madkaw

For that price I think would spend my money somewhere else. 1600$ just for the plenum-ouch! I would think that kind of money would allow you to modify those Mikuni intakes anyway you want and you would have something really different---BLING!!!!

Looks like that MSD only changes the final amount of advance, which is helpful, but not what I'm looking to do. I think better results can be obtained by modifying the Nissan dizzy, but not as easy as turning a knob. Getting that vacuum advance to work with a power curve is the challenge. My car is awesome at 21 intial and 36 total, but I can't use the vacuum advance for economy. My next dyno run will be at the quarter mile at indianapolis, and I plan to run the car at the same timing setting as I did at zcon, then I am going to go for a pure power run with the vacuum advance plugged. Then I will work for something in between. I am kind of anxious to see the difference in the first two runs. My butt dyno says it will be considerable. I do have to keep in mind that i made a BIG float adjustment since the dyno run and I have gained at top-end for that effort. This is the most workable approach since Tony is hiding his top-secret dizzy somewhere is his toybox.

I also wonder what he did with that dizzy if your running 8 initial and still getting 36 total! You might find some reshaping of the mechanical weights or springs or slots for the advance-you better hold on to that dizzy. I think I will try and find another e12-80 dizzy and experiment with it and keep my original stock.

If you won't sell it, can you just take it apart and make an outline of the weights on a clean sheet of paper for a templet From what little I've read of dialing in the dizzy, the reshaping of the weights is much better at controlling the mechanical input then messing with springs. My car ran so great at 10 intial with full advance, now I just need to find the secret combination to get the full advance to come in at the right time. This is going to take some serious R&D and many trips to ORP raceway-darn! I will probably find a nice set-up and then I will be mounting the Mikunis--- to start all over again.

I'm suprised that you could just "plug in" your advance when running 34 total, but I have no idea how much advance your dizzy vacuum pulls. What's you intial set at then. Bottom line is that if you can do that and not detonate and keep all that top advance and good mileage your doing great! I believe I have one of the early electronic dizzys, I will have to look to see how much vacuum advance it has. I think you are running higher compression, but you must have some overlap with that cam. Just curious-what kind of pressure do you get doing a compression test? If I didn't mention it earlier, this dizzy is all in at 2500rpm. The vacuum advance is 17 degrees. So at 2500 rpm at a cruise/slight loading(going thru the neighborhood at slow cruise thru the gears) I had 10+17+17= 44 which from what I have read is not out of the norm, but at that 2500 mark is where I would here a slight ping.

I would like to use the mechanical advance, but this e12-80 needs to be tuned to my engine. The e12-80 pulls too much advance at the wrong time for my application and causes detonation and does not optimize power. Why run 27 degrees total when you can run 35.I did look at the idea of slotting the pull rod, but I don't think there is enough rod to do that-but I'm still working at something to that fact. As far as being a long day at the dyno-if I have my ducks in a row and have several options to try during my dyno time, I can make effecient use of my time. 30 ounce, I think I am experiencing what you have now. I have suffered mpg for power, but I haven't really given up any drivability. The power is good everywhere and very smooth and predictable, just needs to be more effecient. I would like to cut the vacuum advance in half and see how close I can get to 36 degrees total without detonating. If I was able to make the vacuum advance somewhat adjustable it would give me several options at the dyno in a quick period of time. I would just be curious to see the numbers comparing what I ran at zcon(10 degree intial-27 total) compared to where i am now(21 initial-36 total approx.) Fuel injection is great, but for performance you need to be ready to spend$$$. I would like to go with a edis set-up and install a megasquirt and do the timing curve right, but for now it's going to be tweeking the e12-80.

No proof on the richness, but my mpg is definetly taking a hit from losing the vacuum advance. I realize that the vacuum advance is there for other then WOT, more for cruise and high vacuum conditions. just trying to get the best of both worlds-WOT performance and fuel economy at cruise. I was thinking of cutting the vacuum advance in half to see how that effects everything, just not sure how I am going to go about that. I have Mikunis sitting on a shelf, so I'm not sure how my findings with the SU's will translate to them once they are installed. Trying to learn and improve my understanding-but I can't complain about the way this engine runs.

Well I nhave been playing with the timing and I believe i left some HP on the table at Zcon. I guess when I set my timing before I went( 10 btc static), I didn't rev the engine enough to set total timing properly. I must have also reconnected the vacuum advance ASSuming that it would cut out at the higher rpm-so I was only running about 27-30 degrees at top end. After reading some more i took the advice and just plugged the vacuum advance and set intial to about 21 degrees and I am running a good 36+ at the top end. Good thing about this is overall hp gain and no detonation at 2500rpm(wasn't too bad). The bad is giving up some mpg and I can actually smell the difference. So it's time to develope a mechanism to limit my vacuum advance and at the same time maintain my total. Anybody have any options they have tried? I am thinking of somehow limiting the throw on the vacuum rod so I only get about half of the 17 degree advance. I guess it would also be cool to beable to keep a lower intial and full vacuum, but modify the mechanical for a higher advance. Right now I am not experiencing any detonation but not sure without some dyno that extra full advance would be doing anything. it seems the consensus here is 36 is a good number, and Braap thought 38 was optimum. 30 ounce, I wasn't setting mixture with the floats, just trying to keep fuel in the bowls which would effect mixture at top-end.

Well I thought I would share this family picture, and you can see it involves two families. I can't tell you how much my daughter loves this car-----still! She has been very patient dealing with the quirks of an older car, but it has been a good car, better then expected for her. Sarah is always riding the wave of attention the Z gives her. Most guys she knows are jealous and in awe of the car. Now that I have painted my car she is wanting her car to look as pretty! I went to visit her the other day on campus and we thought that the pictures would be cool in front of her sorority. My wife and I have discussed giving her our Subaru Forestor as a daily driver next year, but the first thing she cared about was what was going to happen to her Z. I don't know if there is anything else I could have given her that she would have enjoyed as long as she has enjoyed the Z. I told her that the Z will always stay in the family, and it will always be her car----and dad's to play with.

Please post up your finding with your wideband. I wish I had that tool to diagnose a similiar issue. My 2.4(40 over), higher compression with cam and dual exhaust seems to be running lean at top end with SM needles installed. The SU's run great and MPG is super, but I am like Jon and believe they run out of breath at top end. I also have some Mikuni's of the shelf just begging to be put on, but the SU's will have their day first.

Did mine about 2-3 years ago and the prop valve was NOT plug and play. I found out then that I couldn't flare a brake line for my life. I also couldn't find the correct adapter. I wound up having the line made with the proper length and ends and had it sent to me. It was like 10$, but I had piece of mind that the flare was correct.

I had about the same damage on my car from an earlier collision fron the previous owner. My car was basically rust free which gave me more options. I took my car to a frame guy and had the spot pulled out like yours, then i cut out the bad metal(not the whole frame rail), and replaced it for cosmetic reasons. If the metal is sound and you get it square, then bondo the dimple stuff and call it a day. Or cut out the bad stuff and replace.

Thats's interesting, because I am chatting with frank on CZCC and he was the guy before me with his triple mikuni's. He bottomed out their scale at 9.3 or something and I don't remember any plumes of smoke. he did admit that his car is running stinky rich right now. I will have to ask him if i just missed the smoke

I also have ORP less then 5 miles from my house with Friday night drags-30$ for unlimted runs on a premeir 1/4 mile track. I think that will be my dyno for now, and eventually maybe back to the other dyno. Honestly I have been very gentle with this car waiting for the engine to break in, but now i guess it's time to have some fun. I questioned if my diff would hold up also, because of strange noises, but now I have a spare incase something happens. I'll post-up if i make over there in the near future. By the way, I saw no black smoke on the dyno run-a little white smoke, but I expected that on a new engine. My next investment is a wideband set-up, I could use it for my car and my daughter's 81zxt.

I appreciate all the replies guys. This is my first dealings with a dyno run and deciphering a dyno graph-so all of you probably know more then me. As to certain aspects of the run;the engine was running rich at the time of the run. The foward SU piston needle was set too far up into the piston creating a rich condition. Rich enough to soot the plugs-so I figure that is what you are seeing with the low AFR. Needle was reset-plugs looked perfect. The carb floats were set to stock specs at the time of the run, but either my measurements were wrong or the stock specs didn't cut it for this engine. After returning home from ZCON, I adjusted the floats by more then a 1/8" on the tab, and the plugs still look perfect and the engine wasn't as flat on top end-noticable improvement. As far as the flat toque curve, I'm not sure what the deal is there, but this engine runs like that curve as far as having a very solid torque band across the rpm range. I am impressed how this motor will pull from any rpm. Weebeezeed, I am 15 minutes from greenwood. I will not be making any drastic changes based on this dyno run, but it did pick-up my richness problem, and it did show my leaness issue at the top end, so there is something to go by. I would like to find a point with my carburation that I atleast see some richness on the plugs, that i am making significant changes. As far as the 'set-em, forget-em" theroy, how is that possible. If I just went by the plugs and MPG and wasn't worried about anything else, I would have been happy with this dyno run. Now I have made a huge float adjustment(definetly not spec) and it runs better and still isn't rich. Bruce Palmer was the one to suggest float adjustment. Maybe the it is more then that, maybe the fuel pump is not maintaining the correct setting. An interesting note; the Z before me that had triples on his engine was also showing a very rich condition and making less HP then me. Could it been the suffocating heat that day-95+ degrees and humid?

Sam, you will have to update this thread if you get around to using this device to tune. I'm going to get one this week-end and try it out.

Maybe that's what I'm seeing on the graph, I'm running out of air-but guys have seen more hp with SU's. I'm guessing those SU's have been punched out a little to flow more. My timing might have cost me some hp also, since I believe it was set conservative. With dual 2" pipes this engine might need to breath a little more thru the carbs-I see the mikunis having their day soon What kind of compression are you running and what motor?

That's certainly an option, but I can't believe the SM's give out at 160hp. I guess I will tweek some more and see what happens.

Indianapolis

I guess I should have just asked,"hey dudes-howdoa make my car go faster-dudes", and this would have gotten more responses!

Well I got my car together just in time to drive down to Zcon. The engine was running really well with about 1000 miles on it. I got outstanding MPG with my SU's (26-28mpg) with my 3.7 LSD. I hadn't even taken the engine beyond 5krpm's till this point. They had a dyno at track days so i thought-what the hell-I'll give it a whirl. My timing was set conservative at 10 btdc at idle and 35 degrees all in with my zx dizzy. I am running SU's with SM needles. Other specs: 2.4 40 over with eyebrowed cylinder bores Assembly balanced, new pistons,stock lower end Compression running 195 across all 6 cylinders Head is early e-88,, shaved .10 ,semi closed chamber with larger stainless valves,unshrounded to ring on headgasket Schneider stage 2= 480 lift,270,270 Headers 6-3-2 duals 2" all the way back with crossover As you will notice with the graph I was slightly rich until I started into the power band, then she just fell on her face at 5100 and ran out of gas-basically. The richness issue was the foward SU piston needle beeing to far up-in the piston(figured that out later). The leaness was from improper setting of the float levels(I summized) After getting back from Zcon I when in there and tweeked the floats(big tweek) and noticed a more willing engine to rev, but I believe there is still quite a bit there.I pulled the plugs after the tweeking and the plugs looked about perfect. I was expecting to see more carbon as I made such a large adjustment, but they looked the same as before I adjusted. Do I tweek the floats until she doesn't run well anymore or the plugs change color, or is there something else I can do to fatten her up on the top. I have a set of tripple Mikuni's 40mm sitting on my shelf, but I am holding off putting them on until I have reached the limit on the SU's I have on there. I would like to do a fair comparison of the two set-ups and pick the best for overall satisfaction. I have access to a dyno here locally, but I want to do some butt dyno work before I cough up the 100$ per hour for a real dyno. Maybe after fattening up the fuel I can work on more timing, but the fear of running lean will keep me where I am at now.

Chris, I think the only issue is the MC booster studs spacing. The earlier 70-72 used the smaller booster unit and the spacing between the clutch and brake MC booster was narrower then the later years using the bigger booster-thus the clutch rod won't line up with the pedal. I learned this the hard way and have a excellent pedal box for a 73 on up that I can't use now. So it depends what your chassis was set up for-bigger or smaller booster.

I was looking for feedback and I truly appreciate it. Like i said, i was impressed to read that some tuners prefered this method over the more costly versions saying that the human ear was very good if not better in picking up the detonation. It a lot of cases you get what your pay for, I think in this example I think you can get away cheap in a trouble shooting or tuning device.

That would be great for a fuel injected motor with an ECU, but I am just an NA guy with SU's. From what i read in articles this device is more reliable then the expensive gadgets you can buy. The experiments done showed that the human ear was more reliable in deciphering engine knock(if you know what you are hearing) then almost anything you can buy. At 30$, it is a good start to avoiding damage to your motor. To say you are taking a chance on hurting the motor by relying on your senses I think doesn't take into account that you are actually trying with this device. What's nice about a device like this is that you could diagnose or pinpoint almost any noise on your car in any place while your driving. For me it will help diagnose a rear end noise from my diff(I think it's my diff). IMHO

By the way, I wish i had some more cash so I could make an offer on your cartech. I have some newer mikunis sitting on a shelf for this car, but in the end i would love to go the blow thru route. Good luck on your 2jz, maybe I come up with some money in the near future-my wife is getting a raise, maybe I nask for a loan-LOL