated the fuel breather set up to be a bit more like original but using standard fuel hose instead of the clear (or brown crispy) tubing, except that it vents to a plastic fuel filter under the back instead of just into a chassis rail.
I'd had a similar setup in place but just using bits of fuel hose I had at the time. Now the new hose is better fitting and better lengths.
Fitted new wiper blades too.
The wiper motor doesn't return either and you have to stop it in the right place, so I'll look at that eventually too.

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 8:54 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
The fuel sender we got from DATDRIFT went in this afternoon and calibrated OK.
The tank got low enough for the car to start fluffing and carrying on, so parked it nose down on the driveway, tested and calibrated the new sender while it was still out of the tank but hooked up to the fuel sender wire and earth.
Also calibrated the Injector Duty Cycle reading correctly while we were at it.
Once refitted to the tank, and with the car running the fuel gauge now reads about 7 litres with the small amount of fuel it had in plus the emergency 5 litres I added, so pretty close. Went and filled it up and it reads 47 litres - close enough! The fuel warning light is set for 10 litres, so should be enough warning to find a servo.

So now the digital displays have:
Left display: Speedo (still reading a bit funny due to some interference it's picking up)
Injector Duty with warning LED on 80%
Throttle position voltage (for setting idle and all)
Oil Pressure with warning LED, for future use
Right display:
Temperature and turning on thermo fans and LED at 87 degrees
Fuel with warning LED at 10 litres
Tacho

I've been thinking about linking the fan operation to speed as well as temperature, since the fans likely don't help once the speed is over say 80km/hr (or maybe less)

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 6:49 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Replaced the front main seal on the weekend and changed the oil, the filter was just a BIT easier to get off this time.

Finally got my speedo interface working OK, and calibrated the Scrolling Display kit to suit - it did work before but the speedo interface (between Sr20 inductive pickup and Display kit) was picking up interference from everything else in the car and making the displayed speed reading jump all over the place.
Speed is now spot on.

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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 Post subject: Re: Shawn's new old 1600
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:09 am 
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Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:44 pm
Posts: 171
Location: Northern NSW / Queensland
Replaced the fuel lift pump, just with a cheapie since we're not racing or anything. It's enough to keep the surge tank full. Hopefully it will last a year or two. At least now the pressure pump should have an easier life and shouldn't be making weird noises from time to time as it starves.
The old lift pump was some black cyclindrical solenoid/diaphram thing that slowed down over time and has eventuallly siezed. It came with the car and looked decidedly second hand - so it probably even came out of something else before the Datsun.

By the way, my interface circuit for the SR20 inductive speed sensor was simple and seems completely reliable. If you're like me and have more than enough electronic parts and enough experience I could point you to the circuit diagram - for everyone else just buy the interface/adapter from PLMS. I just wanted to do it myself.

_________________
'71 Datsun 1600, SR20DET red-top
Mostly OK, needs typical rust and panel work.


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