Mike C

It may be hard to find a 153 tooth flywheel for an externally balanced 400...but somebody used to make a counterweight that bolted to the 400 crank, and some aftermarket flywheels have removeable counterweights to work with either internal or external balanced motors, just most are 168 tooth configuration. Give PAW a call as they are a McLeod dealer and the ol' stanbys Summit and Jegs can probably help you out.

The 200SX does, but the 240sx uses a viscous diff and they have the short pinion r200. NOT interchangeable. You could swap the diff into yours, but will run into the same probs as the 88 SE viscous LSD. Just for grins I had my neighbor get a price on a new '87 LSD diff assembly... $2350 llist $1850 his price. OUCH.

I did not mention the valve thing, but should have. 2.02 intake and 1.6 exhausts won't work, and if notching the bore did make for clearance, the edge would still be too close to the cylinder wall and would be shrouded. Since original GM 2.02 cylinder heads disappeard with the L82 Corvette in 1981 they are as rare as the proverbial hens teeth, but should have been mentioned!

The so called high gear r200 is not very common. Some late 70's cars had a 3.36 and there is a RARE 3.15 but mostly you will be stuck with 3.54. 3.54 and OD with a motor that turns 6000rpm should give you 150mph (I'm not doing the math, save that for you!)As far as aerodynamics,it is prudent to add some mods, like them or not. Lowering to begin, then a front air dam and a way to get air out of the engine compartment if nothing more than pinning the hood up about 3/4". If I recall, the CD of a Z is near .45 ?! Worse than my '69 Camaro's .38, but the Z does have a tiny frontal area.

Scoggin Dickey has reman GM gear reduction Delco starters for $89 for the 153 toot flywheel. These are the starters on the LT1. I can't remember from the JTR manual if that one works or not? I got a couple free from the boat mechanic down the street. Still has one corrosion short in it that I'll fix as soon as I can get a female torx that fits. Another option is the CVR or Proform starters around $150 (like the '89 'vette starter in the JTR)Nothing worse than a starter that won't... so I swear by the gear reduction ones vs. the old style heat soak prone GM starters.

Means it doesn't have connections for the TV cable would be my guess. Get a universal bracket and linkage adapters from the parts store.

Pre-made 180 degree headers are usually for dirt track Modifieds. No way they will fit without mods. Custom made ones will set you back about $400-$500 dollars plus $175 for ceramic coating, which is a no-brainer on a set of $500 custom headers IMO. I think it is awesome for a hybrid z, but my frugal nature can't stomach the thought of headers that cost more than my first Z...

Depends. 305 heads, 58cc chambers usually. 350 heads, it depends. Up until 1971, 64cc chambers. Then with the advent of the aluminum head L-98 those had 58cc chambers like a 305. The TBI 350 in caprices had 64cc chambers for 9.5:1 but trucks continued to get 76cc. Then in 96 with the Vortec headed motors, they went back to 64cc on the 350. Vortec 305 still has 58cc chambers. A 64cc head on your 305 should drop compression to 9:1 from 9.5. Also beware of exhaust manifold bolt patters. In the late 70's they added another manifold hole to one of the end exhaust ports. Early heads that don't have this won't bolt up to later manifolds that need it. 76cc heads on your 305 should net 8:1

Do you mean the side yoke for the halfshaft? The r180 had bolt on retainer plates behind the flange, but the r200 is one piece.

I had no problems with the R200 conversion and the ST sway bar uprights. My '73 parts car has the uprights, but the rear bar is an ST that attaches to the factoyr mounts. The '73 was thus equipped with the mounts, but not the bar so if you want you can run a factory rear bar from a newer car or buy one for a 78 or so. My 72 does not have the factory sway bar mounts.

The valve spring is installed at a particular height with the valve on the seat. Modifying the valvetrain has nothing to do with the spring. A valve job, cutting new spring pockets or installing a special spring with a required height might need shimming. One of the problems with having a general machine shop do an L series head is they aren't very careful with stem installed heights. Very important on the L head unlike a small block chevy where you can just shim the spring for correct installed height.

Tim beat me to it... Another thing you can do is take a piece of rubber fule line and connect the front and rear vents. Then take a razor blade and trim the top out of the hose. This effectively extends the vents and gives extra volume before fuel sloshes into the engine. The danger of the low rear float is fuel starvation on take-off. Jet extensions should be MANDATORY if you are running the rear float low, and are not a bad idea on a hard launching car anyways.

DOH! If you do have to pony up the $ for a new one, Summit has a Powermaster 100 amp one wire alternator for $100. Adapt to the Nissan bracket and never look back! You can then modify the wiring as per the JTR manual and really clean up the engine compartment.

Th '87 and up small blocks have a different angle on the center bolts on the intake. It is possible to ovalize these to work on and older motor, or you can pony up the cash for an aftermarket TBI intake. FWIW, I have the complete TBI system off of a '90 305 camaro if anybody is interested. Intake, TB, distributor, air cleaner, wiring and computer is yours for the trade of an MSD small cap computer HEI. I bought the motor for the T5, flywheel, accessory drive and distributor to use on my TPI motor. If you don't want to swap, I'll sell for $250

In my experience with TH350, it's not the HP that kills the tranny, but RPM. If you turn the motor 6200 rpm you should have no troubles with a street/strip built TH350, if you turn it 6800 rpm plus that may not be the case.I had LOTSof problems with the mechanical governer braking. After breaking 4 in a year including a full manual valve body trans that had a front pump failure (in a school zone of all things!)I solved my troubles by going to a Super T10 4 speed The TH400 is significantly stronger but also penalizes you with a dramatic weight increase and power consumption. If memory serves, it takes 18 hp to just rotate the weight of a powerglied in top gear, 35 hp for a TH350 and 48 hp for a TH400. This pales in comparison to the 60 hp for a Ford C6, but shows a top end advantage to the 10 hp it requires for a manual trans inertia. With the weight of a Z and the torque of your turbo motor, you can probably pull off a glide. I believe you want your converter to flash about 200 rpm shy of your torque peak. A well built TH350 should set you back about $500 locally and $550 for a TH400, more if you add an aftermarket sprag (recommended)Figure at least 300 for a 3500 rpm converter, more for a strip only type. TH350/400 use the same converter, but a powerglide is different, but aftermarket ones are available with a TH350 style input shaft. If you mail order a trans, a Hughes seems the way to go. TCI seems to have a high failure rate (at least in their OD trans that I know people who have bought) B&M seems OK and Summit has their TH350 for $900 w/out core.

The ZX has a floating caliper in the front with a single piston. This is really easy. Just take the tires off and compress piston with a c-clamp. Remove caliper, put in new pads and bolt back up. I'm not sure if the rear is a screw piston, but if so it will require a tool to "screw" the piston back in before putting the new pads. This screw effect is how the parking brake works on a lot of rear disc cars with integral parking brake.

Crane makes cams, Suspension Techniques bars and springs, Energy suspension bushings, Mallory distributor. All of these things can come from Motorsport Auto, or for a big discount, Summit Racing. Get a Motorsport catalog to find out what is available and then call Summit for a better price (by about 30% usually!)keep knocking around this board and the internet and you'll come up with quite a bit of stuff.

The turbo swap definitely requires the least tools and fab, but donors are hard to come by, at least around here. For a manual trans V8 donor, I like the 91-92 235hp 305 TPI cars, used Cop Camaros were usually equipped thusly. Add an SLP cam, headers and adjustable FP regulator and you should be close to 300hp, but have excellent drivability. The sweet deal with the LT1 is not having to mod the hood latch, but a 6 speed equipped donor motor will set you back a good $1000 over the TPI most likely.

In my experience, using the hand brake when the brakes are FAR out of adjustment doesn't work. You will NEVER get good pedal feel from a 240 brake system if the rears are not adjusted out as far as they'll go without dragging. I would readjust the rears, and put some more miles on it. I don't recall, are the pads the same f/r or different? My GM vehicles have a different pad on the leading edge vs. the trailing edge so make sure you don't have them swapped or both the long ones on one side and shorts on the other.

I believe the Griffin 19x22 aluminum rad, $189 from Summit, coupled with the 2 speed Taurus fan is the sure thing. As far as header wrap, It is extremely hard on the metal of the header itself. Not sure of the exact science, but failures are known to occur and it is not recommended for street vehicles. Ceramic coated headers makes a big difference in underhood heat.

For a daily driver, I like the Suspension Techniques springs, and they were only $120 from SUmmit for all 4.

You could subframe it, but basically that's what backhalfing is anyhow. The Camaro rear is too wide, but get it narrowed and buy new axles, no prob. What years are you looking at? The 71-81 8.5" rears are STOUT and available with disc brakes 79-81 in WS-6 TAs. THe 7.5 and 7 5/8 can be made stronger, but are no better than an R200 IMO. I narrowed a '79 Trans Am drum brake housing to put in my friends '93 extended cab S-10 with a 427 ci small block.

3 V8's available, all with '76 cc heads. First is a 145hp 2 barrel motor. Second is a 185 hp 4 bbl motor L-48, finally is a sweet motor, the 9.0:1 L-82. It also has the 76cc heads, but 2.02/1.6 valves. Rated at 245 hp, this was the highest factory rated small block from '74 until something like '89 whne the L-98 hit 255.

I have a first edition JTR somewhere that is spiral bound and not book-bound. I also have a book-bound like 7th version. (No, neither are for sale.) I agree it's nice to savae a few bucks where and when you can, but get the newer version as it has info the older ones don't on part#'s and improvements, whether you buy new or recycled.

Alos, as I noted above, it is possible to over-center the pressure plate and ruin it with too much fork travel.