Zmanco

Let me throw out an alternate point of view: if you're only driving on the street, then you'll find that it's rare that you can stay in the boost for even 10 seconds before you're at go to jail speeds. So if the existing setup doesn't have any cooling issues then you can probably go without it. That said, on my mildly built NA L28 in a 73 I added a 10 row Earls oil cooler because on the track my temps would climb throughout the 20 minute session. http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?/topic/68330-thoughts-on-this-aluminum-radiator/page__p__643292__hl__oil%20cooler__fromsearch__1&&do=findComment&comment=643292 Now that I've added the turbo I upgraded to a 25 row. If you think that some track time is in your future, then definitely add the cooler.

I'm running Beck/Arnley Axxis XBG Semi Metallic #088-1383M for '84 300zx in the front and Hawk HP+ in the rear. The Axxis isn't anything special, it's just what I started with at both ends, and then later tried the Hawks in the rear. I'd really prefer to run the Hawks in the front and run something even more aggressive in the rear, but it's hard to find coefficient of friction charts for a lot of pads. The good news is that this setup is very good on the street, yet I have never experienced any fade with it. At Pueblo Motorsports in CO which is reasonably hard on brakes, I was fine (seeing about 115 at the end of the straight before braking to 80 for a sweeper) while the stock 350Zs, even with high temp fluid, would have major fade issue within 10-15 minutes. FYI, the 300zx pads have a tab on the backing plate that you have to grind off. But look at pads for that car - it gives you a lot more choices in pad materials than looking at Toyota 4x4s.

I have the same setup as you on my 240z and found that even with the prop valve all the way open I was always locking the fronts first. So I went with a more agressive pad in the rear (higher coefficient of friction) and now the prop valve actually makes a difference. I will say that I had always read that the fronts do most of the braking so was very pleasantly surprised how much harder I could brake when I had the rears properly set up. The 280z weighs more than the 240 so I'm not sure how the balance f/r is affected, but once you solve the issue of the right front locking, I'd suggest you find a safe place to gradually add more rear brake and see if you can ever get the rears to lock first. I suspect you'll find that you can't.

I'm not sure I follow all of your description but I think you said you're using the MSD box to drive the coil and only want to use MS for fuel. Correct? The problem with triggering MS off of the coil in your setup is that MSD generates multiple sparks per ignition event at lower RPM. (MSD stands for Multiple Spark Discharge). Try using the tach out wire from the MSD box (white wire IIRC) to trigger MS. Dig around on the MS site to find how they recommend you build the input section of the board. It's been a few years since I ran that way and I'm afraid I don't remember the details.

The adjusting bolt should be vertical.

26.5 degrees advance at 18 psi boost with flat top pistons sounds pretty aggressive to me. What's the CR? I'm running low teens advance at 15 psi with a CR of 8.3. From what I understand, the air/fuel mixture burns much faster when it's compressed and rich such as under boost, so it really doesn't need a lot of advance. Going back to the broken skirts, so do you think the engine already had piston slap and the extra detonation "rattled" the pistons enough to break the skirts? For some reason those pictures really surprised me - seems like it would be really hard to break the skirts unless the pistons were really loose in the cylinders.

Why do you think the skirts broke? Perhaps from running it too hard (18 psi) with excessive piston slap? I don't recall ever seeing that failure on our L engines.

I think Tony brings up a good point that you should be wondering what else isn't right with this build ... That said, the identical thing happened to me about 10k miles after the engine rebuild. I bought a new damper and crank bolt and used the Miata fix listed in one of the posts above and drove it for another 15k miles before I changed to a turbo motor. I used some white nail polish to mark a line on one side of the bolt/washer/damper so that it would be obvious if anything began to move and then checked it regularly, but nothing ever moved. It's not the kind of fix that any of us would prefer, but if it's the only way to get it back on the road, then you might take a shot at it. BTW, lesson learned for me: always use loctite on the damper and crank bolt from now on!

I'll add one more element that Daeron and Tony D touched on and that's the noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) of the car. Do 0-60 mph in a Lexus sedan with the AC on in 5-6 seconds and it doesn't feel like much, mostly because it's so quiet, smooth, etc. You barely hear the engine rev and the shifts are smooth and refined. Do that in my 240Z with the windows down when it had a header, triple webers, tokico's, etc and it felt/sounded much more impressive. Yet the acceleration numbers were more or less the same. Like Tony D said, our butt dynos are inherently subjective and influenced by things that have nothing to do actual speed and acceleration.

The illuminas are adjustable, the HPs are not. I have never seen claims for durability of either one by Tokico, nor have I read any stories that suggest either one will last longer than the other. One of my illuminas started leaking shortly after installation and was replaced under warranty. I was careful not to scratch the exposed piston during the install too. In any event, since then they have been reliable and have more than 25k miles and at least a dozen track days on them.

If you are going for the lowest price and not worried about who you buy from, I would suggest you check ebay for illuminas and tokico spring packages. It used to be that you could buy the package for about the same price as the struts alone, at least that's the way it was a few years ago when I bought mine.

Is there any performance reason to prefer to cut stock springs instead of shorter/stiffer aftermarket springs? Or is it just an economic issue (better to cut up something you already have vs. having to pay for it)?

While I have not tried it, I would be VERY SURPRISED if 16x8 rims with 225 or wider tires will clear stock fenders with a 2" drop. I run 16x7 Panasports with 225 rubber and tokico illuminas and springs and had occasional rubs on big bumps until I trimmed the fender lip. Dropping it 1" further with rims that stick out 0.5" more is bound to rub a lot more often.

My mistake, you wrote "knock" and I read "ping".

The fuse for the electric fuel pump on the 73 is an inline one attached on the side of the main fuse box. Open the lid on the console and look around as it may be "floating" after all these years. The contacts on the inline fuse holder and/or the fuse could very well be oxidized after all these years. Mine were. Also, not sure if this is relevant to the issue you are seeing with the pump, but you should NOT see a spark when connecting a voltmeter to 12 volts. Something else is wrong. For example, are you sure you had it set to measure volts and not amps? Did you have the leads plugged into the correct sockets? Even a cheap volt meter has a high enough internal resistance that it will not cause a spark when properly set to measure voltage.

You're seeing 35 degrees advance at cruise AND pinging at 2800 rpm? Something else is not right. Just a thought: has the damper failed and started to rotate? If it did, the actual timing would be more than what you measured. That would explain the symptoms you describe. To verify: by hand, turn the engine until it's at TDC as determined by the #1 cyl valve lobes or via a screwdriver in the #1 spark plug hole and see if the timing mark is correct. I suspect you'll find it's not.

jacob80, you're in luck. Since I posted this I decided to install the mechanical gauge as well - the stock gauge is so slow to change. Here's a picture of how I did it. Basically I mounted a 2nd T into the turbo T. The copper adapter is from McMaster 4978k121. Then there is 4860k631 also from McMaster to adapt the female copper T to the female turbo T. The last adapter came from Summit. It's a 1/8" NPT to BPT adapter ATM-2269. It's a bit of a Rube Goldberg setup, but I couldn't find a better way given the mix of BPT and NPT.

+1 what Ron said. When does it overheat? If only when in stop/go traffic, then it might be the fans. But if it's on the highway, then it's not them as the airflow from the car moving at speed dominates over any flow from the fans themselves. How are the fans mounted? Is there any shroud? And what type are they? Are they the typical ones sold on ebay, MSA etc? If so, then it's likely they don't have enough air flow for low speed driving. I started with 2 10"s when I was NA and they were on almost all the time in stop/go traffic. I run with 2 12" and turbo without a shroud and they're adequate, but not much more than that, on hot days (90+).

Thanks Leon, well said. I'll add that NVH is a standard term in the mechanical and automotive engineering worlds. It's commonly used in Car and Driver and Road and Track as well. I even saw it used in Consumer Reports the other day. In any event, I usually spell things out and will try to remember to do that more often. Now back to the original question ... (thank you to Jon and 1 tuff z for their inputs.) I hit a curb and pushed the TC attaching point on the chassis back a bit and the local frame puller doesn't want to have a go at it. So I'm leaning towards the TT TC rods and just using the adjustability of the TC length to take up the slack so to speak. If I include their LCA it would let me finally get some more camber and caster as well. I'm not really worried about NVH, just wanted to be sure that it wasn't going to be as noisy as a solid diff mount.

I'm running the Ford 440cc injectors with the stock rail. They're listed in the injector sticky (MS forum IIRC?) part number EOSE-A1A. I did have to drill out the hole in the manifold a little as the pintel is a slightly larger than the stock turbo injectors.

I've been searching for some feedback from people running the Techno Toy TC Rod and front LCA on an S30 but so far haven't found any. The general consensus is that they're well built and good guys to do business with. I'm curious to hear: - how they've held up over time, especially when driven on the street. In particular, any issues with the heim joint wearing? - how did they affect NVH? - were there any issues (besides tire clearance) getting up to 3 degrees camber and 4-5 degrees caster? In other words, do they have enough range of adjustability? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

That's what I initially thought last fall when it was still warm. But 2 weekends ago I cleaned it up and topped it off and then have driven it quite sanely and after only a few hundred miles it leaked enough to drip on the garage floor again. I did put new bearings in when I originally rebuilt it, but that was more almost a dozen track days and 5k miles of street driving ago. Next time I come back from a drive I think I'll use the IR gun to measure the case temp. Maybe something has started to bind and is generating a lot of heat?

A few months ago my R180 began to leak gear oil from the vent up top. When I first installed it I replaced the plastic vent with a new one and it fit nice and snug. It's installed with the arrow on top pointing forwards. The strange thing is that for the first few years it didn't leak, but shortly after I finished my turbo build last fall it began to leak. The other day I cleaned it up and refilled it with a few ounces and since then have been careful to drive it easy with no wheel spin and yet it's still leaking. The vent is still snug and pointing forwards. Diff is a 4.11 originally from a 720 pickup and has a powerbrute CLSD in it in case any of that matters. Should the arrow be pointing in some other direction? Any thoughts?

As a fellow recent turbo convert, I'm grinning as I read your post because this weekend I was working on boost control. Initially I just let the 8 psi waste gate actuator do its thing and still the power was intoxicating. But I'm now experimenting with controlling boost with megasquirt. So far I've seen boost go up to 14 psi and the extra torque is amazing. Things happen REALLY FAST between 4k and 7k! But it's not very driveable (boost hits like a sledge hammer) and in 2nd gear on a cool day traction is a problem. Forget about WOT in 1st. I still have some "refining" left to do Like Mat asked, what are you using for engine control? Tell us more about the rest of your setup. And enjoy!

That piece reminds me of the pieces I tossed. You should have another piece that is about 4-5" long with both ends slightly bent down that goes through the ends of the two pins (each 2-3" long) that hold the pads in place. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the assembled caliper handy - perhaps someone else does?