Alf

Just to let everyone know this is not a Z, but it is all Chevrolet. My goal with this car is to stay naturaly aspirated, look period correct in the mod department, and be streetable while running low 12's and maybe high 11's. I've come to all you knowledgable people for some advice on what it takes to get there, and any suggestions you have because i'm running out of ideas. Okay here are the specs and current performance data: 69 Camaro, stock suspension, full weight, all steel, full interior, etc. etc. poly bushings all around and 90/10 shocks up front, lengthened traction bars. 12 bolt posi with 3.73 gears, all stock stuff. M/T 26 x 8.5 x 15 drag slicks mounted on 80's Camaro steelies. Muncie M20 wide ratio four speed, blowproof bellhousing, stock flywheel, 11" Hays street strip clutch, stock driveshaft. Now for the good part, the engine. bottom end/oiling- 1974 two bolt 014 casting, .030 over. cast crank 3.48" stroke, stock rods, cast speed pro flat top pistons with speed pro rings. stock oil pump, 69 Z/28 windage tray, 7qt Moroso kickout sump pan. 8" balancer. valvetrain- Comp Cams Extreme Energy hydraulic flat tappet: duration at .050 intake-230 exhaust-236, lift-.490, LSA-110. matching comp valve springs and lifters(K kit). crane aluminum roller rockers. hardened pushrods. heads- 67 GM 462 castings. angle milled, screw in studs and valve guides, slight port work, 2.02/1.60 stainless valves, 3 angle valve job. (these heads are off of a friend of my fathers 67 Camaro. The car ran low 11's with these heads in the 70's at Maple Grove dragway on a 327 with a monster solid roller cam. I found timeslips in the glove box, fastest was 11.29 at 120+) intake system- edlebrock performer RPM, mild clean up and port matching. K&N 14x4" air filter in plain case. exhaust system- Dynomax 1 7/8 ceramic coated long tube headers. no exhaust for the street yet. ignition system- GM points dustributor with Ignitor electronic conversion and MSD cap-a-dapt ford style cap, no vacuum advance. MSD super conductor wires with moroso routing kit. Accell shorty plugs(the big style). MSD 6al CD box. fuel system- stock Camaro fuel tank, sump, and line(3/8). carter performance fuel pump cheapie replaceable fuel filter. Holley 4779 750cfm double pumper. performance data- 60'- 1.78 1/8- 8.17 @ 86 1/4- 12.82 @ 108.22 mph All of these times were abserved on a 95 degree day in August at Cecil County dragway in Maryland. calculated power- car weight- 3450(this is a conservative guestamate, car-3300, me-150) 3450lbs and 108.2 mph entered into a horsepower calculator rates my car at 341whp, and a estimated 12.59 with that mph. I was told that the hp calculators give average power figures, is this true? If so my peak is much high which isn't good for improvement. Some of my ideas- try using an adjustable vacuum advance canister, optimize timing, optimize spark plug gap and heat range. I'm gonna try to get an A/F meter to get the fuel ratios good. I plan on doing a few carb mods like milling down throttle shafts and what not. I might swap for a screen type windage tray. I am going to build a dual tube style cool air inlet system. Thats about all i can think of right now. I would like to get as much out of it with basically what i have, as in heads, cam, and rotating assembly, but am willing to upgrade in the future. Any suggestions you guys have would be greatly apreciated. Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.

Here is a top veiw of the Nissan pump mounted on the driver's side of the engine. All you need to do is fab up some simple C shaped brackets, and use the stamped steel Nissan bracket with some spacers. Here you can see the gear box in the background. The pressure feed line runs down the frame rail, the wavy hose is the feed to the pump, and the other hose is the return from the box. In this Picture you can see how I mounted the resevour(all i did was move it from the passenger side to the driver's side). You can also see how i mounted the alternator, and how i used one belt to run everything, if you have your alternator mounted on the drivers side this setup may not work. Hope this helps.

I have power steering on my v8 z31, i could post some pics of the install. It won't be hard if you still have the power rack and Nissan pump.

sorry, no halfshafts here.

Sounds like your making some power. Did you get it tuned up?

I went with a Hays street/strip 11" unit. It has moderate pedal pressure but nothing serious. I've been running this settup for a while now with quite a few street miles and a lot of trips down the 1/4 mile. Clutch holds good for a 1.7 60' in a 3500+ lb car.

The color looks good, but you might want to lean the idle out a little. whats your timing? whats the heat range? here's a very informative link: http://www.4secondsflat.com/Spark_plug_reading.html

get a vacuum gage and tune the idle mixture screws for the highest vacuum.

Well for some odd reason my engine wouldn't pull past 4 grand in first gear, it acted like a rev-limiter kicked in. So after trying everything i could possibly think of that may have been causing this, I figured I may as well try that side gapping trick since I'm plum out of ideas. I figured it would help performance a little but i never expected it to cure my rev limiting problem. After i cut all eight plugs and had the engine all back together i was wondering if it was even going to start, but it fired right up and the idle was actually slightly higher than before and the engine pulled a hair more vacuum(about 17" before to 18" after) after I retuned the idle mixture screws. The car pulled harder throughout the RPM range and just felt stronger. I just did this today so i can't really tell if it burns different or if there is any milleage increase, but I will find out sooner or later. BTW my engine is a 69 307 bored .030 with a set of 882 smogger heads and a performer intake, other than that it is stock. I don't know if my ignition system is just weak or what(pertronix ignitor and stock coil with Taylor wires), but i'm sure the engine has pretty low cylinder pressures due to the big combustion chambers, I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

http://performanceunlimited.com/illustrations/sparkplugs.html I tried it out and it worked for my small block chevy. enjoy.

Some rust is inevitable even with all new parts, water + bare metal = rust. The best mixture seems to be a 50/50 mix and will supposedly stay liquid below -30 degrees. Straight glychol freezes at 17 degrees. Higher boiling points can be acheived by varrying the cap pressure, every aditional pound is equal to a three degree raise in boiling point. Also you could try Water Wetter, it supposedly breaks the surface tention of the water and has some corosion inhibitors too. Just some stuff I remember from school, hope it helps.

the Simpsons had a episode that was alot like that.

get this book-turbochargers by Hugh Maclnnes it explains the basics of turbocharging, and gives alot of info on carbed turbo setups.

if your engine doesn't run to its full potential because of a bad ground then the whole engine is dead weight. i try and make sure my engine is grounded so i used three seperate straps on my ZX, two on the engine and one on the tranny, never can be too sure. when i moved my battery to the trunk in my camaro i just grounded the battery to the trunk, little did i know that wasnt the end of my instalation. a few days later a friend of mine noticed i didnt have an engine ground strap so i made one from some battery cable. all i can say is WOW what a difference, you deffinetally need an engine ground strap, trust me.

don't rule out the 305, it is a good, economical engine that can be made to perform fairly well. as was said before i would seriously consider buying a complete car like an 80s f-body. then all you have to do is swap the engine and trans from the doner car to your Z. this way you can spend your time working the bugs out of the car as a package and not working on the engine. if you guys don't like 305's can i have them?

people do this all the time. you can buy steel main caps from milodon and others which have splayed bolts (two outer bolts are not verticle, but angled). ive seen this many times with chevys and im sure you can do this for any engine if you have the caps and the abbility to do the machining. four bolt main caps are only really needed in racing engines, unless you have some type of power adder or extremely radical street engine. a SBC will handle around 500hp before four bolt main caps are needed. the owner of the machine shop where i get my machine work done sayed he had gone 9's on a two bolt 355. heres some more info from a familliar source http://www.crossedflags.com/nuke/html/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=10491

thanks for all the input and creative solutions. i see im not the only one with this problem.

for my chevy v8 swap in my z31 i got a new replacement radiator that was a dual core, it was only $130 with tax. then i mounted a 15" electric fan because there was no room for an engine driven fan. i built an air damm too for extra insurance. it cools good.

what kind of vacuum is this engine pulling?

i think your main problem is your camshaft and transmission choises. as was said earlier this combo would be more streetable with a manual transmission because you control the RPMs and when the car shifts. your combination is a mid to upper RPM engine. whats the compression ratio? it should be at least 9.5.1, if not that may be part of the problem. the holley 750 DP is a good carb for a 350, i have one on my 355 in my Camaro with a slightly smaller cam(.490 lift) with a muncie 4 speed. this is a much heavier car than a Z but it is fairly streetable, MSD box helps alot. if i was you i would either swap to a manual transmission or change the cam. many people think peek horsepower numbers mean everything, but how often are you running at the RPM peak hp is produced? the fact is if you have more average hp you car will be faster, more streetable, and more fun. you will get better fuel milleage too. try to grab a book on holleys, the knowledge learned is worth every penney.

every time i exit my 85 300zx with a SBC conversion i get a pretty big shock whenever i touch the car or something metallic, whats going on here? is this cause of my engine swap? the battery is grounded right to the engine and the engine and transmission have three seperate ground straps to the body and frame. has anyone had anything like this happen before? i can't figure it out.

the chatter may be oil or brake fluid on the disc. how does the slave cylinder mount, inside the bellhousing or outside? ive had decent luck with Hays street strip clutch in my Camaro, it holds good enough for a 1.78 60'.

the fact is all good things come to an end, but new and better things will arise. im going to college 1300 miles from home and most of my friends stayed local. luckily i was able to bring a car which makes sense though cause i am going to school for restoration. but you always have winter and summer breaks which almost equals about 1/3 of the year. as proxlamus said people change alot though. and another great side affect of college; road trips, haha.

well i finally ran my car out of gas and dropped the tank this past weekend. it went smoothly, and i only broke one screw that held on the heat sheild for the differential. i was expecting to see rust and crud galore when i pried the top off the tank, but to my surprise it looked like brand new. this car sat for about ten or eleven years so i was releived. i ditched the electric pump and modified the sump with a 3/8 line complete with new sock filter and special bracing for my new setup. all in all i think it went pretty well, there is a noticable difference in the way the engine runs; smoother idle, smoother acceleration. i still have some ignition and carb tuning to do to make it perfect, i am never satisfied, i don't think i am that great at tuning engines with stock cams, haha. anyway here are some pics of my modifications. stock in tank baffle stock sump with electric pump my modified version