tyson

Dyno numbers At 8.2PSI it made 246 horsepower and 266 ft/lbs at the wheels on a Superflow dyno. The first run was pretty rich, so I trimmed back the fuel values by 5 points each on the SDS Manifold pressure scale. Rock solid 11.5-11.6 A/F ratio throughout the curve after the tweak. Max torque at 3500RPM At 10psi the clutch (I think it's a Centerforce dual friction?) wouldn't hold. It's possible that we were getting wheel spin but we tried a few runs and nobody could see the tires spin, nor was there any rubber on the nice white floors behind the rollers. The car ran really well, the only thing was a decent amount of smoke coming from the valve breather under boost so I have to look into that a little bit. Overall I feel bittersweet. I went there mainly wanting to make sure it was running well, which it was. But after that was confirmed I really wanted to start seeing what the car can do. The numbers are pretty impressive for only 8PSI, so I've got something to feel good about. The car didn't blow up either, so that's another good thing =) An hour of fiddling with it on the dyno $75 *edit* as a reference, my old automatic 280ZXT starion intercooled, 3" downpipe and SVO injectors only made 190HP & 215ft/lbs @10psi on a dynojet.

Yeah, even at the lowest boost first or second gear bakes the tires. Third can produce some wheelspin at freeway speeds without a passenger in the vehicle. If I ever 1/4 mile this thing I'll probably get lower ETs by putting 200lbs of sandbags in the hatch eh?

Figured I'd let anyone following know that I've got an appointment with a chassis dyno for this coming Tuesday afternoon. Update on the tires After having them on for the past 2 weeks I figure I'd give a little review of the Kumho Ecsta XSs. I haven't tracked them yet, so this is all street driving. I read on a couple sites that suggested heat cycling the tires, so I did the best job that I could on the street with a set of cloverleafs a mile from my house. I then went to a large parking lot and put the car through several tight turns in each direction at about 30mph. I don't own a pyrometer, but they felt fairly hot to the touch. Parked in the garage on jackstands for the next ~30 hours. Overall I'm not terribly impressed, yet I'm not completely disappointed. I came from a hard R compound tire that was well past it's competitive life also going through several winters outside in Victoria. Even after that the R compound tires were quick to warm up and felt quite sticky afterwards (once hot I could hear them picking up sand/gravel everywhere I went). The sidewall was very firm without much flex giving the car immediate response through the steering wheel. The Kumho Ecsta XS just aren't the same. At 30psi the sidewall flexes much more than the R compounds, and I had to raise them up to near 40psi to get the level of response I desired. Unfortunately at near 40psi they offer little traction off the line. I'll probably try to compromise in the low 30s. They do handle well, and are fairly forgiving when pushed to the limit. The few fast starts I have done resulted in some tire squeal, which I don't like. The $440 price also isn't bad at all. Verdict: Decent tire, just don't expect race compound performance. I'll spend the extra money on better tires once I get the wheels that I want.

True, but if you dump a Gatorade tub on a coach, you have high flow at a very minuscule psi. Once again, not saying im anywhere near an expert.

Also, for the record I was just throwing up an imaginary # for flow rate.

That would have to deal with the flow rate of the pump. If its rated at 100gph at 5000 rpm, it should flow at 100gph regardless of the viscosity, unless the clearances of the pump aren't tight and the thinner oil can bypass the pump mechanism. By no means fact, just my understanding of fluid.

Put about 30 miles on the new filter, seems to be running perfectly fine again.

Hmmm, but my head was dry when I was trying to diagnose it the night before. I had my wife start it for ~10 seconds while I looked at the cam through the oil cover and there was no oil on the lobe. Now I'm really confused.

Well I changed out the Fram to a NAPA and I have oil pressure again. I drained the filter into a screen and couldn't see any deformation or obstructions in it and there was no foreign matter in the screen. Looked up into the passages from the filter to the oil cooler block and it was clean and clear as well. I think I'm going to E-mail Fram as there is clearly something wrong with that filter. Again, I'm 100% positive that it's not the gauge, as I had no oil making it to the camshaft last night when I first noticed the problem. Regardless, I will never be purchasing another Fram again. Thankfully I'm religious about checking my gauges because I dodged a bullet on that one. Zmanco, I think I'm going to change to a thinner weight in a few days and see if that helps build pressure earlier. I should be OK leaving the current oil in the filter as long as it's the same brand oil correct? Thanks for your help everyone!

Don't tell me that! I remember you fighting that for a long time. I'm attributing it to having an oil cooler and running heavy weight oil and just taking a little while for it to pressurize the cooler? I'll change filters in a few minutes and report back.

I'll pull it in the morning and take a look at it. I've always heard of fram filters failing, but never seen or heard of one first hand. If the filter failed, could it completely occlude the oil flow?

So I'm baffled. I was out driving the Z this afternoon, nothing hard since it was afternoon traffic. Hit ~5psi briefly a couple times, nothing major or strenuous. All gauges were reading fine upon shutdown. (mechanical) Oil pressure at idle around 10psi, around 60psi at throttle. Car was running smooth. Tonight I went to go take the wife out for a drive. I started the car and waited for oil pressure to register (aftermarket mechanical gauge)...and waited...and waited. Nothing. It usually comes up around 5 seconds after startup, but I waited a good ~12 seconds. I popped the hood, noticed a little bit of oil on the valve cover under the breather. Checked the oil level, it was good. Opened the oil cap, cam was almost dry (just a very thin layer of oil from earlier in the day) Had the wife start it for a couple seconds, no oil on the cam. L28ET Engine is a rebuild with under 3,000 miles. Has oil cooler Just changed the oil~20 miles ago. Napa Synthetic 15w50 Fram PH8A filter Car sounds very smooth, not missing or anything. Anyone have any ideas? I've been around Zs for about 15 years and I've never heard of this.

Didn't think so, just wanted to make sure it wasn't an early sign of something going bad. Thanks!

Hey guys, 240Z Turbo, aftermarket fuel rail, 440cc injectors that were just professionally tested and not leaking, It's got an aftermarket fuel sump/pump (not sure what brand/model). When I pressurize the system it's at 38PSI, and holds there for as long as I can bear to look at it. After an hour or two, it's dropped down to ~15PSI and then eventually to zero. Car starts and runs fine. Is it anything worth looking into? Thanks - Tyson

Build thread starts here So, obviously the car runs good but needs tires. It came with 280ZX 15x6 snowflake wheels and 205/50/15 DOT slicks. I absolutely LOVED the way these tires gripped the road, and response was incredible. I didn't like the way they looked since a 15" wheele with a 205/50 sidewall looks undersized. So I began looking for some 17" wheels so that I could fill the wheel well and maintain the low profile and avoid sidewall flex. Well, I didn't find any wheels for sale in the amount of time that I wanted to, so I bought some decent tires. I did a bunch of reading on tires, both DOT slicks and street tires. I didn't want to spend a ton of money since I'd be going to a new size sometime in the near future. I finally chose to go with Kumho Ecsta XS in a 205/50/15 through Discount Tire Direct for $440 shipped. They do have a deal starting 8/31/12 where I'd get $100 off, but I didn't want to wait another week to drive (I'm in Minnesota...we only have so many days per year!). When they arrive I'm taking them to Walmart, can't beat their mounting/balancing price of about $30. Cost $490 (after estimated mounting/disposal/valvestems) I also changed the oil. It had it's oil changed at 5 miles, 50 miles and about 350 miles (before I took it home). I went with Napa Synthetic (Valvoline) 15w-50 and a NAPA filter. Cost $30 While waiting for the tires, I figured I should have the injectors cleaned and flow tested for peace of mind. I received a few extra 440cc injectors in addition to the 6 installed, so I took 8 of them in to be serviced. Thankfully all of them seemed pretty good right off the bat. Leaks were negative. Spray patterns were good. Static Flow for 12.4 seconds wide open went from a spread of 103-106cc to 105-106c after cleaning/servicing. Pulse flow for 27.2 was a spread of 56cc-58cc to 57-58cc after. Lbs/hr was a spread of 48.4 to 48.8 after cleaning. I had 6 injectors that flowed at 48.8 after cleaning, so I put those back in the engine and left the other 2 as known good spares. Cost - $177 Total rounded cost for this post. $700

Well I figure I should start documenting the car, and everything that I'm doing to it. The fact that the previous owner (Drax240Z) had his car documented here led me to believe that I was in fact, buying a car with the upgraded engine internals (granted, I got receipts...but still) VS buying a story. Car and it's life from the previous owner. Drax240Z as he's known here is an awesome guy, and his description of the 240Z was absolutely spot on. I felt completely comfortable spending $200 on a plane ticket, $85 on a ferry ride, $125 on a hotel, and to hand him $X,XXX for the car after he gave me a ~5 mile drive around town. Honest, the first time I drove it was after handing over the money and driving the car out of the driveway for the very last time. http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?/topic/71690-drax240zs-devil-z-turbo/ Drax240Z escorted me to the ferry to near Vancouver, where a headlight flash and a wave was the last we saw of each other. I ferried to near Vancouver, drove south to the Blaine boarder crossing back to the USA where I provided the documentation to customs and was on my way after paying the import duty (car had never been in the USA). I was a little worried at this point since the car had a re-assigned BC vin, but everything went silky smooth. I left customs and headed south to Seattle where my wife was arriving in at 9:00PM. She had to wait outside the airport for about 30 minutes as I was running late due to traffic. She was waiting outside in the pickup area and knew I was there before she even saw the car...She heard the unique growl of a straight 6 with aftermarket exhaust. We went to our hotel and dinged around in Seattle for the next day. We started our long drive back to Minnesota, driving 700 miles across Washington, through Idaho and stopped for the night in Bozeman Montana, just outside of Yellowstone National Park. If I remember right I averaged about 22mpg on that leg compensating for speedometer error (small diameter tires) with the GPS. Considering we were ripping across the USA at about 85mph, and tearing through the mountains I'd say we did pretty good! Oh, the engine was still breaking in, and had only about 1,000 miles total by the end of that leg...so I never even got into boost. Next day we woke up early and drove into Yellowstone, just outside Yellowstone I parked at a service station and a woman in a nice 240Z pulls right up next to us...We talked for a bit and then left. Yellowstone was OK, kind of a bust since it was very very busy with a low speed limit and even slower traffic. After leaving Yellowstone we went up Hwy (?)212 through Bear Tooth Pass...Its one of those roads YOU NEED TO DRIVE if you haven't. It was awesome in a Z! Only made it to Billings MT that night, we decided that instead of going home through South Dakota and seeing the Badlands again we would cut through North Dakota to save time. Our final day we started driving at 0700 in the morning, we had about 1,000 miles to cover and one more park to stop at. Theodore Roosevelt National Park was an awesome place, not quite as awesome as Zion, Yellowstone or the Black Hills....But awesome in that there was hardly anyone there. Left TRNP after a couple hours and kept heading for home. At around 7:30PM I stopped for gas, and like always looked at the tires (DOT slicks) for any abnormal wear, what I discovered was that the front tires were wearing to the belt on the insides....F%(@. I had expected to replace the tires due to possibility of rain, or due to wear...but I didn't want to even think of it after 12 hours of driving, late at night in the middle of nowhere. We decided to limp it along to Fargo at a much slower 65mph. At 9:30PM we arrived at Fargo where I found a late night diesel mechanic working, he let me borrow a jack and some hex wrenches to adjust the camber plates so the tires wouldn't wear so much on the inside....15 minutes later I was heading down the road again. At 0230AM the next day, after 19.5 hours of straight driving we pulled the Z into our garage. I've never been so tired in my life. Now that the story has been told, the build thread starts on the next post. - Tyson

Today I got an e-mail from Kim informing me to go through Racing Lab. FYI Racing Lab only has 7.5" and 9.5" wheels in stock.

Life was easier back then, if it wasn't in a catalog and the local club didn't know they just didn't exist. And, time spent digging through hundreds of posts is time that I could spend ordering the wheels and doing something much more productive, or at least something much more fun.

Looking for 17" S30 wheels. Good rubber is also a plus. Let me know if you have any, or know of any! Thanks

Thanks man, just wishing I could drive it right now! I found the rota buy, hoping I can get some wheels soon. This forum seriously does need a FAQ for wheels because it is a very common problem, and hard to source -correct- information. It took me probably two hours of digging through threads to find out what sized wheels/tires will fit my 240Z with coilovers and not require flares.

That's good to hear. I e-mailed/called Kim and left voicemail, hope I don't end up being one of the cases where it takes 2 weeks to get contacted. I had my tire company call Rota as well as 18racing.com but both said they were out of the 17x8 RBRs in the +4mm (and anything near it). 18Racing said they didn't know when their next shipment would be, said "could be tomorrow, next week, next year". Oh the life of having my current tires showing belt and wanting nice s30 wheels yesterday =(

That's the thing, I've been digging through the pages, but it takes a lot of time and often there aren't links to where to find the wheels in our sizes. Would be nice if this subforum had a FAQ.

Wondering if you guys know some sources for 16-17" 4 bolt wheels for the S30? I'm looking to get some decent wheels 17x7-8, rota(ish) in the next day or two and would like to see what options there are for a 240Z with coilovers. I'd be somewhat interested in the right set (for the right price) if I had to use a small spacer. Also, if anyone has anything for sale (HINT HINT) let me know P.S.S. This might make a good sticky thread if it gets some replies? Thanks - Tyson

I'm interested in this. (assuming they will still run em) #1. Anyone have a set of black or gunmetals they want to sell? #2. What is the average time it takes to receive the wheels?

Awww shucks. thanks! Promise I'll contribute to this site a little more now that I've obtained Drax240Z's 240