labrat

Ok, I just bought a 1989 mustang LX 5.0 with a bad miss on two cylinders. Good straight body, excellent interior, and brand new super duty T5 with a hurst shifter. The only thing wrong with the car was a bad miss on two cylinders and a nasty tick under the passenger side valve cover. I tore into the motor (pulled intake and valve covers) and found the cause of the tick. I have 2 bad roller lifters (the needle bearings in the roller are completely gone and the rollers have flat spots) as well as another lifter that is badly galled on the roller. My question for you guys is: Should I just replace the lifters and cam, or should I go through the whole motor and put bearings in it too? My take on it, is those needle bearings had to have gone somewhere. I'm inclined to just find a shortblock for cheap somewhere and go for it. On the other hand, I could put new lifters and a cam in it for under 300 bux. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Bill

I kinda had the same thing when I got my arc welder not long ago. If it was metal, and in my garage, it got welded to something or something got welded to it. I have a pretty cool muffler man, though...

Man, I really REALLY hate to hear this. I sent you a little write up on my 81 ZX. Hope it helps. Bill

No scale slip here, but my 81 280ZX with PS, AC, huge stereo, 350 w/iron block, heads, water pump, and manifolds has to be a pig. Most people go to aluminum rims to lose weight over the stock steelies- My outlaw 2's are even heavier than stock. Add in almost 40 pounds of just motor mounts, and you have one heavy beastie... Bill

Yeah, my vortec manifold was easy to get to all the bolts with a torque wrench, there are only 8 and they point straight up . only gotta torque em to 12 ft/lbs, too. Bill

Not trying to discourage you, but just trying to be realistic and let you know what you're in for. And by the way, never be sorry for asking... The only stupid question is the one you didn't ask. Bill

A good way to isolate the noise is take a piece of fuel line, and stick one end in your ear. Pass the other end slowly over any suspect areas, and you will hear the exhaust "whoosh" in your air. Definately unmistakable. Trick works good for intake leaks, too. Bill

I guess i got lucky, the PO of my 280ZX had been hit in that corner (well, all 4 corners at one time or another to be exact...) and the spare tire well had been rebuilt with fiberglass. Quick 1/8" drill bit to drain the standing water, and all was well. Now to fix the back hatch seal...

Hope youre REALLY good at fabrication, cuz a big block in a Z requires serious firewall modifications. It sits back so far in the chassis that the distributor is somewhere around the heater core if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, for more info on a BB conversion, see http://www.ratsun.com. They make it look easy, though... Bill

Try tapping the carb near the needle adjustment with the handle of a screwdriver a few times. The couple of times this has happened to me, this cleared it up without disassembly. When the needle sticks open like this, a good tap usually clears it up quickly. Bill

As for fog to see the beam, Right-Guard or any other aerosol works great. Right Guard has a floating, powdery texture to it and illuminates lasers very well.

Well, I'm trying to ditch my old restrictive ram's horn manifolds and replace them with headers. This is a 350 in a 280ZX (no setback plates) with the recirculating ball power steering. Center exhaust ports to power steering gearbox on driver's side has only about 2 inches clearance. I'm having a heck of a time running my 1 5/8" mandrel bent tubing to even fab up a set of headers, much less buy some that will fit. And my $79 wal-mart campbell hausfeld stick welder is doing a great job! If it's job is to burn holes in $20 sections of mandrel bent pipe! Sorry about the rant, just had to get it off my chest. 4 hours of work and I have 1 section of pipe tacked to the flange. At leat I found a buddy who would mig them up after I tack em together. And only for a case of beer! Oh well, back to work! Bill

Well, I intended it to be fairly mild, and Vortec heads have some flow issues. I can't really go above .480 lift without machine work around spring pockets/valve guides, and the flow numbers of Vortech heads seem to die really fast at higher lifts, anyway. Desktop dyno is telling me about 340HP at 5200rpm or so with around 380TQ at about 4400 rpm. Torque curve never dropped below 350 ft-lbs from 2000 rpm till over 6k rpm. I've got the 6K pill in my MSD-6AL so that is my absolute rev limit. Gonna try not to hit it too much. Wiring is done, completed it today. Still doesn't look as good as I'd hoped for, and there's still way too much RED wire running (got rid of a bunch of it, though). Now I just gotta fabricate me some headers and plumb the clutch and she's ready to go! Bill

Here's what I've got going on so farin my 1981 280ZX, and I would like a few opinions on it. Anyway: Engine: 350/.040 over (cr~9.5:1)(cheap stock replacement shortblock from engine shop with DISHED pistons...) '98 vortech heads (Z28 valve springs, SS swirl polished valves) Crane energizer 272 cam (272* advertised duration, .454 lift, 110 LSA) Edelbrock performer RPM Air Gap intake (or cheap chinese knockoff, anyway) 670 CFM Holley Pro-Jection TBI/EFI (2X80PPH injectors) Holley in-line electric fuel pump (17 PSI) Shortie home-fab DIY weld up headers (UGLY!) dual 2.5" into edelbrock Y pipe to single 3" through single 50 series 3" inlet/outlet flowmaster muffler MSD 6AL w/MSD Blaster2 coil Stock points distributor w/Pertronix Ignitor electronic ignition module Summit 19X26" fully welded aluminum radiator w/Flex-a-Lite Black Magic fan Camaro T5 (non-WC) Tranny with Ram HD clutch, Hayes billet lightweight flywheel (24 LBS.), and tilton 7/8" master w/ camaro slave Still have to finish the wiring, weld up the exhaust, and plumb the clutch hydraulic line. Other than that, I'm just about roadworthy. Then I will have to get it inspected 8( Bill

Okay, the 350 in my Z hasn't been started in a year or so, and I wanted to know if this is okay for the first startup. Cam has been broken in, engine has about 100 miles on it. Short fuel pump relay to turn on fuel pump and fill lines Remove coil wire and dry-crank for 15-20 seconds to get oil pressure built up. Install coil wire, start engine, keeping revs up (2000 rpm or so) first 15-20 seconds to make sure everything gets oiled. The engine was never torn down after cam break-in, just swapped heads and intake. Is there enough residual oil on cam, lifters, bearings, etc to withstand the dry-cranking? Or should I start it as quickly as possible to ensure oil pressure is brought up quickly? Just not sure which would be the best for my engine. Any input is appreciated! Bill

Balance is off. Needs a neutral balance dampnerand it sounds like you got an externally balanced dampner. One side should be 28 oz. or so heavier than the other, throwing a 350 way off balance.

I just bought my first welder, and have never really welded before. I went to wal-mart and bought a cheap little campbell-hausfeld stick welder for $79.00. I got it home and couldn't wait to play with it, so, in shorts and a t-shirt, I started practicing running "a bead or two" across an old flexplate with broken ringgear teeth. Two hours and two boxes of rods later, I was literally laying welds on top of welds. And it claimed to be only 20% duty cycle.... All the while protecting my eyes with the little "masquerade" style lens you hold up in your free hand (Included in said $79.00 kit). As I was squatting over the work laying on the floor, my "sunburn" extended quite far towards parts better left unmentioned. My forearm on my left hand was burnt pretty good, too. First time I ever sunburnt the bottoms of my legs, but not the top.

Umm... You don't re-assemble it, you replace it. It's broken. The rubber damping material probably came unbonded from the metal. Happened to me on my '78 El Camino. Got a replacement from the JY and it worked fine. Summit also has some good ones that are fairly cheap, if you're looking to upgrade from stock. Don't install it with a hammer or with the bolt, there is a tool that you can borrow at autozone that is specifically for installing harmonic balancers. Good luck! Bill

That's the instructions for the T56 slave, would the same method work for a T5 slave? If so, I'm bookmarking that thread... Bill

I'm having the same trouble on my 280ZX. The rams horn manifold works fine on the passenger side, but the only manifold that will clear the power steering box on the driver's side blocks the dipstick hole on my early block. If you have a later model block with passenger side dipstick, check the buy/sell/trade forum for my post and send me a PM. I'll take a $10.00 site donation plus shipping for the pair. Guaranteed to fit perfect (ran them for a year) But I dont like the idea of no dipstick. BTW, I ended up buying a custom header kit with flanges, j-bends, and collectors. Gonna try and weld me up a pair of shorty headers(don't know how successful I'll be...). Bill

Sorry to ask a basic question, but I lost my JTR manual and couldn't find what I need from the search... Anyway, just got a tilton 7/8" clutch master and camaro slave, and can't remember how to connect them. My thoughts... Cut off the roll pin connector thingy from the slave, tap to 3/8" NPT and use a 3/8"NTP to 3/8" flare adapter and then use 3/8" flexible brake line to connect the two pieces. I'm guessing I will also need to cut the rod a little shorter on the master and thread it back further to get the proper throw on the master. Is this correct? Thanks! Bill

Thanks! I finally found out by taking my bellhousing in and trying metric bolts one at a time till I found the right ones. They are M12 X 1.75 and about 1 5/8 inches long. Thanks for the heads up!

Okay, just got off the phone and finished with a marathon drive around austin. It's the wrong master cylinder, and the wrong hydraulic throwout bearing. That throwout bearing is only for saginaw, muncie, and T10. The T-5 version is special order, and will take weeks to get. So, the throwout bearing is going back, and I'm buying a camaro slave and using the 7/8" (not 13/16") master I have now. However, no one has the clutch fork in stock in town. UGH! This was supposed to be the easy part... Thanks for the assistance, Blue! Bill

Just to add my $.02 to the mix... I did a 280ZX/350sbc swap on the cheap. Real cheap. I already had the car ( had just blown the motor) and bought a running pickup for 400 bucks. Just had to mate the two. 1200 bux later I had a car that would go around the block fast, but wouldn't make it further than that without stranding me somewhere. I actually drove it to work for about 3 months, but I don't know how. I bought another car, let the Z sit for a year, now I'm doing it all again. I've spent over 2000.00 in the last 7 days on parts to do my car right this time and make it reliable. That's the lesson I learned. Fast means nothing without reliable, or else how can you drive it? That's my advice to anyone wanting to make this swap. Make it reliable, then make it fast. Bill

I have an 84 camaro non-WC T5 and canted bellhousing, but not the bolts to connect the two. Anyone know where I can get them, or even what size they are? No chevy dealerships in the area even list them and can't even tell me what size they are. Any assistance would be appreciated! Bill