Michael

As I've been posting (preaching?) recently, the V8 swap really has two parts: (1) the swap itself, and (2) the care and feeding of a high performance engine. It's easy for a swap to evolve into a full-on hot rodding endeavor, so (2) can be more complex and more frustrating than (1). A police LT1 into a 280Z sounds like a conservative-enough swap so as to minimize the troubles with (2), yet the donor is sufficiently sporting so that the end result should have satisfying acceleration. In other words, at least on face value, this sounds like a good idea - provided that you buy the entire Caprice (as opposed to just extracting the engine etc.) are are content with the stock transmission. Good donor cars are getting rare. OHV V8 anythings are hard to find - Chevy or Ford. Most cop cars are either FWD Impallas or 4.6L Crown Victorias - neither is a promising swap candidate. So the point is, if the Caprice is in good condition, consider buying it whether or not you pursue the swap; it's good to have around in reserve.

We’re talking hobby-cars here. With exquisitely honed skills you can indeed add the climate control and other creature comforts, the sound deadening and so forth, but for the vast majority of hobbyists this is impossible. For most of us the daily reliability and user-friendliness of our cars is limited more by our own skills than by the concept itself. Nevertheless, upgrading a 35 year old shell to modern all-around standards just does not sound like a wise undertaking, even for professional hot-rod shops charging by the hour. The consensus, I’d venture to say, would be that a V8 Z is a good value for raw performance, but it should be regarded as a lighter, better-handling muscle car - and not as an apples-to-apples competitor to an E90 M3. Are there 1967 Camaros with great highway manners and a user-friendly passenger compartment? Yes, but they are very few, cost $100K, and probably don’t exactly go 10’s at the strip. Instead compare a $15K hot-rodded Z (V8 or turbo L6) to a $15K or even $30K hot rodded first-generation Camaro. Almost certainly the Z will out-accelerate, out-handle and out-brake the Camaro. After doing my swap I realized that much of the frustration with the care and feeding of these cars isn’t with the swap itself, but with a high performance old-school engine in general. So again, it’s like a muscle car, but with a lower price tag, sleeker body and 800 lbs less weight. From personal experience... my car is in a state of deplorable lack of tune, and even so, at least going by peronal perception, the acceleration is incomparably greater than in any car in which I've been driver or passenger. This includes several stock or lightly-modded C5 Corvettes and a lightly modded E36 M3. Of course, performance under rigorously enforced conditions such as road racing on a track would probably be abyssmal, given the shoddy suspension, spongy brakes and 15 year old crusty-bread tires. But that is more the fault of the owner than of the car.

My car is basically done - it just needs maintenance. Fuel spills out of the venturis because the float level is too high, and I don’t know how to set the float level! Or more precisely, I am afraid to experiment because my engine is precious and I’m afraid to mess it up - so I don’t even start it - it sits in my garage, the mocking in its silence. Every weekend after work I do laps in the garage, walking around the car in stupefied wonder, like a tribal shaman mumbling incantations to the statue of the tribal god, afraid to approach lest touching the statue is instant death. So at this point I’m not talking about planning a project or even building a car - I’m talking about basic maintenance. If I paid Grumpy $100,000 to build me a nice drag car, that wouldn’t do me any good, unless I also bought Grumpy the house next to mine and a plane ticket to Dayton, so that he could move here and be my on-call mechanic. And my present neighbor unfortunately isn't Grumpy - at least, not with a capital "G". But what do I do with my Hybrid - take it to Midas? Or do I have AAA tow it 90 miles to Denny’s house (under his tutelage the engine was built)? When I was 14 I replaced the head gasket on my 1976 Toyota Corona, but you know what, I would not even consider doing that sort of job now - I would be too terrified of installing the timing chain off by a tooth, or torquing the head bolts in the wrong order. And the worst part is that the more I learn about engine THEORY the more I’m baffled and stultified in pursuing engine PRACTICE! If you realize just how many g’s a connecting rod “pulls”, just how many psi the oil film in a journal bearing actually supports, well then, the overwhelming wave of awe is nearly a religious epiphany. How can I, a nondescript sap with a solitary Craftsman tool box bought on clearance, ever hope to harness these secrets of nature? Whereas when I was 14, or even 24, it was: “Hey, engines - no big deal, stuff rotates, stuff reciprocates, rotate the dizzy to change timing, spray some starting fluid if it’s coughing - and is that a 12mm bolt - yeah, looks like it - yeah, I think I’ll use vice grips”. Bottom line: initial setbacks + working alone = too psychologically scarred to enjoy this hobby. The problem has NOTHING to do with money! Which is why I am seriously thinking of just buying a Z06 and calling it quits. I felt much the same after the stock market collapse of 2000-2002. But in investment there was much companionship; everyone at the office got hosed in their 401-Ks. Some lost much more than I. Investment professionals got burned together with amateurs. Beyond the hype and false laments, there was real reason to believe that I was not the only fool. The camaraderie gave cause for tenacity. I did not withdraw the vestiges of my portfolio and sew dollar bills into my mattress. Nearly 7 years later my investments have not yet fully recovered, but they are doing vastly better than I dared hope in those dark months of the early winter of 2003. What is missing in the hot rod hobby is a continuity of mentorship from veteran to novice. On HybridZ we interact through the computer screen, and to be sure, this is incomparably useful. But we have some 6000 members across 2.5 million square miles (counting just the U.S.). There are maybe 10 people on this site who I could call and ask for advice, but it’s not the same as a daily reassuring pat on the back that indeed I’m tightening the correct 12 mm bolt, with vice grips or the proper wrench.

Actually, I’d say that the biggest problems limiting results in this hobby are NOT financial and not directly related to poor planning. They are: 1. General lack of mechanical skill. In our society “working with your hands” is an increasing endangered pursuit. Never mind hot-rods, V8 swaps or high performance; how many people today even know how to change the engine oil? It’s hard to learn about cars, especially if you are busy with a career and a family, and don’t have friends/neighbors/relatives who can mentor you in auto mechanics. So you end up undertaking projects way outside of your level of competence - which brings me to… 2. Unrealistic expectations; biting off more than you can chew. In my mind’s eye I wanted to build a drag-racing terror, and made plans to fulfill this vision. Years later I realized that the scope of such a project was too unwieldy. Instead of enjoying a car that could be made to run 15’s reliably, I tried to build a car that runs 11’s - and which has yet to even visit the drag strip. The result is… 3. Fear and shell-shock. With unrealistic expectations and lack of skill comes failure. Now I’m afraid to tighten a bolt, lest I strip the threads. Even when 95% of the project is already complete, one collapses in nervous spasm - spasm that the voices of doubt were right all along, that this whole hot-rod thing is mere vanity and self-delusion. What is the solution? Well, I contend that the solution is to band together. Sure, this site is a great resource, and sure, I’ve benefited immensely from direct help from several members here. But consider the survey that we had a year or two ago, about whether most folks work alone or in a partnership: the vast majority said “alone”. Without pushing too far into a political discussion, I would argue that ultimately what ails our hobby is the general alienation and fragmentation of society.

No Z will ever begin to rival the profit potential of Barret-Jackson Yenkos, Baldwin-Motions, etc. Yes, that Scarab might be worth $2000 today and $3000 in 5 years, but if you are worried about the “opportunity cost” of modifying such a car, then the financial burden of the V8 swap itself becomes completely intractable! The reason to not “molest” a Scarab is if the conversion is clean, the car runs well, and the person contemplating the re-conversion is not a competent mechanic. In other words, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it if the fix will break it! But if you know what you’re doing, do not let vapid delusions of debasing some heirloom stop you from improving a rather mediocre design.

In the spring of 2000 I drove a stock 1978 280Z with unknown >>100K mileage, recently bought for $900, from Los Angeles to Ohio. The only maintenance en route was adding oil - it burned a half quart every 500 miles or so. This was about 400 miles a day, mostly interstates. In the mountains of Colorado on I-70 it was really down on power, but ran OK. That car subsequently survived a half dozen trips back and forth from Dayton, Ohio to Northern Virginia. It did fine even in Ohio snows, starting reliably on zero-Fahrenheit conditions, until when messing around on unplowed streets the back end swung out, broadsided a curb and bent the rear suspension. My big block Z would do OK on maybe a 30-mile trip, but under most circumstances it won’t even start. Assuming that the water pump belt does not get thrown, temperatures will hover in the 185-215 range, depending on how the electric fan cycles. The main problem is timing (vacuum advance is broken) and fuel (fuel spews profusely out of the venturis at idle, floats are not adjusted correctly, power valve is probably blown and vacuum secondaries may not be opening correctly). Bottom line #1: if you are incompetent, stock = pretty reliable, modified = won’t run. Bottom line #2: even a well-engineered car will run like a handicapped poodle with its rear legs tied together, if the engine is not properly tuned! Or in other words - minor tuning problems can turn a 500 hp engine into a 50 hp engine.

For redoing the unibody I would prefer low-carbon steel, compatible for welding purposes with the stock sheet metal. For bolt-on parts, such as hood/fenders/doors/hatch, I would prefer fiberglass. It is heavier, weaker and less stylish than carbon fiber, but cheaper and more user-friendly for modifications. And probably not as sensitive to sunlight.

First of all, congratulations on a project completed, and here's wishing for many drag strip victories and many miles of happy cruising! That said - and I'd hate to be the curmudgeon again - but at least in my experience, after "getting her done" - that is, after the first drive upon completing the swap - come months of largely fruitless efforts at getting the engine tuned and at sorting out the "minor things" that have more do to with maintenance than with the swap. Just starting the engine is a hit-or-miss experience. Trying to figure out the causes of the various colors of tailpipe smoke has not been an innocent game of trivial pursuit. And rowing that truck transmission - the one with all those hi-po parts designed to be "bulletproof" - ruins all the fun of quick bursts of acceleration. After all these years of tinkering, I don't want an incessant project - I want a reliable vehicle that starts in the Ohio "autumn" cold, idles reliably, doesn't lose oil pressure when accelerating or fuel pressure when braking. My car fails in all of these regards, so it just sits in the garage. Here's hoping that you don't fall into this rut, that you sort out the nuisances of tuning, and enjoy the fruit of your labors!

The local hot-rod shop holds Mallory products in very low regard, with preference towards MSD. Of course, it's possible that this guy is a dealer for MSD, and his recommendation is merely good business. On the various Chevy performance sites the prevailing opinion seems to be that MSD "ready to run" distributors (pejoratively called "ready to quit") have weak spark and are unreliable; they are perhaps inferior to the GM HEI. However, the MSD stand-alone products generally get good reviews, provided that the coils are made in the USA (some are, some are not). I am thinking of getting the MSD 8394 ("digital") distributor, with 6-AL box and 8202 coil.

Coming home from work, a deer jumped out in front of my Nissan Sentra. Big buck (the deer), very impressive antlers. 2 lane country road, no shoulder, rain --> better go for the buck than attempt to swerve. Result: antlers pierced the windshield, bent the roof, twisted the hood. And the ****en deer must have run away! I wanted to at least hang his head as a "trophy" in my garage.

jbc3 - the Camaro rotor idea seems to be one of the best-kept secrets in the Z front brake upgrade world. A friend of mine (not on HybridZ) tried this successfully many years ago with a Gen II Camaro (1970-1982) - I did not realize that it works for Gen III also. Do you have the specs (part numbers) for the inner bearing/race and grease seal? If the grease seal is a custom piece, we should consider a group buy. The OEM Datsun outer bearing should work OK.

Yup, look like a great compromise of price, fit, size and aesthetics! Now the usual two questions: how much do they weigh, and would they fit without coilovers?

Ah yes, the eternal debate on how much one should or should not have spent on his Z, whether it was worth it, and whether the money itself really matters.... If you spent $30K on your car but you enjoy driving it, if it attains the performance level that you desired (or higher), it is reliable enough to not cause incessant headaches, and if you feel proud as the designer/builder/tuner/owner, then I’d say that this is money very well spent. If you spent $5000 but your car accelerates worse than a $5000 used Camaro or Mustang, then your money is wasted. If the car fails to meet your desires or expectations, again, your money is wasted. Broadening the discussion beyond cars, I often find myself getting good deals on things that ultimately disappoint me. In that case they’re not good deals at all. I have to some extent enjoyed my HybridZ adventure; it had its moments. I met clever and interesting people, whose company I value and whose advise I cherish. But in the proverbial “if I were to do it again” - well, I wouldn’t do it over again. My lessons were mostly lessons in humility. The pinnacle of every lesson is heaped atop a mountain of frustrations; every triumph is but the crown on a brow of failures. My plans were mostly self-delusion. My "good deals" were trifles compared to the thousands wasted on dead-ends. How would I have done it over again? I would buy somebody else’s nearly-complete project. Or I would just buy a new car. Is it “worth it” in the end? Well, it’s given me impetus to write some relatively interesting (hopefully!) posts. My wife says: “Honey , you fret so much over that car, you second-guess yourself so much! How can you enjoy it, how can you call it a hobby, when it gives you so much anguish? I wish you’d just hire a professional to build you a turnkey car! I wish that you'd just buy something ready-made, ready to go drag racing!"

OK, it really comes down to whether one thinks of a house principally as an investment or as a “place to live”. Barring pathological anomalies such as my own case, generally owning a house gives higher quality of life than renting; this I readily admit. The investment part, however, is highly tenuous. Jon’s friend in CA with the $1M house did very nicely; I envy him! In such circumstances it would have been foolish to rent an apartment. But in the Midwest, the Plains, and the South (except for the coastal regions and big cities such as Atlanta), real estate as an investment is quite unattractive. Nevertheless, our culture encourages home ownership as being the decent, self-respecting thing to do. This I resent, not only because of the fallacy of the assertion itself, but because applied too broadly it drives reasonable people to making unreasonable decisions - to the benefit of some one else! As for our local situation in Ohio... it takes about as much money to support a student in public school in Ohio, as it does in Virginia or California or wherever. If less money is available per capita, then the relative tax rate per capita has to be higher. If there are more school-age children per capita, then again taxes end up higher. In this area (probably true for suburban/rural Midwest in general) we have lots of young families with children and single-parents with children. But there are few "young professionals", empty-nesters, childless singles, or double-income-no-kids couples. Single-income households (wife stays at home) seem to be the norm. Manufacturing jobs are disappearing (if I recall correctly, Ohio is #1 nationwide in percentage of lost manufacturing jobs), and with them the backbone of the economy. Bottom line: lots of children in school, few adults with good jobs to pay for the schools. The result has been horrendous property taxes. One argument in favor of moving to a relatively expensive area is that said area would have a good tax base. Being surrounded by affluence might make one feel psychologically "poor", but the tax rates don't need to be as high, while municipal services (schools, roads, parks) would be good. Another argument is that to a point, expensive areas become even more expensive, while lower-priced areas continue to languish. Rural Alabama had cheap real estate 50 years ago, has cheap real estate now, and will have cheap real estate 50 years in the future. NYC, Washington DC, San Francisco etc. will most likely keep appreciating faster than the rest of the country.

For the record, I'm paying about $3200 of property tax a year on a house assessed at $200K. And this is in a township, where we don't even have a firehouse! A colleague at work is paying $9300/year on a house assessed at about $400K. You can verify these numbers by researching the Greene County (Ohio) municipal web site; do a search on 3360 Old Winchester Trail (unfortunately these statistics are all a matter of public record - makes me wonder about identity theft, but that's for a different thread). Meanwhile, when I moved here in 2000, my one-bedroom apartment cost me $480/month.

Please consider that the purported tax benefits of home ownership are often illusory! First, only the mortgage interest is tax deductible; the principal is not. So unless you make a small down payment or have a very long-term loan, pretty soon after buying you’ll find your tax benefits evaporating. Second, the standard deduction for married filing jointly is $10,000. You’ll need a house in Northern Virginia to get an annual mortgage interest to exceed that! Third, house ownership means property taxes, and these taxes can easily be comparable to the cost of renting an apartment. To put it in perspective – I have no mortgage, yet the taxes and maintenance expenses of my house more than exceed the rent for a 1-bedroom apartment. The home ownership fever is a ruse concocted to keep people bound to “property”, triggering various behaviors deemed favorable, not to mention additional expenses such as furniture, remodeling and lawn care. I’d go on and on, but the thread would become too political. Bottom line: buy because you need a place to work on cars, and not because you’re concerned about missing out on putative tax breaks.

On a recent business trip to Denver, I wasn't particulary inpressed either. It felt like a typical mid-size midwestern city; small downtown surrounded by older sections not quite blighted but rapidly approaching that condition; a token entertainment/social district (a few overpriced bars), and miles and miles of cookiecutter houses. This certainly did not feel like one of the leading metropolises in the nation. It lacked the pulse, the energy, the intensity of urban feel. And it confirmed my suspicions that a truly significant city should be on a coast - or at least on a navigable river, and ideally on both.

After fixing the float problem (Holley carb), I drove the car for about 22 miles today, including on the highway. Damage from the recent overheating (momentarily 235 degrees, as measured in the intake manifold) is not obviously apparent, but I've yet to look closely. With the water pump operating temperatures stay below 200 deg on the highway. Issues/questions.... 1. Upon hard acceleration the oil pressure drops from 60 to around 20 psi. This is a mechanical gauge plumbed into the stock tap, just above the oil filter. I'm using a Hamburger 8-qt oil pan with the baffles/scrapers/doors. My conjecture is that the loss of oil pressure is fictitious - the gauge is not registering correctly at high acceleration. Is this reasonable - or is the pickup actually sucking wind? Space between the pickup and pan floor was (if I recall correctly) about 0.3". 2. Upon hard braking, the carburetor seems starved for fuel; the engine sputters. It's a vacuum-secondary 750 CFM Holley (4160-type) with a Carter mechanical fuel pump and a 3/8" line. 3. How do I know - having no comparable experience of high performance cars - whether the vacuum secondaries are really opening fully at heavy load and full throttle? 4. My chase driver reports that when I let off the gas, there is a small puff of brown smoke. When I accelerate sharply, there is a small puff of blue smoke. But the smoking is much more benign than it was before the local hot-rod shop did a "tune-up". 5. Vacuum on the distributor is disconnected - it's not operating correctly. I'll probably get a MSD 8361 + 6AL, or MSD 8394 + 6A. 6. Shifting the Doug Nash 5-speed is OK when running through the gears in sequence, but shifting into 5th after coasting in neutral invites a horrendous grinding noise - unless I pre-rev the engine. 7. Speedometer is way off, despite the basically stock tire diameter and 3.54 R200 (original rear was 3.54 R180); at 60 mph it reads around 70 mph. I momentarily attained a displayed 115 mph on the speedometer - steering felt solid (even though front toe is somewhat off) and overall the car felt better composed at that speed than my E36 BMW - or maybe that's my imagination. 8. Fuel mileage is horrible. Lacking a gauge I can't quantify, but it's probably 10 mpg or less; no overdrive and no vacuum advance. 9. Nailing the throttle causes the rear to jerk to the right, then spin the tires, then "normal" acceleration. By "nailing" the throttle I mean starting at around 2000 rpm and just mashing the gas pedal. 10. How do I ascertain whether the clutch is slipping (that is, if it's only slipping moderately)? There is no apparent burned-clutch smell, but perhaps that is being masked by the exhaust and burnt rubber.

How does one get an E30 BMW down to 1900 lbs? If I recall the specs correctly, a stock straight-6 E30 weighs around 2700 lbs. In any case, this seems to be a classic debate: the more modern car (the BMW) has advantages in chassis stiffness and suspension geometry. The older car (the Z) is easier to strip and is more amenable to radical mods. I'd say that in a closely-regulated class, race the BMW. In a "run what you brung" class, race the Z.

I know nothing about LSx engines, but (1) it is very, very strange that the exhaust port flow is essentially constant beyond 0.300" lift - could there be some sort of obstruction? And (2) 368 cfm intake at 0.600" lift is on par with top-of-the-line aftermarket big block heads with 2.25" or larger valves; getting that out of the box - in a small block head - is quite phenomenal!

Manuals for adjusting the float level of center-hung floats in 3310-style carburetors mention two methods: the first is in the car, where the sight plug is removed and the float level adjusted to where the fuel level is low enough so that fuel isn’t flowing out!; and the second involves removing the float bowl, turning it upside down and adjusting the float level until the gap between the float and the bottom (now on top) wall of the float bowl is at some level. I much prefer method #2. Trouble is, I can not find the spec for what that gap should be. I have not been able to find it in scanned Holley manuals on-line. Holley’s own manual for this model (http://www.holley.com/data/Products/Technical/199R9934-3.pdf) does not even mention method #2.

…Ahh, BBC steering feel… Of all the teething problems plaguing my Z, one of the bright spots has been the light steering feel. Between the aluminum heads and the firewall setback the steering is really nimble.

After reading the manual (the action of last resort!) for this and other MSD distributors I realized that all of them - except for the HEI-style- require an external coil. The "digital" distributor, as you pointed out, is digital in name only - adjustments are made by turning potentiometers by discrete increments. Still, I was advised about the reliability advantage of the 8394 vs. a mechanical advance mechanism with weights and springs. Did you end up chosing a conventional model - such as the 8361 + 6AL + coil (such as the 8207)?

Is this regarding the MSD "digital E-curve pro-billet" distributor, that goes for nearly $400? I was thinking about getting one of those - but wondering if it's a reasonable value - especially considering that this is evidently NOT a stand-alone unit, but requires a MSD capacitative-discharge box.