Brad-ManQ45

First a contraction for ease of typing: OOYA - Object of your affection/aggravation (whichever is more appropriate) Rules to live by when wiggling your connector: Be sure to let the OOYA know you intend to make her PURR (until you really put the hammer down and then expect her to ROAR), and that this won't hurt a bit... Not on public roads or in public... Don't be looking at anything other than OOYA when wiggleing because if the said object catches you said object may throw a fit and become even more of a headache... Make sure your connector is going in the right hole - many times you will get serious bucking/backfire when not connecting properly... Wiggling only goes so far - for maximum effect/contact you'll have to pull out and push in a few times... OK - MORE than a few times... Application of appropriate agents will help in this process, especially if the object of your affection is balking... Keep repeating until OOYA lets you know by her behavior you've reached a satisfactory conclusion (or you have lost all desire/ability to try again)... When finished, a nice cold six pack and a good sandwich caps the whole experience while you congratulate yourself on a job well done... After that - a nap maybe...

The topic says it all - '83 zxt - if I don't have the pedal all the way to the floor and constatnly add more pedal no problem. If I just floor it, at around 4K it seems to shut down. I back off the pedal and feed it in as stated above and no problem... Any ideas?

For those of us contemplating the swap, how much for the adapters and axle work? Thanks

If it really is an 8.5" wheel then the width (for backspacing) is 9.5". -7mm is about .25", meaning that you have 4.5" backspacing. If you are acyually measuring the width of the wheel (rim to rim distance), then 4" backspacing is correct.

The 280ZX ECU is not set up for MAF, only the 300's are.

$ is rigt - anyone priced a valve adjustment on a DUC?

Actually, if you have a 10" wheel, the whole wheel is about 11" wide. A 5" backspacing would have -1/2" offset. I have 16X7 wheels that are 8" wide. I use spacers because they have about 30mm pos. offset.

Very nice paint job! Chase - a pleasure meeting you and rapping w/you. LOVED the car. I recommend every go to his site.

I have an '83 ZXT and have had nothing but problemsfrom the rear calipers. I am doing a V8 '75 and will go with Ross's conversion.

Let me preface my following remarks by stating that I do NOT have an intercooler. I had a T3/T4 hybrid w center warter cooliing installed on my '83 ZXT at 134000 miles, with a simple boost controller. At the same time the shop farmed out the exhaust to a good shop that put on a 2.5" from the cat back to a flowmaster muffler. The car was quick (10 lbs boost). The Flowmaster was TOO LOUD. When looking at the exhaust I noticed no mandrell bends (against specs when I ordered the work). I took the car back to the mufffler shop and had 3" mandrel bent tubing from the downpipe back and a 3" cat and sraight through oveal dynomax muffler put oon it. The car sppooled faster and hit harder this way. I have problems with boost creep - occasionally hitting 15 psi (no detonation because of the T4 compressor section). I don't think your problem is the exhaust.

Back in '94 I had this same problem and took it to the dealer - $1400 and a new "control head" later it was fixed. I have since gone to analog dash and manual A/C and have all my parts from the auto setup which was working fine - I just didn't want to ever have to go through it again, and while I had the dash out to replace the wiring harness did the manual conversion.

I would get a water cooled center section and kit to install it also.

I believe it is in the distributor...

After seqrching here and zcar.com, I realize that I have a classic case of ignition module starting to fail on my '83 ZXT. It doesn't appear that the HEI conversion is feasible with this distributor - any other suggestions?

Shelby didn't use the 427 cammer engine...he did use the side-oiler tho. He said for a street car go 428 - the rod/rod bolts would go at just about any time on the 427's.

Can you say ceramic coating inside and out?

Alternator and voltage regulator is fine. Have gone through all connections. Thanks for the advice...

You appear to have vacuum related problems. Verify that your servos are getting vacuum.

Love it!

This summer I went and got my emissions tested (OK, but only after trials and tribulations because the new tester didn't input data correctly) Had to do the test again - had shut the car off, but it wouldn't start. Let it cool for 20 mins and it started right up. Now this was after only having a fan blowing into the engine while the emissions test was run the first time, but I have come to a stop light in the summer and pushed in the clutch, and had the engine die - only to fire up 20 minutes later. When I heard it start to stall I tried pumping the pedal to keep the R's up but no go... Is there an ignition problem here (heat related)? Fuel pressure is fine, so I can't believe it is vapor lock.

I beg to differ on the spoolup issue. When my turbo went south, I had the stock turbine clipped and a S-Trim T4 compressor put on. I start spooling about 200 RPM lower than stock and it comes on quicker. The concept of the "SPORT TURBO" offsets the larger/less restrictive turbine section with air that is moving a lot faster from the compressor (greater radius). In this case it was close to an even match as to the give and take. Please note that I am runnning a complete 3" exhaust from the downpipe through cat and on back - haven't done the downpipe yet! Not only is the air moving faster it is a lot cooler than the stock compressor. The S-3 Trim is perfect for the 300-350 range. I myself got it because I wanted to raise the boost and not intercool or change injectors. I keep the same characteristics I had before the change. I also got the water cooled center section. This was all back in '94 and I've got over 40K on it since - and it has spiked to over 15 lbs on several occasions w/o pinging - thank God for the detonation sensor!.

I used to have a 2.5" exhaust and 2 chanber Flowmaster setup (for about a month) - I took it back and wend mandrell 3" w/UltraFlow and haven't looked back - much quieter AND quicker. I'd stay completely away from glasspacks - those louvers stick into the flow either way...

I have no problem at all with your documented observations. I was merely passing along knowledge that has already been shared on numerous posts, possibly from other sites as well. The gentleman that said he LOST boost had a bone-stock setup. I myself have a T3/T4 S3 Trim compressor and clipped stock turbine section. I spool up quicker and a bit lower in rpm than the stock turbo setup and have a good top end (not great). Since I am not going for larger injectors or changing anything else, I felt that the combination would work well for me and it has. I still say the combination of 3.90/4.10 rear gears and the T-56 would make 1st gear almost ridiculously short and you wouldn't get much boost. Yes I agree that tires would have an influence, but how many people are going to go with an overall diameter much bigger than stock? Thanks to all for sharing their experiences - thisis what this site is all about!

I'd stick with a T5 if I were you for the following reasons: Don't have to change the rear gear and don't want to (unless you can find a 3:36 instead of a 3:54). Turbos like LOAD. People have switched from a 3:54 to a 3:70 or a 3:90 and actually LOST acceleration because the turbo doesn't get enough load in the lower gears! The fact that you are building a stroker should help with the low speed (off boost) torque, so there is no need for a steeper first gear - or even lower overall gearing (reference the above point) The first gear would be practically unusable (too quick) - and this is WITHOUT going to the higher numerical rear gear you were contemplating. THe higher numerical ratio the set of gears has, the less strength (the teeth are narrower). Drag racers in the 60's and 70's used to put 4:88s in their cars and they didn't hold up like the 3:50's and 3:70's. The gearing w/T5 and 3:54 or 3:36(especially) gears is pretty spot on on the expressway. Plus, I have always thought that the torque from a turbo motor is not the instantaneous sort that CID results in and hits a little softer in a drag racing scenario - which is why you were concerned about using DR's - right? With a compressor bypass/blow off valve, you will get boost again quickly, but not the hard hit of torque in shifting like you would from CID torque. KEEP THE TURBO LOADED and you'll be a lot happier. JMHO Brad

Rhodes and Crane make hydraulic lifters for taming bigger cams. They basically "bleed down" at slower speeds where oil pressure is not as high. I suspect that a larger oil hole is part of the equation, but I believe the Crane design also had some sort of a flapper valve for oil control purposes. The Crane seemed to be a quieter design IIRC. Another advantage of the larger oil hole would be the "anti pump-up" feature at higher rpms (which would tend to limit the valves opening/closing action and thereby limit rpms). Having said all of this, if you are using the stock cam and getting all the way to redline, I wouldn't open up the oil hole... JMHO based on the very little I have gleaned over the years. Brad