strotter

I've had the dash of my '72 out, and am now getting ready to reassemble. The topmost chrome plastic strip of my center console - above the vent - is cracked cleanly right through. Now, this thing is clearly visible from the driver's seat, so if I botch this repair it'll be the only thing I'll ever think about when I climb in the car, so I want to get it right. Can anybody with a certainty recommend a plastic adhesive that'll bond this thing back together? I have no idea what kind of plastic it is either, so if you can't suggest a good glue, that bit of information might be enough. Thanks for your help

Miles, it's mechanically pretty straightforward. Ideally, you'll need to find a 240 in a junk yard; get the bracket (up under the dash is nasty tough on your back, let's hope your is in better shape than mine), the pedal, all the little bits. I'm not sure about the 260/280 brackets; I think they're a little bit different than the 240's, though I'm morally certain they can at least be modified. The JTR Datsun Conversion Manual (you've got one, right?) talks about using Tilton clutch master cylinders - you'll need to cut down the shaft on the m/c a bit, then modify the bracket that attaches to the pedal to fit. I have a 3/4" unit (originally used with a T-5, now on my T56 via Weir bellhousing and hydraulic throw-out bearing) that's a rather heavy, but not unbearable. Perhaps someone else can suggest more details of the hydraulic hookup, but I like me a hydraulic bearing. There may be some complications with regard to the ECU, however, particularly in regards to the difference between an automatic mask and a manual. I know little about the computer in your car, but there aren't a lot of manual pickups sold - could be a problem. If you can tune your own, great, otherwise JBK's suggestion about ls1tech might help you there. Personally, I'm running a GM '7730 with a manual mask. The only other problem you might run into is getting your speedo operating, personally I just got an Autometer electric speedo and was done. Good luck!

Getting into a slump on any large, involved project such as yours in inevitable. It happens to everybody. You have to take control of your thought process with regards to the project, then manage yourself in much the same way you'd manage any other part of the job. This is something as an adult you do every day, though likely not consciously. Here's a for-instance: let's say your girlfriend does something or says something you don't like, repeatedly. As a matter of fact, it's something that pushes a bad button in your head. Your hindbrain orders you to snap at her, hurting her feelings, damaging the relationship. Your forebrain kicks in, telling you to shut up entirely, suppress that response, now you're passive-aggressive, damaging the relationship. For many, the thought process ends there. A thinking man, though, makes a conscious effort to reason it through; to maintain the relationship, he needs to clear up the problem, but at the same time not hurt her in any way; the result is a carefully crafted couple of sentences; "Baby, I love you more than sunlight, but that thing you do just makes me crazy..." So think about how you are thinking about the project. I'll bet you have this long list of "things to do" in your head. You've learned to be organized over the years, and you're a gearhead, so it's probably a really detailed list, with dozens of "maybes'" and "what-ifs" and "possibly's". Behind each item in the list is a sketch of the process you'll use to take care of it, some of them with overtones of "easy", some with overtones of "difficult", some with "how the hell am I going to pull this off"? On top of everything else, I'll bet that lately you've been trying to keep down this entirely new thought: "What if I can't do it? I'll look like an idiot, that's what, and I'll have this pile of *stuff* in my garage, and every time I open the garage door I'll have to see it, crap, and then I'll have to sell it, and I've spent a *buttload* of money, and everyone else has a nice car and I have this pile..." So what you need to do is take control of your thought process. I'm not saying you need to hypnotize yourself into "Love the Datsun, work on the Datsun, Datsun is wonderful..." I'm saying figure out some strategy for getting yourself in the zone, and keeping yourself there. In a sense, you need to find out what worked already for you, what gets you back to that feeling you had at the beginning of "this is going to be awesome!", and do it. It will be something different for every person - what might work for one guy won't work for another. Some for-instances: go to a car show. Yeah, it's stupid, but it's the right time of year and they're popping up all over the place. Just find one and go, even if you have to drive a couple of hours. Lots of custom cars (of any type), you can see the result of some guys burning thousands of hours in their garages, see with your own naked eyes that, yeah, these project can indeed be finished and done. OR: Find somebody with a car like yours, and visit. Yeah, this might involve a drive, and you maybe will feel like you're intruding on a stranger, but believe me: custom car guys love *nothing* more than showing off their babies, in excruciating detail. Bring a couple of beers (not more, you're driving!) and some pics of your project. Take notes, take pictures, take your time. Inspiration is what you're looking for, not details and procedures. OR: get out a pencil and some paper and draw the car in finished form. Exterior, interior, assembly details. There are a couple of guys on the board who appear to use this technique - sort of a way of fantasizing about the finished project, getting their thoughts in order, stroking their ego before the thing is even done. OR: make up a fantasy. Yeah, I hear you giggle, I'm serious. Perhaps it's a fantasy about dropping the clutch, the g-forces rising, your head pinned to the headrest, the noise reaching a crescendo, *flying* past the traps and 10.xx coming up on the board. Or maybe it's you, leaning on the fender, explaining to the worshipful crowd of old hands how you corralled such a sophisticated powerplant into such an incredibly outdated but unbelievably sexy classic car. Or maybe it's some delectably tasty blond just *wiggling* with excitement as she climbs into that totally cute car she's always wanted a ride in. "Ooooh, this is the most beautiful car ever! You must be so, so good with your hands..." Whatever it takes. Create a place in your head where the project is already done and you are reaping the benefits of all the work, someplace *past* the labor and discomfort and time; a place you can go to when the whole thing just seems too far away. OR: mentally break the big giant project into little bitty projects. This one works for me. I try my best to think of a bunch of little projects, not one large one. "How's the car project doing?" "Oh, I'm working on the air-conditioner install. I stripped out the insulation off the firewall, which was a mess, and ordered a condenser from this place in Arizona..." I don't even *think* about the paint, or the coilovers, or the carpet: I think about the project I'm currently doing, the a/c. It's not that I stop myself from thinking about other things, it's just taking advantage of the fact that I'm OCD enough that I tend to focus on one thing at a time anyway. Whatever you do, don't let yourself feel sorry for yourself. You have nothing to complain about; you're a healthy young guy with a working brain and advanced skills that lives in a free country and has enough disposable income to take on a custom car project. Nothing to complain about there. Right now, the biggest threat to the completion of the project is you. You need to handle yourself (again, no giggling!) in such a way as to control that threat and guarantee a successful outcome. Whatever it takes for you to do it, then do it.

For me, a significant, unexpected byproduct of using an electric fan was how much more pleasant it was to work on a running motor. For me, the large fan spinning and the torrents of air blasting through the engine compartment was intimidating. I always wanted to hurry and get it over with. My engine compartment now is much more pleasant, with just the subdued clicking and humming while I putter away in there, a nice place to be.

Note that there has been some concern over the years about rack movement with the bushings in the Energy Suspension (and possibly other) kits. Check this thread and others.

Dudeboy wrote Though I am neither of the above, I can confirm this: T56/240 interference is at the back of the bellhousing, top, a few (4-8?) inches aft of the firewall. This is for the JTR mount position. You'll have to determine the exact point upon trial install. Note that the sides of my tunnels were "persuaded" previously for a T-5 install, so you may need to do some work there as well.

So for no particular reason at all, I graphed the data presented in this thread. Can you find your car?

I've had a couple of the 110v microwave/convection ovens - a couple means that, at least the counter top models I've owned were delicate, both died within a year. That said, they're not much for meats that need deep browning - it won't make a good "primary" oven. Broiling would be straight out, only 110v and, what, 15 amps available. However, as a secondary oven that can take up the lighter duties, they're great. Baking things such as biscuits or cakes, awesome, little side dishes (you know, green bean casserole, fritatas, that kind of thing). Really wonderful having a second oven when you're making a full-on dinner. Plus they'll work like a proper nuke, warm up the tea water, reheat leftovers, dry off the cat, like that too.

Well that kind of ruins the humor of the original picture, doesn't it? I mean, it really is a cat, isn't it?

I'm running a modified serpentine system, with the p/s and a.i.r. pumps deleted. The a/c unit sticks 'way up, but will fit under the hood just fine.

And he makes a good point, albeit tardily. When flaring tubing, it's important to remember it's not a "one size fits all" thing. Learned this the hard way myself...

I'd agree with that - it's a fairly good looking car that'll get up and go when required. The 305 in it - stock but for headers, exhaust, air filter - makes twice the power of an original l6, and remember, Z's are pretty fun cars stock. I'd also second Grumpy's advice, The bulk of the work related to a swap isn't in the motor, it's in the details of the swap itself, of which there are many. We here at HZ go on quite a bit about the miniscule details of subtle touches that, frankly, are icing on the cake; getting a motor into the car, and then getting it moving when we choose for it to move are the big deal. To tell you the truth, the day I remember best wasn't the one when I finally broke into the 12's, with the car purring and everything finally working right; it's the day I first drove it, 500 feet to the end of the block and back, no hood no mufflers no passenger seat, finally under way! Get the thing in motion first, then sweat the "finesse" things. Motors come and go, good deals come and go, but your enthusiasm for the project is a fragile thing: strike while the iron is hot!

Saw this on Craigslist today. Posted on 2/3/08, no motor or trans.

Jerry, do these occurrences happen at night, or twilight? I can't imagine a healthy coyote moving around too much in the daylight. If so, you might consider a motion-sensitive light in that general area. Set it to maximum sensitivity. A coyote doesn't have to be startled too many times before it learns to be cautious. I'm wondering, too, why it's coming into your yard. Is there some source of food or water it might be utilizing? Letting you see it is kind of unusual, it must either be very sure of itself, very sure of you, or there's something wrong. Their behavior can become odd for more reasons than rabies. This one sounds like it looks healthy, though. Perhaps your neighbors rat-dogs look tasty. The alternative to "handling the situation", of course, is to just enjoy having a wild thing sharing your property. Sort of a vote of confidence in you. They're smart, ingenious, handsome animals (which is easier to appreciate if you keep your trash cans sealed up tight, BTW.)

I would recommend an external, return-type, adjustable regulator; then consider a "dead-head" to the TBI inlet, w/ the outlet blocked off. Adjusting fuel pressure is critical to any serious tuning, and RonTyler is right - the regulators built into the TBIs need "attention": they are notoriously inconsistent and poorly calibrated. As a nice benefit, most external regulators have extra fittings onto which a nice-quality fp sensor can be fitted.

Many GM guys I know use the factory computers - even to the point of using a dead stock PROM (at least for mildly modified motors). The greatest advantage, of course, is that the ECU is designed with that particular motor/vehicle in mind, and visa-versa. Downside, the ECUs weren't designed with customization in mind, other than model-specific PROMs. That being said, the GM (and some other) ECUs have been reverse-engineered and hacked to a remarkable degree. The behavior of some hardware and software are understood down to the clock cycle. As a result, there's a bunch of knowledge available out there concerning modification, as well as a bunch of hardware/software to facilitate said mods. That being said, the aftermarket computers (such as MegaSquirt) are seeing a huge surge in popularity. They, too, are well understood and (generally) well-documented. And, they have the advantage of being designed from scratch to be tuned. It's fun stuff. Good luck!

I call them "ALDLx" and "PKTx". I thought the post would appear in the "Last 24 Hours" search, but apparently it did not. So here's the announcement! This is the "blurb" I posted along with the attachments: These are a couple of pieces fairly functional pieces of software I've developed for tuning GM 7730 (& related) ECM's. They're written in RealBasic, a cross-platform, object-oriented, compiled version of the old stand-by language Basic. It's very similar to Microsoft's Visual Basic. I've included both OS X executables as well as the code itself and all the support files. They're functional, but rough and untested on any but my own (and Dan Juday's) cars. I'm hoping that someone who knows what they're doing can take a look at these programs and take them to the next level, or at least give me some good suggestions, hints, ideas - I'm not a programmer (as will be obvious once you look at the code). The first one is called "ALDLx". It's a data logger for the '7730-and-family ECMs. It has been patterned after a couple of older pieces of software (ALDLMON and WinALDL). It was designed from scratch to work via a USB/Serial adapter. As it stands it works pretty well (for me!), but it's spaghetti code at best (in spite of being Object Oriented). It compiles under 10.3 and 10.4, hasn't been tried under 10.5. It also compiled it on the Windows 98 version of RealBasic, as an experiment, but didn't have a chance to try it. I have some ideas for extending the functionality - for instance, being able to select different ECM's - but I think I've reached the limit of my programming capabilities. The second one is "PKTx", is a little utility that does only one thing: sends a .bin file from the Mac via USB/serial adapter to a Romulator. That's it. However, the killer app is that you can run a program like TunerPro or TunerCat under Virtual PC, modify it in a "shared" folder, and send it up to the Romulator on the fly every time you save it. So you can datalog with ALDLx, modify the .bin with TunerCat/TunerPro, and send it to the Romulator all in one smooth action. Anyway, if there are any brave programmer/gearhead types out there, I hope you take a look at these things and can maybe do something with them. They're located in the "Download" forum, here.

Man, that's some gorgeous work. Tight fit, too. Makes me want to go out and clean up my work ... well, as soon as it gets a little warmer!

I'm "Scott T" over on tgo, haven't posted at moates. Here here. I started from scratch with the f.i. project for the Z - I was intimidated by it, and decided that it was time to dive in. So for me, it was steep. Somebody younger, who grew up with injection systems, would for sure have a much simpler time. Well worth it either way, though.

I'll second the reference to thirdgen. If you'd like a copy of my personal "efi tuning" links, pm me and I'll shoot you a copy. There are quite a few interesting sites out there. The GM systems can be assembled for very little money, though be warned: the learning curve when efi tuning can be steep, and there are other tools required. My current system is a '7730 ecm driving a Holley StealthRam. I've modified it so that I can datalog and tune it "on the fly". See this site when you want to price the tuning hardware/software. I've gone so far as to write my own software, 'cause I'm a Mac guy and there isn't really anything out there that runs on that platform. For a complete system, you're probably talking under $1000, but not by much, and only if you don't spend any unnecessary money. Once you've made the investment, though, with probably a third of that being in tools you can use on any project, you'll be set.

Just to throw a little fuel on the fire, I can confirm (though I expect I'll be considered a liar) that, under ideal, moderate freeway conditions a '93 DX can consistently knock down upper 40's at 62-65 mpg. Early summer cool dry weather, lightly loaded, perfectly tuned, pure freeway conditions with cruise control engaged. I'd like to put my vote on the "style" of the the thing as "elegant in its' purity". Can't you just picture the airflow around the thing? Its design is as single-minded as a stiletto, and just as graceful.

I can confirm that the switch and pad on the throttle is not present on my manual '72. This does, however, look like the "kickdown" switch on my ex '74 automatic. I think you're not the first one to make some improvements to that Z!

I have one on my '72, and somebody else here has one on an S30 as well. Yes, they fit fine. I'm running a .7730 ecu, such as out of an early '90's Camaro (though the actual computer came from a Beretta).