Mike2JZ

Try some 2k black paint. I use that on my engine bays and even an idiot painter like myself get good results, dont have to worry about laquer etc.

All i can say from my euro experiences is that whatever spares you take, you will break something you dont have with you. I've always been lucky that I was still manage to limp it wherever I needed to go and fix it afterwards, so hopefully if it does happen its nothing too crazy. If I had to focus on anything I'd say the longer motorway journeys bring a lot of sustained heat into all the engine systems. So without a doubt make sure the cooling system and associated pipework are all in good nick otherwise they might have a habbit of splitting open after not being used for so long. Most common contenders for issues are the rear heater pipe at the back of the head, coolant pipes going in/out of the oil/water heat exchanger under the inlet and inlet/outlet plastic ports on the radiator failing.

cool glad to hear its made a difference, seems similar to the experience ive had swapping from auto to manual ecu. with the low idle, it may be worth cleaning out the throttle body and idle control valve with carb cleaner, then reseting the TPS based on TSRM procedure.

£10-20k

Theres a few things going on with this type of setup, I've never gone as far as scoping each pin or trying to get the JOBD output working to see ignition timing or other values to try and diagnose it fully but I've been able to confirm the following on a few cars. a) Normally with auto shifter it gets signals sent to auto ECU for P/N/D/R/L/2/3/Overdrive/Manual etc . With a manual none of these signals other than NSW (Neutral) is still recieved by the ECU, so it seems auto ECU always considers the car to be in Neutral, as NSW pin is always grounded on a manual box. The idle air control valve & ignition timing values around idle change based on weather you are in neutral or drive with an auto, as being in drive will load up the engine more. This is what I think causes the main issue with stalling with auto ECU's. A dirty hack that can get around this is to bump up the throttle set screw a bit to allow more air to enter the engine through the throttle. Don't forget to recalibrate the TPS sensor afterwards to keep ECU happy. b) Back to back on the dyno i've tested auto and manual ECU's on a manual converted TT car and the manual ECU made more power everywhere and the turbo transition happened sooner. Presumably auto ecu being in Neutral has less timing compared to if it was in drive and more than likely has different turbo VSV activation maps based on RPM/Speed/TPS/Gear Mode etc. c) Not all but some manual converted cars on auto have shit top end power, graph on dyno is horrible. Seems likely its pulling timing for gear shift compared to a manual ECU that will just keep going to the limiter. RPM limits can also vary by ~500rpm at times as well sometimes changing for no reason. You can of course still drive the car with auto ECU and manual box and it will feel ok, but theres more left on the table usually by going to a manual ECU. All of the above is mainly tested with Jspec pre facelift cars. Can't remember if i've seen this behavior with UK cars before or not, but as UK ECU's are way more sensitive compared to Jspec it wouldnt suprise me if it had loads of warning lights and codes. Facelift auto ECU's really dont work well manual swaps as they are lacking certain speed signals so the car hits a rev limiter really early on. So yeah with all the above mentioned, my recomenation is always manual ecu when doing gearbox swap or go to a standalone ECU and save yourself the aggro.

we have at SRD

You need to use a manual ECU in an ideal world. It will work on an auto ecu, but can get weird behavior on auto ecu with manual box.

Common things to check for intermittant second turbo is the IACV/EGCV VSV and check the two rubber air filter pipes on intake pipework havent collapsed internally. See both of those all the time. Boost threshold will change per gear due to load going through the engine. I'm sure the factory ECU takes this into account, but even if you open all the VSV's early on in say 1st/2nd gear, you wont make boost on 1/2 turbo as early as you will in say 5th gear.

Yeah the UK's only really shine at 4000rpm+ with more boost, the Jspecs are much more fufilling at low/mid range and can keep up to a point at higher RPM until limited by boost/cam differences. It does feel like night and day in that respect. Give me a message if you wanna come down, can slot you in for a checkup on dyno pretty easy so whenever is good for you.

UK's are quite sluggish compared to Jspec twins. If you have doubts bring it to the SRD Dyno, I've got overlays from loads of UK spec cars, so can compare and diagnose any issues. Just found out the other day this was Johnny G's old shell, cant believe how much its changed in the last 10 years, good that you are bringing it back to life

BKR7EIX

Delete the ACIS valve completely if you dont want it, you will just loose some low down torque. Its more of a thing for NA engine, normally on turbo it becomes a bit of hinderance / useless depening on the setup. If the ACIS valve VSV is connected to the ECU you can "map" it to a degree, but there is still some mechanical lag of the valve actually opening.

The dip is the ACIS valve opening on NA, normal.

They work fine, see them a lot of japanese imports, some use them on small singles as well.

More important is to prime the oil filter by filling it with oil before fitting. I've tested back to back with and without this, and looking at oil pressure logs there is a small delay without priming the filter where engine spins without oil pressure. We are only talking about 1-2 seconds, so not likely to be that big of a deal given riders point above, but if you wanna be anal then i'd prioritize that over priming the system by spinning it over without starting