Stagea RSFour DAYZ Edition

Hi all I've had this car for about three weeks now and am just at the point where I can get it on the road. I bought it at a good price with a couple of outstanding problems. The car was intermittently overheating and the rear seatbelts were inoperable after the previous owner removed them for a track day and didn't pull the belt out beforehand.
I think I have solved to overheating issue with a full system flush (will see when bits in the road proper) and I've bought 2 new rear 'belts to fit next week.
The car has manual boost controller and a Dastek Unichip Q. The Dastek will be bypassed for now as it may be contributing to the overheating issue.
The suspension has been upgraded to a full set of BC coilovers, which make this 'land barge' handle like a regular sized car!
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Here's a couple of pictures anyway. Quick snaps from my phone so please excuse the quality.

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I have had it fitted with an AutoWatch Cat1 alarm and immobiliser and the front doors have be de-locked. There is a pioneer Double DIN head unit with Sat-Nav and reversing camera.
My next mods will hopefully be a leather interior and then onto the engine.
Hopefully find a compatible ECU that will carry a Nistune board and a Hybrid T3 turbo to get a few more horses.
I understand that it being an Auto there is not a huge amount of engine work that will be worthwhile.
I will hopefully end up doing a manual conversion at some point in the future.
 
Just a minor update on this. I've been having trouble with it overheating again after a coolant flush at the beginning of the year. Has been running fine since but the weather has been considerably colder than it is now. The top hose was crushed after cool down which pointed the finger firmly at the rad cap. Water was moving to the expansion bottle and not being allowed back into the system after the pressure had dropped. I wanted to check the thermostat as well to rule out that but I decided to replace it with a shiny new Nissan item as I'd be going to the trouble of taking it out and it's only £16 from Nissan (love trade discount!).
My other though was that the radiator was not flowing as it should. I thought that the rad cap failure was due to a separate cooling issue elsewhere in the system. I have bought a Japspeed Race radiator from a very kind member on here. 50mm core, full ally construction etc. Received this on Friday but can't fit it yet as I am waiting for a separate oil cooler to fit on the transmission lines as it is cooled by the bottom of the radiator. This will all be done next weekend.
So I have flushed the coolant from the block (pretty murky stuff), fitted the new 'stat and cleaned up the housing.
I am hoping after all this effort I can stop staring out my water temp gauge and get back to enjoying the drive.
Thanks for looking.
 
Hi there. An update for new shiny parts. I've had an alloy radiator sitting in the garage for a little while now. It's a Japspeed alloy race radiator from a member on here second hand. It's from a manual Skyline so it doesn't include the oil cooler loop in the bottom tank for the transmission fluid. With this in mind I bought a nice 19 row oil cooler to do that job instead. I had a little episode of overheating again last week so I decided to fit the radiator immediately.
So in light of that I set a few hours aside and got down to disassembly.

The old radiator and shroud removed.
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The old VS the new
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The new item has a 50mm core so is more than twice the size of the old unit so should cool better.
It wasn't as straightforward putting it in as the old one was to take out. If I would have had a bit more time I would have trimmed the shroud to fit.
I looped the oil line back on itself for now until I can source some adaptors for the top of the oil cooler.
This is it in place. The OEM air guide is only able to hold on by one clip now as the radiator is about an inch higher than stock.

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I will be fitting the oil cooler next weekend hopefully so then I will be testing it to see if I have finally cured the problem.
It looks great in place and the shroud is now pushed right back over the fan so it is now drawing in more air as a consequence.
The reason I think the radiator may solve the overheating issue I that last time I stopped due to the temperature the top of the radiator was extremely hot and the middle was stone cold. This to me indicates a blocked rad.
 
Fitted this little beauty today.
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Chucked the old paper one away as it was all clogged up with bits that had come off the bonnet insulation. Cleaned all the loose pieces out so no more problems there.
Response is much better and it pulls a lot smoother. Really happy with it. I know most people have fitted induction cones but I wanted to keep it looking stock under the bonnet and ensure lower intake temps by retaining the airbox.
I will be fitting my 3" Blitz cat-back for the summer but may have to knock a silenced decat as the previous owner says it was LOUD.
No more cooling issues now but I do have a boost leak (I think) from somewhere. It's a kind of whisling/chirpy sound at about 2700-3000 revs. If anyone has any clue as to how to find out where it's leaking I'd be greatful. It doesn't make the noise unless it's under load. :/
 
Wellll then. I received I parcel today from Hugh Jass (cheers buddy). Ripped into it and revealed these little puppies.

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25mm hubcentric spacer
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The wheels on the Stagea have always looked tucked away and a bit lost under the bodywork. Only a pair for now but will be saving up my pocket money for front ones now.

Took the opportunity to have a look under the sills and at the rear drivetrain. I've honestly seen more rust on a 4 year old focus. It's so clean. Even the fuel tank straps are clean.
The springs on the BC's are a bit worse for wear but I'll get them blasted and coated in the future.

How the wheel looked before

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Bit sad stuck under there

Wheel off
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Spacer on

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Wheel back on and then more 'poke'

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Didn't get a shot of them from the side but they look 100% better. It does show up the fronts so will be sorting that shortly.
 
Well I may as well update this thread. *Gets shovel*

My car has been off the road for 2 years now. I had oil starvation to the cylinder head and the exhaust cam ate the front journal in the cylinder head. I had a hell of a job identifying the issue as it wasn't until you were under load that the cam would bind and the timing belt would slip a tooth or two.

Tooth slipped:

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Journal and Cam:

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Journal cap:

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Anyway long story short I bought a second hand complete head from a trader on here for a reasonable price. I bought another car to run around in and started buying up the parts needed for a head swap, head gasket, coolant, oil, exhaust gaskets, turbo gaskets etc. I finally got sick of looking at it slowly growing greener and greener and decided a month ago to get the head off and see if I could change it.
So I downloaded the FSM and printed out the appropriate sections. I had already tried a timing belt change before so the first major stripping was fairly straightforward.

Car up ready for treatment:

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Bonnet off:

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Pipe work off:

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Valve covers off

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Sometime later on and the bench is filling up!:

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Old head off and ready for a new(ish) one:

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Luckily the pistons looked really good so I hadn't slipped the cam enough to impact the valves on the piston tops.
Everything cleaned up nicely although I did have to pick out a few pieces of gasket out of the oil ways :/

After all of that I got the new head on, without the cam shafts, and all torqued down to spec. The trouble I had, being a Stagea owner, is that the CAS runs on a particular and individual style of spigot on the end of the exhaust cam.

The CAS:

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You can see it's a slot type of drive:

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The only other cams that have this configuration is the R34 GTT but as they run solid lifters the base circle diameter is larger and so I wasn't able to use them.
So I decided that I would have to modify the existing cam to suit the CAS.
The cam I had was a star drive with a snapped spigot. I got another free with the head so I had 2 to have a go at.
I forgot to take pictures whilst I did this job but basically I put the cam on the lathe at work and drilled the centre spigot. I then tapped the hole, M8 thread, so I could screw a bolt into the hole. The spigots are pressed in the and of the camshaft and are made of a very soft and brittle metal, probably cast, so it was easy to drill but I had to re-do the thread as it started to crack under load.
The next step was to try and pull out the spigot. I made up a plate so that the bolt in the centre would go through and into the spigot. I put bolts back in the threaded holes already in the cam for the pulley and sat the plate on top. This meant that I could jack the plate up by unwinding the bolts one by one. This allowed me to carefully control the speed and the pressure on the spigot and so I managed to get it all out in one piece. Next stage, once I had a hole to work with (giggidy) was to make the new spigot up. I found some stainless bar going spare at work so turned it to size and milled the slots in the top.

Completed part:

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As it was a push fit item the tolerance for the bottom diameter was very tight. This one was actually my second attempt.

I lined up the new part using the old cam as reference and pressed it home.

The new one on the right and old on the left:

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I test fitted the CAS and it was ok so I called it a job and moved on to the rebuild.
A couple of weeks ago I had everything together and found I was missing an exhaust gasket, turbo gasket and copper washers for the oil and water lines so I had to order those and wait for Royal Mail to do their job.

Parts waiting to go back on:

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All back in it's right place:

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Anyway last weekend I had it all together, held my breath, and turned over the engine. No loud bangs or fireballs so I assumed I had followed the instructions correctly. I plugged in the injector loom and coil packs and tried again, nothing. Baffled, I removed the fuel lines and found that the pump wasn't working. I had to strip the back out to get to the pump in the boot but it wasn't too bad in the Stagea as it's a pretty big work area. The pump had 0 volts going to it and wasn't priming on ignition on. I think the immobiliser has gone a bit wrong somewhere although it seems to disarm and arm fine. The stage I'm at now is that I have no spark or fuel, unless I wire the pump in direct to the battery. So the Auto electrician is on his way out to me in the next week to try and get it firing. Then MOT and Tax the beaut and enjoy driving a proper car again. Apologies for rambling but it has been a while since the last update so lots to get through.
 
Good work so far from what I've read, hope you get it running soon! Love these cars!


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Excellent thread. Does the car supply a variable voltage to the pump? My r32 has some unit which would supply 6v on idle and 12v on throttle, i assume to save the pump running at full flow all the time. hope you manage to get it sorted after all this.
 
Excellent thread. Does the car supply a variable voltage to the pump? My r32 has some unit which would supply 6v on idle and 12v on throttle, i assume to save the pump running at full flow all the time. hope you manage to get it sorted after all this.

Similar to that I think. There is no voltage at all at the moment. Normally the ECU switches the pump down to 9V on idle and 12V when you're on throttle. There is an earthing trick you can do to keep it at 12V all the time. You need that for Walbro pumps as they don't like the voltage drop.

Apparently my issue lies with a poor earth on the head/thermostat housing. I'll chuck an earthing strap on and try again this week. I really wanted it MOT'd and taxed for JAE but that may not happen now.
 
Stagea buddies! :) I picked this one up last month!

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Yours looks in better nick than mine though! And I really want those S2 rear lights!
 
Similar to that I think. There is no voltage at all at the moment. Normally the ECU switches the pump down to 9V on idle and 12V when you're on throttle. There is an earthing trick you can do to keep it at 12V all the time. You need that for Walbro pumps as they don't like the voltage drop.

Apparently my issue lies with a poor earth on the head/thermostat housing. I'll chuck an earthing strap on and try again this week. I really wanted it MOT'd and taxed for JAE but that may not happen now.

Yeah thats the same as mine, it is 9v as well. When I put in my Walbro I just removed the control unit and earthed the pump the chassis
 
Stagea buddies! :) I picked this one up last month!

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Yours looks in better nick than mine though! And I really want those S2 rear lights!

The series 2 rear lights look great on the silver Stageas. It's pretty tidy. Only done 64,000 miles (mostly kms actually but unproven). Definitely needs a good clean when I get her firing up.
There is a group on Facebook for Stagea owners and people are always breaking them. You could probably find a set of rear lights off there fairly cheap.
 
The series 2 rear lights look great on the silver Stageas. It's pretty tidy. Only done 64,000 miles (mostly kms actually but unproven). Definitely needs a good clean when I get her firing up.
There is a group on Facebook for Stagea owners and people are always breaking them. You could probably find a set of rear lights off there fairly cheap.
I need a new windscreen before I spend money on cosmetics, it's cracked and they are fucking hard to find. If you ever break it I'll have the windscreen ;)

That being said, do you have the Facebook link? I only have the forum, which is pretty inactive! http://stageaownersclub.s4.bizhat.com/
 
Looking great man!

Ive spotted a silver stagea in the romford area. Been there a few times. Quite a rare car so good to see them about. Its in the hornchurch area if you know anyone on the stagea club or anythin
 
Finally some good news. After all the issues I've had with the electrical system after my gasket change I found the culprit. The ECU plug, which is held in by a central bolt like the Almera, was loose! I have been blaming the Dastek Unichip up until now so I ordered a bypass plug for it last week. When I was pulling the wires around removing the Unichip from the add-on loom I could hear relays clicking. When I got my head down there I could see the plug moving at the top. Little tighten up and all the fault codes went, the fuel pump primes with IGN ON, and the ECU is putting out a Start signal to the engine. Unfortunately it still didn't fire up. I checked the fuel line was flowing correctly and it was fine so the next plan is to check spark and injectors, and also check to see if it's flooding. I couldn't do any more today as it was p**sing down with rain. Happy with progress though and it's getting to be a very real prospect that I can have this on the road for Christmas!
 
I saw a red stagea parked around the corner from my work, never seen one in the flesh.:)
i also enjoy reading thorough thread's as your's spook! exactly how a ride thread should be...good work look forward to when you get this back on the road and more updates.;)
 
Thanks guys. It's been a long slog on-and-off but hopefully there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Fingers crossed.
 
Glad I didn't buy this when I had the chance, wouldn't have had this much patience

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