BRAAP

Maybe should’ve posted this in the “rotisserie” thread… Bubbas Z Rotisserie..

When I read all these votes for favorite cartoon characters and all of them are “male” characters, it makes one wonder who’s team you all are battin fer , if you know what I mean… Not that there is anything wrong with that.. BRAAP’s votes… Jessica Rabbit, Wilma Flintstone, Betty Rubble, Jane and Judy Jetson.

AWESOME write up. Thank you for the true human element in your post... Glad that you made it through all ok. "Mission control.. The EGO has landed... "

Ooopps. Sorry Max. I’m sorry if I offended you with my Transformers comment. (as I struggle to remove my foot from my mouth as I stare at Veritechs Signature pic… ) DOH!!!

AWESOME! Phenomenal piece of driving. Driver has Gonads so large he has a wheel barrow just to carry them around… That is an excellent example showing how quality shock/strut valving helps keep the tires in contact with pavement even under EXTRME conditions. Definitely justification for $1000 per corner dampers… (I wonder if Ron has seen this one yet…)

Hmmm… The firing order theory sounds like it might have some merit in theory and possibly worth investigating. As counter point, the 4 cylinder SSS Blue birds (aka JDM 510’s with L-series 4 cylinders), run dual SU’s and because of the of 1-3-4-2 firing order, they would also suffer from the same issue, but they seem to run fine. Also having seen Steves Triple SU car run in person, talked directly with Steve about his Triple SU’s, and also talked to a few people that have driven and rode in the car, if there is an issue with the firing order affecting the operation of the Triple SU set up, apparently those alleged issues haven’t shown themselves, or at least are quite minimal if present at all, as the car runs very smooth, for an N/A L-series, makes GOBS of power everywhere and gets decent freeway mileage, (city mileage wasn’t great). I don’t recall the exact mileage numbers Steve quoted on his trip from the middle of Oregon to the MSA show in Cali this last year with that set up, but I do remember the mileage being respectable for how radical the engine is built up. Just my $.02 on the Triple SU set up…

Dherde26, I hope you don’t mind. I took the liberty to alter a couple of your pics and using Photoshop7.0, I gave them a quickie touch up and crop. Thanks for sharing.

Ryan, Hmm. I guess that E-mail didn’t go through. You’ve got PM… Paul

Yeah, that does look a lot like a Z that was nicely personally modernized. You know, I’ve always thought the Chrysler Crossfire made a better looking “New Nissan Z” than the “350 Z”. The Crossfire with its long nose, “cab backwards” design, the quarter light, etc It looks like a current production “retro” S-30 Z car in my eyes. The 350 Z’s styling just doesn’t grab the emotions like the original Z or the Z-32 did upon their release. The G-35 coupe is far sharper than the 350. I do like the Retro styling of some offerings from today’s Automakers, i.e. the new Beetle, Mini, Mustang, Crossfire, etc, . Maybe I’m getting old, but doesn’t it seem like a lot of the modern vehicles, sport bikes included, look a lot like the “Transformers” toys, from the Transformers cartoon in the mid ‘80’s especially the styling of modern sport bikes? Look at their headlight and fairing styling and compare it to Megatron… That generation is today’s auto consumer so I guess it makes sense. I was in High school and my younger Brother used to watch that Transformers cartoon, I HATED IT!!! Give me Tom & Jerry, Looney tunes etc, now that is quality animated entertainment… but I digress

Yesterday afternoon, while driving through down town Portland, stopped in traffic, someone in a Dodge Dakota plowed into the back of me. This was my daily driver, a Black on Black ’96 Infiniti Q-45. The force of the impact slid me into another Dodge Dakota. On a scale of 0-10, the car was a strong 9 through out. Paint, interior, power train, everything worked and the car was very pleasant to drive. Not a race car, but quiet. Just a nice pleasant inconspicuous commuter. Today, my shoulders and neck muscles are a little sore but not debilitating, thank god. I have ALWAYS kept my head rests in all cars I drive/ride in set up right in the middle of my head, and yesterday, that habit payed off in HUGE way… Any how, I’m pretty sure insurance will total the car and if so, we will make an effort to buy it back and start parting it out. I personally want to keep the keyless entry system, and few other items for project FUZZY. I “might” keep the engine as well for an all Nissan V-8 conversion in the future, but with all the projects currently in process, I’m not so sure I should try to add “that” one right now. The R-230V will definitely be going up for sale as well as interior and body parts, (Doors and front fenders are fine.) Before… And here is the Q-45 trunk-less edition…

Definitely looking forward to seeing this project come to fruition… Looks great thus far.. keep posting as you progress…

Austin, Ah… So the L-28 isn’t spinning your prop, lighting your fire, spooling your Turbo, smoking your tires, turning your crank, rowing your gears, (or any other silly anecdote you can conjure),… Soooo.. you obviously have plans for some other power plant.... Care to let us in on it? …. . . . . . . . . Please? BTW, Looking forward to reading how much you are able wring out of the wounded L-series soldier… Good luck, Paul

Thread has been subscribed to, and if this works at all, I prematurely vote it for sticky… BRAAP… out!

“Hello… McFly?!?!?!” . How do you think you are going to “stand on the 5th” when there are only 2 B-room scales in the whole shop? Like DUH?!?!?!

First off, Engine failure analyses is truly an art form. I am by no means an expert in this field, but as an engine builder/machinist, I have had many opportunities to see lots failures first hand, (not ours, but those of others), inspect, confer with engines owners and help make right what went wrong in the first place, if it was assembly or machining related. Pictures on the web is definitely not the way to accurately evaluate a failure, but we can at least narrow down the possible causes in an effort to keep from repeating the failure in the future. As for my own engine failures, the worst failure I was personally responsible for was a custom radical Briggs & Stratton 5HP that I built for Ron Tyler and myself to race at the local autocross, (thank god it wasn’t a customers) and I succeeded in turning that loud buzzy one holer into a grenade in the middle of an Autocross a few years back. It ran pretty good up to that point… … Skirt Scuffing… It would be nice to see more detailed pics of the piston skirts in question. Based on that one picture, it looks more like scratches, such as small debris, i.e. large dust/small dirt particles from a not so clean assembly, not so much scuffing. Odd thing here is Hoke mentioned the cylinder walls themselves looked great, no scratches etc. Without more info, pics, etc, I’m at a loss as to what actually caused the skirt scratching/scuffing. Skirt Scuffing usually covers broad areas of the skirt area with scratches. Hokes piston looks like it only has scratches with normal skirt wear surrounding the scratches, not really scuffed. If it was caused from Excessive combustion temps that in turn cause the skirts to swell, this manifest as very uniform “scuffing” mostly just below the region of the oil ring or the “four corner” areas surrounding the pin boss. Depending on the severity will determine on how much metal transfer took place. Remember, excessive combustion temps doesn’t mean excess coolant temp. Excess combustion temps are lean conditions in the “combustion chamber” and happen at all engine coolant temps. Excess coolant temps will cause the skirt to scuff around the mid section of the skirt itself, not just below the oil rings like excess combustion temps cause. Hokes scuffing looks more like debris and if the scratches have raised lips at their edges, then my guess at this point is debris… But again the cylinder walls don’t show the same… Hmmm…. Main bearing… I’d REALLY like to see close up quality photos of ALL of the bearing shells, upper and lowers, Mains and Rods. That one pic sure looks like there is some flaking taking place, i.e. fatigue. If it is fatigue with such low miles, that would definitely be detonation or REALLY REALLY cheapo bearings with very poor bonding during the manufacturing process. Being as the cylinder head had the small pitting around the head gasket fire ring indicating detonation at least on some level, chances are it is fatigue from violent uncontrolled combustion….. Rings stuck in the ring lands… Either lots of carbon build up binding the rings or the rings lands themselves are collapsed. If the top rings were stuck, without seeing them first hand, I would guess the top ring land was collapsing due to extreme cylinder pressures, i.e. detonation and if that is the case, the only role those pistons could fulfill in their future life is as clock holder or paper weight. If the ring lands are collapsed ANY degree what so ever, those rings have been compromised and the piston is no good. F.O.D. Due to the size, shape, uniformity, and the lip surrounding the craters in the piston ridge and matching region on the cylinder head, I would guess that the piston and cylinder head were playing a high stakes game of ping pong using a very round object of a much harder compound than the piston and head. Who knows what it was and at this point who cares as it shouldn’t happen again, (just be sure to clean and inspect the induction tract between the air filter and intake valves really good for F.O.D.), and the fact that it is concentrated on one side of the chamber means squat diddly. The speed at which all that took place and the air flow in and out of the chamber could very well influence where that little sphere landed as it was being squished between the cylinder head and piston. The fact that something did make its way through the chamber does raise a concern. Being as this is a Turbo engine, “valve seating” is even more critical than N/A engines as the valve run MUCH hotter and need to dissipate that extra heat for valve cooling reasons to prevent burning a valve, in particular the exhaust valve. If this F.O.D. did get stuck in between the valve face and valve seat, it could, but not necessarily, may have left similar yet smaller indents in the valve seat and valve face, thereby compromising valve face to seat interface which doesn’t allow the valve to fully dissipate its heat into the seat and as result, becomes much more susceptible to burning. To be sure of this one way or the other, you would have to remove the valves to visually scrutinize the seat/valve surface for deformation from FOD. No matter what, ideally you would want to reface the valve itself just to be sure it didn’t get bent from being propped open on one side due to the little ping pong getting caught between the valve and seat. 240hoke. I realize this isn’t news that you wanted to hear this late in the game as I gather you put the engine back together with those same pistons etc. If there are any issues with the piston ring lands, it should show up as poor cylinder sealing, blow by, etc. I honesty hope that you are able to get it back up and running close to what it was prior to this event. Good luck and please keep us posted… Paul Ruschman

Yes, you can just swap over the cam towers, spray bar, and cam from your earlier head. No mods, no align boring/honing, etc. It is just a simple bolt on swap. Ps. Do make it a point to put the cam towers in the same position as they were removed, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5,

If it were me building either of those combinations, because you are using flat tops with quench style head, I would not use the 2mm gasket as it adds just that much more clearance between the piston top and head deck, effectively eliminating or at least greatly reducing the affects that good squish delivers. For Turbo engines that are using stock style dish pistons, this is of no consequence as the dish doesn’t’ allow for any squish to begin with, but for flat tops…. If the reason for choosing the thicker gasket is to keep the static compression ratio closer to your desired goal, I’d suggest trying make use of the thinner gasket and through creative valve unshrouding, you can gain some chamber volume that way. With the OE L-28 flat tops on OE L-28 rods, the pistons pop up OUT of the cylinder bore at TDC approx .021”-.025” and with a 1mm gasket this offers pretty much “perfect” squish. The pistons come so close to the head deck surface that if the pistons has its oversize stamped in the right area, that stamping will ghost imprint on the head deck surface, yet the pistons do NOT actually contact the head. I used to have a picture of this ghosting from a mild Race N/A L-28 that I built an MN-47 head for some years back, but can’t seem to find it. As for the combinations you posted, not knowing more details about either one such as induction, valve train specs, intended usage, intended RPM range, possible class rules dictating displacement limits, etc, you’ll be well served by building as much displacement as your budget can afford. If having 2.8 liters wont cost any more than 2.4 liters, you are far better off with the 2.8 liter engine. With both engines built with the same induction, valve train, and exhaust system, the bigger engine will deliver more torque and more HP within the same RPM range, (as long as the bigger engine can rev to the levels the smaller engine revs to...) So what are building and how are you going to use it? We’re all curious to see new projects…

Very interesting. Maybe some sort of Euro half shaft from another Chapman strut application like the Fiat X-19, etc? Is that some sort of “Dukes of Hazard” special Z with the high tech droop limiter and “bubba custom” mustache bar for those across the river jumps?

As an engine builder/tuner myself, I third this motion to call B.S. for all the reasons already stated…

Courtesy of the “How to modify your NISSAN and DATSUN OHC” book written by Frank Honsowetz… I have no idea “how” accurate this is… (I hope I’m not stepping on any toes “copy right” wise by posting this…)

Done cheaply, yes the engine could produce 200 crank HP, once, maybe even a few times up the rev range. Spend some money on quality parts and quality machine work, spend some time verifying clearances, parts fitment etc and it could make that same 200 HP for a lot longer. In short, spend “little” money now just to spend a LOT more later, or spend a “little more” now so you don’t have to spend any more later… Choice is yours…

Is anyone running the 2nd generation Nissan Pulsar seats in their 280Z shells?

Hellix point has value and is worth investigating. As for how much affect on the power being developed does that concept alone, have? Theoretically speaking, it should have some influence, my guess is that its influence is so minute that it would even be hard to see on a dyno. Even at that, carburetors do offer some spectacular fuel atomization characteristics, and at least back in the mid ‘90’s, EFI still wasn’t atomizing the fuel as nicely as carbs so that might ”make up” for the losses incurred by the air stream having to accelerate the fuel and any losses of air flow induced by the venturis. I’m just throwing that out there to chew on, I honestly have no idea. As for LSA specs for Carbed or EFI engines, lets through out this hypothetical question for the engine builders amongst us . If you were setting out to build up a high performance engine, hot street or even a full tilt race engine, whether it be an L-6 or a V-8, and you were to use a specific intake manifold that could accept a carb/s or EFI, (that is to eliminate any variables in intake manifold design), in the cam specs phase of designing this high output power plant, would you alter the Lobe Separation Angle, (valve overlap), whether it is carbonated or Electronically Fuel Infected? Rusch Motorsports would not alter Lobe Separation Angles based on how the fuel is being introduced to the air stream. Other factors in the design and intended usage of the power plant affect what LSA would be chosen such as intake design, Exhaust design, rpm range the engine is to be used (that is bigge), but “how” the fuel is introduced into the air stream is not one of those factors we would use to determine LSA specs for cam shaft selection.

ORKLC, Thanks for the photo link addition. Now, about that 11 second Datsun 1200 in your signature… Would you be so kind as to either start up another thread about your car or put it in members projects? You know, pics, more details, etc…. Very intriguing…