kce

Hey all. Back in 2009 I bought a decently clean '71 240z that I knew needed some engine and wiring work. Then life got the best of me (as it often does) and I moved and the car stayed in storage and sat for 10 years. My dad is currently working on getting it drive-able with the priorities being the brakes, the carbs and the wiring. Unfortunately the wiring was pretty messed up when I got it and sitting hasn't done it any favors. Lots of broken insulators, bare wires, cut/spliced stuff and just general brittleness due to age. I'm curious if anyone has a shop recommendation in the Portland, OR area that specializes in zcars that could give us a quote of what it would take it get this car running again, I'm all ears. If anyone's interested in a silver '71 240z in the Portland, OR area too... we can talk! Thanks all K

Wow. Good to know.

This is a bit off topic... but where in Alaska are you? I'm down in Southeast. I didn't think there was anyone else living in AK here on the forums.

datsun-parts is an eBay seller selling some rebuilt L28 engines. Has anyone had any dealings with this particular eBay seller? It seems to be a pretty straight forward rebuild, but I'd be interested in hearing if anyone's experience either positive or negative.

I've been trolling around for a LS1 or a LS6 preferably accompanied with a T56 transmission. There are deals to be found via Craiglist or the LS1tech forums but unfortunately I live in Alaska. This makes examining the engines in person pretty difficult and I don't really want to risk spending $5k on something site unseen. I also don't want to spend $800 on a plane ticket just to come back empty handed. I can arrange for a barging company to ship palletized stuff up here for what is "affordable" by local standards but I would need to go through a salvage yard that has more flexible shipping arrangements other than FedEx or UPS. (This pretty much kills eBay as an option for me). Can anyone recommend a reputable salvage yard in the Seattle area that has experience shipping stuff via barge lines? Because I can't look things over myself I would feel a bit better about spending all that money if there is at least some guarantee I'm actually getting what I paid for. (A warranty of some kind would be lovely.) I'm also not at all adverse to the idea of taking the ferry down to Bellingham and trolling around there. Does anyone in the Bellingham/Blaine area care to recommend a quality salvage yard? Suggestions welcome.

This is one thing that gets me too. I don't understand why it is so hard... board from the back of the plane first. It is the most efficient way to board the aircraft, and therefore the fastest. Or just have first-come-first-served seats. It's pretty hilarious when your seat is in the back of the aircraft and you're in the first section to board, yet 1/3 of the passengers are already on the plane, in the aisle blocking your way with their ridiculously over-sized carry-ons. Instructions are not that hard to follow people.

Are they just stainless steel or are they also ceramic coated? Either way, I can't start stocking piling parts for an engine swap at that price. Sorry. Maybe in another year.

This seems like a pretty decent method to repair the cracks in the dash if done right. Maybe the key is to use a material that can expand and contract with the dash? It would be interesting to see a long term durability comparison between using the foam and bumper compound method and the fiberglass method. I've tried using fiberglass (cloth and compound) to repair a broken console but as soon the plastic on the console flexed the fiberglass just pealed off. The plastic on the console was sanded to try provide more surface area for adhesion, but it was still a no-go. Has anyone considered using fiberglass filer? It's basically like Bondo except with fiberglass fibers mixed in with it. The big benefit over fiberglass cloth and resin is that it is sand-able.

This! As far as I can tell. They are basically just "Designer Wheels" and that the extra money you are paying is not for any technical merits but simply because they are Watanabes. I figured for around $500 a pop, they would be handmade of super-secret ultra-light, ultra-strong alloy by a master swordsman somewhere in the Mountains of Japan. I'm just guessing, but I imagine the real reason they cost so much more than other wheels is: 1) they're made in Japan (kind of like the JDM parts obsession for the import crowd?), 2) the importation cost, 3) they *are* quality pieces of work, 4) the brand name and 5) limited supply, high demand. I hear you. In my opinion, the Watanabes are perfect wheels for the S30. They just look like they belong to the car. BUT, there's plenty of other good looking wheels that cost half of that for a set. And there's no way I could square with spending an extra $1000 for "Designer Wheels" that are not better from a technical or performance standpoint. You could do a lot of other things to your car for $1000.

This is a pretty simple question... why are Watanabes so expensive? I really like their look... but $550 per wheels seems, well really, really expensive. Is there a reason why they cost about twice as much as something like the Rota RBs?

Unfortunately, I neither have the space, time, nor inclination to deal with going through a whole donor car. I agree that if you use as much of your donor car as possible it's a really affordable (as much as it a SBC swap can be) way to go about doing an LS1/T56 swap. But maybe my circumstances will change, and if they do I'll certainly consider that option. I think I'll just keep an eye on the LS1tech forums, once I'm finally ready to take the plunge.

I imagine that the SBC swap into an S30 is such a niche market that I'm willing to bet that the owner of JTR barely breaks even on the manuals. And I'm sure a lot of time, effort and money went into producing that information. If we don't pay something for it, that information wouldn't be available (or certainly not as widely available). Also, in the grand scheme of things the cost of the manual is so small compared to the doing the rest of swap... and the return in terms of not screwing up, buying the wrong parts, wasted time, etc. is probably worth a hundred times more than the price... Just my thoughts... plus I'm too lazy to re-type those pages here.

I am still at least a year or two away from getting anywhere close to doing an LS1 swap but I also would be interested in purchasing some quality headers. None of the current options really appeal to me, and I don't have trouble spending the money as long as they are *quality* pieces. I'm not sure if you need a commitment to buy right now, or if something as vague as "I'll need a set sometime" works... but if you need a tie breaker... I suppose I can put the cart before the horse and purchase a set... details pending of course.

Some of you guys have gotten killer deals on your stuff... I'm amazed that any one has gotten an LSx and T56 for anything less than $4k. That's awesome. For those of you that ended up getting your engine and transmission of eBay, instead of from a local salvage yard... do you have any recommendations (other than the standard for eBay) to make sure you're getting a decent donor drive line? Thanks for replying. The context is very helpful.

I assume you mean the JTR manual, correct?

I'm trying to gauge how much money I could expect to spend on a decent (under 100K mileage) LS1 and a T56 from a salvage yard. If eBay prices are a good indicator it looks like *just* the engine and transmission can be had for around $4,000 - $6,000 depending the make of the engine (i.e., a LS2 compared to an LS1). On the other side of the coin, it looks like you can buy a brand new complete LS1 crate engine from Summit for about $5800. A brand new T56 transmission from Summit seems to run around $2800. I would interested to hear how much those of you with a Gen III/IV swap payed for your engine (and/or transmission) if it came out of a salvage yard. What's a reasonable price one can expect to spend? What mileage? Did you use a whole donor car or did you just get the engine and transmission? I'm sure everyone will have pretty variable numbers here, so the location where you bought the salvaged engine (and/or transmission) would also be useful to me as well (I'll probably pull my stuff from somewhere in the Portland, OR area, if I ever get back down there.). Thanks.

I didn't mean to say that I think the N-heads are bad in any way, nor that I actually have a good reason to support my earlier statement. I can't argue with your results. Maybe the whole more-quench vs. less-quench argument is really just a red herring. Like you said, it's easier to get higher compression ratios with the N-heads and with a proper well designed, cammed and managed engine build you won't see any more detonation problems than you would with a P79/P90. I suppose comparing the two cylinder heads is really just a specious comparison anyway because of the amount of variability in each build (as mentioned earlier). Like they say, "Numbers talk and bullshit walks!"... and I can't argue with your numbers.

Hmmm. I stand corrected then. I thought the static compression ratio was higher with the P90/P79 flat top combination. After doing a little impromptu research it does look like the P79/P90 have larger combustion chambers (53.5 CCs) compared to the smaller (~44 CCs) size of the N42/N47. THIS! If I have learned anything from this thread (other than that I don't know anything) it is this. It is extremely hard to get an "accurate" side-by-side comparison of different cylinder heads because a lot of these setups are "one-off".

You don't have detonation issues running the P90 with flat top pistons and a turbo? I thought that combination would be get you pretty close to 9.1:1 static compression ratio (of course, your dynamic compression ratio is really the "compression ratio" that matters for determining your detonation threshold)? That seems pretty high to run with any boost but maybe I'm mistaken. EDIT: Also, excellent point about the cam swap.

Has anyone used the Headlight Relay Upgrade Harness or the MSA Fuse Box Upgrade? Together they're around $350, which I don't mind spending if it actually resolves the problem, allows me to run brighter higher wattage headlights and are actually quality pieces. Anyone have experience with these upgrades?

BRAAP pretty much wrapped it up on the first page: So as for the P90 vs. P79 discussion, it seems the determining factor in cylinder head performance is really the porting and any other modifications that are done. This of course, makes any sort of side-by-side meaningful comparison extremely difficult. As far as I can tell, the choice between what I call the more-quench combination (P79 or P90 with flat top pistons) and the less-quench combination (the N47 or N42 with dished pistons) really depends on your application and what kind of engine you want to build (I guess?). I have no educated reason to believe this, but the combustion chamber on the P79 and P90 look far superior to those of the N47/N42. The smaller combustion chamber and increased quench caused by the flat top piston, seems indicative to a more effective combustion chamber design. Good flame front propagation, swirl and mix and all those crazy fluid dynamics engineering-y things are important to making a performance engine. It's not just enough to have volumetric efficiency (moving fuel/air into the engine and moving exhaust out), thermal efficiency is also important (extracting the most mechanical energy possible from the stored chemical energy stored in the fuel). On Quench: Source

Do you have a thread about your tank modifications? I don't want to thread-jack but I would be interested in hearing more about how you adapted the 240 tank for fuel injection. And why not just use a 280z tank instead? Is it that much more difficult to swap one in place?

It's about 5 degrees (Fahrenheit) right now with winds at 30MPH, with gusts up approaching 70MPH. My truck has developed all kinds of new suspension noises, my *brand* new battery has a hard time turning the engine over and my seat isn't cushy anymore. My Z's in storage... in Oregon. You know you are messed up if you think Oregon or Washington is nice climate.

Good to know. I have already read the How to Rebuild GM LS-Series Engines book. Next up (along with the JTR manual) is Vizard's How to Build Max Performance Chevy Small-Blocks on a Budget and How to Build Horsepower. I already read the first edition of the "Performance Small Blocks on a Budget" so it will be interesting to see how the second edition holds up. Although I got blasted last time I linked an article from Hot Rod, they did a pretty cool comparison of about ten different LS* cylinder heads (Here). Hopefully it will come in handy if/when I start looking at cylinder heads.

I just purchased the JTR Z Car V8 Swap manual. It's still in the mail, but the thought occurs to me that it might only be relevant for doing a Gen I/II swap. Is this the case? I'm hoping a lot of the material is useful even though the book focuses mostly on Gen I/II swaps.