Track Rat - '91 Pulsar

I'm a Datsun guy in general, 510's specifically. While browsing the world wide classifieds for SR20 parts for my 510 wagon build, I happened across this ad from our local importer. Being in WA, USA we don't see many of these about.

My interest was peaked and I toyed with the idea for a while but eventually moved on.
After a couple months, I came to find out that the car never sold and was still sitting at Sodo-Moto. 
My friends had dealt with Sodo-Moto and had nothing but positive reviews.
So, I decided to go down and take a look. The ad made it clear that the car was beat down with a lot of "janky tuner mods" and "battle scars"
When we got down there it was clear what they meant.





"Track Rat" seemed to be a accurate description. The car looked like it had been "raced" quite a bit. Bolt in cage, a few performance upgrades, race seat, coil overs, and  a lot of electronics tied to the ECU. We took stock of the state of the car. As they advertised, the car had some damage on each quarter, it was filled and then re-damged on both sides. Seems the guy wasn't very good at his racing of choice.It did not run as it sat. Sodo-Moto had only gone as far as ripping out a bunch of excess wiring shenanigans and diagnosing a fouled fuel pump. Other than that they knew it popped when fed some ether.  
I knew if I were to get the car it would need to be a runner without extensive work. The owner gave us permission to toy with the car at our will.
He brought out a cheapo pump and with the tools I brought we had it fired up in short time.
Surprisingly, even after what we guess to be at least 15 years, the SR roared to life. A smooth idle, good compression, boost pressure, some vapor, minimal smoke.
However, lots of lifter noise. Since the GTiR has a solid lifters, they are louder than the normal hydraulic lifter SR's I'm used to but this was excessive. This came with low oil pressure, only about 30psi and not much gain with rpm. 

Engine = good enough
Next was the transmission, unfortunately, the tires were flat. (Actually worn in half on one by what I assume to be the cars last burn out session before being parked.)

So, put it in every gear and pulled forward and back. No grinding, no red flags, best that could be done. 
Transmission = good enough

Brakes, rusted in place and needing a complete overhaul.
All glass good.
No heavy rust/rot underneath.
Interior, seats all there and looking fresh. They even had the minty stock drivers seat! The dash was trashed by gauge mounting and sun cracks.
There really wasn't much more to be learned. 
A deal was struck and then it was just waiting for delivery. 



Since I still have my torn down 510 wagon clogging up my only garage bay, my friend Jeff was generous enough to loan me a bay until the car is a driver.



Parked next to his Bluebird coupe that he also got from Sodo, how fitting!

With the car in Jeff's shop it was time to go over it with a bit more vigilance and look for any surprises good or bad, that it may have in store.
Up on stands for inspection/work.


Lots of tuner bits in the bay


Crusty coilovers


Dude was a shit driver turns out


Those won't be flapping much mud!


Stainless turbo back...


Well, turbo back until this sweet tail pipe yo!


Worlds shittiest dash installments



junk in the trunk


Sticker galore


A little switch on the dash, translated to up=KSROM down=normal
Since it runs to the ECU and KSROM is a popular ECU tuner, the assumption is it is probably a retune. We'll find out.


This was the newest date found on the car, couldn't have been driven much longer before being parked. Tires were from 2001


Cage, race seat and a pile of old harnesses



Yikes! More vampires than a Twilight premier in here.  


Shows how long it was in the sun, I legitimately though it was gold window covering until I lifted the wiper.


All in all I would say it was a neutral experience, every unfortunate bit found was balanced by a positive bit. No worse for wear so far.

Complete list of extras discovered (for better or worse):

Momo steering wheel
Well worn Bride seat
No name Japanese made wheels
Greddy Profec boost controller
Greddy turbo timer
Apexi blow off valve
Buddy Club coil overs
Cusco strut tower brace
Cusco (i think) bolt in cage
KS ROM ecu
Nismo shift knob
HKS billet oil cap
Stainless exhaust
Splitfire plug wires
Blitz air filter
SARD attack meter
Yashio Factory Okachan water temp meter
Apexi power meter
ARC intercooler
Stainless brake lines

What's your plans for Ratty .

Looks like its got some history. Will be a good build

Mr B wrote:What's  your plans for Ratty .

Clean it up and drive it is goal #1.
Nothing finds all of those little issues like daily driving a car.
Then I will likely get it to our local AutoX in time.
Currently, the purpose of the Pulsar is to be a reliable commuter so I can take my time building my VE+T 510.

Looks good! Good luck getting through all those little jobs and back on the road!!

Sounds like a good project look forward to your progress and up dates

Next up was working this thing in to a runner. Some basic tune-up stuff like fluids and plugs but also some other more crucial stuff like solving the low oil pressure, fixing the fuel pump properly, tires and rebuilding the brakes. Even though this thing is twenty years newer than my Datsuns, it's easy to forget that it is still nearly 30 years old itself!

First off,
The lifters in this thing sounded terrible, quite concerning.
Unlike the RWD SR20's I'm used to, this motor has the solid lifters which explains some of the noise but even still.
Other differences I'm aware of are the ITB's , 440cc injectors, and supposedly stronger connecting rods.
Are there any other big differences between these and the other DET's? A FWD block of course.

The leading theory was that one of these lash pads, or an entire rocker arm had flown off. I would have to yank the valve cover to investigate, of course this meant dismounting the IC and a bunch of other bracketry to get there.
I decided to start wit something simpler as I was running out of time for the day. I drained the oil, black and thin, seems that 15 years or so of degradation took it's toll. This was actually motivating as it seemed thin oil would explain the low oil pressure. 
Next, I decided to flush the system a bit by dumping some spare oil straight through and into the drain pan. Basically, just try and get as much of the old degraded oil out as possible. I had a few qaurts of 20w-50 mollasses laying around which seemed perfect to drag its way through. Poured it in new and gold, sure enough it drained out pitch black. Decided it would be good to fill it up and run it a with some other temporary oil once buttoned back up, then redrain again.


At this point Jeff pointed out that my pan was crushed up a bit, maybe a forklift from shipping container delivery or some really aggressive driving. 
It looked slight to me but Jeff insisted it doesn't take much to close off the oil pickup that sits just above the bottom, this would also explain the low oil press.
Seemed worth the time so I pulled it off.



Sure enough, another great call by Jeff. There was a clear indentation in the pan from the pick up opening! Wowza. 


Spent some time hammering the pan back to convex. 

But wait, whats that in the bottom of the pan..
[img][/img]

Yep, lash pads!


Next work day, time to dig in.

Yuck, hope that bolt grommet held up.



Survey says? No missing rockers, or lash pads! ????



Must have thrown a rocker at one point and then replaced it without finding the leftover bits, sheesh.
Its possible the 20W-50  was thick enough to drag them out of some hidden crevasses. 

on to clearance measuring, not easy to accomplish in and of itself.
Top number = valve number
middle = cam lode clearance
bottom = each valve clearance


Not ideal as they should each be around 12 thou but, not so bad that they should make so much noise. 
Decided to keep it as is and see if the clatter was just due to old oil and low pressure. 

I took time bolting it back together and looked for any cracked vac lines, found a blown breather leaking oil residue and an easily cracked fuel line when replacing the fuel filter.
Actually mounted the BOV and Boost solenoid that were just zip tied to stuff.

Replaced the plugs, I got some nice NGK replacements and assumed I'd be pulling out some who knows brand or old NGK's...


Nope! Thats 3 HKS plugs and 1 Nismo jobber. I didn't even know Nismo made plugs, apparently they are so rare dude could only find one though ???? Even the HKS plugs are like $80 a set.

I'd have almost felt bad if they were matching and weren't so roached. 

Bolted up the IC, replaced the battery and fired it up. Much better! Oil pressure making nearly 60 psi compared to the 30 before and actually rises with rpm. 
Lifter noise still present but to a much lesser degree. I have no solid lifter SR to compare to so it may even be close to normal. Good enough that I'm no longer concerned by it. 

Let it come up to temp. to try and clean out more of the old oil. Gave it some rev's all seemed good, idles well. Responds well. Time to put the final oil in.
Another surprise! Who knew MOMO made filters?
[img][/img]


Pulled the wheels to get new rubber, looks like the cars last day in its last life was an eventful one!


Thats was most of the basic maintenance taken care of. On to more involved bits.




Haha forgot to point out this gem in the last overview post, I've never seen one.
A "Power" meter, uses signals from the ECU to determine how much air/fuel is being burned and compute a live HP read out. Obviously not uber precise but it even has a function to correct it to a dyno value. Neat, if nothing else!
 

Great write up nice to see you dont mind getting your hands stuck in ... good luck with the build

Enjoying the story so far. With regards to differences the pulsar runs 19mm Conrods where all the other sr engines are 17mm if I remember correctly. Drillings for flywheel are also different.

You seem to know your stuff and I don’t just mean before you refit be careful once sump pan is knocked back to shape later after car has ran for a while that the black paint on the inside dose not flake off as it can break up and go through the oil strainer. If things workout long term put a new pan on the list

might be worth checking the bottom end also and making sure its in ok condition, might save time and money later on.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I never thought about the paint inside the pan flaking off, that's a good point. Surprising the OEM even paints that side.

As far as checking the bottom end, I had already bolted the pan back up by the time I made my last post. How much can you see by pulling the pan and baffles? I couple cylinder walls?

Moving on. The fuel pump needed a proper replacement.
This of course involved yanking out the in tank fuel pump which inevitably gets you covered in fuel, in this case 15 year old sludge ????

Stock unit was crusty and had a cracked pick up.




I replaced it with a Walbro 255, new pick up and cleaned all the sludge out of the tank that I could reach. 
Somehow all I took was this one terrible pic. Oh well, we all know what old nasty gas and a walbro look like, use your imagination.


Along with replacing a few dry rotted fuel lines, that was the fuel issue sorted, for now. I'm nervous about all the other lines that may be close to failing due to the same dry rot.



While I was busy sorting the mechanical bits, Jeff took it upon himself to start giving the aesthetics some love. After hours of sticker scraping, he moved on to some mudding. 








I turned focus to the suspension. The setup was assembled incorrectly and very corroded. Disassembled to clean and inspect.
Measurements suggest 675lb front springs and 500lb rear! Quite stiff to say the least.





I then gave the brakes some attention. Not many pic.s but here are the fronts, better off than the rears!  the rear pad material actually separated from the metal backing before separating from the rotor!



As the front calipers looked on disassembly. Not too bad, cleaned them up and replaced the seals. Rear calipers got replaced entirely. 



Can't slow Jeff down!







Some single stage for now.





Bam!




Lets remember what that used to look like.

You lads don’t hang around enjoying the read. Thanks for taking the time to post progress and keep them coming

Nice work there looking better already. Don't think I would get away with doing that on my drive in the shitty UK weather.

Awesome, getting stuck into it, looks great

I saw your picture on facebook, I didn't realize you'd done so much work already.  SodoMoto is a cool place, they have a March Super Turbo I want.

You got lucky with the ARC intercooler.  Are those Buddy Club coilovers, or am I seeing things?

Ryaneg6freak wrote:I saw your picture on facebook, I didn't realize you'd done so much work already.  SodoMoto is a cool place, they have a March Super Turbo I want.

You got lucky with the ARC intercooler.  Are those Buddy Club coilovers, or am I seeing things?

Cool, I am surprised at how active and helpful the GTIR Facebook crowd is. The Datsun guys mostly just spend time bashing each other on there.
Yep ARC intercooler, I heard they are uncommon. It's dinged up a bit in the back but not too bad.
Also yep, Buddy Club coilovers. The previous owner seemed to have good taste in parts, he was just shit at installing them and worse at not bashing in to things. But oh well, thats what got me a deal.

SodoMoto is great to work with, I would recommend them to anyone. Adam the owner is a super nice guy.

I had no idea Buddy Club ever made anything for the Pulsar. That's got to be the first set I've ever seen, ever.

Ryaneg6freak wrote:I had no idea Buddy Club ever made anything for the Pulsar. That's got to be the first set I've ever seen, ever.

They may not have. Possible they are modified to fit from a similar car, B13 maybe.
The rear top hats were actually trimmed to fit. Sway bar mounts and such all seemed good to line up though.

To get the interior a bit more tolerable, the stock drivers seat went in and the roll cage came out.


Jeff did some buffer work which made an amazing difference!
Left in progress, right untouched. 


End result ????




All that was left was to turn the coils down a few inches and correct the alignment.

Then off to test drive.






All went well, so in to the daily drive routine!



About a 100 miles in now.
A few sneaking issues. Odometer is broke, not surprising. Clutch slave leaks and needs replacement.
Only 13mpg, meaning something is causing a rich condition... have to investigate.
What are common issues?
Maybe the new fuel pump is overpowering the old regulator, need an adjustable FPR?

Good progress there mate, well done! 


Its more than likely a broken or disconnected lambda sensor on the turbo elbow...OR an air leak from one of the boost hoses/tubes. If you do a fault code blink test and start the engine, the engine check light should blink (IIRC) 5 times in 10 seconds (done with hot engine & RPM @ 2000rpm).
Have a search on here and you'll find the exact procedure but its dead easy, all you need is a paperclip!


You could also try taking the MAF hot wire element out of the aluminium housing and giving it a clean with alcohol. Probably worth while doing this even if it isn't the issue as its good preventative maintenance.


Another possibility is that the MAF needs to be re-grounded. Again, probably good preventative maintenance doing this simple & free mod anyway.


Let us know if you find the issue though mate 

VolksWagner wrote:

Ryaneg6freak wrote:I had no idea Buddy Club ever made anything for the Pulsar. That's got to be the first set I've ever seen, ever.

They may not have. Possible they are modified to fit from a similar car, B13 maybe.
The rear top hats were actually trimmed to fit. Sway bar mounts and such all seemed good to line up though.

Def not from a B13 then, the only difference between the 2 IS the sway bar mounts, otherwise they bolt right in. I'm running rear AGX shocks and upper from a B13, and ended up just using a heim joint adjustable link to make the sway bar attachment work.

Awesome work mate to get it out on the road again so quick! hope you manage to sort your mpg issue out, although they arnt great anyway!! lol

Ryaneg6freak wrote:

VolksWagner wrote:

Ryaneg6freak wrote:I had no idea Buddy Club ever made anything for the Pulsar. That's got to be the first set I've ever seen, ever.

They may not have. Possible they are modified to fit from a similar car, B13 maybe.
The rear top hats were actually trimmed to fit. Sway bar mounts and such all seemed good to line up though.

Def not from a B13 then, the only difference between the 2 IS the sway bar mounts, otherwise they bolt right in.  I'm running rear AGX shocks and upper from a B13, and ended up just using a heim joint adjustable link to make the sway bar attachment work.

From memory the mount was way off on the B13, did you make a bracket from the top mount to make it work?

My BC's were from an n14/b13 and I just brought the correct lower mounts and screwed them on.