Zmanco

Is the weight the same? I haven't seen a 240sx subframe, but seems like that would add weight assuming the other parts have comparable weights.

You can use an injector flow tester to measure flow at a variety of PW, plot on a graph of flow vs. PW and use a best-fit to see where the line instersects the zero flow axis. That's the dead time. There's a youtube video of one of the developers running this test. I'm not a fan of spraying gasoline in my garage, so went with my poorman's workaround at idle. Another way to do it is with an oscilloscope and current probe. I have the scope, but high quality current probes are expensive so that wasn't an option.

Hmmm. I have some notes I pasted into a text file from a few years ago that say both the 240 and 280z are progressive in front and it's the 280zx that are linear. But I would be glad if you're correct on that. Can you or someone confirm from first hand experience that the 280Z front springs are linear? Going from memory, I was under the impression that the 280zx springs are slightly larger in diameter so not an option for the S30. Or am I mistaken on that? I suppose that begs another question: is going from 140F/165R to 175F/200R enough of an increase to make it worth it? If I had choices, I'd go with 200F/225R.

I just got off the phone with Dave at AZCar and he's so backed up on his orders that he has no plans to put the springs back into production for S30 Zs. Apparently he has to use a new supplier and he says he just doesn't have time to look up the specs and test a sample on a car, even if he had a car to test on. He sounded rather stressed so regardless of why, he's not going to have them for sale any time soon. I currently have the Tokico springs and Illumina's on my 73 240 and want to go to a stiffer spring but as I already have adjustable LCA and TC from TTT I don't want to go the expense of coil overs. The 180F 200R combo from AZCar looked like it would be a good compromise for my mostly street driven but occasional track car. I've seen where people have taken the Tokico 280Z springs and cut them down but as the fronts are progressive, I'd prefer to stay away from them. Although I've never felt it with the current 240 Tokicos, I can see by the marks on the springs' paint that they are binding. Does anyone know of another source of springs?

I'm with rossman, unless you plan to track it, there's no need to do all this, unless you want to Simple tried and true mods to the stock suspension will bring the performance envelope up to where you'll be at go-to-jail speeds by the time you exceed the car's limits. The biggest limitation I'm finding is getting enough camber recovery in the front. The unreinforced early Z has a soft chassis and hence doesn't do well with the stiff springs required and running enough static camber makes the car miserable on the street. Adding more caster helps, but the tires begin to hit the fenders in the front after about 3.5 degrees, which isn't enough. However, on the street, I don't notice a lack of front end grip - the overall cornering levels are already beyond what is safe to use on public roads. Again, unless you just want to do all this because you want to - a legitimate reason - go with Arizona Z cars springs, Tokico 5 way struts, MSA ARBs and a good set of summer tires and you'll have a blast carving canyons. If you want to go further, you can add coil overs and camber plates, but for the street that's not necessary. In fact, I'd argue that raising the cornering limit even further will probably have a sad ending when inevitably you overdrive the car on a public road and hit something, or worse.

Within TS you can import and export tables. For example, open the VE table and look at the green arrows on the top row. Hover the mouse over them and they will tell you which is import and export. Use the import function to load the VE table I provided. You can do the same for the others too. Note: I corrected the instructions above for Req fuel. Use the calculator in TS to determine Req fuel and then divide by 2 and you can use the VE table as-is.

My setup is pretty similar to yours (same turbo, LC1 O2 sensor, 437 cc/min injectors, but Isky turbo cam probably is different) so I'll attach 4 tables that can help you get started. The first three, VE, AFR, and Ignition are pretty obvious. The fourth is needed for the VE Analyze Live feature. Basically this tells TS how much delay there is between a combustion event and when those exhaust gasses reach the O2 sensor. By trial and error I've arrived at this chart. My O2 sensor is mounted on the underside of the downtube near the bottom to get it away from the hot turbo. If you've got the sensor closer, you may need to shorten these times. A note on the VE table: Req fuel is 7 ms for my setup, but I run with half that (3.5 ms) which doubles all the values in the VE table making it easier to tune at low pulse widths such as idle. You will need to scale the table to whatever Req fuel you choose to run. Edit: Since all the VE values are 2x, you should enter half your calculated Req fuel in the top box. Another note: before you spend much time tuning, make sure you load the correct injector dead time. changing this later will change the entire VE table, especially for cells with smaller VE values where dead time is a large portion of the total injector PW. If you don't know what the dead time is, read the manual for MS/Extra where it explains how it works and gives recommendations for low and high impedance. If you want to measure it yourself but don't have an oscilloscope with current probe (who does?) you can follow this method. Get the idle tuned so it's stable, both rpm and AFR. Then alternate between 2 and 6 alternating squirts. When you have the correct dead time, the AFR will be the same for both. Be careful of heat soak of the IAT - I'd recommend doing this on a cool day with the hood open. Once you have the dead time set, you can use the VE Analyze Live feature to autotune while you drive. It works amazing well - assuming you have reasonable values for Lambda Delay. Otherwise you'll see some strange changes in the lower half of the VE table, especially in the lower left corner. And one more word of caution - be careful about running much boost until you know you have everything sorted. It won't take much detonation at high boost to break something. I highly recommend running a knock sensor, such as Knocksense. Even if you don't integrate with MS, it will flash an LED whenever it detects detonation. Including the sensor it's about $100. Consider it cheap insurance. Daniel's MS tables 2011-10-24.zip

I'll add that if you're serious about driving on road courses, the Miata's stiffer chassis will allow you to use the stiffer springs you need. An early Z (71-73) is a flexi-flyer and it's pointless to put 350+ lb/in springs on such a floppy chassis. That will limit how far you can take it without some serious chassis bracing. As itzgoten said, the Miata turns in better. We have a lot of Miatas running with us at our Z club track days and I've ridden in a few with a variety of mods. The one common thing is that they can crank the wheel at the last moment and the car just turns in. It takes a lot of modifications to get a Z to do that. As for motivation, there are turbo kits for the miata that will be comparable to a turbo Z in conservative tune i.e. ~250whp. Either car with that level of power is a very entertaining car at the track. Of course, if raw power is important, you can take the L28 farther than the Miata, but LS1 conversions are possible for the Miata as well. Having said that, like others, I have had so many fun conversations in parking lots and stop lights with people who had one, or had a brother/sister/boyfriend/girlfriend who had one, etc. It's special that young kids who have no idea what a 240Z is will still give me thumbs up from their mother's minivan. The car is a timeless beauty, and with some extra effort, can be made to run with more modern cars. Go with it because it makes you smile, not because it's a good investment.

I mounted it just in front of the fuel tank up against the bottom of the hatch floor and have had no issues. As long as you plumb it properly, I don't think the height matters - the low pressure pump is moving the fuel, not gravity.

Just to be clear, the diff won't affect where in the rev range the engine makes the most power. You want to match the characteristics of the cam with the driveline. I still see you saying you want good low end torque, but also want to wind it out and make good power at high revs too. On our L28s, you have to compromise - the better the engine makes power at high revs, the weaker its torque will be at low revs. That said, I run a 4.11 diff with an 81-83 zx 5 speed and find the combination a lot of fun to drive on the street. The 4.11 means that I don't have to downshift as often as with a lower diff, and I can wind it out in 2nd gear without hitting go to jail speeds. It also spends very little time in the lower rpm range as long as I'm willing to shift. When I ran NA on the track it was great because there was always a gear where I was in the power band i.e. above 3500 rpm. This site is a great way to get an idea of where your shift points will be with various combinations. You might compare to your Mini to get a frame of reference. As for whether you should get an LSD, for a street driven Z I'd vote no. The LSD adds weight, cost, and makes the car push when under power, and then loosens when it unlocks from lifting the throttle. I was surprised how much of a difference it made in sweeping turns on the street. Note: this is with a CLSD. A VLSD might be less intrusive. Unless you really stiffen the rear suspension, you will probably find that you don't need it.

Buy a cheapo mechanical oil pressure gauge and run it for a while. You may be surprised to find that you have lower oil pressure than you think, especially at higher revs. On my turbo the pump was more or less limited to around 45 psi IIRC. Adding a few washers brought the peak up to around 65 psi. That is at 180F oil temp with 10w30 synthetic above 5k rpm. The factory gauge is useless for checking this as it isn't accurate enough and responds too slowly. Jon Mortensen gave me this same advice and in the end I installed the oil pressure and temp gauges below the dash on the left and rotated them so their "normal" readings are just within view looking down. About the only time I pay attention to them is on the track. You might be surprised how hot the oil gets and you definitely want to be sure you have enough oil pressure then.

Delta cams resurfaces rockers for about ~5 each.

As I think about the geometry of the valve stem, adjusting stud and rocker across them, I just don't see this being accurate for all cams. What's special about 3 turns out for the stud? If you turn it 2 3/4 or 3 1/4 this method will tell you to use a different lash pad. With the Isky turbo regrind I'm using (.490" intake, .480" exhaust), the adjusters are set much taller than 3 turns in order to get the proper geometry to keep the wipe pattern on the rocker. For a higher lift reground profile, the base circle is going to be smaller than stock, and under those conditions the adjusting stud is going to have to be set higher than 3 turns. No insult intended to Doc510, but I wouldn't want someone to read this and think that it would always work to size lash pads.

It sounds like you're trying for something that cannot be achieved with these engines. On the track you will likely never have the revs below 2500 - 3000 rpm so low end torque doesn't mean the same thing compared to driving on the street where you might be driving at 1800 rpm in third gear in traffic. I would suggest you match the cam's characteristics to the transmission/diff combination you plan to end up with. For example, a late model ZX 5 speed with a 3.9 or 4.11 is effectively a close ratio transmission and hence you'd want a cam that makes more power at higher revs and not worry about low end torque. But if you are the type of person who DOES want low end torque, then go with a lower ratio diff and a cam that makes good low/mid rpm torque, but realize it isn't going to pull strong to 7k either. I'm a fan of high reving engines, so dont' have experience with the other end of the spectrum. I've used both Delta Cams and Isky (Delta for NA and Isky for turbo) regrinds and both shops are great to deal with and give good advice. You might give them a call and describe what you're looking to do and see which of their grinds they recommend.

How would that work with the L engine pads?

You'll need CLT and MAT sensors unless you want to reuse the stock CLT sensor. You also need a TPS - the stock one is just an on/off switch. If you drive over elevation changes, consider the 2nd MAP sensor too. I'd also suggest you consider MSIII depending on how far you want to take the project. Adding relay drivers and other inputs to MSII is a pain, and MSIII has them built in. And doesn't MSII require separate drivers for the coil packs? If so, another reason to go with MSIII. I second a PM to Matt - he's seen a lot of people do this and knows the features/limitations of the various MS iterations off the top of his head. Lastly, have you tried Skype for calling international? A call like this wouldn't cost more than a few dollars at most. And maybe Matt has a skype ID in which case it's free.

L engines don'thave variable valve timing so in general, improvements at higher rpm come at the expense of losing some bottom end torque. You might want to focus on a cam with less aggressive valve timing and overlap but with higher lift to help air flow. Otherwise you may be disappointed with loss of low end torque.

I'm getting ready to install the MSA Victory Spoiler and am considering if I should put some weather strip between it and the rear deck lid. The bottom of the spoiler is nicely finished, but I'm sure it won't exactly fit the surface of the rear deck and so am thinking that a 3/16" foam weather strip would fill the inevitable gaps. A trip to Lowes and Home Depot resulted in a 3/16" x 1" foam weather strip with adhesive on one side which seems ok. I think I'd prefer rubber which won't hold moisture but can't find anything local that thin. I am planning on using locktite on the bolts and tightening enough to compress the weather strip most but not all the way. My concern is that this might leave the spoiler free to move which can't be good over time. How have others done this? I expect that the paint under the spoiler is going to be damaged anyway, but don't think that matters as there will be 2 holes if I remove it, hence time to replace the deck. Or am I making this too hard? Should I just bolt the spoiler to the deck and call it a day? One more question: What's the best way to remove the 240Z and Datsun plastic emblems on the right corner of the deck? Prying with a screw driver seems likely to damage them and the deck. I've heard people refer to thin plastic tools for this, but have never seen one in person.

The Blue/HT10 combo was excellent at the track on Saturday. That was my first experience with real track pads and what a difference - no fade, consistent brake pedal pressure over the entire 30 min session, and much less pressure required as well so much easier to modulate. This track has 2 hard braking points, one from about 125 mph to 75 and the other from 100+ to 45. Throughout the session the car just stopped without any drama, just as if I was running errands. Rotors showed some "blueing" and the pedal wasn't as firm at the end of the day. But I never noticed that on the track, only in the pits. Brake fluid is Valvoline synthetic with a 470F dry boiling point and was flushed before the event. Perhaps I need a higher temp brake fluid... Thanks for the suggestion to have custom pads made John. Any thoughts comparing rotor wear between DTC70 and Hawk Blue/HT10? I have one more track day this Saturday and then will pull these pads off and be better able to assess wear. BTW, what do you guys like for an economical street pad? I'm currently using Stoptech Street Performance and hate them. They have poor initial bite and high pedal pressure.

Thanks for the kind words Nathan (sleeperz), but the car is anything but flawless. I'd give it a 10 at 20 (perfect 10 from 20+ feet) though Track days are hard on the outside, especially the "offs". Wreck happened right in front of me - some idiot in a small car came up on the right probably 40+ mph faster than traffic and lost control when he hit the brakes, spun and hit the concrete barrier. Missed me thankfully. I pulled over to report it and offer to be a witness - hopefully that idiot doesn't drive again for a long time. Had a great track day at Pueblo on Saturday. Car ran flawlessly and the new brake pads were fantastic - brakes just wouldn't fade, and PMP is hard on brakes. Looking forward to next Saturday at HPR as well. Hope you guys can come out. Ryan, even if your car isn't finished, you should come for some ride alongs. That usually gets me motivated to finish things

If you haven't checked it out, the recent versions of TunerStudio have an automatic tuning function he calls VE Analyze that works fabulously. You just start it up and drive. You do need to give it the delay settings for the O2 sensor and the defaults are too short based on my experience, especially if you've got the sensor mounted after the collector on an L6 header. Also, I've found that it doesn't do a good job tuning for idle, but you can lock those cells out. So manually tune idle, and let VEA do the rest. Daniel

Two things to look at: 1) Check that Cranking RPM is around 300 rpm and not higher. If the engine stumbles as you start and the rpm temporarily drops below this threshold, the ASE cycle starts again and depending on how rich it's set, it can cause the engine to stumble or even stall. Before I realized the consequences of this, I had it set higher ~500 rpm and symptoms were similar to what you describe. 2) Check that the VE table in the upper left corner is properly tuned. Again, if the revs drop as you start up, this is the part of the MAP that will be active and it may be too lean (or too rich). Other than that, perhaps post your MSQ file if you can't capture this logging.

I haven't tried that - how would you address that with the stock sensor? I was assuming that Nissan had done some homework in this area already, but realize that might be wishful thinking.

Glad you found it local, but couldn't you have used a NA one as well? I'm pretty sure they're the same.

I would encourage anyone running a turbo with more than 7-8 psi boost to run one, even if all it does is flash a light to warn you. I had what I thought was a conservative tune (done by ear on the street) but was surprised at how often there was detonation that I couldn't hear. At first I thought it was false triggers, and in fact some were, but when I retarded timing in those regions most of them went away. FYI, I have it feeding into MS2/Extra which uses it to pull timing. A few thoughts: - I had the same concern about tuning the module based on sensor but Boris confirmed that the module is tuned to the bore of the engine, not the sensor. - I found that above 6500 rpm there was so much valve train noise that it was false triggering, even with the timing retarded by large amounts. I eventually set MS to ignore it above 6500. - The MS/Extra logic is a bit flawed in that it pulls more timing than required based on how it polls the input for knock event. I hope they will fix this on the next release. - On track days I have piece of mind that I'll be able to drive the car home because MS will pull timing as it detects detonation. The air intake and engine temps are all elevated and hence outside of the range for which I tuned. But I know that the worst thing that will happen is MS will pull a few more degrees of timing than is perhaps optimal resulting in some power loss. FYI, I recently pulled the head to swap cams and after 4 track days there was no evidence of detonation on the pistons or cylinder head.