Nigel

Check out page 39 (second last page) of this Lexus Technical Training document: http://www.autoshop1...rms/brake04.pdf Nigel

He never said anything about the linelock being difficult to release, so I don't think that's the issue. I think what is happening is that ordinarily, when you apply the brakes, the caliper piston doesn' t slide in the seal, but rather, the seal flexes. But if you apply the brakes and leave them pressurized, the seal relaxes with the piston extended out. So, now the seal is holding the piston out and causing the brakes to drag. My buddy was telling me that he'd have to rock the car back and forth to get the brakes to free up. Why would it matter if the inlet to the T were on the side or bottom? Also, you mention 2 proportioning valves. There's only one prop valve in a Z (near the rear brakes on 70-72 Z's, and on the firewall on 73 and later Z's). What's the manifold proportioning valve that you're referring to? There is a brake pressure differential warning switch on the driver's side inner fender. Is that what you're talking about? According to his diagram, it looks like yem73z has removed that warning switch, and replaced it with the T. On a '73 240Z, the prop valve uses brake pressure to the front right caliper to modulate pressure to the rear brakes. Yem73z has correctly shown the OEM prop valve removed, with the front right brake line going directly to the front right caliper now, and the new adjustable prop valve in-line with the rear brakes. The adjustable valve can go in the cockpit or engine bay. It doesn't make any difference as far as function is concerned. Obviously it's going to be easier to adjust from the cockpit, so long as you can trust your passengers not to fiddle with it. The only issue I see with the diagram, other than the concern I raised earlier about the linelock, is that you show the front reservoir connecting the the front brakes and the rear reservoir connecting to the rear. This should be reversed. Only the early Z's (pre '71 or '72) had the front reservoir connected to the front calipers, and rear to rear. Nigel '73 240ZT

I have a ZX rad in my '73 240Z. I forget what all I had to do to install it, but it wasn't that hard. IIRC, I had to drill two new mounting holes in the rad support, and grind down the mounting flange on the radiator to get it to fit between the frame rails. As cgsheen said, the lower tank sits below the lower crossmember, but in 9 years, it's never been damaged. You'll also need a ZX lower rad hose. Cooling has been excellent. Even with an intercooler and oil cooler in front of the rad, I had no cooling problems when I was in Nashville last year for the convention, including a day running at the track. Nigel '73 240ZT

The RT bracket works just fine with the L6 and only the GM mount (no OEM mount). You need to notch the the mount slightly to fit the rounded nose of the diff. Nigel '73 240ZT

Oops! Sorry. You're right, Z31. Lack of sleep. I'm working on call and was up for 24hours straight. Nigel

I can't tell you the lengths, but keep in mind that 240Z guys do use the Z32 Turbo CV axles to replace the u-joint axles. However, the outer CV joint bearing cage needs to be flipped to effectively shorten the axle in order to make it fit. So, if you have someone give you the lengths of an unmodified axle, it may appear too long. Nigel '73 240ZT

A friend of mine has Arizona Z car brakes on the front and rear of his 280ZX, with a line lock on the rear brakes. If he leaves the car overnight, or any extended length of time, with the lock on, the brakes wont release. I don't know if this is a common problem with using a line lock as a parking brake or not. Nigel '73 240ZT

MSA used to. I remember seeing it in their catalogue as far back as the early 90's. But I don't see it there now. Too bad! I like it. Nigel '73 240ZT

SDS uses fuel cut for overboost and rev limiting. It's a 100% cut and nothing bad has happened from the few times I've experienced it. It sure gets my attention though, because it's a very abrupt loss of power. It's definitely meant as a safety feature, and not a control for holding a boost or rev level. I agree with TrumpetRhapsody, a gradual fuel cut sounds like a bad idea. Nigel '73 240ZT

The bearings are all the same, it's the collars that have different heights: http://www.zparts.co...ear_specs1.html Nigel

There was a very early ('69-'71) Nissan 4 speed transmission that had a bolt on bellhousing. The model number is F4W71A. That may be what you have. There was also a 5 speed version, but it was not sold in North America. Here's a link to a picture of the 4 speed, but you need to log into classiczcars.com to see it: http://www.classiczc...35&d=1236126937 Nigel '73 240ZT

Thanks for the backstory. Now I understand. Nigel

I'm guessing this is a joke of some sort? The very first reply in this thread provides a link to where you can get one. Nigel

My 255 has a check valve. If you have an aftermarket FPR, and your fuel line is dropping pressure very quickly after shut down, then it is likely the FPR. It takes very little damage or wear to most FPR seats for them to leak. My pump is not that loud. I only really notice it when it's hot outside, and the car has been running for a long time. It also gets louder when the fuel level gets low, and there's less head pressure feeding the pump. I have the pump about as low as it can go without being lower than the tank. I've been considering one of these to slow the pump down when demand is low: http://www.turbomaga...ller/index.html Nigel '73 240ZT

The output shaft spline and rear bushing is the same on S13's, S14's, S30's and S130's (S130 turbo's excluded). The only difference between how an S13/S14 driveshaft mates with the transmisison and an S30/S130 combo is that the S30/S130 has the dust shield attached to the driveshaft, and the S13/S14 has it attached to the tail end of the transmission. With a couple of good wacks from a hammer, you can break the two welds that hold the dust shield on to an S30/S130 driveshaft, slide the shield off and the shaft will fit into an S13/S14 gearbox no problem. I'm using a '71 driveshaft with my S14 transmission with no modifications, other than the removal of the dust shield. The very early S30 driveshafts are the perfect length to use with the S13/S14 transmission, because they're 50mm shorter than the '72(?) and later S30's and S130's, and the S13/S14 transmission is 50mm longer. So, if you want to switch from an S13 transmission to an S14 transmission, all you have to do is swap your already modified S130 bellhousing from the front of the S13 to to the S14 box. That's it. I actually started out with an S13 transmission because everybody on-line was saying they were the same as the S14. It turned out that the 3rd gear syncro in my S13 box was shot, but by that point, I stumbled upon some rumors that the S14 box was better, so I sourced one to confirm it and swapped it in. From the outside, there's very little to tell the difference between an S13 and S14 transmission. The most obvious difference you're likely to spot is that the S14 driveshaft dust shield at the rear of the transmission is much longer, and it's rubber coated, I'm guessing to provide some vibration damping. The S14 also has a plastic speedometer gear housing instead of aluminium. FInally, the S14 has tube going from the breather hole on the case, up to the top of the bellhousing, rather than the plastic chimney like the S30/S130/S13. Keep in mind, I'm not exactly sure when these changes took place, so it's possible you could find some of these features on an S13. Nigel

I forgot to mention, I found my SX boxes through the local 240SX club. I kept an eye on the classified page on their forum. They come up fairly regularly. Nigel

I'm glad you liked my writeup. I was getting really frustrated finding concrete, accurate and complete info on this swap. So, I decided to go ahead and do it, and document everything. Nigel

If you're going to go through the trouble of installing a 240SX box, I wouldn't bother with one from an S13 (1988 - 1994). They provide somewhat of an increase in strength over the S30 and S130 boxes, with slightly wider gears, but the S14 (1993 - 1998) boxes offer a number of significant improvements over all of them. First of all, the S14 gears are much wider. First gear alone is 3 mm wider than what you'll find in the S13. The output shaft is also 1mm larger in diameter. S14 boxes are available with synchros on all gears including reverse, and a dual cone synchro was added to second gear. Sealed ball bearings are used throughout. Now, apparently there is an "in-between" S14 box that has the wider gears and output shaft but doesn't have a synchronized reverse gear. You'll notice that there is some overlap in production between the S13 and S14 (1993 - 1994). I'm guessing that's when this in-between box would be found in the S14's, but I've found no way to know for sure exactly what years this applies to. I'm not aware of any way to tell without opening up the case. Nigel '73 240ZT

Here's a link to my very detailed write up on installing a 240SX 5 speed in a Z... http://www.motortopia.com/album/14041 There are 53 pictures with descriptions and covers just about every aspect of the installation. Nigel '73 240ZT

Take a grinder or file and chamfer the edges of the strut. That'll help the strut ramp in and spread the bushing apart. It also helps to prevent the ID of the bushings from getting caught on the edges of the strut and folding over (something you wouldn't know until you took everything apart again). Nigel '73 240ZT

I, for one, think this site has TOO MANY forums. Half the time, people don't seem to put more than a half-second of thought into which forum they post in... "Hmmm... I can't get my headlights to work. Which forum should I post in? Look, a Wheels and Brakes forum. My car has wheels and brakes. I guess I should post there." The Model Specific forum is the worst one. It's turning into a catch-all for every topic... brakes, suspension, fuel injection, you name it, it's probably in there. And, it's top of the list so it's the first thing people see. I love this site, but it's getting really frustrating trying to find anything. I spent an hour pouring though posts in the transmission forum, looking for specific details about a transmission modification that I know I had seen before. Turned out the post was the the L6 engine forum! As we add more and more forums, people spend less and less time thinking about which one to post in. Nigel '73 240ZT

That's in line with measurements I took using a bathroom scale. My Rota's with Hankook Ventus V12 Evo 255 40 17's (25lbs each) all around weighed in at ~46lbs each. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they were only a pound heavier than the Enkei 17 x 7 rims with Falken Azenis 615 225 45 17 tires that they replaced! Nigel '73 240ZT

I did figure it out. I initially wasn't aware that there are two timing adjustments possible on the distributor. As I suspected, whomever had installed the XR-700 had positioned it without any consideration for the stock timing marks on the distributor, so that both the timing adjustments on the distributor had to be pretty much maxed out to get 10 degrees of advance. The Petronix positioning is fixed to match the stock points. After I learned about how to do a static timing check, I discovered that with the Petronix installed, the timing was now ahead by something like 20 deg. AFTER TDC! So, no wonder it wouldn't run. I got it part way back with the adjustment directly under the distributor, but it wasn't until I discovered that the distributor could be rotated even further at the other adjustment point closer to the timing cover that I got the timing back to where it should be. She fired right up after that. Learning how to do a static timing check turned out to be instrumental in diagnosing this problem. I was even able to set the timing almost dead on to 10 deg. before TDC without a timing light. Nigel

If there is an issue with this thread, it's that there appears to be an underlying tone of bias against using a cat that's based mostly on theory, but doesn't necessarily hold up in practice. Evidence of this can I think be seen from what I will argue is Zmanco's misinterpretation of the information provided. Based on my experience with actually having a converter installed in my turbocharged '73 240Z for the past 7 years, they do not fail due to running flat out on track days, and you're not going to melt the bottom of your car. I've had the exhaust off a few times over the years, and I can see the inlet to the converter. The last time I checked, the converter core was completely intact and showed no sign of damage. Also, the shop that did my exhaust installed the converter upside down, with the heat shield facing down. Nothing really bad has happened as a result. I have had an issue with leaking rear transmission seals, which are right above the cat, but that could be coincidental. Some day, I'll probably make up a heat shield, just in case. But, other than that, I haven't noticed any other ill effects. I recently spoke with my two friends that I mentioned in an earlier post who had installed converters in their Z's. Just to recap, one has SU's and the other has triple Webbers. I thought that the fellow with the SU's hadn't noticed much of a reduction of exhaust fumes, but after talking with them both, they both noticed a significant reduction of exhaust fumes, and were glad they installed the converters. Catalytic converters are not a solution for a poorly tuned engine, but there is evidence that if your goal is to reduce exhaust fumes in your Z, they can make a difference, with minimal impact on performance or your wallet. Nigel

Myself, and two of my friends have added catalytic converters to our Z's and found a noticeable reduction in the exhaust odour. My '73 Z is fuel injected. One of my friends has SU's, and the other has triple Webbers. Nigel