seattlejester

Yea, you aren't going to be able to do a lot of this in a condo, unless they are real lenient. As for your goals: 240z make terrible drift cars, they have relatively slow steering, small amounts of angle, lack of power steering, the steering wheel is real big and thin and the seats don't have great bolster or retention, the parking brake tends to not work on these cars given their age, and rear drums stock make it not the greatest. Drag racing and drifting with clutch kicking etc is also going to put a lot of strain and shock on the rear driveline which the 240z has the weakest from the Z family. Not to say people don't drift or drag race them, as a starting base they aren't too great, they do have massive engine bays and they are light, but as a base not the best choice. As long as you keep that in mind and plan on addressing those faults.... You have accounted for.... Engine Trans Adapter plate Mounts Wiring Harness Coilover Strut Braces Brakes Exhaust (250-400 locally) Differential (200 or so for an r200 differential, 500-1600 for an LSD) Drive shaft (300 or so locally) You have not mentioned... Fuel pump (a carb pump will not feed an EFI system very well at all) Fuel lines (stock will be woefully inadequate) Fuel tank (if it isn't already consumed with rust, it will be inadequate baffling for drifting, lots of fuel starvation) In lieu of a full on fuel cell you could run a swirl pot, which would mean even more fuel lines and another fuel pump etc. Blow off valve Intercooler piping Silicone couplers Clamps Intercooler New radiator New radiator lines Radiator fan Radiator shroud Fan controller Axles/halfshafts Fittings for fuel lines Clutch Pressure plate Flywheel Gauges, you can spend over 1k here easy. And if you can't do this at home, this is going to cost a lot in installation, you should budget quite a bit for labor depending on who you hire. Local shop wanted 2500 to have a 2jz mounted if I supplied all the parts, this did not include wiring, base tune, first start up etc, just 2500 to put the motor in the car and take the old motor out. I would start shopping around for a shop, make it clear that you don't want to start yet, but ask them for a general quote and if they are familiar with swaps and such, should be able to get a baseline that way. If you just want a 2jz in the car, you can find a wrecked is250 or is300 and take the engine and trans from one of them and put the NA motor in and boost it at a later date, the trans won't hold a lot of power and blah blah, but if you want a 2jz in the car, that is the easiest, cheapest way of doing it, you could recycle the gauge cluster and stuff as well. If money is no problem, then it is as easy as handing your car over to a shop telling them what you want, and writing them a blank check.

Motivation was apparently pretty stellar. Picked up some strut housings from a 280z (parts for my eventual LCA project and 27 spline stub axles), and found the first step in the LSD swap by finding a 94 Infiniti J30. Pulled the input shafts and the center pumpkin, just need to find a Z31 to pull the differential for the 12mm crown gear bolt thingy from and start swapping things over and look for a machinist to work on the input shaft. Then the decision becomes whether to run a wolf creek CV or go straight to existing CV's by purchasing adapters.

Bummer man. We have to meet up some time!

Picked up a set of BFG G-force rivals for less then 200$ had them mounted to my old rims, and finally got my gold rims back on . A bit smaller diameter so a bit of a drop and more wheel gap, but it got my gold 15's back on the car so I can't complain. Plan this weekend is to either head to the JY and start my LSD project, or to work on body panel alignment and wiring. We'll see how motivated I am.

No gas should have came out at all. So this hints toward hydrolock caused by gas. The carb needs to be adjusted and the floats checked if that is the case. Just deal with each problem as they come. The engine cranks easy now, don't let it seize again, fix what caused it to seize (the carbs it seems like). Regarding spark, find the ignition based power wire and trace it until the power disappears. You have to get in the right mind set, seems good is not good enough. Turn the multi-meter to continuity and check that the wire is good by checking if it has continuity to its starting point. Just hammer them out you'll get there.

You have a great attitude and understanding of how to relay the problem, kudos sir. Glad you got the problem solved. No worries, I was unfortunately still at work . There is a ground strap from the engine to the chassis (close to the battery), if the welder was poorly grounded while welding it could have sent some current somewhere where it wasn't supposed to. Kind of a long stretch and that is an assumption if the shop is reputable. I doubt he smashed the plugs by reving the motor, either would have had to skip a few teeth or one of the pistons let go. That would be very easily identifiable. If you want to check for sure, burn the old spark plugs with a torch to clear the carbon off and put them back in and try running the car, if it runs well then the spark plugs were just fouled really badly, this is one of those picture is worth a thousand words situation. I was aiming towards the motor being flooded a bit assuming your voltage readings during cranking were fine. Seems like Newzed hit it on the mark. The hitachi carbs can have the floats sink, the open cylinder would have had the fuel evaporate and possibly fire, but the closed ones could have had excess fuel and the first ignition event fouled the plugs causing a weak spark to be unable to light the fuel mixture. Are the carbs rebuilt? Maybe time to adjust and inspect the floats. Spraying starter fluid doesn't do much on the hitachi carbs as the opening is real small and you would have to lift the pistons and open the throttle plate. Remember starter fluid supplies fuel, but without air the engine can't use the extra fuel so it wouldn't rev any higher without more air being added into the mix.

Welcome to hybridz. 1 and 6 are at TDC at the same time, that would be a lot of time in-between ignition events. Hoping for it to run on just those two cylinders is a bit of a long shot. That's less then a 3% difference in compression. I don't think it is the compression, if there was no compression that would be a problem, but those are fairly good compression numbers. Do you have a spark tester? Can you test individual spark plugs to make sure the plugs aren't firing? You've done a good job in describing the problem and such, we just need a bit more info. Voltage readings would be helpful, the spark test results would be helpful. In addition to the cam gear having the notch at TDC, are the cam lobes on cylinder number 1 in the bunny ear position? Is the distributor just passing by cylinder 1? It seems strange that it ran down and no longer runs, that points towards an electrical problem, or a sudden fuel problem. All the electrics work fine? If they did a poor job grounding the work piece it could have burnt up a ground by chance. You said some of the spark plugs were wet, are we talking soaking wet or moist? What carb did you put on the car? What fuel pump are you running? Do you have fuel pressure?

http://clintdavis.net/blog/blog_pictures/08/clintdavis_081240.jpg

10:1 idle is on the richer side, you should be able to adjust a holley to be better at idle. L's start to stumble real bad if it goes lower then 10, most AFR gauges don't even read in the low 10's. 12:1 is ok for cruising, still a tad on the rich side. As long as it isn't leaning out when you tip in from cruise you could go leaner, if it is, then 12:1 is an acceptable trade off for keeping the tip in nice and happy. 14:1 is not ok under full boost. That is pretty darn lean for boost without some other control mechanism installed. 15:1 if you lift off the gas abruptly is ok, in fact it could read even leaner really since you aren't under load, the engine shouldn't be under combustion, just spinning. The main problem here is the 14:1 under full boost. That is living quite dangerously.

So I went to the storage to put on the lip and finish up and finish up the water pump replacement (in hind sight I probably should replace the thermostat too...), I met a neighbor and we started talking cars and stuff. Real nice guy, chatted for a bit. He mentioned that his nephew loved these cars, and we talked about the couple cars that hadn't moved from the driveway. We talked the local cars and stories, and turned out we had a lot in common despite a fairly large age gap. He was a big italian car guy and had several fiat and alfa romeo parts and such sitting around. After a while his nephew called, and he mentioned my Z, then he asked if I could wait for a little bit, I didn't mind as I was still tightening the belt and stuff. 20 minutes later he came back with his nephew to my car sitting out with it's shiny new lip idling while I filled the radiator. Since it was warmed up and I hadn't driven it in a while I did the cool thing and offered a ride. He strapped in and I took him for a quick lap. He was all grins the whole time. Moments like these make it worth while. The little drive did remind me that there is a bogging on the top of second. Since the car was warmed up, I don't think it was the rev limit cut, so it has to be either boost cut or AFR cut coming into play. I'll have to take a log and try to sort that out. Almost getting ready to move on from the front of the car. I still need to shim the hood a bit to move it over to the passenger side in the front as well as a few mm down. Once that gets sorted, I'm tempted to weld a washer in the exact location so it bolts on the same each time. Anyways, found a screaming deal on craigslist that demands my attention. Hopefully the next update will be pretty as well.

Echoing what dexter said, I hope that you meant those AFR values backwards or else you may be heading for a world of hurt. Usually with a slipping clutch one would expect to see a flatter torque curve, those seems to be pretty solid numbers for a stockish sized turbo.

I think this thread had a good discussion, both on the conservative and on the very thrifty side. http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/115582-2jzgte-swap Sound numbers above. My 0.02, I'm a bit more conservative so I would say budget 15k, 20k if you are handing it off to a shop, and then hope for savings, but don't depend on it. Don't forget an upgraded diff, axles, stub axles etc. The more power you put through these, it seems like each rear driveline component starts to fall apart.

Ohhhhhh, I see. Yea I'm not sure how that would work, unless we we're talking about a custom cut glass window that was narrower to accommodate or we were just installing that and not planning on rolling the real windows up.

dexter, not sure I follow completely. Are we talking about the rain deflectors, the little black plastic things? Or are we talking about like louvers that go on mustangs? I'm having a hard time imagining what you are talking about, a little scoop makes sense but I'm not sure I'm visualizing correctly. Goodness 96*! I'm googling the wind-wing, but I'm going up with airplane wings which seems wrong. Link or example?

I just imagined with the swap he would be using the higher amperage zx alternator, but even that unit doesn't provide the best amperage. My fuel pump does that on big dips or when I'm using the fuel it seems to quiet down a bit more, I imagine the pump is under less strain during those times. I think it is one of things mentioned. Small fuel lines depending on what was done may be providing insufficient fuel (this would show up with a fuel pressure gauge very easily) I have heard some people have run the carb fuel pump on an FI motor and it runs, but poorly. I doubt that that is the case, but I would check the fuel pump asap. The rusty tank can either be clogging the fuel filter, or as new zed says it can definitely be missing a piece out of the pickup tube or the pickup tube itself might have disinitegrated a bit. That means if the fuel moves away or exposes the hole or doesn't quite reach up high enough to seal the hole then you are going to loose fuel pressure. AFR gauge or fuel pressure gauge will be really helpful here, although I suspect it is one of those 3 things.

If you have trouble with the symbols you can buy a cheap one from I believe your canada tire. You only really need 2 settings to diagnose most things that is the voltage setting, and then the continuity setting. The symbols are universal so they should match up, but if thats what is holding you up, grab a new one with matching symbols. It is roughly 5$ for a digital multimeter nowadays. As gavin says give that a shot. The list should be, crank or try to crank by hand. You really only need access to the crank pulley, but with the radiator in the way it might not be the easiest I imagine. If it has a hard spot, then pull the spark plugs and see if any fluid comes out. If any does smell the fluid, find out if it is gas or coolant (I suspect gas, a flooded holley carb is not the strangest thing to occur). With the spark plugs out and the distributor disconnected turn the starter and it should spit out the fluid pretty well. Then from there have the carb looked at by a professional if you are unfamiliar. If there is no fluid, and no hard sport when turning by hand etc, then time to check the ignition. Take the cap off the distributor with the engine at TDC. The rotor should have just passed the wire corresponding to cylinder #1. These cars have oil pumps that also drive the distributor, and there are many stories of previous owner's installing them backwards or off and then moving the spark plug order to compensate. You have to visually confirm this by looking at the rotor underneath the cap. Confirm the cam timing as well by checking for bunny ears with the rocker cover off. Also inspect for any dropped valves or a valve train hesitation. Once everything is confirmed hook everything back up and get some voltage readings. It really is important to learn how to use a multimeter, it is a really easy thing to learn and can help so much in diagnosis. I'm even tempted to say to leave the fuel pump off while cranking and even pull the carb and spray some starter fluid as I fear a float sank and flooded the motor. Without more information though that is just a guess I am stuck on. Lots of good tips have been provided by many members, just make a list and check it off, and let us know. Even if we are completely off, it can help shift our focus elsewhere. Good luck sir.

That fuel pump waxing and waning bothers me a bit, I too am worried about fuel delivery. Long shot, but I'm guessing no AFR gauge? My guess would be a lean spike when you tip into throttle. As with most fuel related problems.... Fuel pressure? Tank condition? Does it happen more often with full tank vs half full tank vs empty tank? Fuel pump condition? Fuel filter condition? Fuel line condition?

My initial impressions is that I'm with Tony, sounds like a hydroloc with gas or ignition timing order is off. You have to solve each problem as a piece before you look at the whole. If the engine was indeed hydrolocked then continually cranking it is really bad for it. Make sure it isn't hydrolocked. You need to establish that it isn't the engine seizing by cranking by hand. Fact is that it should be battery powers starter, starter turns flywheel, flywheel turns crank, crank turns rods (rod pushes up cylinder) and pulley, pulley turns cam gear, cam gear turns cam, cam turns fuel pump and cam turns rocker. If the engine isn't cranking by hand something is happening there. Take the rocker cover off and make sure that everything is as it should be, no valves have dropped, the cylinders are hissing when you turn over by hand. You can also pull the starter and confirm good activation and voltage as Newzed mentioned. if you pull off the dirt cover plate you should be able to see the fly wheel spin by prying up on it. Once you know the mechanicals are good then onto the next step. Make sure you are not in gear. If you can't crank by hand, try taking off the spark plugs, if any fluid comes out and the engine cranks, then you have flooded again. Once you have determined that the engine is cranking as it should, then we start adding things to the equation. Give us some voltage values, you mentioned you have a meter, let us know the values while cranking of the battery, let us know the value that the starter sees during cranking as NewZed describes. Timing order is also a factor, before getting up in arms, unless you have been the only owner, keep in mind the PO may have installed the distributor shaft clocked or the rotor incorrectly. Confirming top dead center and the timing values will be a big help here to keep you from chasing your tail. As mentioned the firing order is 153624. It should start at the indicated 1 cylinder, but if the distributor shaft is clocked or something it will start at the cylinder that the rotor just passed when the crank is pointing at TDC. Bottom line is to make sure the engine cranks over nicely by hand. Then go from there.

The vents on the side in the footwell? Yes. I think I misspoke earlier, when I mentioned the HVAC sucking in hot air, it would be the footwell vents pulling in warm air without the scoops as the intercooler piping runs right in front of the vent and the scoop no longer fits. I think this all stems from the old L28 where I would have headaches after driving for a while, I haven't noticed it as much with the new engine and exhaust, but I would still feel reassured if I could get a nice cross breeze going.

I like the idea of popping out the rear quarter, I can just use a stud and a wing nut and make it fairly painless. I have a terrible time with working with large sheets of plexi, but that is an interesting idea, no reason to cool my hatch area. Taping the drip rails to smooth the airflow is excellent, I'll give that a shot to see if this idea even has any merit. I definitely hear you about cross flow, without anywhere for the air to go it really is hard to get the air to come in and go out. Not too fond of lifting the hatch, maybe if I can make a secondary latch of some sort. Exhaust shouldn't be a problem since I'm venting out the side in front of the rear tire.

Hmm I'll have to look it up, I know quite a few people have done it, just couldn't find a detailed thread using my google fu. I have trouble getting air in with both windows down. When I'm driving I can put my hand behind my head and feel quite a bit of wind, so it feels like the wind is skipping over where my seat is and passing right next to the rear quarter window. I mean short of cutting and installing a roof scoop I'm not really sure what real alternatives there are. I could try to get the HVAC back in there, but given the intercooler pipes occupy the fresh air scoops it would just be sucking in engine bay temp air. The drip rails are nice, for sure, and having the windows open in the rain help get some of the heat out of the cabin from the exhaust, but it just gets real stuffy, especially in the summer, and especially in traffic. I could wrap the exhaust and insulate the trans tunnel a bit more, but I would still like to have air come in and circulate a bit. Hmm will look into the VW air cooler, good news on the drive shaft, so close

No worries, I mean it has been many years since I was up to date on the rsx forums, it could very well be a more wide spread mod by now. I felt the a2 cam/exhaust rocker on intake swap didn't come into play as I was finding interest elsewhere. I just remember the example because it was so startling given the praise the mod was seeing and the gains, that one of the early adopters decided to swap back. It could have just been the addition of boost made the desire for more power top end moot, but alas, I still remember it. For the k20 in the rsx any mod that drops the torque makes a real difference in which gear you can be in on hills and such. Given that a 240z weighs 800lbs less, has two more cylinders, and 0.8Liters more displacement, I doubt it will be as big a factor. Brian Crower has had Vtec killer cams for a while, so I'm sure it works. Maybe a blip on the radar and anecdotal at best, but one person did go back.,On a different motor on a different car with different mods in retrospect probably not even worth mentioning, lol. Carry on sir, carry on.

Questions about the rain gutter/deflector. I have been thinking about removing the rain deflector. It is nice to have the windows open when it is raining, but the lack of fresh air actually hitting me in the face is kind of bothersome. I'm thinking if it deflects the rain that well the wind is also probably passing over it and missing the opening. So a couple questions. The most important one, does removing the rain deflector actually get more air into the cabin? I've measured the slope and curvature of other similar shaped cars and I never seem to lack air. In the datsun I can feel air hitting behind my head, but no real air movement even at highway speed. It is a pinch weld of sorts correct? Removing the rain gutter with a cut off wheel or grinder will leave a gap that has to be addressed if I remember correctly. Is it better to fold and just weld the gap closed? Or is it better to cut out the rain gutter completely and try to put in an appropriate patch?

Finished peeling off the duplicolor product. It was pleasantly tough, but the way it went on was terrible, lots of sputtering and poor coverage. I just went with what I knew had worked for me in the past and went with good old plasti-dip from the hardware store. Sanded, washed, and I went for the second try. Much much better. The turn signal broke a stud during removal and I managed to take the housing apart and put int a new m5x0.8 20mm bolt in place. I am highly tempted to buy the clear turn signal with the white gasket to keep everything pretty, but I'm not sure I want to drop that much money at the moment. I would still like to paint the intercooler black, and tidy up the front end wiring a bit more and start working my way back. More to come!

Ah, the v-tec killer arrangement. One of the few users who did implement that for the A3 setup added boost and then went back to the traditional i-vtec setup with boost due to a lack of torque until you got into boost/higher rpm's. He found drivability off the line at regular speeds was startlingly poor without the variable cam for the A3 motor. The gains when you romp on the throttle are great, but given the K20's poor torque the sudden loss of low end torque can make regular driving quite difficult. For an L28 though which seems to naturally have more torque I'm not sure if that would be an issue.