B14 Intake Manifold + RR Valve Cover
When I was installing the top portion of the B14 intake manifold (along with the throttle body) today, I discovered what has been a known issue for a while.
What happens is that the B14 intake manifold puts the throttle body closer to the valve cover. In addition the roller rocker engine valve cover juts out just a bit more than a standard SR20DE valve cover. This causes the rod that the throttle plate connects into to rub against the valve cover. Not only will the scratch up an non coated valve cover, but it would quickly rub the finish on a painted or powder coated valve cover (which I planned to do).
A secondary problem to this is that the roller rocker valve cover has the PCV closer to the distributer side of the valve cover. The standard DE valve cover has the PCV located right next to the oil fill cap. I call this a secondary problem because you can still run the roller rocker valve cover with a custom hose from the PCV to the intake manifold. However, since I want things to look as stock as possible, I want to run a factory PCV hose.
The throttle body rubbing issue can be solved in a few ways:
- Use Outlaw Engineering thermobloc spacers. These will move the intake manifold further away from the valve cover, providing more clearance.
- Use a regular DE valve cover. This will allow for better clearance of the throttle body. In addition it will allow you to use the factory PCV hose from a B14, since the PCV is in a different location.
Note: A regular SR20DE valve cover will fit on a roller rocker engine, but a roller rocker engine valve cover will not fit on a regular SR20DE.
Installation: Day 05
The last few coolant hoses and clamps I was waiting on arrived earlier this week. Today I installed the lower portion of the intake manifold as well as installing the injectors, fuel rail, and the injector wiring harnesses.
The injector harness for injector number four will not seat properly, so I have to check that out tomorrow. I may need to solder on another connector. One thing I did not realize is that the JWT fuel rail requires that the B14 air regulator unit be relocated. Right now this is not a big deal, since it seems like the air regualtor may not be needed (more research will be required).
Other then that, I need to try getting the B14 hoses for the heater core coolant inlet and outlet. The B15 ones could work, but they are a bit stretched out after almost ten years. In addition, I am going to do the same for the main vacuum hose that goes to the brake booster. I’m not sure that I can get the B15 one to work without kinking it.
I will be doing a bit more work tomorrow, so I will try and grab some pictures of the progress.
Installation: Day 04
Today I installed the B14 water neck, thermostat housing, and a new thermostat. After that I spliced the B14 TPS harness in place of the B15 one.
I also took the time to mock up the lower portion of the B14 intake manifold. This was more or less to see how everything would sit, as well as to attempt to find some smaller parts I may need. This is an important step, as no matter how through you are there will always be small things that you overlook. For example, today I discovered that I had not order hose clamps for the coolant tube that connects the intake manifold to the coolant neck. I also need an EGR block-off plate.
After recreating my ECU conversion spreadsheet today, I think I may have discovered an error in my wiring. It’s not a huge deal, but it is something I have noted in case it causes issues on startup.
Not a whole lot of progress was made, but I’m OK with that, as long as everything is done correctly.
Installation: Day 03
Good news! The manifold and turbo hot-side ar back from the fabricators, which means I am ready for an external waste gate! The manifold, hot-side, and J-pipe will be shipped out to Swain Technologies in the next few weeks for an application of their White Lightning ceramic coating. This coating is far superior to other ceramic coatings for a few reasons. First, it is applied thicker and in a different manner than other ceramic coatings applied by many powder coaters. I have read many reports of the traditional ceramic coatings flaking off after being exposed to the harsh heating & cooling cycles of a street car. Second, the Swain coating will keep more of the exhaust heat inside the manifold, turbo, and j-pipe, thus reducing under-hood temperatures. They will even apply the White Lightning coating inside a header for an N/A engine (if possible) to increase it’s effectiveness.
The rest of the parts from Nissan have arrived, and the rest of the parts from the powder coater have been completed.
Today I finished wiring the B14 ECU harness into the B15 harness. It was hard on the back to do this with everything in the car, but I was just too lazy to remove the harness from the car. Right now the wiring is not all cleaned up, but it will remain that way until I get the car running and running to my satisfaction.
Recently my home file server suffered a major failure which ended up taking out my entire RAID array. I lost a total of about 1.5TB of data, but out of all of that only about 50GB was stuff I cared about, and only about 100MB were really important files. Among everything I lost all of the documents for my turbo project, including my parts list and ECU conversion spreadsheet. Unfortunatley, I will not be able to post some of the information that I would have liked to.
Tomorrow I hope to install the B14 cooland neck and begin the final installation of the B14 intake manifold.
Installation: Day 02
I spent this past Saturday doing a bit more work to the car. I wired in the Cobra MAF harness and maked all of the wires going to the B15 ECU. I was going to start soldering the B14 harness into the B15 one, but my back had had enough about an hour of bending over the car. Hopefully I will get the chance to finish that some time this coming weekend.
After ordering the external waste gate, I dropped the waste gate, manifold, and hot-side of the turbo off at that fabricators. That stuff should be done in a few weeks. I decided to go with a Tial V44 waste gate instead of the Synapse Engineering one. My motivation was getting a good price on the Tial unit over the Synapse. You can find some pictures of the waste gate in my gallery. I’ll have more detailed pictures when the manifold comes back from the fabricators.
After much debate, I have decided to get the manifold, J-Pipe, and hot-side coated with Swain White Lightning. It will add a good bit of money to the total cost of the project, but I think it fits well with my goal of doing things right the first time. Reports say that the Swain coating will help keep under-hood temperatures in check as well as helping spool time.
I’m still waiting on a lot of parts from Nissan. The dealer said the coolant neck came in, which is good since that was the last piece I was waiting for before I dropped off another order at the powder coaters. Hopefully the B14 IACV equipment will not be far behind.
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