Gracie II the D21

[HRH]

Got the wagoneer up on the lift after work today. Measured the front and rear springs. The rear is 46 wide but there's plenty of room to move the spring packs inboard on the axle and match the about 43 in of the hard body.

The front axle is quite a bit different it's 34 in at the spring packs but it looks like I can weld a bar onto the front frame section that will stick out and then provide a perch for the spring shackle and reattach it back on the frame without too much effort. the biggest problem looks like it's going to be attaching steering. and of course which box do I use preferably the hard body box it's already in there but the hard body box is in a bit different location.

Basically I'll have to get everything yard it off on the hard body cut off the front cross member stuff for the IFS and then Mount up the axle and get it set and figure out what else I need to do to make it work.

And that means I either need to do it next year when I have the wagon going so I can use another vehicle or I need to find another vehicle for winter and do this as a winter project. Not sure yet we'll see how things go.

the only other thing is the springs are a bit heavy given the 360 in the front end but I thought about that and if I put a big heavy winch bumper on the front with a winch they actually may end up being about correct. there's also the idea of going coil spring front which would be greater articulation but I think for the simplicity I'm going to keep it leaf spring and accept a little bit less.

[HRH]

So I've figured out this Jeep is not a '76. '76 had Dana 44 fronts and Dana 44 rear or Dana 60 rear. This has an AMC 20 rear. And the front is a vacuum disconnect Dana 44. The less desirable option. So I was all sad for a minute, but then my buddy made a good point: It will get better mileage with the vacuum disconnect, there's a cable option kit for it, and it's still way stronger than I need. And I though, hmmm, okay then!

Even better, I did a ton of research last night and there are tons of gears available for the H233b AND the Dana 44 at Randy's Ring and Pinion. In fact, for both axles, I can easily get 5.19 or 5.89 gear sets!! Which means I only have to swap one axle! Booyah!

So now the plan is to install the Spartan locker in the rear like I was going to, and re gear it to match the front after I solid axle swap it. Wheee!

[HRH]

So I may have lied. I started calculating all the angles and seeing what I need to do to the hardbody to complete the swap. It's a shitload of work. And once I cut off the front IFS stuff, there's no going back. Even worse, I started to get a hard on for the Wagoneer.

The engine does turn over by hand. My next step is to fix the pig fucker wiring job and see if I can get the engine started. If it starts, I'll see about getting a title. If I can get a title, then oh yes my friends, the Wagoneer is going to be turned into a off-road machine. 35" tires with lots of clearance, hell yeah!

I decided to go another route on the hardbody. Think I'm going to get a frame section cut off a donor 4x4, then I'm slowing going to build a pre-runner long travel suspension, or at least try. Then when I turbo it, I'll still have a functional truck and better suspension. As for the Wagoneer, I'm going to build it at work if all goes well. That one must be hid from the wife. I have too many cars, lol.

Tell me this doesn't get you excited!

[Laecaon]

That is pretty good looking.

I think the Dana 44 I have is out of a wagoneer. Need to measure some things to confirm.

[DRIVEN]

You want to be a Jeep guy now? I can save you some time and trouble. Just come by my house every payday, give me 30% of your paycheck, brace yourself for a swift kick in the jimmies, and repeat next payday. You can avoid all that DMV title hassle and get the same results. Just Empty Every Pocket is real.

[Taterhead]

[HRH]

You want to be a Jeep guy now? I can save you some time and trouble. Just come by my house every payday, give me 30% of your paycheck, brace yourself for a swift kick in the jimmies, and repeat next payday. You can avoid all that DMV title hassle and get the same results. Just Empty Every Pocket is real.

Normally I'd agree with you, but my Datsuns have been just as bad at emptying every pocket. And at least it's not a Wrangler, and not a JK at that. Having a Wagoneer is like being a Subaru owner but having a Forester. It's the non-bro-subaru option. (The wife has a Forester. We've had two.)

Definitely A Ton of Stupidly Unique Necessities (mainly because you have to build or make everything or hodgepodge it from something else. It's the best I can come up with on short notice, lol. Speaking of which, my custom axleshafts from Moser arrived today. On pins and needles to test fit in the axle housing and see if I measured correctly!

[HRH]

Alright ladies and gents, the day has finally come! After the aborted Megasquirt tuning session quite a while back, I have installed a wideband, installed a connection to plug said wideband in, in place of the narrow band, and that will go to the Megasquirt! Which means, tomorrow, I'll have the truck on the dyno and this time it should work. Looking for a dyno of the current improper setup and then a dyno of the tuned ecu. It'll be interesting to see how much hp I pick up. I'm thinking about 15 just from tune. Either way, it should run a lot better and hopefully get better mileage too. I'll keep you guys posted!

[HRH]

So the dyno testing didn't go quite as planned, as I'm sure you've seen in some of my cross-contamination of threads. I got the truck back from Hank's this Friday. It was okay, but not perfect. I spent a few hours with Chris tonight getting a primer on Megasquirt tuning. I still don't know exactly what I'm doing, but I have a much better idea how to do it now. It's fairly simple, while complex at the same time. We fiddled a few parameters, got it running just a bit better. Hopefully it'll be a pleasant drive to work tomorrow. At some point in the near future I'm going to do another dyno session, but this time at Chris' as he recently bought a dyno! That way I'll have two tuner's ideas of what's the best way to extract the maximum potential out of the truck.

[HRH]

Oh boy, what a learning curve having the ability to fiddle with everything. The truck is running ok. I tried loading a timing map from a stock S13, and it knocked like crazy. Going back over the table today. Also converting a 16x16 timing map to a 12x12 timing map. Taking the S13 map and bump down the timing for extra precaution. Found out how to find the initial tune in the first tune file, so now I have the starting point since I've messed it all up. It also seems I should be able to run more timing than I am, so I'm going to re-check static timing against what the computer thinks it is.

So Nissan reads timing in ignition load like this:

100
93.75
87.5
81.25
75
68.75
62.5
56.25
50
43.75
37.5
31.25
25
18.75
12.5
6.25

RPM is 600, then 800 and 400 rpm jump for the next 16 places.

Every 6.25 load increment. I'm going to use 10% load increments. 100% evenly divided by 12 is 8.33%, I think 10 will be sufficent. Might fiddle a few customer percentage points. Anyway, the other thing I wasn't paying attention to is the curve has to go down at WOT since the cylinder filling is 3X more efficient. In other words, at low speeds, you can run more initial timing, but just like retarding for boost, when you hit 100% ignition load, you have to run it back or it knocks. I'm just hoping I haven't hurt the engine with my screwing around. I may even get excited and do a quick compression test today just to see.

Anyway, listening to some music, extrapolating numbers so I can make a table to load and hopefully have the truck respond better.

[HRH]

Yeah, so I'm looking at this. Where the stock KA24DE S13 map is at 6, 15, 18, 22, 25, 27, 24, 26 across the rpm range for 100% load, the truck pings like crazy at those values other than 800 rpm. Granted, the car version and the truck version are fairly different, but not that much. When this thing was tuned at the dyno, the values they have are 7 to 1500 rpm, then 7.3, 9.2, 11.6, 12.5, 13. Waaaay lower. It didn't ping then either. Overall it's a much lower curve though and I can't help but think some setting is wrong. I should be able to run much more timing than that. Going to go futz around in Megasquirt and see what else I can fuck up. Lol

[HRH]

Motherfucker. So the ignition timing in the computer says 10 degrees. The actual timing is 21 degrees so says the timing light. Isn't that special?! So this explains why on a very very retarded timing map I have detonation. And it gets better. I fixed that, and then the truck wouldn't hardly run. Consequently, fuck this shit. I need the truck for the winter, I'm not having a good time with the programmable ecu and I don't know enough about it yet to tune on the fly like I would with a carburetor or factory system where only a few parameters can be changed.

I ended up yanking the Megasquirt out and putting the factory ecu back in, and what do you know, it runs great! Except there is a worse problem. Did a compression test.

1. 180
2. 172
3. 142
4. 170

Guess which one isn't great? I looked down with the borescope and the piston edges aren't melted, though there are some hot spots possibly from detonation. I'm not sure I killed it recently, I think it's been down on power for a while. Probably also explains the crappier mileage. And I calculated install time to now, it's done 175,000 miles. So, in all reality, I'm not that surprised. What it tells me is I need to start getting another engine ready. I think this will run for quite a while longer, just at 3.5 out of 4 power, which stinks. I'll figure it out after lunch.

Actually, I just remembered a buddy of mine has a KA single cam truck motor he's been squirreling away. Think it's a runner even. Figure I'll send off the lifters to be converted to solid lifter and make another hipo KA, but this time not with a Z bottom end. Not that I couldn't I suppose, but meh. I was actually really happy with a mild cam in the KAE. In fact, if that engine hadn't had bore issues and oil consumption, it would still be in the truck. Although, I also have the turbo manifold and turbo for the truck. Hmmm. Maybe I'll put that turbo on the RB. I've already been toying with that idea. I'll figure something out. There's always parts to put in things.

[HRH]

Engine options I'm considering:

1. 5.3 iron block LS Chevy engine. (Would have to swap transmission and t-case also.)
2. KA single cam
3. KA double cam
4. KA E or DE with turbo
5. KA E or DE with supercharger (just had that idea.)
6. Other?

Anyone else have any suggestions? (Nothing Toyota)

[DRIVEN]

OM617A

[HRH]

Probably a little too expensive for my taste. Tempting. I actually was just thinking about a 4.0 Jeep engine. Those things are damn bulletproof, lots of torque. Hell, I should just buy a Cherokee, but I can't get rid of Gracie II. We've been through too much together.

[HRH]

Well now I'm leaning back towards the sohc KA. Also checking out possible stroker options. Wouldn't mind getting it to 2.5 or 2.6 liters. Probably not doable without an insane amount of effort. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've researched this sometime in the past, but I'm going to do it again.

[HRH]

Ok, so I've decided it's going to be a single cam. We're going back to the basics. I've also decided NOT to turbocharge it. Mainly because I want the simplicity. What I'm going to try and do is get back to my original premise when I first had the truck of making a 170hp sohc KA. If I can get close to that power level with NA, I'll be happy. Figuring a camshaft, header, higher compression pistons and/or decking the head. I may do some porting also. Stock compression ratio is 8.6. I'm not going to go higher than 9.5 because I want pump gas.

Interestingly enough, all the stuff online says the early 240sx pistons were different and the CR was 9.1:1 instead of 8.6:1. I thought it was hooey until I looked on my old build thread on Ratsun and Datzenmike had posted a part number for the early piston. And wouldn't you know, I looked it up and found the unicorn. The only problem is I don't see any sets available except 1000-1400 sets on ebay that don't show the right piston anyway. Going to do some more looking, but here's what it is (12010 40F10) vs. the slight dish of the standard piston:

[HRH]

So I looked some more, the unicorn pistons are just that. Arias makes some very nice forged pistons with a 10.8:1 compression ratio. It'd be great for a race motor (drag all motor intended), but it's too high for my use on the street. However, I was thinking if there's plenty of material, I could fly-cut some off the piston dome and lower the compression that way. It seems all the aftermarket pistons are either insanely high CR or low for turbo. I do still have the new turbo laying around that would work, but I'm just thinking non-turbo is the way to go for the truck. I suppose I can always mill the head and raise it that way, but I would prefer to do it via pistons. But with 8.6 + a .040" overbore, I won't be raising it enough to take advantage of the cam and header I don't think. Really, I'd like 9.5:1. It's right on the edge of using swill gas and still not detonating super easily.

[HRH]

And this is why I like having build threads on the internet! Apparently I did already figure it out way back when:

From my KAZ24 build thread. So milling the head .030 brings me to about what I wanted, a little under.

HRHNewbie
Senior Member
10.4k
Location:At my gym
Author
Posted December 21, 2010
Okay, did some checking.



Here's what I'm thinking. The head chamber is roughly 88mm in diameter. We need to figure out how many cc's disappear when we cut .060 or thereabouts off the head.



Going online, I found a math website with the formula for volume of a cylinder as V=pi*r2*h That should be r squared, not r*2. And I can't believe I just remembered some 12th grade math pnemonic device. (PEMDAS, parenthesis, exponent, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction)



So we have a radius of 44mm, or 4.4cm. So 4.4*4.4=19.36 cm.



So pi (3.14) multiplied by 19.36 multiplied by .060, but that's in thousands of an inch, so you have to multiply .060 by 2.54 (centimeters per inch), which comes out to .1524 cm.



So 3.14 * 19.36 * .1524 = 9.2644 cubic centimeters. Dammit, I never should have questioned your math Mike!



So now, that's good that I screwed up the calculation earlier, because apparently I CAN get the compression ratio I need by milling the head. And knowing .060 is 9.2 cc less, 4.6 would be half of that at .030, so basically a .030 mill would get me close to 9.1 compression ratio, actually a smidgen over that.



So figuring from the original, .060 off would get me 9.6:1 compression roughly. Hmmm, I like the sound of that. Wonder if I could run 87 octane with that if I backed the timing off a ways? I don't need it to wrap out, it's more for mileage and towing power.

I remember I did mill that head about .028 and the block decked about .006, so it was right about that with that engine.

[HRH]

I started thinking about things. And one of the things I remember from the years of playing with vehicles is static compression vs. dynamic compression. And in digging around in all this mess, there was a really going point on a forum. The engine is an air pump. Fill it as efficiently as possible as fast as possible and you make power. I'm thinking maybe 8.6 isn't a bad thing. Plus, it's easily turbo friendly. What I'm thinking is maybe I'll leave the compression ratio alone this time, and instead, concentrate on the cam, head porting, and header to extract and fill as much air as possible. I may be able to get my magic 170 hp goal with enough airflow trickery. Anyway, I'm going to bed. I'll think about this all tomorrow.

Oh yeah, and I sold the Wagoneer. Just too many projects and I'm not changing the front suspension on the hardbody anytime soon, nor am I resurrecting the Wagoneer with all the other stuff I have planned for this and next year.