Yes - the car is not lowered much - just enough to keep the front axles straight for a launch. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get on or off of the trailer, though. I'll have to install the cutout after unloading the car and take it off before going back on the trailer. I could do this quickly, plus I got to use the hi-temp header wrap and stainless ties for the first time, so that was fun.

I could have the other 3" pipe with the end cap installed on the other side of the header collector, but that would mean a new bung for the wideband and a trip to the exhaust guy. That may still happen, but later.

 

Looking good with the new cutout!
Can't wait to see the car make a full pass at the track with the nitrous!

 

Oooh weee, this looks fun!

I am actually planning on moving back to KS next year with two working cars, hope to get shotgun in this car again someday

 

DAFQ??! Uh, oh..

 

Where are you moving to? Manhattan? We could take a road trip in the Shark to Olathe and go hassle Fakie. with spray...

Right now I'm working on my last major problem - the differential. The welded-up VLSD does not turn both tires together like it should, so I have another VLSD on the bench and at the moment I'm trying to come up with a way to lock the differential gears for a true spool. It looks like cutting four diamond-shaped pieces of hardened steel so they go between the diffy gears would do the trick, if I can come up with a way to lock them in place.

 

I think Aaron was working on getting a real spool made like the muscle car guys

 

I remember that, but I think his plan was to use an open diff for the spool. There is a whole lot of differences between open and VLSD diffs, and since I have the built VLSD tranny, that's what I'm looking at.

I picked a piece of 3/4" steel rod yesterday that I think I can cut up and grind down and make four pieces to fit between the pinion gears to lock up the diff. If this looks good, I will have them welded in place and then swap out diffs in the car.

 

I cut off a chunk of the 3/4" round bar and used a body grinder to shape one end to insert between two adjacent diffy gears. This might actually work... Cut off the end piece, insert between gears, TIG-weld in place, repeat. Now if I just had a good welder - and I could weld... Hmmm, anyone recognize the T-shirt on the work table? From some annual event with Maximas??
















Cleaned up the Shark a bit during the holiday... because I could...

 

get a lincoln 140 or higher gas welder, put the gears and rod in the oven for about 30mins on 400 and go to town. Then put them back in the oven while it's still warm but off and let them come back down to room temp

 

Last night I looked up the 140 series of MIG welders, watched a couple of YouTube videos of welding with one, and rummaged around in Ebay for deals, then went to a couple of stores to eyeball Lincolns. Pretty impressive welders, just used as wire-feed alone. They have a high-speed spooler for aluminum welding, too. Bet you knew that, seeing some of your recent thread photos.

Now see what you did - I want one. Probably the SP140T #K-2688-2 because that's the newest of the 140 series. Maybe a matching cart, too. This looks like a non-welders dream machine - certainly better than the HF 80 amp inverter stick welder I try to use.

 

you'll smack yourself for not getting one sooner, next on my list is a drill press, band saw and plasma cutter

 

I think there's a Lincoln in my future. Ebay has some good prices, and I tagged a few. You know, I have two table-top drill presses and two sets of wire-size bits and a couple of sets of up-to-1/2" cobalt 135* bits and they are very handy to have around. Since I'm working in 1/2 of our home's garage, I'm just about out of floor space. A plasma cutter would be really great - if I used it in the driveway so all those sparks don't melt a hole in my E98 drum or the 5-gal jugs of mixed E85 and six cans of E85 or race fuel sitting next to a transmission and engine stand with the old 3.5 still on it or seven full 15lb nitrous bottles. Dang - maybe I am a hoarder. Sure not much floor space left, anyway.

 

I 've been thinking about what to do with the differential if I can lock it up with tapered chunks of steel welded into the gears so it can't rotate. It's been a pain to swap out the entire differential since I need a shop to drop out the transmission and then it goes to a transmission shop to install the replacement diffy after checking all the clearances and changing shims if needed. This is an expensive transmission so I don't want to have a bad diffy blow it up before I manage to do it myself.

It does shift nicely while spraying under full power, for however long that will last. I have seen a possible solution - set up the four steel chunks pushed into the gears, tack-weld them in place, take out the cross and weld up all sides of the steel chunks (properly heated, of course) clear up the cross, and pull the transmission out, open up the front cover and take out the entire existing diffy with the welded VLSD, open the diffy case and swap in the welded cross, bolt everything back together and re-install the diffy into the transmission, replace the front cover, and put the tranny back into the car. Should be lots faster to do it this way, I think.

 

Lately I've spent a lot of time - and E85 - trying to find a sweet spot for launching the car (not spraying) and keeping the lambra around 0.83 because of the E85. Changing over to the 2010 Maxima intake manifold is part of the reason, because it seems to pull lots more air into the engine when opening the throttle. Tip-in is critical with this setup, since even with the 440cc DW injectors, it was possible to be too lean when cracking the throttle.

I noticed that the actual MAF used seems to have a great deal of control over throttle response, even when the lambda stays the same?? I had a few old OEM MAFS and a couple of replacement MAFS I also bought. These have an entirely different hot-wire sensor setup in the tunnel, and don't need any tape across the back of the tunnel to lean it out, like the OEM MAFs. They have a fine E85 lambda as-shipped. Last night I took out a non-OEM MAF and did a few tests of throttle response and stall speed. Acceleration seemed slow and the stall would happen at about 2400 RPMs. The car just felt slow to respond, yet the lambda was good - just no real power.

I swapped in a recent OEM MAF and did the same tests and the car felt much snappier when the throttle was goosed, and the stall came up to 3000 and held there with WOT with the brakes locked, which it should do. Using an older OEM MAF that had been through a couple of nitrous backfires gave similar results, except throttle response was puny even though the lambda was about 0.83 - 0.84 and stall was 3000. This MAF was why I started playing with MAFs - no obvious damage, stable lamba, but acceleration was poor. If you check, a brand-new OEM MAF is $300 or more, so I have ordered another used OEM version for more testing. I know the price because the last one I backfired with cost that much!

EDIT: I wonder if I used my Consult-based monitor and logger, would something show the differences between the two MAFs? It's capable of logging everything useful while displaying on a laptop - Hmmmm... Also, air-temp was about 90* at 9:30 PM, engine oil and transmission oil was over 180* and engine temp was around 210* - after a couple of highway blasts. This is why I have a new dual-core radiator with fans coming my way. May put a fan on the tranny cooler, as well.

EDIT #2: I think I'll hook up a single Shark nozzle before the TB and try a gentile spray of nitrous just to add a little more heat. Using the direct-port is brutal, and in hot weather, engine temps go over 220*F very quickly. Plus I want to launch with it....

I wonder if 4th gens that have acceleration problems could have a defective MAF? And if you buy a cheapo replacement MAF (non-OEM) the problem would continue! I don't remember reading about this issue anywhere else, but it's a big forum. Anyone else have any information on flakey MAFs ??

 

so you can pull the diff on the auto trans without dropping it

 

I wish - no, it has to come out to remove the front housing (that supports the diffy) from the main transmission. It's still a pain, but this would save a bunch of time and money compared to having a transmission shop set clearances after the tranny was out of the car.

 

Had some rain last night and today was a lot cooler than yesterday (99*) so I decided to play with MAFs and a TB-mounted nitrous nozzle. First I went back to the imitation MAF that I bought new for $46 delivered, that was acting badly. No snap when the throttle is goosed, no top-end pull. I didn't cut down the air flow with tape, so today I did block off about 1/10 of the sensor tunnel, and guess what? Now it pulls just as hard as the OEM MAF (lambda .85) , and throttle response is great. Guess it was dumping too much E85 after all. Now I like it - so much I just ordered another one.

I re-installed a Shark nozzle in an existing mount just before the TB and jetted it at 41N/33F for the E85 which gave me a combined 0.80 lambda when WOT with the nozzle and imitation MAF. Felt really strong - controller was programmed to start at 4K and 70%. I'm going to change the programming on one stage of the Maximizer3 to engage at 3K and 50% spray and go to 100% at 80% throttle - for this nozzle. I'll leave the Stage 1 programming for the direct-port where it is, starting at 4K. I'll also install another pair of smaller Lightning solenoids for the single nozzle and the big ones for the direct-port nozzles. Hopefully this will fix the nitrous backfires I get with the direct-port at lower ( < 4K) RPMs at let me spray a 75-shot at 3K for a launch. This was a direct consequence of the 2010 Maxima UIM - breathing seems better, but now POPs sometimes.

 

Off Topic, but what are the specs on your wheel and tire setup?

 

Sure, the rears are M/T ET Street Radials 3752R P235/60R15 and the fronts are 3753R P275/50R15, all mounted on Summit Warrior RT 15x8 xx4.5"xx 5.5" back spacing 4.5" x 5 bolt (114.3mm) wheels.

And it corners very well, too...

 

Last night I installed the new eBay radiator in the Shark, and decided to keep the OEM fan assembly because those fans were bigger than the ones I got with the radiator. Once I was done I put in another bottle of Red Line Water Wetter - just because...










The OEM radiator is on the top of the new one. The core is at least twice as thick, plus aluminum tanks on top and bottom. Only thing is I had to connect the automatic tranny directly to the B&M cooler. No big loss here - the tranny now runs 20-30* cooler. The OEM fans fit on the new YOLO ( not KOYO) radiator after I tapped the top two holes with a M5 tap.









It will take some track time to see how the new YOLO handles the heat from nitrous, but I have high hopes.

I spiffed up the KramRam air intake while I was under the hood - opened up the intake port a bit, with spacers. I also installed another new-design MAF in there, and I'm really impressed with the throttle response - and the lambda is better - like .90 and not dumping fuel like the older knockoff MAFS.

 

YOLO!!

 

Today I ordered the rest of the parts I need to install a complete 75-shot system with Shark nozzle, two Lightning solenoids, two 4AN-4AN and two 4AN-3AN hoses, fuel and nitrous purge, and wiring to my Maximizer3 controller.

I'm going to use this to launch with - but just in first gear. I already have the necessary relay controls to do that, so I'll use the 2nd Stage for the launch program and Stage One for the direct port installation. I can program the second stage for the 75-shot to start at 3000 and cut off at 4000 and have the direct port start at 4000 for all gears.

Now back to the locked differential issue...

 

I though I would look around for info on Quaife diffs first, before welding gears together, and a short Google search turns up a LOT of Quaife diffs for the 95-2001 Maximas. Here's some of them:


http://www.horsepowerfreaks.com/part...16679/-/Nissan

http://www.evasivemotorsports.com/mm...FUPl7AodgXcASg

http://lightningmotorsports.com/i-22...FWho7AodKXYAHg

http://quaife.co.uk/shop/search/resu...21%2C307%2C311



There's more shops selling the Quaife now, it seems. Still nothing for the VLSD transmissions from what I couldn't find today, but I'm still hoping... Anyone else know what going on in Quaife-Land ??

 

how is this diff so expensive, the eaton posi for my truck was only 500

 

Pix of the ring and pinion gears from the blown 2001 automatic sitting in the garage. There are 17 teeth on the pinion and 60 teeth on the ring gear - that's a 3.53 ratio.

EDIT: went back to Photobucket archive and re-counted the teeth on the ring gear. Oops - there are 66 teeth on the ring and 17 teeth on the pinion, for an effective final drive ratio of 3.882.







Nothing really new here - but I wonder if the pinion gear with shaft can be unbolted and removed from the transmission? I'll try this tomorrow - since I fried the insides of this one a couple of years ago, I don't care what happens. Wouldn't it be great if the gear ratios can be changed by just swapping these two gears? Naw... I'm not that lucky.


"t6378tp how is this diff so expensive, the eaton posi for my truck was only 500 " Yeah -- that seems like a bunch but I was really surprised to see them for sale in different places. Maybe the Cattman monopoly is over?

 

Today I installed the two new fuel and nitrous solenoids (solenoids so cute) so that they are connected to fuel and nitrous and mounted very near the NX Shark nozzle just in front of the TB. I used a 6AN gauge adapter to pull E85 off the front rail feed and the remaining 4AN Y-port off the 6AN nitrous feed pipe from the trunk.


Fuel tap:



pix of the mounted solenoids - some pipe bending gonna be done here.






Just when I think I can't get anything else under the hood, I go and put something else under the hood.

Hmmm.. looks like I need another pix for the completed job. OK - i found it: Notice the tape-tuned custom MAF. I like these. Snappy...






And BACON - no engine work is complete without BACON !! And some stuff from the garden.. OK, my wife's garden - I'm not allowed close to the vegetables.





I'm not going out tonight to test all this goodness - because I have had too many pineapple margaritas - way too many.

 

have one for me

 

Thanks -don't mind if I do ! ( and I did .. )

 

Another member, ABIGBRAIN, has talked to me about final drive ratios and what may be available for the Maxima95-2001 4AT automatic transmission - since most of the major parts seem to be swappable. 2000-2006 Altimas have interesting parts from the same transmission. I checked and both transmissions are available locally, for $300-$500.

Here's his link to Final Drive ratios for many Nissans (97-2008):

http://www.vibratesoftware.com/html_...01997-2008.htm

Also internal gear ratios (3rd gear is always 1.00):

http://www.vibratesoftware.com/html_..._1997-2008.htm


The gears of most concern are the 2000-2004 Altima 2.5 trannys which may have a 4.087 final drive. There is also the 2005-06 2.5L Altimas which may have a 4.425 final drive.

Some simple approximate calculations based on running in 3rd gear at 6000 RPM with a tire having 80" circumference:

3.88 ratio (my gears) in 3rd at 6K = 117 MPH

4.087 ratio (2000-2004) in 3rd at 6K = 111MPH

4.425 ratio (2005-2006) in 3rd gear at 6K = 102MPH

I can see that having the 4.425 gear combo in my car would let me be well into 4th gear (shifting at 6500) before the 1/4 mile traps, instead of just shifting into 4th at the traps. Now if I could swap a 4.425 gear in place of my 3.88 gears by just changing the ring and pinion gears, then... Hmmmm....

 

Both gears are available BRAND NEW from Nissanpartszone and Courtesypart for about $265 + shipping. Don't forget to get the vss gear from the same tranny (didn't look up the price)

Andy

 

Is that (vss gear) the Speed Sensor gear assembly? This is why I would get a used tranny for the ring and pinion - and whatever else comes up. A spare-parts bucket with a bell housing...

 

I suppose a used tranny would be good for extra partls,trial fittments and on ramp testing. If all goes well I would order the gears new for racing purposes.

 

I checked the bolt torque for the pinion hold-down bracket, and they are 80-90 lbft, with 14mm 12-pt heads. Problem is that to remove the pinion shaft with its gear, you have to pull out the oil pump because one of those bolts is locked by the pump, and who knows what else has to come out with the pump.

I'm not going to go any further with these gears, unless I get another transmission built and then I'll pick the final drive ratio. Frankly, there are too many tire combinations to make this worth the trouble. Back to getting a flux-wire welder to make a locked spool for the transmission I have.

 

I've been having some erratic behavior ( good name for a band?) with the two nitrous stages I have at the moment, so I decided to re-wire the power feeds to each pair of solenoids. I used the regular 30/40 Amp automotive relays, which are triggered from the same trunk-mounted master switch for the entire nitrous system, including the two NX Maximizer controllers. (just using both stages of tne Max3 now).

Since I have one direct-port stage with serious solenoids and one smaller stage for launch, I wanted to separate the battery power feeds for them - separate 30-amp fuses, separate relays, and separate programming in the Maximizer3. Anyway, everything actually worked last night when I went out on a tour of the local on-ramps - except - the launch stage is slow to kick in when triggered. This is probably becaise neither of the solenoids were installed with a purge, so it takes a little time before it makes power. No problem after that - I forgot just how much difference a 75-shot makes. Whee ! The direct-port stage (set for 150-shot) is very strong - I locked it out in first gear thru the Max3 and set the lower RPM limit to 4200. Both upper limits are 6475 RPM.

I need to figure out a simple purge combination - and change the programming for the lower-limit enable to 2700 RPM from 3250. Then it's show time.

 

I don't have all the parts I need to install another nitrous purge/fuel bleed system - yet, so I re-programmed the Maximizer3 Stage 1 (75-shot Shark nozzle) to engage at 2750 RPMs and went out last night and worked on the launch. Using the new-design MAF gives me a very quick tip-in when the throttle is jabbed from a lower RPM, so I braked the car at rest, pushed the TQ up to stall -3K- let the RPM drop to ~1500 and stabbed the throttle for the initial leap and rolled right into nitrous and opened the throttle to WOT. Smoke 'em if you got them. Yeah - that's what the car wants - and it's repeatable.

The engine really wakes up at 4500 when it comes on the cams, so I programmed Stage 2 (direct-port stage) to start spray at 4500 on up to 6475 at greater than 60% throttle. I hope that when I launch that I can roll into Stage 2 under throttle control and leave the car WOT until I clear the traps. On Friday.

 

About the MAF that I've been using:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/95-96-97-98-99-NISSAN-MAXIMA-AIR-FLOW-METER-22680-31U00-/220829748461?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item336a7a8ced&vxp=mtr

I just bought a third one for spares, in case I have another nitrous backfire - which usually wrecks a MAF - at least the OEM versions. I really like the very fast throttle response I get with the Chandler MAF, and the price ($31.94 - shipped) is really hard to beat for an extra bonus. Stock OEM MAFs are now selling for over $450, and as I have discovered, used MAFs aren't worth the time or the dime.

 

I took the car to Heartland Park Test-n-Tune Friday evening, to try to figure out the launch and maybe to try the direct-port system. For an extra bonus, our buddy Fakie showed up along with his car-guy dad. I can always use some help pushing a broken car back on the trailer, you know. Fakie can tell his story of their trip to Heartland Park - the boys seemed to enjoy the event.

Night shot of Fakie's Maxima - doesn't do it justice, just a final shot after I loaded the car back on the trailer. I think he has a stealth-hood thing there...
:


Another car that made a run - lamborgini , think 11.3ET and 133 MPH...




Oh, there were lots of different cars there, including Larry Larson's "Nova" that has won the last five of Hot Rod's Drag Week 5-day 5-track competitions. He had a lousy stage and launch , went about 100 ft and rolled through the traps.

I made three passes, two to figure out the launch with a 75-shot and one to try the direct-port system. I missed the launch timing badly on the first try and puttered through with a 13.3, I think. (slips are still in the car). The second pass was better - nailed the launch and immediately both tires broke loose and I drifted to the left on the greasy track, got out of it and back in for a 14-sec ET. Sigh. Went back to the pits and enabled the direct-port stage then went back for another try - in the other lane.

Launched OK and engaged direct-port in second gear, pulled hard, then lost power when going into third gear, so I let up and coasted thru the traps. ET was still a 13.0xxx. I parked the car after that one. Sigh..

The engine seemed fine when I unloaded the car on Saturday, but I had other things to do. Sunday I drove it around for a few miles and everything seemed OK, so I waited until 9:30AM, and after weighing the bottles (used 4.1lb nitrous Friday) and warming them I went out on on-ramp patrol. I was able to get two runs in 2nd and 3rd gears WOT on direct-port, and Lambda stayed around 0.80-.83, which is fine, but I felt high-RPM ignition misfire in both gears, so we went back home. There was no sign of what caused the direct-port system to cut off in 3rd gear, but I'll check programming on the Max3 controller.

I checked the codes and there was the codes for Cyl 6 misfire and general misfire showing up in the reader. I ordered 6 more NGK R7438-8 plugs which should be here on Thursday, so Friday or Saturday I'll take off the top of the engine to get to all the plugs. I had gapped to .035 so I'll lower that to .030 and install the new plugs and go out to play yet again. It's possible that I have a damaged plug, too wide gap, or coil voltage needs to be raised from 16 volts to 18 volts.

That will be the next installment...

 

Had a great time other than the unvoluntary blood donations to all those mosquitos.
Was glad to meet you and see your car.
Keep me/us updated on your next track day.
If I can afford it, I'll be there.

This is your last run iirc:

 

Time slips data from Friday:

__________Pass_1__________Pass_2__________Pass_3

R/T________.587____________.543_____________.166
60'_________2.070___________2.277____________2.006
330_________5.662__________6.324_____________5.510
1/8_________8.591__________9.376_____________8.272
MPH_______83.70___________81.66_____________88.14
1000_______11.151___________11.984___________10.74 1

E/T________13.313___________14.173____________13.019
MPH_______104.43___________103.49____________95.90

Too bad the nitrous shut off as soon as I went into 3rd gear on the 3rd pass.

EDIT: all this was done in full street-legal trim, with drag radials and headers capped... Once I get the nitrous working consistently, I'll mount up the M&Hs and open the headers. May not be faster but will be louder !

Fakie - your phone made a great video from way up in the stands !! Nice job..

Larry Larson has videos on YouTube - this is one - look familiar??

 

I pulled down the top of the engine tonight to get to all the plugs, and replaced each with the same plug only gapped to .030" - because I could. The plugs looken grim, with detonation on the center cylinders and some ground electrode melting on others.

I have photos of what they look like.They're sitting in a spark plug holder rack, and cylinders are numbered 1-3-5 in the front row and 2-4-6 in the rear row. Maybe you can see missing insulator porcelain on the center plugs. Last run at the track was with a 75-shot for launch and then the 75-shot plus the 150-shot direct-port stage. This was a combined nitrous shot of 225-shot, which shouldn't be a problem. Apparently it is...


Under the hood... with nitrous plate removed. It takes about 1 1/2 hours to change plugs.