deMideon

Good points Tony and Pete, I have about 450hp at the crank and to me the car is easy to drive on the street and very well balanced. But I also worked my way up to this. I had a 240Z (yes my icon is the car), it had an L6 with a heavily ported head, road race cam, 12:1 venolia pistons and an aluminum flywheel. I also modified the suspension and had it setup for autocross. I was putting out almost 300hp and found that it was just no fun anymore to drive on the street. The powerband was just too small and it was difficult to keep the revs in the sweet spot. So it really is a matter of perspective. Compared to my 240, my 280 is a sweet, well mannered, car! LOL, but it is a lot faster and as with my 240 I cannot get all the way into the pedal. It demands a much lighter touch on the gas pedal.

If you are going to be making gobs of torque down low you may want to consider a light flywheel... makes it somewhat harder to drive but also you have less wheel spin, and faster engine acceleration.

Well I would definatley say go with a 280. The only reason not to is like Mike said, emissions. Make sure you research that very well! I have had both a '73 240 and a 280. The 280 has a significant amount of additional and thicker / larger bracing. You still should add the sub-frame connectors no matter what you use since that is a weak point. I like a very stiff car, so I went very extreme in how I added bracing (take a look at my pictures in my sig!) A lot of your questions really come down to what is it that you want and what will you be doing with the car... For seats, it depends how tall you are and what you like. I am 6'3" and so am very limited in what I can use. Many of the seats mentioned on the board add a few inches and would make my head brush the roof. I finally found what I believe are seats from a 240sx that bolted in well and added maybe a 1/2". It took a lot of measuring on my part to find what worked for me. As far as air dams, again depends what you are doing and what look you want. I wanted a fully functional air dam. That requiers modification of ANY of the dams I have seen sold. The urathane flex at high speed so they need bracing, and all of them require a shroud to be built so air coming over it doesn't go under the radiator. I had a dash cap in my 240 and I thought it looked great. The only people that noticed were really knowledgeable Z people. Nobody else could tell. It much cheaper and removing the dash sucks! Although I will say if you remove the dash, replace as much of the heater hoses etc.. as you can. Heh... well that's my cent and a half!

I went with the lightest flywheel I could since, I am used to light flywheels as I had one with my L28, I realized that with a 2800lbs car and a 450hp motor I needed to do something about the huge amounts of torque off of the line, and I REALLY love how fast the motor revs with a lighter flywheel! That said, it is harder to drive on the street, it's touchier and you end up having to feather the clutch a lot and shift more to keep the engine in the sweet zone. I guess to me it depends on how much torque your engine will be putting out. If it's a mostly stock 350, I'd probably use a steel one. If you have over 350 hp I'd probably go with a lighter one. But it also depends on you, how you want it to drive etc etc...

Thanks Larry and innerware... The link was helpful.. I probably should go to a 22 - 24 lbs cap... I found out what it was... the thermostat. Yep... I figured I would just go get a stock flow one since both of the ones I tried were high flow models. So I went to Napa grabbed one for half the price of the other ones, put it in and it is fine. Fluctuation of what I would expect... between about 10 degrees. Huh:roll: figures!

I have been having a weird problem. The temp will jump up to 250 then in a few seconds drop back down to 195, then it might go up to 225 and sit there for a minute then it can go up or down..., it's not at all consistant, there is no relationship to RPM, and I thought I had a bad thermostat so I've replaced it... I'm running a 195 deg thermostat and a 13lbs cap. I also thought I might have air pockets since the thermostat housing is higher than the cap so I put in a plugged T in the hose at the highest point so I could make sure I had all of the air out of the system... Anyone have any ideas? The only thing I haven't changed is the cap but I didn't think it could do this!

I have one... I used the Weir bellhousing and hyd. throwout bearing. I like it a lot! Bolted right up! Also it got rid of the huge slave cyl. that sticks out where your exhaust should go and I got to use the standard, cheaper, more options, flywheel and push type clutch. I have it in a 280Z and I had to do a small amount of pounding for the backup switch. I am using a B&M shifter, it fit fine, no cutting and feels pretty good too!

That's exactly why I am asking... my memory sucks and I could so very easily be wrong... it does seem to me that if I break it loose I could warp the head and or break the head gasket seal. So....

I have aluminum heads and am using copper head gaskets. The head gasket manufacturer recommends retorqueing. I never had to do this on my L-6 and it's been at least 20 years since I have played around with V-8's and what I remember is that you use the tightening sequence, break the bolt loose and retighten it to the proper torque. Is this correct?

Take a look at the link in my sig... should be the progress of my entire project!

I've had everything from the headlight switch and the grounds cause me problems to the most recent... where the plugs for the headlights themselves were so corroded that the lights stopped working. All in all a total pain. The only way to truely fix it is to do the relays and also go through all of the plugs etc... and replace all of the ones that are corroded. Make really sure you clean up the grounds in your electrical system really well, that can lead to a lot of other problems!

Why do they use an interference fit when other manufacturers don't... like the L6... how is the key not enough in this application where it is in others. I really would like to know... if anyone out there has the answer!

These SBC balancers really piss me off... The L6 go on so easily no install tool they just slide right on. the Key is there to keep them from turning, so why does Chevy have to make the !#!&%&!*!!! things so tight? Does anyone see anything wrong with machining a very small amount of matirial out of the balancer so it slides on easily? Do ya think it would cause problems?

Cast iron will work just fine! No worries....

Sorry.. really just a weight issue!

Oh yeah... I didn't think of that! The junk yard would have the parts!

I had to get fittings... your local parts store may have something. The actual line are just straight hoses.

MMMmmm good question... As far as I know they will be fine. Maybe the electric ones wouldn't, but otherwise you should be fine. The most important things are that it is aluminum and that you match you other brackets and pulleys to the pump. Meaning for a long or short water pump. If ya don't match it, the pulleys won't line up. From what I understand the long is the easiest to find everything for and get to work properly.

I'm running the T-56. Part of the fitting depends on which car you have. They all reuire removal of the current trans mount brackets. My 280 only need a little tunnel pounding mainly for the reverse lockout. Otherwise it fit fine! I did get the Weir belousing and hyd. throwout bearing so I could use a normal flywheel and clutch assy. also so there was no slave cyl. in the way of the exhaust!

Yep! One line from the water pump, and one from the intake and yer set! The radiator shop is a very good idea. I just had my core go bad, a real pain to change it. Also make real sure your lines to the core are good too!

This is just one of the reasons I went with the Weir bellhousing with my T-56, I am using the standard (aluminum) flywheel and clutch, much cheaper parts. Also it doesn't have a slave cylinder so it doesn't stick out in the way of the exhaust!

Yep it's very easy... take a look at my photos (see link under my name!), under the finished album, the picture 07110006 shows where the lines hook up to the engine. It doesn't seem to matter which line goes to which connection for the heater either!

Well don't get the expensive MSA mirrors that go in the corner of the window! They are cheap and vibrate so you can't see out of them!! Now I have to find something that I can replace them with Damn!!

If you are at all tall... be VERY careful! Most of the seats mentioned on here are too high for someone like me! I am 6' 3" and have tried quite a few seats, the stock ones work great of course, the only ones I have found that are suitable for me are out of a 200sx I believe. I ended up going to the junk yard and searching around with my tape measure until I found something that fit and was low!

I used a 400 in my build... I had the machine shop internally balance the engine so that I could use the flywheel etc that I wanted. The only different things about the 400 is the steam holes (same heads as the 350 just needs the holes drilled), and the size of the mains. Since I was building a 377 I got a new crank from Scat so I had the mains of the 400 with the correct stroke. If you have a 400 available I'd use it... more CI more power!!