BRAAP

QUOTE Nothing too big I dont want to hear, Ah, you wont break a t5 with 400hp, i dont wanna risk it.... End of quote… Horsepower isn’t what breaks trannies, TORQUE is what will break the tranny. Trannies are rated in torque capacity, not HP capacity. That torque rating is given to take into account that some of the general public will abuse it with brutal launches. The World Class T-5 is rated from GM/BW at 325 Lbs/Ft of torque and that takes into account the abuse from Joe Blow’s teenager trying to impress his buddies in the High School parking lot in a car that weighs considerably more than a Z car, i.e. the 4th gen Camaros and Firebirds that these trannies came in. Being as the Z car is relatively light weight, and if you use a light weight flywheel, you won’t be working the tranny as hard and if you don’t abuse it by doing stomp-&-dump launches on a regular basis, the T-5 will hold up for ever even behind a big block just fine. Generally speaking, the more cubes, the more torque and as mentioned previously, torque is what “works” the tranny, not HP. Being as you are planning to run only 302 cubes, I would not hesitate for an instant to run the World Class T-5, even it made 500 HP, the T-5 is a great match for a mild to hot 302 in a lightweight car such as the Z, especially if you are running the lightweight 13 lb GM Flywheel, as it’s torque output still won’t be as much as an equivalent HP 350 or 400. Now if you are planning to boost it in the future, which will increase the engine torque, and you plan on performing some Hard launches with sticky tires at the drag strip, then maybe the T-56, but if not, hands down the World class T-5, if you can locate one. Any how, that’s my $.02 on the subject.

FWIW, the T-56 is heavy, but not 100 lbs heavier than the T-5. My world class T-5 behind the 350 in my 280 Z weighed in at 85 lbs, (same weight as the Datsun 5 speed), and Ron Tylers T-56 that he ran behind his LT-1 in his 240 Z weighed in at 135 lbs, both trannies were weighed on the same scale. The T-5 has a slightly wider spread in gear ratios and personally, I prefer the T-5 ratios over the tighter T-56 for street car, (The T-56 comes in a few different ratio spreads, but all are closer ratio than the World Class T-5 except for one T-56 that is available from GMPP as direct bolt up to the traditional SBC and it comes with the same 1-4 ratios as the W/C T-5). Here is page that discusses the GMPP Retrofit T-56 for the traditional SBC. http://www.sallee-chevrolet.com/frame.html?/ChevyTransmissions/gmt56.html Also, the World class T-5 is a pretty tough tranny. I put over 15,000 HARD miles on mine including several passes down the strip at 12.3 @ 113 MPH and on more than a few occasions, (to prove to those that didn’t believe the car cold do it with the welded diff), 1st though 4th gear burnouts, and not just chirping the tires in fourth gear, but two LONG black marks down the street over 100 yards long from 4th gear!!!! The tranny shifted very smooth and precise. The hard part is finding one! It took me over 3 months to find that one and that was back in 1997! Mine came from a 1991 Formula Firebird. I guess they are even harder to come by now. Good luck…

Gollum, Lets see.. You understand that the quench is an important aspect of detonation resistance, but don’t understand why lowering the comp ratio by .5 by only using a thicker head gasket wouldn’t help make the engine less prone to detonation? I’ll try and explain this in a different way. (It sure would be much easier if I could draw this out. I’m much better at conveying ideas visually. Oh well, here goes any how…) Quench is only achieved within a given piston to head clearance. By adding a thicker gasket you are increasing this piston to head clearance therefore the quench then no longer exists. If you can lower the comp ratio on an engine with a nice high squish/quench head, then yes, the engine will be less sensitive to fuel grade and less prone to detonation, however, it is “HOW” you lower the compression ratio that makes the difference. I’ll cover 2 examples; 1) If you lower the comp ratio by .5 just by using a taller head gasket, now the piston is further away from the head deck surface and now you have lost your quench/squish as the chamber is now an open chamber and extends over the entire cylinder, not confined to the smaller open region that surrounds the valve in the head, i.e. the combustion chamber. This would be similar to the open N-42 and Z N-47 heads. 2) If you manufacture a piston with a dish large enough to drop the compression ratio by .5 and this dish is directly under the open portion of the chamber itself, then you still retain this quench area and when the piston comes up to TDC, there is essentially NO space between the piston and the head deck surface, so the combustion chamber is now confined to only the small region that is in the head around the valves and in that little dish pocket in the piston as well. In short, if you use a taller gasket, the quench NO longer exists. Not to muddy the waters any more than they already are, by using the OE L-28 dished pistons with a P-79 and P-90 heads, you loose that quench because the OE L-28 dish covers a very large portion of the top of the piston itself. An ideal dished piston for those heads would be one with the dish under ONLY the open portion of the chamber itself. Any how, hope this made sense…

The Squish is VERY important to making the engine detonation resistant as 1fastZ stated. This squish isn’t a cure all for running absurd compression ratios but it does allow an engine to run a higher comp ratio before the onset of detonation with a given grade of fuel. Now how much more comp ratio can this high squish head run before detonation starts? Good question. Sorry I don’t have that answer. Ideally if you want to drop the comp ratio without loosing this squish you would want a custom piston with a CNC dish machined in the top of the piston but this dish to be machined “only” under the open portion of the MN47 chamber and this dish to only be large enough in volume to bring the comp ratio down to what the engine builder deems “safe” for that particular application. In doing this you will keep that very important squish. As per Gollums links, (great article on Detonation by the way), a small sphere for a combustion chamber would be ideal, so by having this piston dish shaped with that theory in mind, you would drop the comp ratio to a level that is a little less sensitive to the differing grades of fuel that is available. As 1fastZ stated, if you use too thick of a head gasket you will negate all the benefits of the Maxima N-47 chamber design, at that point, you may as well used the Z N47 head as the thicker gasket has now made the combustion chamber itself the full size of the piston top. Ideally you want the piston to come up within only a couple thousandths of an inch while the engine is running. 1fastZ’s recommendation of .030” piston to head clearance is a good safe clearance which allows for slight piston rock, thermal expansion etc.

Silent, Check your E-mail and get back to me as SOON as you can tonight so that I can get you that info before I leave for vacation amongst the hot, tan, native babes, oh and my lovely wife of 17 years who has been down there for over 8 weeks already and I’m sure is quite tan as well… …LOL

I think Jmortension was referring to the fact that a bump in compression ratio isn’t going to yield significant power gains in of itself and that compression ratio alone is not an attribute to build an engine around, but yet the compression ratio is one facet that is modified to make the most out of a particular combination of chamber shape, cam specs, useable RPM range, etc. With that said, yes, raising the compression ratio will increase torque and power, pretty much linearly across the power band, but not a whole lot, in fact, (depending on how much of a bump in compression was made), it would be somewhat difficult to FEEL with our “butt dyno” but a chassis Dyno would show this increase and if the driver is consistent enough, it might even show up in the ¼ mi MPH. Now depending on how radical the engine components that are being utilized are, will dictate how much of an advantage that bump in compression is worth. The more radical the set up, i.e. bumpy cam, huge ports, etc, the higher the percentage of gain a raise in compression ratio will be vs an engine that is mild such as a stock engine. There are several other factors that more compression will help or could hinder, but that is not the scope of this thread and I really don’t have time this week for another novel, (i.e. the thread “big and nasty headwork”. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=104420 ) In short, higher compression does compliment big cams, big ports, etc. It is a fine balancing act, but when all the parts are balanced to each other from many aspects, the combination will be a robust one that performs a little better than your garden variety performance engine that the builder just “threw” cool parts at. 1fastZ, those are respectable numbers, 13.9 @ 101 for 2950 lbs Z. Nice work. As an aside, where the heck did this “P-47” crap come from? The last time I checked, the head was cast with an “N47”, no “P” anywhere. Though I can see where someone who hasn’t really studied the head from a design standpoint might call the MN47 a “P” series due to the fact that the chamber does resemble the P-79 and P-90 chambers in generic outline shape only. If you look closely, the P series heads and the Maxima N-47 chambers are not shaped the same. Plug bosses are different, chamber wall shape, etc. I personally feel that the “P” designation on the P-79 and P-90 heads references the entire design as a whole, not only with the newly designed chamber, but also the shorter valves and revised ports with their sharper short side radius etc. The Maxima N-47 has the standard valve length and port shapes, etc. of the Z car N-47. From several aspects in the heads design, the Maxima N-47 resembles the early heads “way more” than it does the newer P-series. Sorry guys, but it is cast “N47” and being as it does resemble the “N” series MUCH more than the “P” series, it only makes since to call it what it is, the Maxima N-47 or MN47 for short. Or how bout call it the N47-A, (beings as the “A” suffix seems to denote hydraulic lifters on the P90 head’s) maybe designate it the N47-B, or N47-M? Or you could just keep on calling it a P47 and the rest of us will just chuckle at you every time we see the “P47” in a post, LOL

Yeah it’s an inside joke, something about him bludgeoning me with the crank for taking so darn long to reply to his E-mail… (and I deserve it ...)LOL

Silent, You've got mail, (and I'm hoping that you don't have a Diesel crank in your closet...LOL)

First off, 1fast Z, it appears that you have some valuable experience in the field of exotic Datsun building and it is quite possible that you have been able to get the Maxima N-47 to work on a flat-top L-28. I don’t want you to think I’m discrediting your work or abilities, though I do question your giving that advice on the forum without qualifying that advice. Honestly, just how many other Maxima N-47 flat-top L-28 combos have you heard of that work with NO issues on pump gas? I’m not talking about “grease ball Bubba” who makes these claims because his engine barely started with this combo, but honest, proven, legitimate claims that it works? I’ve been around, and building performance Datsuns for quite a few years now, your claim as to this combo working on pump gas is the only one I’ve heard of and if you are getting this combo to work on pump gas, you probably should make it clearer to the forum readers that not just any ole Maxima N-47 with any ole cam and carbs/EFI will work. At least 50% of the readers are newbies that wouldn’t understand this and would just take your advice at face value and go out put a Maxima N-47 head on their flat-top L-28 only to have it detonate itself to death. I now that is not what you would want. Let them know that they should use your modified version of the Maxima N-47, what ever minimum intake valve closure point is needed, ign timing parameters, etc. Now here is why the rest of us won’t run pump gas through our flat-top L-28’s with the Maxima N-47 head… If the combustion process is ideal, i.e.fuel mixture is ideal, and the ignition timing is ideal with race gas AND pump gas at the same timing settings, and not overly radical cam timing, i.e. using a STREETABLE cam, then dynamic compression could be low enough at low RPM to run on pump gas, but once the RPMs rise and the engine is “on the cam”, then dynamic compression rises and once it rises to a certain point, (if the engine is properly tuned and dialed in with a good combination of cam, intake tract, and exhaust tract), it’s VE will be greater than it was stock and therefore will be more prone to detonation as there is more cylinder pressure before the ignition process is initiated. I have been pretty successful in Datsun L-series builds and I also specialize in exotic Datsun L-series head work, (extensive porting, chamber reshaping, 5 angle valve seats using Sunnen VSC seat cutters exclusively, etc), but I find it rather hard to believe that the L-28 flat top-Max N-47 head combo doesn’t detonate or ping to some degree on pump gas unless the timing is backed way off from ideal or even backed off from stock settings. I would be interested in reading what a knock sensor records on this combo running pump gas and with ideal ign timing, not backed off. (No guys, I will not volunteer my engine for such a test, LOL). My personal F-prepared track car 240 Z is powered by a flat-top L-28 with one of my “super-whiz-bang” Maxima N-47 heads, I run Av gas through it to keep the denotation demons from breaking my rings. Detonation can happen even mildly, inaudible, and over extended periods of this inaudible detonation, a major reduction in engine life is the result, i.e. hammered rings and rod bearings evidenced by the top compression rings with a step on the top and bottom, and the bearings tend to squish out. At moderate levels of detonation, broken rings and severely hammered rod bearings are the result and at the extreme end, which is usually audible detonation, burnt pistons, broken rings, and again squished out rod bearings. As a performance engine builder, I’ve seen many a customer bring many a hammered street engines through the shop to have us fix their mistakes, and detonation from too high a static comp ratio is just one of those mistakes many engine builders make and almost every single one of them say they never heard it pinging or detonating! In that statement, if you are able to get the Maxima head on a Flat top L-28 to work on Pump gas with a street cam and without backing out the ign timing, then we should not assume that any Joe Blow that wants the ideal set up should be able to just bolt on a Maxima N-47 head to his Flat Top L-28 bottom end and have it live for 100,000 miles of street driving on pump gas. I’m not saying with complete confidence that this combo can’t be run on pump gas and that you haven’t been able to do this yourself, but you must admit, the odds are definitely against it working for “Joe Blow” without some of your special customized head work and meeting certain tuning parameters….

I take it the Sentra is a Front Wheel drive set up right?. So would you swap in the entire front wheel drive set up? Hmmm ….a small displacement front wheel drive diesel pick-em-up? Hmmm. . Interesting. Kinda like the little ole VW pick-up, only a little larger, a little heavier, and just about as cosmetically challenged? LOL

It depends on what you plan to use this engine for. If it is going to be a mild race head and you will be using race gas or at least Av gas, the Maxima N-47, as mentioned by "1fastZ", is an AWESOME head, though you will want to have the larger intake valve seat and valves installed. Comp ratio with an L-28 running Flat tops that come above the deck .025” or so at TDC with the Maxima N-47 yields above 12:1 compression. Not real pump gas friendly, but a great performer. If this is going to be a street car that will run pump gas, then I would lean more towards the P-79 or P90 heads. If you want a more technical reply to your question, I urge you to read all three pages of this thread, as myself and a few others went into depth about Datsun L-series heads for use in performance applications. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=104420 Regards,

How bout a link or an E-mail address for the LS-1 Z-32 conversion manual?

Very very nice. Is this your first Z project? By the looks of your craftsmanship, you’ve been doing this awhile. Again, very nice.

Matt, Yes, from a functional standpoint you could just cut off the EGR boss and seal up the EGR plenum and be done with it. From a cosmetics standpoint, if you look down through the runners of an EGR intake, you can see approx half of the EGR plenum that is cast onto the underside of the runners. Just depends on how picky the customer is about the intake looking as clean and uncluttered as possible. I’m actually in the process right now of setting up a NON EGR Intake manifold using a 60 MM throttle valve for my road Race 240 powered by a Flat top L-28 with one of my Maxima N-47 heads. I haven’t go the inlet as of yet, (probably wont till later this winter), but when I do, I’ll post pics of what I do for you.

I have only done one EGR manifold and it is the one pictured here though it is no where near as nice as Datsunan’s polished example, (oh and by the way Datsunan, if you didn’t already know or haven’t been told yet, your engine is GORGEOUS). What a pain in the arse the EGR version was. Took lots more work than the no EGR version and it still isn’t as nice as the Non EGR intakes. The only way I’ll do another EGR intake like this is for twice the $$$ that I’d charge for a comparable Non EGR intake. I clamp them down to the mill table first and rough machine all the bosses down, then I spend between 2-6 hours with the die grinder blending, of course it depends on how close to “perfect” the customer wants the intake as to how long I spend carving and blending. I’ll then fill in the holes and nooks and do some more blending with the die grinder. I also do a little port work at the entrance of the intake and port match it to the throttle valve the customer is using. I also clean up the little nubs on the head side of the runners as well. If this intake is going on a show car, (or the customer specifies a particular finish), I’ll then take the intake down to a local polisher and have him take the intake either to a polish or just one or two steps below that if the intake is to be painted or coated, like the nice satin one on the Turbo engine above that hasn’t been coated yet. On the EGR style intake, I milled off the EGR plenum off the bottom, and plugged the holes leading into the runners. I also cut off the EGR boss on the rear of the intake as well, and the EGR intake have few more bumps and nubs that need to be machined/ground off. Any how, this customer was pleased with his EGR style intake. In a few more years, the EGR style intakes may be all that is available! The Non EGR intakes are getting harder and harder to find. 10 years ago, it wasn’t a problem to locate one…

I needed some pics of the Big Block 440 powered 280 Z for my ads, (apparently when I posted it for sale, I only posted pics of the engine), and being as I haven’t driven it in about 3 weeks, I thought it appropriate to warm it up, take it for quick drive and paint a couple VERY long black stripes down the road…. With 440 cubes of torque on hand, the Torque flight 727 trans with the manual shift body firmly set in 2nd gear, only half throttle was needed and those cheesy ole Goodyear Eagle tires were turning to fog… YEE HAA…..

Bernardd, If you are at all uncomfortable with doing this, you really should leave it to someone that has done this before. As a novice it is very easy to do more damage by compromising cylinder head material thickness, gasket sealing, or hinder air flow worse than what it was before he/she took the Dremel tool to the head. Now don’t let me discourage you from trying your own DIY head. If you have reasonable mechanical aptitude and have some technical back ground or knowledge in basic Hot-Rodding, I say go for it. How do you think the rest of us got the point we are at? We all started someplace and made a few mistakes along the way. How else do you learn right? Ok now as for the details you asked for…… (here is my sad attempt at humor). Uh… details…well…uh.. you want.. por-ting details… mmmm… yeah…. In short, I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request, or no I’m not going to tell you how much material to remove and where to remove it from. I have my secrets, just as Rebello, Sun belt, and several other fine engine builders and tuners out there, and if we “gave” all our secrets away then there would be no incentive for us to keep pioneering the evolution of high powered L-series now would there? Now for ONE MEEELION dollas, I would be willing divulge to you ALL that I “know” and “do” when it comes to porting Datsun heads. Until that Meeelion dolla check clears the bank, … LOL In all seriousness, The information is out there, you just have to look for it. Frank Hansowetz book is a great source of info on this subject, in regards to cylinder head porting, and if you read and re-read and study the pictures and have a good technical background especially in the field of fluid dynamics, you will begin to “see between the lines”, so speak, a lot more than most people grasp from just reading it. Good luck,

Silent, Got it. I'll get back to you by Sunday. Thanks,

As usual, I went crazy and wrote up a novel so this is my disclaimer. I apologize for taking up so much band width. When I get babbling about engines, I tend to ramble on and on… When someone posts questions like these, I just can’t help myself I realize that there is a lot of info here and for some of the new guys, this might be a bit thick and hard to absorb an in some cases may cause headaches, ear bleeds, bulging forehead veins etc. If any of these symptoms arise please, drink 2 beers and call your physician. If anyone finds any of this information or incorrect or misleading, please feel free to post corrections or additional info... Ok, to the question at hand… Opinions vary on just how effective just “polishing” alone of the ports of an EFI head really is. As for the Datsun L-series, on the intake side, the injectors are aimed directly at the back side of the intake valve so there is very little contact of the fuel spray with the port walls so polishing the ports can aid in keeping the boundary layer just that much closer to the port wall, though how much HP is that worth on a stock engine or mildly wild street/track engine? Probably not much, though the more radical the engine is, the greater the gain, though I don’t feel that it will offer any more than 1-2% gain. (On carbed engines, I would prefer to leave the port surface rough like the “as cast” finish. This roughness causes the boundary layer in the port to be slightly turbulent which helps keep the fuel from falling out of suspension). On the exhaust side, it doesn’t matter whether it is carbed or EFI here, just polishing alone will help about as much as it does on the intake, Not very much and for the same reasons. As for polishing the chambers, this could go either way. I will give you the theories as I understand them to be. Any other tech-geeks, please feel free to chime in… My opinion is just use which ever one of these theories that fits your particular application and budget and you should be just fine. Chambers AS CAST, i.e. not polished. Being as the Datsun heads are aluminum, they conduct heat from the combustion chambers rather well as compared to cast iron heads, (sorry no Iron heads that I’m aware of for the L-series GAS engines.), though this heat loss from the combustion cycle is detrimental to power production as this heat directly affects cylinder pressure. (Torque and HP 101…. Remember, it is the pressure difference between the top and bottom of the pistons that causes the piston to go down the bore and turn the crank which in turn rotates your tires and turns them into a foggy haze which inturn will upset you neighbors if you try this infront of your house. The greater this pressure differential over as long a period of time during the power stroke, the more torque your engine will produce, and the more torque you can produce at higher RPMS, the more HP you will generate. Easy right?) Any how, the “AS CAST” surface is quite rough and has lots of surface area compared to a polished surface, so the “as cast” surface would absorb more heat from the chamber than the polished chamber. Now this can be bad or it could be good. If you are running a high octane fuel, then your engine most likely can withstand more pressure and heat before the air fuel mixture ignites itself, in this instance, polished would be good as it would keep more heat in the chamber therefore building more pressure, hence more torque. Now on the other hand, if you are using a sub grade fuel and you are already having pinging/detonation issues, polishing the chambers will only make things worse in that instance. (A fuels Octane rating is essentially that fuels ability to handle pressure and heat before it chemically changes state and releases its potential energy in the form of heat which is measured in BTU’s, i.e. the higher the octane rating, the more stable the fuel is, or, more heat is required to ignite it). Static Compression ratio has a little something to do with this as well. As you already know, the higher the compression ratio, the more likely your fuel is to ignite al by itself, so we try and get as much compression ratio as we can for the type of gas we intend to burn. Now I’m going off on tangent and I’ll throw another wrench into this mess, Dynamic compression! Dynamic compression is what really counts. Dynamic compression takes into account static compression AND the intake cam timing, to be more precise, the point at which the intake valve closes. You see, if you look at any cam card you will notice the intake valve closes some point after the pistons has passed bottom Dead Center and is on its way up the bore on the compression stroke. At very slow RPM’s, this just means that less air is being trapped in the cylinder cause the valve is closing at some point during the compression stroke. The more radical the cam, the later the intake valve closes. That is why if all you do is swap in a big burly cam, your cranking compression will be noticeably less than with the stock cam. Now as RPM increases, the dynamic compression will change, for the better that is, in regard to making power, (ever notice that big cams don’t make much power down low?) The pressures being developed by this dynamic compression is essentially the “volumetric efficiency curve” of the engine, i.e. the torque curve. Other factors that play into this is intake runner length/dia, header length/dia, and all the other factors that affect cylinder filling. This increase in cylinder pressure is greatest at the point where torque is at its peak. Torque output peaks here cause the ramming affect of the inlet charge is, in essence, super charging itself. In some race engines, like Nascar, engine builders have achieve greater than 100% VE, (super charging without any mechanical help), with out turbos or blowers. This is due to intake and exhaust tracts tuned exactly and specifically to the cam, etc. (This is why I only put a little faith in a flow bench numbers as those numbers only show “static” flow not the dynamic flow that is taking place within the intake and exhaust tracts of a running engine, and thee “static” flow numbers only should be used to compare modifications performed on that one head only to see if the mods helped or hurt “static” flow and should not be used to compare other heads flowed on other flow benches,). Ok, back to dynamic compression. You see, the air is drawn through the intake runners in chunks. The intake valve opens, the piston draws the air into the cylinder, air flow is speeding up, the intake valve closes, the air still has momentum and we all know air has weight/density, the air charge compresses behind the intake valve and surges back, much like a wave hitting a wall and coming back. Then it comes back again with “almost” the same force so as the intake valve opens the air is already moving toward the valve so the piston doesn't have to draw it in, it is quite literally shoving itself in the cylinder. (This is called the Helmholtz cycle and typically most engine designers/tuners tune for the 2nd or 3rd cycle depending on application and design goals). The greater this ramming effect, the greater the VE. OEM street engines usually don't exceed 85% VE. Hot street engines rarely don't exceed 90%-95% VE, full race engines are around 100%-110% VE. In short, VE varies with RPM and is greatest at torque peak. Thus more air is being shoved into the cylinder so cylinder pressure is greater, therefore MORE TORQUE. Now don't be confused, the compression "ratio" never changes, just cylinder pressure. VE= the amount of air actually being drawn into the cylinder versus the actual volume of the cylinder. Now if too much pressure is present before the pistons reaches top dead center, it will spontaneously ignite as the fuel is only “so” stable and will handle only “so” much pressure and heat before it ignites. Optimizing this pressure/heat level to just under the point that WE want the fuel and air to ignite is a very tough goal to achieve. Some people say that polishing the combustion chamber will keep carbon from sticking and building in the chamber, that is BS! Every single cylinder head that I have seen that has been run for any length of time that has been polished still had carbon stuck to the chambers. So should you polish your chambers or not? Well it’s up to you. I’ve laid out some basic theories, hows and why’s and as applied to our beloved L-series engines, if decide to polish or not polish the chambers and/or ports remember, the gains made or lost will be VERY small, so small infact that you might be able measure that gain/loss on the dyno, then again, the gain or loss could be so small, you might not be able to measure it, and I’m pretty sure you won’t feel it in the seat of the pants when you mash the loud pedal.

Yes it does, Shifter had been modified and has a SERIOUS dog leg in it. Considered a possible linkage set up, he isn’t sure yet. He says he might try it with the dog leg in it initially. It more or less moves up and down for the 1-2, and 3-4 shift, but doesn’t feel to abnormal. We’ll see, and that if he even completes the project now as this M-3 has taken front and center stage…

Yes and no. I can’t really divulge the details as it is supposed to be a secret project. I’m sure a lot of you old timers know who he is and that it is not unusual for him to perform extreme make overs on Datsuns. A couple of you have been to my shop and seen this car, so remember, hush hush… As of tonight, he is actually contemplating putting this Z project on the back burner in favor a first gen BMW M-3 that he made an offer on. He has lusted after those cars for some time and another of our good friends, Anders, in Eugene Oregon, has a VERY nice VERY competitive example. Good night fellas,

Looks VERY Nice. Gorgeous car you have there. I personally LOVE the looks of the cleaned up early ’75-’76 Federal intake manifolds. I’ve cleaned up quite a few of them myself. Currently have one on my road race car getting SDS EFI, (the lower picture), and just finished the intake in the upper picture for my best friends car. This particular 240, pictured here in my shop, is powered by a mostly stock L-28ET, yet the chassis is in the middle of a major transformation. This intake ended up as one of my nicest versions yet, top and sides are smooth and transition nicely into the organically shaped runners. I did leave the OE throttle shaft towers per my friend’s request, though they sure do look real nice without them. This intake is getting the Turbo Black ceramic coating, currently just bead blasted ready for the ceramic coating., (the Turbo exhaust manifold is already Turbo Black, The T3/4 hybrid Turbo is already coated with the exhaust housing in black and the intake housing in satin aluminum). As for the intake itself, I machined all the bosses and filled in all the holes, also modified the OE ZX throttle valve while I was at it including profiling the throttle shaft.

Here is another picture. I apologize for the graininess. I shot it with my camera set on ISO 1600 as it was fairly dark and most of the shots were action shots, i.e. a twin turbo Camaro running 9.0 @ 160+ doing double wheel stands, once at launch and again as boost came on, AWESOME to watch, also captured a couple shots of the electric Datsun 1200, aka White Zombie, running low 12’s doing wheel stands on launch!!! I hope you don't mind me posting pics of your car John....

Silent, I finally sent that post I promised.

Here is a picture I took last night at the late night drags here in Portland Oregon of Mr John Kurzhals Turbo charged S-30 280 Z sporting a 240 front bumper, (BTW, he ran a best of 12.6@ 114 MPH last night…). Hope this helps..