BRAAP

First Z, Dave Lum in Beaverton, (aka http://www.datsuns.com) is installing one in his 510 and has amassed quite a bit of information regarding the VQ series engines. VQ-35 powered DATSUN build up page...

Seen this same scenario many times with the old OE bronze intake seats in the pre ’76 heads, though usually when the seat falls out, it wedges itself and holds the valve open enough for the pistons to contact the valves and subsequent massive damage is the result. Oversize OD valve seats will be needed. Monzter, Just curious why Beryllium copper seats in the intake and not the exhaust? Chambers look real nice BTW, shaped similar to our chambers, nice work.

Especially with under .500” lift, I am pretty sure it is physically impossible to get an opening and closing ramp that aggressive with the OE rockers, (or any available L-series rockers). It would take over .600" + lift to get that much duration at .050". I’m with Jon on this one. A 300 degree duration spec with less than .500” lift HAS to be advertised duration at say .002"-.005" valve lift, definitely not duration at .050”

Sounds like you might be better off taking your car to a qualified tuner shop savvy with Turbo engines and intercooler installations.

Here ye go.. The original BRAAP Z W/N-42 manifold The race car with an IR MFI manifold… Same race car as it ran with MS and EDIS… and another N-42 Manifold

Marc, As I’ve said in E-mails in the past, your car is incredible and we all would appreciate reading a detailed write up with pics about your car here on HybridZ, possibly in the Members project section.

Are you looking for the LT 1, the 4L60E or both? (Just trying to help clarify in hopes it will attract more attention for you...) Good luck, Paul

It’s only $40. If you think $40 is a lot to spend for the V-8 bible, then you’re in for sticker shock when you find out how much it will cost to take advantage of all that wonderful info that Mike Knell took the time to R&D and publish in an effort to shorten our V-8 conversion learning curve. The JTR manual is worth its weight in gold and is an invaluable resource to go back and reread months and years later. Just "nut up" and buy it or hold tight till you are in a better financial position to obtain the book and take advantage of what it has to offer. You wont regret the purchase. If you do buy it and don’t like it, I’ll buy it from you for what you paid for it including shipping, as long as it isn’t trashed of course. Just my $.02

It is for cooling the piston. My thoughts are for a moderately to highly boosted L-series, that the oil squirter should be retained as the pistons need all the help they can get in keeping cool.

Well, my first thought was fuel starvation, i.e. clogged fuel filter or pump inlet screen, but the black smoke throws that one out.. Hmmm… Let us know what you find. Paul

Twin Turbo VH45DE boat… VH45DETT boat video, click me...

.... in Saudi...

Isn’t this guy a member here? By far the “hottest” V-8 induction noises I have EVER heard! In the video, from the 30 second mark till the end. Car looks WAY friggin FAST in straight line… Quick and high revs... Click me...(full body chill)

Ran across this by accident, almost fell out of my chair... VH45DE running, "NOT" in a car, click me..

Jaundice, Welcome to HybridZ. THE source for extreme Z car performance. An LS-x in a 280-ZX, yes it is very much possible. I’ll be honest, that question is like asking, “Is a Z car with a V-8 fast?” I don’t think anyone here has found any production automobile engine that wont fit forward of the Z car firewall. Some swaps just require more imagination, money, discipline, tooling, skills, etc than others. The LS-x conversion is not the easiest, but is also not the most difficult either. Depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, that alone will dictate just how intense and exhaustive the conversion will end up. Due to the Z cars cavernous engine bay, the real question is when are you getting started on your LS-x powered 280-ZX? We would love to see that project come to life and documented here on this forum. Being as you are new here, I ask that you please read this link thoroughly, #11 will help considerably with your question, and don’t forget #2, that one is the most important and seems to be the most ignored. Read-me Welcome to HybridZ

If you are discerning track enthusiast, you will quickly find that the Viscous LSD is realtivly "loose" and “very” inconsistent. Serious discerning drivers that like to drive their cars at 10-tenths on the track prefer “consistency”, and depending on chassis setup, available traction etc, a certain amount of break away torque, which the V-LSD does NOT offer. The Viscous LSD’s are great for John Q Public who will never take his car beyond 6 tenths on back road jaunts and they are also excellent for cars that serve duty at the drag strip. For the hard core corner carvers among us, either clutch pack LSD or a Torque sensing gear arrangement like the Quaife is the preferred choice. For more info, read Jon Mortensens diff sticky. Lots of fantastic info there..

Naviathan, You’ve got mail…

Moved to the appropriate forum...

Hoov, The Z-31 utilizes a “rear” steer rack, like the 280-ZX. The 240, 260 and 280 Z cars utilize a front steer rack and as such, the 240 rack will not work in the Z-31. The rack moves the opposite direction. At any rate, maybe one of the S-130 guys will chime in with info regarding the manual steering options for the 280-ZX as that may be an option for you. John Coffey, Tube80Z, Blueoval Z etc, would know what modifications can be performed, if any, to convert a power rack to manual. Ps, I took care of your other post as well. Good luck, Paul

Yeah… ah hem.. uh, well.. stay tuned… Well, sort of. There was/is, the Infiniti VRH35ADE. Though it and the parts that make it what it is, are not in the financial realm of us mere mortals. Here it is with its single plane crank, screaming at 10,700 RPM. The Infiniti VRH35ADE…

Your post is a little hazey, (anxiety post, I understand), I just want to clarify the situation.. So you literally just rebuilt the short block and fired it up, not driving it yet, but in the drive way with only maybe less than a minute run time on this new bottom end, this occurred? Any head work done? When you say BANG, did it actually make a loud BANG sound? When you say Do you mean that you reused the head gasket? Is this a stamped steel shim style head gasket or an OE, Felpro, Victor Reinz etc? Any pictures of the region spewing coolant? Any more detailed info you can give us?

Your source at Ross, being a sales rep/customer service rep, etc, for a custom piston manufacture, should know better than that. jmortensen summed it up rather well. If the Ross rep you are dealing with still insists such a thing is wrong, definitely ask for another rep/engineer that knows what he/she is talking about. Piston pop-up is fine so long as there are no mechanical compromises, i.e. rings getting to close to the deck etc. Every N/A L-28 built after, (I think it was 8 of 1980 or there abouts, someone else here will have the exact manufacture date the change was made), any how, the engines with the P-79 head and flat top pistons, the pistons pop up OUT of the bore between .020” and .025” from the factory. So long as the head gasket is thick enough that there is approx .016” clearance between the cylinder head and the piston, all is well and in fact, quite good. Here is an assembled short block with the OE flat top pistons, OE rods in an OE block, and the block was NOT decked. The piston pops up out of the bore .023"

Those "wrong wheel drive" gurus are on the ball… No, really. With all the seat time they have amassed in their "half motor pull-toys", their technological insight is, and I quote another HybridZ member, “unbelievable”. Their knowledge of the difference between Torque and HP and how those two terms are not but two parts of the same equation is pure genius. Just think about this from a HybridZ mind set for a moment. Some of the members here are quite savvy in Torque, while others are quiet savvy in sports car HP, put that group together in the same shop on the same engine and we can set the high-performance sports car world on its VTEC! We could build the best of both worlds. Build an engine with a long stroke for lots of torque to help with launches leaving the "Toys-R-Us" parking lot, and then also build it with a large bore so it will have high RPM sports car HP for high speed passes through the High School bus lane. Then, in true Hybrid fashion, have some flex-fuel-VTEC controller installed. This K7 engine, (7 cylinders in a “K” configuration) runs as a Diesel till 3500 RPM, then switches over to running as a gasoline engine. Could even have the transition from diesel to gasoline blended over a 1500 RPM spread for a seamless transition.

Having at least “some” shadow on both ends is a good sign and the cam should've gone on to live a long happy life. Sounds like a regound NISSAN cam might be in your future eh? Keep us posted on what MSA has to say.

Naviathan, The pictures aren’t really clear, but using Photoshop I was able to brighten this one up a little. I am not going to say that this is 100% the reason for your failure, but the pictures do suggest that improper wipe pattern is mostly responsible for your cam failure, though the soft cam core could also be partially to blame as well. Without seeing the entire head and all the parts in person to perform a formal failure analyses, the photos do strongly suggest that the wipe pattern is completely wrong with the cam wiping off the back side of the rockers which would cause the immediate failure. Your rockers have such a large shadow towards the tip with no shadow at the pivot end, indicating the installed lash pads are way to short. The shadow should be much smaller and be evident on both ends of the wiping surface like the picture below. A performance cam will have much less "shadowing" due to the more aggressive lobe profile. Your picture clearly shows the wipe pattern to be biased WAY too far back. Your wipe pattern; Proper wipe pattern from a stock cam… Proper wipe pattern, aggressive performance cam. As for the dual oiling, that is a totally acceptable mode of oiling the L-series cam. Generally, the oil restrictor in the block is opened to .100” and can be opened up as much as .125” MAX, along with a Turbo pump to help increases oil flow to the head without reducing pressure in the block. As TimZ stated, NEVER remove the oil restrictor in the block as that will starve the bottom end of adequate oil pressure. For those skeptics of the dual cam oiling method, measure the oil hole in the cam lobes of an internally oiled cam, calculate the open area of those 12 holes. Now calculate the oil restrictor hole in the block. Adding the spray bar isn’t going to reduce any appreciable oil flow to the rocker/lobe interface. If anything, it helps put the oil more precisely at that intersection between the cam lobe and rocker surface as some lobes, especially on the OE cams, have some lobes with the oil hole at the base of the closing ramp. Any how, sorry Naviathan, but the evidence thus far is weighting heavily towards improper wipe pattern, i.e. wrong lash pads.