Michael

Even with a brand new bushing set, thorough cleaning of the strut casting and sanding of the spindle pins, and liberal use of anti-seize lubricant, I found the "installation" of the spindle pin by hammering to be impossible. Eventually I used a hydraulic press, and with much creaking and moaning, the spindle pin finally seated. Indexing for the lockpin was comparatively easy, as the interference fit was much tighter in the A-arm bushing than in the casting, so that the casting could rotate relatively free. Definitely a poor design, and the most unpleasant mechanical repair on the Z.

Project_BBZ, any updates? I still haven't decided on the heads, but am leaning toward the Brodix Race-Rites. Aluminum is important to me (more a personal preference than a rigorous engineering judgment), and small-port BBC head choices in aluminum are quite limited. Cam choice is shaping up to be a custom-grind from Cam Motion, or a very similar (both are mechanical roller) cam from Comp Cams, PN 11-770-8, XR274R series. I might use Comp Cams "beehive" springs, PN 26120

Never mind the styling – I’m just disappointed that this thing is so heavy. Muscle cars were never particularly light, but they were lighter than “full size†sedans and wagons. And now the so-called muscle cars are themselves the largest passenger cars in the fleet. The same thing happened to the Mustang – weight kept creeping up in the 1990’s, and now lard has been piled extra-high for the new generation model. But at least Chrysler and Ford have SOMETHING that’s RWD and “moderately pricedâ€, bloated as it may be. GM still doesn’t have a RWD car, unless you count the Corvette and some Cadillacs.

Mikelly makes an excellent point – if you’re going to spend $25K on a Z restification, to bring it up to (say) comparable performance levels to those of a modified C5 Corvette, why not just get the Corvette? However, considerations of “am I getting a good deal†and “am I buying the right parts†– which make or break any project – apply to both the Z and the Vette. Here’s what I mean…. First, the $25K modified Corvette figure makes two assumptions: that you have enough skill as wheeler-and-dealer to find a suitably-priced, good-condition specimen; and you have enough skill to select and install the performance add-on parts yourself. Well, the latter might be easy, but I would argue that if you can get a $20K 1999 Corvette in GOOD CONDITION, you probably have good enough street-smarts to score a comparably good deal on a Z – thus reducing the cost of a HybridZ from that of the above-posted estimates. I mean, apples to apples! You could just as easily spend $30K on a Vette with an engine that’s about to blow, a slipping clutch, dinged bodywork and shoddy electricals. Second, the Corvette is a heavy car with a long wheelbase. Sure, the handling might be great, and extensive mods might be required to the Z to achieve comparable performance. But the dartiness, the “tossability†that comes from a light car on a short wheelbase is very difficult to beat! In this sense, the Chevy CHEVETTE handles better than the Corvette. Third, the cost of making mistakes with the Corvette is higher. Remember, the real cost of a V8 Z swap isn’t in the parts that go into the car – it’s the parts that don’t fit, don’t work, or break, or are mismatched. Compare the costs of a cracked junkyard 350 block from a Caprice, vs. a cracked LS1 in the Vette! Fourth, the Corvette will always scream, “high performanceâ€, whereas the Z can remain somewhat subdued. That’s important in terms of insurance costs, attracting police attention, unwanted street racers, and so forth. And fifth, the Z swap is emotionally more satisfying, in the sense of an achievement of personal craftsmanship. The real apples-to-apples comparison is not 1972 240Z vs. 1999 C5 vette, but 1972Z vs. 1972 C3 Vette. Now compare the costs, the relative performance levels, and the mods involved!

I have a 454 in my 78 280Z. It was A LOT of work, but my “swap†erred on the side of excess, in terms of structural rigidity and weight distribution. BBCs have a declining aftermarket support, especially for the middle of the road that’s neither all-out racing engines nor stocker muscle car restorations. In contrast, the aftermarket offers good options for 400+ cubic-inch SBC builds. The principal reason to build a big-block Datsun is that you’re personally familiar with the BBC engine, and prefer to work on it rather than the SBC. Then do the BBC swap – you’ll enjoy the car more. If you are starting with a clean slate, and especially if you’re inexperienced with Chevy engines, I can not recommend the big block. For an all-out drag car the BBC is an interesting option is you’re interested in 600+ cubic inches and 4-digit horsepower with nitrous. But I don’t think that there are any such cars on this board. The most powerful belonged to a member named Ron Jones. He had, if I recall correctly, a 502 making about 800 hp, good for 8.6 in the 1/4-mile. There are (or were) about 4-6 BBC Z’s on HybridZ. One belongs to Brad Barkley (Ratsun), one is the “blown blue Z†which is since been re-converted to SBC, one belongs to Corzette, one was a work-in-progress posted by a recently-joined member who decided to build a BBF instead. To my knowledge, all of the successful drag BBC Z’s are back-halved. Mine has the firewall set 6.25†aft and what some people might consider a tube frame, but the suspension is essentially stock. All of the BBC cars have some form of automatic transmission, typically a Powerglide or TH400. Mine is the sole exception (as far as I know) – a Doug Nash 5-speed. Bottom line – if you’re particularly enamored of BBC’s do the BBC swap; otherwise don’t. If you don’t have an engine yet, go SBC instead.

Mike, just be wary of the 0.120â€. Much of that tubing is only around 0.118’, and if your race sanctioning body requires >0.120†tube thickness, a persnickety tech inspector might fail you. I went with 0.134†in the critical areas, just to make sure.

Most things that we do, we do because we’re told to, or because we feel compelled to. Most things that we do for amusement and recreation are silly and soon forgotten. Unless they get us into trouble. Accomplishments? Like what? Cars rust, houses rot, fortunes crumble, muscles turn to flab. One thing that’s starting to become clear for me – and this Z project is contributing to the clarity – is that goals can be grouped into two halfs: those that can’t be achieved, and those that aren’t worth achieving.

‘Baddriver’ has an excellent summary of the cost picture!!! It answers, in a nutshell, the basic question of “how much does it cost to do a bare-bones conversionâ€. The answer is: if you already have your Z, and it runs OK, and you’re reasonably happy with the ride quality and the aesthetics and the suspension and the brakes, and so forth – and NOW you want to do the conversion, but for a “daily driver†that will have no particular place or purpose at the track – well then, the typical cost of “just the conversion†will evidently be around $4K. Another curious observation – if you pay a professional to do specific jobs (not the whole conversion, but merely specific parts thereof) – typically, you’ll pay about the same for the professional’s work, as you would for doing it yourself + buying the tools + buying the wrong parts + breaking things + starting over and trying again. Of course, that’s assuming that you’re not a mechanic and that the professional is honest. On my car, nearly everything that I built is hamfisted garbage. And nearly everything that the professional built is elegant and functional. If only I realized that 5 years ago...

Car $600 Roll cage/frame $2000 Engine mounts, etc. $500 Firewall relocation $1000 Brakes replumbing $300 Radiator relocation $300 Fuel cell install $200 Fuel cell $200 Seat and misc install $400 Other welding $300 Engine $800 Shortblock rebuild $1300 Intake, carb, etc. $500 Exhaust $400 Suspension $300 Transmission $700 Clutch hydro $250 Clutch assy $300 Flywheel $300 Bellhousing $350 Seat $150 Belts $150 Bodywork (ghetto) $200 Electrical $100 Oil pan and pump $300 Plumbing $100 That adds up to $12K – give or take. The car is “rust freeâ€, but hardly attractive. It does have a brutal roll cage, though. Broken, obsolete, incorrect or dead-end parts: about $2000 Still necessary for engine†Heads $2500 Cam $400 Lifters $400 Rockers $300 Pushrods $100

Some good points made above, but that doesn’t assuage my frustration.... The trouble with crate or OEM big-blocks is that they’re towards one or the other extreme: 3500-rpm truck engines that don’t make much more torque, let alone horsepower, than a mild 406 SBC; or radical race-only engines with 13:1 compression and 360 cc rectangular-port heads. Have you ever seen a crate BBC with a flywheel? Well, it if comes with a flexplate, and (I dare say) ALL of them do, and the crank is externally balanced, often the right way to rebalance the engine is to pull the crank, take the whole rotating assembly to the machine shop, and reassemble the short block. But if you’re going to do that, what’s the point of buying a crate engine? You’ve just disassembled what you paid someone to assemble for you! So what about starting with a crate short-block, say a Gen VI 502 from GMPP, and adding your own heads and valvetrain? Great, except that chances are that the piston dome volume is all wrong. Options are: angle-mill the heads to deal with the BBC’s monster 119-122 cc combustion chambers; run a mild cam; run a big cam but end up with inadequate DCR; or rip apart the short block and get pistons with larger domes (see above). So what’s the right dome size? It depends, of course, but for a stock-stroke 454 with 119cc combustion chambers and a mid-0.6†lift roller cam, it dome volume comes out to around +25cc. Ever seen a crate shortblock with a 25cc dome piston? Oh yeah, and then there’s piston to valve clearance issues. Bottom line, THERE’S NO GOOD SOLUTION! The BBC world has split into 3 camps: muscle-car restoration with nearly stock engines, trucks with nearly stock engines, and dragsters. Building a street-performance BBC (about 1.1 hp per cubic inch) isn’t getting any easier, despite the superficial appearance of lots of new aftermarket parts!!! Don’t believe me? Call up AFR, Pro Topline or Dart, and ask them about their oval port heads. Listen to the laugh at the other end of the line.

If it’s not street-legal according to your state’s DMV, then it can’t be a street car... but that doesn’t necessarily make it a race car. If it’s entered in organized motorsports competition on sanctioned tracks, then it’s a race car... but it could still be a street car. Just because your car is too unreliable, too rough and too temperamental to survive a 300 mile drive on public roads, doesn’t necessarily make it a race car – it could just be a beater! And what if you started building a dedicated “race carâ€, only to later realize that it’s not legal for competition in any class in which it would be competitive? This often happens to V8 Datsuns. The car might have “race-car-like†performance, but it’s technically not a race car – street-legal or otherwise. Then there’s Hot Rod Magazine’s definition of “street carâ€. It seems that if you rip out the carpeting and don’t replace it, then it’s no longer a street car. But it’s OK to run on drag slicks, provided that they’re DOT approved. Go figure… Hey, while my car is still under construction, it’s a race car. But if I get it running, and its performance turns out to be disappointing, I’ll go around saying that it’s only a street car.

As seen above, the general reply to such questions: Get the JTR manual, do a search, study the posts, and only then start asking targeted questions. But I would like to add this: while there are many excellent reasons for doing a V8 swap in the Z, please keep in mind that it's a major undertaking, even with what on first blush appears to be a "bare bones" swap program. Unless your dad has the desire and the skills to guide you step-by-step through the program, or unless you're a mechanic-in-training yourself, the cost/benefit ratio of a swap in your circumstances probably isn't favorable. Yes, there are exceptions; but they're just that - exceptions. So perhaps under the circumstances the best approach is to wait, and postpone the swap until some years down the road, when you have a reliable daily driver, a garage of your own, and so forth.

Not to be too abrasive, but I’d opine that this falls into the category of “if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it or can’t do itâ€. In other words, tube-chassis cars should only be built by people who have built such cars before, or by their apprentices. For aggressive mods to truly be worthwhile (as opposed to exercises in creativity, to phrase it politely), tremendous work and experience is required to get the details right. As a rough guess, getting the chassis (structure, suspension, drivetrain mounts, body mounts, systems integration) right would take a pro about 500 hours. At $100/hr, that’s $50,000 – body work not included. Also consider that with mods that extensive, it really doesn’t matter which car is used as the foundation of your project. It could be a Z, or a Porsche, or a Pinto.... ....So, if I had a deep desire for a full tube-chassis car (and at one point I did), I’d buy a used GT1 race car (never mind the make), which has been retired because class rules changed and it’s no longer legal.

I'm working on it (454 in a '78 280Z)

Could some one please post links to sites featuring Honda Civics that have been converted to RWD? An 800 hp engine just cries out for such a conversion. Im sure that some one has done this before. Unless... would a RWD conversion violate the Honda religion?

I’ll straddle the middle between the ebullient optimists and somber pessimists. Yes, it CAN be done in reasonable time with a reasonable budget. But it’s very easy to get carried away, to allow the project to spiral out of control, and to end up with years and years down the drain and nothing to show for it. First, costs. Costs will vary enormously depending on your skills and luck with “wheeling and dealingâ€. Example: Awd92gsx says that he scored a 1977 donor Chevrolet with 350 engine, evidently in running condition. That’s the engine, transmission, accessories, and all sorts of “nickel and dime items†all in one package, for $500. If you can find deals like that, your budget could be quite reasonable. But that’s a big IF!!! And, you have to be satisfied with the constraints of your purchase (in this case, the automatic transmission that came with the car). Personally, I have more than $500 just in the bellhousing, flywheel, clutch and throwout bearing in my car – in fact, it’s around $1000. Second, skills. Theoretical knowledge is great, and it’s too often deprecated by shadetree mechanics. In doing a relatively basic swap, of the type that you propose, the main area where practical knowledge is so precious isn’t the swap process itself, or even custom fabrication, but familiarity with the donor engine. Things like setting the timing, tuning the carburetor, and so forth – elementary, perhaps – but essential. And the JTR book won’t explain them. Third, time and resources. Even if you have access to a garage and spare money, finish your university degree first, then worry about a Hybrid Z. So here is a suggested plan: (1) see item 3 above; (2) buy a decent, inexpensive donor vehicle, and drive that vehicle for a while; (3) constantly be on the lookout for Datsuns. As you already know, Datsuns are next to extinct in the midsection of North America, and Ontario is no exception. By the way, I’ll be in Ottawa next month (doing some research at NRC).

I don't think that we have enough modified Z vs. motorcycle threads. No, really! OK, how about this: 632 cubic inch BBC Z (figure ~700 hp), tubbed - vs. Hayabusa. Standing-start 1/4 mile. Who wins?

Pondering the price difference between the aftermarket aluminum block (about $4000, from what I’ve seen) and a stock cast-iron block... Even with torque-plate honing, align-boring and decking, the stock block comes to under $1000. Of course, it won’t go past 4.310 bore (typically), or accommodate beyond 4.25†stroke. But the price difference is still huge. HOWEVER, the heads, cam, valvetrain, oil system, intake, exhaust, and so forth are essentially the same price, because they’re essentially the same parts! Those $2700 heads become $2100 heads, for example. Now the cumulative price difference isn't all that huge any more. So, a 600 cubic inch all-aluminum, all-aftermarket BBC making 700 hp ends up around $15K, on the high end. But a stock short block, with the necessary machining, displacing only 460 cubic inches and making... 500 hp or so… ends up at around $8K, on the high end. Here’s the quandary... in terms of dollar per horsepower, the stock-based option wins. But the all-aluminum, all-aftermarket option is so much more... satisfying!

Well, I AM lazy! When I get behind the wheel of my hobby-car, I want instant, brutal, uncompromising thrust, right off idle. I don’t want to work hard to find the engine’s power band. I work hard enough during the day – so, the last thing that I want is to “become one with the machine†or listen to its palpitating heart beat at 9000 rpm – and worry about sounds of rod bolts about to break. My desire is for the torque of a steam locomotive, propelling the mass of a skate board. Actual racing results – like quarter-mile times – are irrelevant.

I think that it's important to make the distinction between: 1. Serious performance engines built by professionals or knowledgeable amateurs 2. Amateur jobs done on a "budget", generally lacking the proper experience or tools 3. Bone-stock engines. Mostly we've been debating engines that fall under (1) - and there, indeed, the turbo vs. displacement debate will rage on forever. But I would argue that in category (2), the larger-displacement n/a engine has an advantage: it's easier to half-a$$ your way to a reasonably well-running n/a engine, than a turbo. Now for an example from category (3). I used to have a 1987 MK III Supra turbo, 5 spd. 3600 lb car. High 15's in the quarter mile, with 110,000 miles on the engine and me driving (first time at the track). Very unfortunate combination of high weight, small displacement and laggy turbo. That was the car that motivated me to do a V8 Z. By way of comparison, some years ago I drove a stock turbo Eclipse. While not as powerful as the Supra, the throttle response felt much smoother, and turbo lag was far less. What applies to amateur engine-building also applies to amateur driving. Off-idle throttle response and a smooth, flat torque curve may not be critical for an expert driver in carefully-controlled circumstances, but they're important for an amateur driving an all-around car.

In COZY Z COLE’s list, the most expensive car-item and the one that emotionally stings the most is #4: parts that don’t fit parts that are fine individually, but don’t work as a combination parts that are advertised as in good condition but in reality prove to be defective parts that are no longer appropriate as the project evolves parts that fail immediately after installation (like a new engine that wipes a cam) The “actual conversion†might be doable with a 4-digit budget and a few months’ of amateur garage time – if it’s your SECOND or THIRD conversion. Unfortunately, truly custom work is expensive, unpredictable and frustrating, even if done by seasoned professionals; and the results are bound to be disappointing I wouldn’t take my car to So-Cal Speed Shop, Rad Rides by Troy, or any other of the A-list custom shops featured in Hot Rod Magazine, even if I had $200K to blow. Why? Not because those guys aren’t good, or because I don’t trust them – but because if you truly, truly want your car built EXACTLY the way you want it, you absolutely have to do it yourself. The frame and the “hard part†of my car was built by a professional, for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration. He treated me right, and kept his promises. Nevertheless, the car isn’t exactly the way I want it – and I’ve been “recustomizing†the car for the past 5 years. The best compromise is probably Phantom’s approach: if you have the wisdom and experience to both “know your limits†AND to maintain rigid control over the big picture, then go ahead and farm out specific tasks to specific professionals, but do the overall integration yourself. But, how to get that wisdom and experience? That’s why I referred to the “second or third†conversion above. And then there’s the issue of tools... Buy quality tools, and they will NOT necessarily last you a lifetime, because even the best tool will fail if abused, misused or neglected. And honestly, the only way to avoid misuse if experience... which comes from misuse. So, buy cheap the first time, slightly better the second time, even better the third time, and eventually work your way toward “professional quality†– or, buy pro-quality the first time, but expect to buy it two or three times.

“Pop n wood†– Of course, heat, work and energy can be converted into mutually one another. This is, in fact, the first law of thermo. So of course, as in your example, one can say that a light bulb, which radiates a certain amount of electromagnetic energy per second, also absorbs a certain amount of energy per second – and therefore, power. However, we can not calculate how much power the bulb absorbs merely from measuring how much light it gives off, without knowing or guessing the overall system efficiency. Alternatively, we can not calculate how light will be given off, merely from measuring the voltage and current input to the light bulb. RATE of doing work, of expending energy, or of generating/absorbing heat is power. But thermodynamics is not concerned with how to make this conversion process happen! You can differentiate the second law with respect to time, and obtain, if you like, an expression for what can be written as power. But the point is that not all of the terms in that equation will comprise the “useful†power, as in the rate of energy conversion to do useful work per unit time – again because some of the power is always wasted. Torque is a very useful quantity because it’s easy to measure. Torque, moment of inertia and angular acceleration are for a rotational system the equivalent of the good old F=m*a for translational systems.

The conventional wisdom is that the mean flowpath is biased toward the short-side of turns inside the port. So, a crude approximation to port pathlength should be obtainable by taking a wire or piece of string, centering one end of the wire in the intake port face (towards the intake manifold), centering the other end in the plane of the valve seat, and pulling the string or wire taut. Assuming that this works, an estimate for mean cross-sectional area would be the published port volume divided by the length of the wire. It would be interesting to compare this area with the result of averaging width and height measurements at different locations along the port path, using inside dividers. Curiously, often heads in the same family but with different intake port volume ratings will nevertheless have the same published port cross-sectional area at the intake flange! For example, 1.7â€x2.43†seems to be a pretty standard number for rectangular-port BBC heads, with published intake port volumes from 305cc all the way to 345 cc. But, in defense of smaller-port heads, it sometimes happens that amongst heads of the same family the larger-port heads actually flow LESS at low valve lift; example: the AFR 265cc oval-port BBC heads flow significantly more at 0.300â€-0.500†lift than do the rectangular-port 305cc AFRs. For high-lift cams this is irrelevant, but for low-lift applications one has to wonder.

It’s very true that the Midwest (and probably the South, the Plains, and the Rockies as well) has a comparative lack of imports. Here people still perceive imported cars as an affront to the American worker. Even Hondas are relatively uncommon here. So the rust-factor is only part of the explanation for the dearth of Z’s. The other is vehicular xenophobia. In the 5 years that I’ve been living in Ohio, I have only once seen a 240-280Z on the street, and it was a derelict rust bucket. And I’ve never seen a 510 outside of California.

My big-block Chevy had this exact same problem; Comp Cams Xtreme-Energy 262 cam, with their “K-kit†(springs etc.). I used plenty of assembly lube, and pre-soaked the lifters. The engine fired right up upon turning the ignition key. I held it for 20 minutes at 2000 rpm – no problems. Then shut the engine off, got in the car, took it for a spin around the block – and suddenly, problems! It sounded like a spun rod bearing, but was actually the cam lobes getting wiped. 20 miles later I lost half a dozen lobes – some were worn so badly, that the lobes were indistinguishable from the base circle! Broke one pushrod, bent several, and wore two lifters down to where the their internal cavity were visible from the lifter face! That was almost exactly 5 years ago. This time I’m going with a mechanical roller cam, 3/8†pushrods, a high-volume oil pump and a perfect, spotless animal sacrificed to the proper Deity. However, the rod and main clearances are toward the loose side (0.0025â€-0.0030â€), I did not do Grumpy’s lifter bore modification, and I didn’t check the lifter bore alignment. The short-block is already assembled. Am I heading for a world of hurt???