I Need Help - (RB30 Plus EFI & VLTurbo - No Spark!)

[striga]

Hi, I am putting EFI and a VL turbo on my rig. It is an RB30, if any one has converted one to EFI, it would be great to hear from you. It is in it's final stage and I went to kick her in the guts but it would not fire up:cry: I checked every thing. There is power getting to every thing, so I pulled out No.1 plug and it was not sparking. So I checked to see if there was power to the coil and there was; it's getting power to the cap, but the rotor button is not distributing the spark! Any ideas on what I could try???? I was thinking it might be a crook crank angle :mad: Please, I need your help - I miss the old girl :truck:

[striga]

:computer:

[jet-6]

Now do you have the EFI dizzy or do you still run with the standard dizzy that come with the Patrol?

If you have the EFI dizzy it will pay to check the CAS(crank Angle Sensor) and the best way to do that is head over to calaisturbo.com.au - Powered by vBulletin (http://www.calaisturbo.com.au) and run a search, its a very sensitive part and plays up, there easy to replace and test so have a look there

If you get lost there, PM me there, im a MOD and you should find me easy

[striga]

hey jet-6 thanks for your post. yeah i have the efi dizzy. i'v tryed 2 i have had a look at the CAS but didn't know what i was looking at. i pluged it in while the dizzy was out and rotated it to see what would happen and the feul pump started up every time a notch would go thru so i assumed that the CAS was fine. i was maybe thinking the ecu might be up the creek could that be the problem by any chance?

[Haji]

My first car was a turbo charged RB30 VL commodore.

Check the plug for the crank angle sensor. The protective boot maybe rooted and maybe allowing moisture to contaminate and short the plug out. I was having dramas with my crank angle sensor until this was fixed. Also obviously make sure ur cap is clean and dry and has no cracks and u may need to clean the six contacts as well with emery cloth or something. Otherwise youll need a new or refurbished crank angle sensor.

[striga]

no worrys mate i'll give it a go. i'v pretty much checked every thing about 20 times stil no good so i had to bite the bullet and i'v got a bloke coming to check it out on wednesday.

[Rossco]

I've done the EFI conversion on my 96 RB30'd GQ and had no worries with spark, although I did have plenty of other small hassles.

I only ask the following because there was no mention of it - did you use the the whole VL's engine wiring harness? Also you need to use the VL coil. Make sure you've plugged the VL harness into the VL coil and spark is coming out of the coil. I assume you already know these things but just to be sure, you can check if the coil is sparking by putting a screw driver in the end of the coil lead going to the dizzy and rest it somewhere so the shaft of the screwdriver is a few millimetres away from an earth. Don't hold onto it or you'll get a shock. Then have someone turn the engine over and see if the spark bridges the gap. It should be a bright blue spark if your coil is good.

If you take the cap of the dizzy you'll know you're going to have crank angle sensor problems if there is an orange dust in the dizzy. It indicates that the bearing is going. I beleive the bearing and seals can be replaced cheaply. I have heard that the CAS is about $140 though. Find out if the car everything came off was running before you got the bits. If it was, it's more likely there's something wrong with your method rather than the parts.

Make sure your ECU has power and earthed properly too.

If you get stuck send more replies, I only recently did this conversion and most things are fresh in my mind still.

EDIT: I've just found the post I did on outerlimits when someone else asked about this topic. There may be something that'll help so I've copied it below.......

I've very recently done this conversion on my 96 pootrol. I used all VL commodore parts. Any questions just ask. I found it reasonably easy to do, just a bit tedious making sure everything was done. You will be better of if you get the whole car (I did for $250) so you can take everything you'll need. If not, make sure you get

1. the high pressure fuel pump outside the tank and it's mounting bracket
2. the primer pump from inside the fuel tank
3. accelerator cable
4. accelerator cable bracket that's on the passenger side of the head
5. the oxygen sensor out of the exhaust. I've got extractors so I had to extend the wires so I could mount the sensor down where all pipes merged into one to get a true reading. Make sure the sensor wire with the sheath on it is extended with the same type of sheathed wire. It protects the electrical signal going back to the ECU.
6. the full engine wiring harness
7. the distributor
8. the coil
9. the intake manifold including all air intakes and pipes and air cleaner box and air flow metre and get the intake manifold support bracket.
10. you'll need to change the fuel filter to a high flow efi filter. There's a universal one available (made by RYCO I think) and GET EFI HIGH PRESSURE RUBBER FUEL LINES. Don't use the standard one's cause they'll fail under pressure and burn you car to the ground.
11. You'll need a new intake and exhaust manifold gaskets too.
12. Get the ECU too of course, I mounted mine on the inside of the fire wall on the passenger side. There's a spot that it fits on it's side perfectly right where I ran all the wires through the fire wall. I then got a peice of 2mm aluminium that I've bolted over it to protect it from feet. Don't put it on the side of the transmission tunnel, it'll get too hot.
13. Also get the relays for the ECU and the fuel pump and you'll need to put a 15amp inline fuse on for each one.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I don't know for sure if the skyline and commodore heads are the same, but I believe they are. Ask someone in the know.

When you wire it up, don't remove any of the patrol wiring. And while I think of it, don't disconnect the fuel solenoid that's required for the carby, it's just behind the driver's headlight with fuel lines running in and out of it. You can disconnect the fuel lines, but if you take the plug off and leave it off, the car won't turn off.

There's not much wiring to do so don't pay anyone shiteloads to do it for you like I nearly did. You will only need to splice into the patrols harness a few places I can think of. From memory there are two big orange wires that are the positive wires that I hooked up to the wire that used to go to the carby for power when the ignition is turned on. The big black wires are the earths and I mounted them on the driver's side of the engine block. There is a little blue and white wire that went to the starter motor on the commodore that I spliced into the starter on the patrol, if you don't put that one on the computer doesn't recognise that the car is trying to start and keeps pumping fuel in causing it to flood making it very hard to start. Then you need to take the blue wire out of the patrol's coil plug and splice it into the EFI's coil plug, this will give you your tacho back. I can't remember which colour wire to splice it into, I just poked it in the end till I found the right one that made the tacho work.

I've had quite a few teething problems that could have been fixed by just doing what I did in the end, changed to BP fuel. I don't know why this caused such a change for me, but it did I haven't heard of anyone else having the same problems. I tried different fuels when on carby and it had no effect. As I say, I've just recently done it and encountered a few problems along the way, so if you start it and get stuck or just want to know more about it, PM me or post a reply.

It sounds like alot to do, but if you're reasonably handy and have all the parts, it's not hard. Done right, it looks like it's meant to be there too.

[beast3805]

Rossco did u notice much difrence to the power and ecconomy? im thinking of going vl turbo sometime down the track.

[Rossco]

I didn't notice much power or economy difference, if any. I didn't turbo. I did it because I'd heard of better power and economy but I should have appreciated the excellent power it had on the carby. Now that I've done it, I'm thinking of a turbo or an RB25 head conversion. The VL turbo put out 150kw standard and and the RB25 non turbo put out 147kw (according to wikipedia). The RB25 head on the RB30 block should then put out more than 150kw with ease, given the larger bore size in the RB30 and the fact that the RB25 head has a larger capacity than the RB30 head again increasing capacity of the RB30 when fitted with the RB25 head. Don't get the RB25DET head though. If you want to put the RB25 head on the RB30 you need the naturally aspirated head as opposed to the turbo head and if you want to fit a turbo, do it later. The RB25DET head has to be modified too much to fit and the RB25DE head goes straight on.

If you go the RB25 way, I'd be interested to hear the results. The main advantages I can see to it is the lack of expense in turbo and intercoolers and fact that the power would be right through the revs, no turbo lag.

[striga]

hey rosscoi had found out what was with my truck the ecu was buggered. if your going to turbo it it's not to hard. i run the vl kit and i had to cut a bit if my engine mount bracket of (just a little bit) i got on to a block that dose cheap reco ecu's the only thing is if your going to go the same way i did you will find it hard to find banjo bolts (oil/water line bolts to the block) the guy i got mine from said they dont make them any more. so you'll have to get some made. if you do consider let me know and i might be able to help you out. i do have a t.28 for sale??

[tna racing]

how is the build coming dan. all our gear arrived so we can start

[Spudda]

I've had the EFI conversion done by a local Mechanic.
It went smoothly and i've had no issues as of yet.

Being a Petrol Gas combo i did notice that because of a high pressure pump and old hoses i sprung a leak. 75L to do 125kms kinda told the story.

Gas ecomony is ok, 350kms to a tank 82L usable.
Petrol Economy was around 450kms a tank 75 sub..

Power wise i did feel a great difference in the gas performance less kms per tank but much more responsive and nicer to city drive.

Not sure i can think of much else.

[Rossco]

Spudda,

It's VERY important that you change all of your rubber fuel hoses to EFI standard hoses. The old one's that are on it for the carby setup will not take the pressure. The EFI ones will take high pressure. If you don't change them, you risk a leak that might cause a fire. There's only a few and they're easy to get at. Don't forget the ones back at the tank as well as under the bonnet.

[striga]

how is the build coming dan. all our gear arrived so we can start
it came out pretty good just got stuffed around with all my parts. have you got your rig yet? we'll have to have a race:thumb: also mate still got those tanks? i dont get much k's to the tank i drive it flat out all the time but i love it!

[fatroll 76]

I didn't notice much power or economy difference, if any. I didn't turbo. I did it because I'd heard of better power and economy but I should have appreciated the excellent power it had on the carby. Now that I've done it, I'm thinking of a turbo or an RB25 head conversion. The VL turbo put out 150kw standard and and the RB25 non turbo put out 147kw (according to wikipedia). The RB25 head on the RB30 block should then put out more than 150kw with ease, given the larger bore size in the RB30 and the fact that the RB25 head has a larger capacity than the RB30 head again increasing capacity of the RB30 when fitted with the RB25 head. Don't get the RB25DET head though. If you want to put the RB25 head on the RB30 you need the naturally aspirated head as opposed to the turbo head and if you want to fit a turbo, do it later. The RB25DET head has to be modified too much to fit and the RB25DE head goes straight on.

If you go the RB25 way, I'd be interested to hear the results. The main advantages I can see to it is the lack of expense in turbo and intercoolers and fact that the power would be right through the revs, no turbo lag.
hey mate do your self a favour dont do the rb25det conversion mate done it to his and it really does not go that much better than my rb30 with a carby he has now put the rb30 back in with the rb25de head and the turbo on the side and now all i do is eat the rocks that the thing spits at me. my turn next cheers fatroll 76