rxKaffee

I bet it'd fit, but you'd be riding on your bumpstops the whole ride home if you don't have stiff springs, hehe. Or rent a U-haul? Also, with the m90s, you could do a little bit of internal work, and stuff in rotors from the m112 for some higher output. Perhaps something like this is possible to squeeze some more air through the m62.

If I were you'd, I'd try to get ahold of a complete VG33ER engine from a wrecked offroader. Nissanoffroad(.com?.org?) forums occasionally has one for sale at a decent price. The bottoms are interchangeable, and you gain a little displacement. I believe your heads will flow better. You'll probably have to use nissan supercharger to get it to work with the factory sc manifold. Atleast with the eaton m90s, output shapes/sizes seem to vary between ford and chevy, and even among different generations of either manufacturer. I'd imagine the m62 would have similar variances if you by one off a different vehicle. The m62 however would be kinda small if you're going for much of a performance increase. Those vg33er don't have a whole lot of output. If you use anything besides the m62 you'll likely end up having to fab the manifolds and pulley setups though. I believe some of the newer chevy's are using m62 as well, perhaps some have an aftermarket manifold adapter for taking a larger SC. I have seen some adapters for the buick 3800's manifolds to use a larger SC.

Has anyone worked on or desired to have reverse cooling for the L? Heads first like the LT/LS series sbc's.

My stepdad has a set of black 'n decker(or some similar brand) of multi-tool battery operated stuff. Has a flash light, a power screw driver, and a mini sawzall. I've been using the mini battery powered sawzall to remove the rusted half of my dash board, works decent for that. I don't think it'd have the juice to make it through a floor pan or rails though. Do battery tools really count as "power" tools though? They just have such little umph to 'em usually :-/

How do you power power-tools in the middle of a junk yard?

There are some kits for bolting in Buick 3.8's. And tons of people put in sbc/lsX engines, so they find some way to make it work. A fully loaded GXL or turboII model should "only" be about 2700 to 2800lbs. Ditch the leather and fancy doodads and it goes down pretty quick. Swap rear seats for storage bins, get rid of the solid composite underbumper, etc. Cheap lexan hatch glass works wonders. With a partially stripped interior my GXL was getting about 22mpg mixed on stock ecu running in limp mode with the O2 sensor disconnected. Rear gear choices are a little limited I believe, but there's a bit of choice. Semi OT here... but I didn't see any ZX data in the Aero section. Am I just overlooking it, or am I SOL with my s130 and aero data?

The s13 crowd are also using FWD sr20's with minor modifications, to power RWD drivetrains. There's also the SR16VE/SR20VE that is supposed to get awesome fuel economy and power. If you're looking for something this small though, I would probably go with an rb20. It'll no doubt be cheaper(well, I was thinking in comparison for sr20det when I typed that part). Many parts interchange with USDM engines, so there's not a whole lot of worry of maintenance parts importing. The valvetrain of ca and rb series are far superior to sr(with possible exception of the srXXve's complex variable valvetrain). There are two versions of the L-series(the engine that comes in Z), with 2.0L displacement that should be nearly "dropin". A 4cyl L20, and a 6cyl L20. The 4cyl L20 also comes in a diesel and turbo diesel model. The overseas VG engines came in a 2.0L option for a bit. I'm not sure if this was avail for the DOHC models, or strictly limited to SOHC. State side DOHC vg's had some variable cam stuff that should help fuel economy a bit.

Are you dead set on the Z its self, or more interested in this type of "80's fastback sport" styling? Or just after a cheap sporty Nissan chassis? Would a ZX fit your tastes? I'm not sure how significant, but the aerodynamics of the ZX are a bit better. If your desire is just this style, I'd suggest a 2nd gen RX7 chassis as a starting point. They have almost as low of Coefficient of Drag as a CRX.

A good turbo 3 rotor install in an FC was quoted to me at around 10k$. This was for the total package to be installed into the FC GXL that I had at the time. I'm sure it could be done for less yourself but it'll take alot more fab on a Z. You can get a coustom E-shaft from a couple different people, to make your own 3 rotor. I believe most if not all of them use older 12A parts though. A well-tuned N/A 3 rotor should put you WELL over 200hp. A good tune on a moderate-to-heavily modified series5 n/a 2 rotor will get you to 200hp. Only people with poorly tuned or highly abused rotarys have to rebuild every 60k mi... My s4 had over 180k on the original engine and still pulled hard, with verifiable compression numbers for each seal. Only the oil rings needed replaced, but hey, just meant I could smoke it up like a diesel when I wanted Premixing isn't that big of a deal either if you decide to plug up the factory oil injection. It doesn't have to be precise, just close. Most people don't even drain their tank all the way down before refueling.

I too have been looking for a slightly more modern replacement for my L28E, which would give me similar or better power, and improved fuel economy. I thought about going cheap, and getting a 350 vortec engine from one of the pre-2000 chevy trucks. T56, gear the rear for low rpms, utilize the engine's torque. But then I realised I'd want light rockers, and roller "everythings". So the cheapo 350 idea quickly became not so cheap. Also more weight than I really "want" to have up there. They claim 30mpg in automatic Caprices, so I figure with some gearing, an economy cam, a manual tranny you could do pretty decent. A Buick 3800 series II is a little bit more expensive engine than an oldschool 350 with truck heads. Less weight. Could still get enough torque out of one of these to use a really low rpm rear gear for fuel economy. Why not look at a CNG powered engine? They get slightly less fuel economy than a gasser, but the fuel is DIRT cheap. CNG seems to have "similar" qualities to E85 in terms of power, torque, knock resistance and mpg. You could take your i6 L engine, bump the compression with some aftermarket pistons or shave the head, maybe touch up the quench areas a bit, and run it on some of this cheap fuel that is already being delivered to your home. Most CNG conversions can switch back to gas easily in any parkinglot that you stop at, but most of them don't expect bumped compression either... Honda actually has a CNG engine from the factory now, it looked to get better mpg than some other similar displacement gas engines. I wonder what all they do to tailor it to CNG. Over on zdriver, there's a few guys with tuned up L28 getting something like 30mpg city. By tuned up, I don't mean an L28ET with a turbo the size of a badger, putting out 400hp though I'm currently thinking of an LD28 for my Z. I'm leaning towards this one mostly because it should "almost" drop right in(oil pan is only fab that I know of being necessary). Being old indirect injection, pre-chamber design, it should beable to use WVO without too much fuss, but I've not looked indepth at this. I read somewhere that the LD has a couple organic gaskets/seals that do not like the WVO. They supposedly get 40mpg(pump diesel) highway in a 5spd maxima from the early 80s. Most claim only about 23-25mpg city on stock engines with the automatic 3spd in a maxima though. Using L28ET manifolds is supposed to improve fuel economy and power a bit as well. People are seeing these bad boys to 385ft-lbs(@ 2200rpm) on stock internals. In addition to Honda, Nissan has some 4banger lean-burn engines now as well. There's one in some of the Sentras, that also has a loooong stroke that makes pretty good torque for an economy 4banger. GQ Series or something I believe... I always get the Nissan i4 letters mixed up though.

Do we have access to any reliable dynographs for either the Rebblo or home-made stroker kits for the L-series? I'd love to see just "where" the torque is with these solutions.

How do these setups work? Does it require much modification to the overall brake system design of the car? I'm guessing you put a 1-way valve(diode for hydraulics??) somewhere in the rearward running brake lines, and T this thing in after(closer to rear brakes) that? rx

I'd still like to see this article, even though the original poster has taken a different direction. rx

Well that is no fun, where's the rust repair goodies?

I really like that front bumper design too. It closes up the front nicely, without turning it into a straight drop brick wall. I would never buy the car though, that guy is a slob. Who leaves trash in their floorboards during a for-sale photo shoot? And his bumper is mounted crooked... some great custom job there. rx