Mycarispurty

There is a guy somewhat close to me with a pretty clean looking 280ZX I'm interested in going to check out. He doesn't seem too familiar with the motor other than what the guy he got it from has told him. Anyways, here's what I've gathered from what he's told me. It's an N42 motor, with an N42 head. He said the p/o told him it needed a new head because it was burned up, so likely valves. Here is what I've kinda figured is the problem: Way too big of a turbo, stock injectors, stock motor, and 25 psi without any sort of fuel management or boost controller or fancy electronics...he forced way too much hot air into it without an intercooler on it, and melted the valves, and probably even damaged the pistons/walls, then once he figured out what he did, he passed the savings on to this kid that has it now. He says it'll run but won't stay running unless you spray some fuel into the intake. I'm thinking the previous owner pretty much melted the internals. Care to give your .02?

I'm going to keep an eye on this post. Have been considering the CX Racing mount kit for an RB25 swap, but if I can't find someone to buy my 1JZ/R154 or trade it for an RB25, then I always have the option of waiting for these mounts to come out, or use Freed Engineering's mounts for installing my 1JZ.

I've got a turbo manifold with an external wastegate tube welded on.

Oh ok so the flapper in the adapter lines up over that then. Good, just checking, I figured it would but didn't want to buy some stuff that wasn't going to work correctly.

I guess I would view more efficient as there are probably tighter tolerances in a Garrett, Precision, Turbonetics, etc than there would be a Chinese turbo, as well as higher quality parts inside. With that aside, will that hole in the flange where a w/g flapper would go cause any problems when using an adapter to turn it into a v-band exit with the w/g flapper built into it?

I am not so wise on my t3 turbos like I used to be, so I have a dumb question I just want to get some information on. There is a turbo that a guy on a car forum I go on is selling that I think would be great for the car I'm picking up. It's a Garrett t3/t04 and should be more efficient and reliable than the Chinese turbo on the car now. The car currently is setup for a v-band exhaust, but this turbo obviously has a Ford 5 bolt pattern. You can see on the exit side it has the hole, which I presume would be for an internal wastegate, but the turbo has no wastegate on it. I'm checking out the ATP Turbo (or similar) adapters that bolt to a Ford 5 bolt pattern, have a wastegate flapper in it to convert a turbo to internal wastegate, and then exit in a v-band. Will that hole being there on the exit side cause any sort of problem? https://www.atpturbo.com/root/releases/release103105.htm That's the adapter I'm talking about.

Well I don't know about that NewZed, just assumed they're similarly mod-able like the Z32 ECUs are, with Nistune or what have you. I emailed JWT and told them what the car has, what I plan to immediately put on it, and see what they offer with their modded ECUs to see about getting the car running right throughout the entire RPM range. I don't know what re-flashes for future mods run with JWT or whoever on Z31 ECUs, I just know that most companies in the Z32 world charge roughly $100 for the chip itself (assuming your ECU is already socketed) with whatever mods set on the chip. If you changed injectors, for example, at a later date to something bigger, then it's $50 for a re-flash of the chip to reflect the changes in the car that the chip was originally programmed for.

I'm looking at picking up a local'ish 75 280Z with an 83 swapped turbo motor. As far as I can tell the entire drivetrain was swapped over along with the stock ECU. The guy isn't really much of an import guy so he doesn't know all about ECU tuning, injector upgrades, good turbo choices, etc, he struck me as more of a good ol' boy that'd be more familiar with domestics and such. One reason he wants to sell it is it pretty much has reached its limits unless lots more money is invested, money he doesn't have. Anyways, the car fires up and runs and drive and idles fine, but falls on its face, he says at 5k'ish RPM, but when I drove it today pretty conservatively, it wanted to fall on its face at 3700'ish RPM. But I also only "got on it very lightly" one time. Under basic highway speed driving, it ran fine. He has a huge Chinese t3/t4 turbo on it he got from a buddy's 4 cylinder Mustang with who knows what a/r ratios, internals, etc. He also has a FMIC on it, and a Walbro fuel pump, but the rest of the engine setup is stock. So it has stock fuel injectors, stock rails, stock pressure regulator, stock ECU, etc. The car is pushing too much air for the stock injectors obviously and the rest of the fuel system can't keep up, and his plugs were gapped at 44 thousandths instead of 28ish. The nice people at JWT told him he's probably blowing his spark out by having them gapped so wide, which could be 1 cause for his problems but obviously not a final solution. Luckily, perhaps, for the engine's sake, when it runs out of steam, the car hasn't really built any boost because of the massive turbo which probably isn't that efficient anyways, so it's not like it's screaming down the road making gobs of power before the car leans out and sputters. Here's where I come in: I want to get the car and slap a Pallnet rail on it (and clean up some of the vacuum lines and excess crap while I'm at it), install some good clean Supra 440cc injectors, a good reputable brand t3/t4 turbo and either completely rip off someone else's parts list and use their maps on a Megasquirt, or swap to the Z31 setup and just send the ECU off to be flashed for the mods installed. I'm familiar with EPROM setups from having a mail in tune on my 300ZX Twin Turbo. I know a standalone is obviously better than mail in tunes but I kinda kinda just to make it be able to run all the way to redline and make safe, fun power w/o spending piles of cash. That can come later, I just want to make it proper until down the road.

I ordered a bunch of parts to fix up the outside of this 2.8 I bought to put in my 240Z. I got a water pump, thermostat, valve cover gasket, rear main seal kit, oil pan gasket, etc. I must have had a brain fart and ordered a timing cover gasket set thinking I needed to pull it to change out the water pump. I have a front timing cover seal coming with the kit I got and I definitely am going to replace the front seal while I'm up there, but do I really need to pull the timing cover for any of the freshening up? The engine was running and driving so it doesn't need an oil pump and I don't plan on putting on a new timing chain, so I thought I'd see if there was any other reason to pull it and reseal it to the block if there was no real need to.

Nevermind, saw where the combustion chamber dictates the M or regular N.

A guy is wanting my Weber DGVs and intake manifolds but doesn't have quite enough cash so he offered this head to help make up the difference. He said it isn't stamped MN47, just N47 but was told the difference can be told by the combustion chambers.

I decided against it guys. The one who posted about it possibly being run a while without air filters kinda made me think more about it. It may have been like that for hundreds of miles. So instead I bought a set of rebuilt Webers that look way cleaner and comes with a Holley FPR, and then went and bought a stock, running 76 Z engine from a guy a couple hours away. So for the same money, I have rebuilt carbs on their way, and an engine that was kept bone stock so no risk of a shadetree cam swap and "porting" job. I may miss out on the possible cam and portwork, but I have piece of mind. Plus, it has the N42 head so I can use my headers I already have, and I have a more desirable head. Plus, I can make a few bucks selling the N42 intake it came with

I figured it was a pretty good deal myself, just curious if you guys would have seen anything that raised suspicion and I should check out in further detail or something like that. Thanks for the quick response.

There's a guy local'ish selling an engine I want to possibly pick up for my 240Z. It's from a 77 so N42/N47 and is running in the car and I can go drive the car around before I decide to purchase, so that is a big plus to this option. He says it has a port and polished head, but hasn't personally pulled either intake or exhaust to see for himself. The only way he can back up what the p/o told him was that he's run it next to his buddies Z with the same setup w/o a cam and it pulls him fairly hard. Also says it has a cam. Other than that, stock bottom end but with triple Webers and an MSD ignition setup and header. I figured you guys would have much better eyes since I've been out of the Z community so long as to whether or not it seems like a good buy. I know the top end looks a little dirty but it's not a show car, also the carbs are a little dirty but once again it's not a show car. I am concerned about that gasket that appears to just be sticking out of the sides of the intake where it bolts up, I wouldn't imagine that's normal. I offered him $1350 pending for the carbs, motor, header, MSD, and fuel pump since I won't need the tail end of the exhaust he's selling or the 5sp since I already have one on the 240Z. He said he wanted $1400 at the lowest w/o the trans or $1500 with it. But he said if $50 was going to keep me from getting it, he'd take the $1350. I've got such a boner for triple Webers since I never got to run my last set on my last 240Z but still looking objectively. The other option is a much more local guy's n47/f54 so possibly a high compression setup unless someone went through the troube of pulling the oil pan and turbo setup from a turbo block, and he'd take $400 with the EFI setup and 5sp which I could sell for a few bucks. I could use my DGVs I have, or find a set of triples and still come out close to the price of the other guy's more complete setup.

So after replacing all the engine bay fuel lines, cleaning out the gas tank with acetone that came out just as clean and stinky as when it went in, putting fresh gas in it and putting a charged battery in it...I was able to turn the key to see how bad this engine knock was that got the Z parked 3 or 4 years ago from the previous owner. The engine would turn over, kinda slow but still turned. And it made a clunking noise everytime in rhythm. It's almost as if something in the bottom end were broken and when the crank's rotation would reach a certain point, the broken piece would pop, fall, shift, or whatever you want to call it. I went in on the car knowing it might need a new engine so it's no biggie, I've already found a guy a couple hours away selling a running 2.8 with a cam, headers, and triple Webers, all running that made a 3+ hour road trip home when he bought the car to RB swap it. So I guess I'll be paying him a visit and picking up a whole new drivetrain. Was just hoping the engine knock might have been something like an oil spray bar loose and rattling in the head or something and might have gotten lucky, but no dice