BlueStag

You have the plugs out, yes? If so, and there is no compression, your starter should be spinning the engine like a top! YOU tell US if it is spinning quickly enough.

Well, yeah! Otherwise you are sucking unfiltered air past the filter into you engine.

Guys, There are two gaskets, long oblongs, that are adhered to the back plate and the canister of a 240z air cleaner. They seal up against the air filter. Not surprisingly, after 40 years they are pretty stiff and brittle, I'm going way out on a limb here and guessing that the ones that I have are not sealing very tightly. MotorSports Auto has no clue where I can get some. Anybody? One certainly wants to be careful to not use something that is going to deteriorate and get sucked into the engine. At least I don't want to. Any ideas?

I have two spacers per, they combine to about 3/8ths of an inch. I need to gain nearly two inches. I will be pulling out the spacers and replacing with two gaskets each. I don't see much to be gained from milling the mounting at the carb side, I still need meat to run studs or bolts into. And there are vacuum ports there. As for milling at the other end of the manifold, the intake manifolds share studs with the exhaust manifold, along with thick mill washers. The manifolds need to be the same thickness to make that work. There is currently about 1/3/4" clearance between the stock air box and the brake master. The difficulty is that to get the outer part of the box off the back plate of the box is that one must move over the air horns, which I am not going to do without. I have a SORT of solution that I am trying. Instead of the bolts on the far ends of the rig holding the back plate to the carbs, I have run in short dowels to just act as alignment points. And I have locked the wing bolts to the clever nut/bolt that lives inside the such that as I turn the wing nuts, they turn in the carb. Thus I can lift the whole box out without actually moving it away from the carbs by more than a small fraction of an inch. I am not sure that I am getting a great seal at the airbox/carb meeting. And one cannot rely on running a steel bolt into and out of aluminum repeatedly, I'll need to fit some helicoils. If I am going to go this route, I am inclined to cut up the original air box such that it only fits over the air filter. I want to keep the two ports that suck the fumes out of the engine block, but the rest of it I would blank off. I need to gain nearly 2" back to fit a brake and clutch pedal, to say nothing of having no room at this point for a clutch master cylinder.

Guys, I hold out no hope for this, but: My L6 is in a Triumph Stag, with a 4sp auto box. Of late I've hankered a 5sp manual. But to set up my swap, I had moved the pedal box over to the left by over an inch. The air cleaners simply would not come off if the brake master cylinder was in its as-built placement, but there is no room for a clutch unless I put it back. Other air cleaners are under consideration. Any chance of finding some manifolds that would be an inch shorter?

I can see no disadvantage to adding a spray bar, even if the cam were getting enough lube without it.

Thanks!

Does anyone have a loose clutch master cylinder at hand that you could get a dimension off for me? I'm looking for the center to center distance for the two mounting holes.

Ben, I've actually met Tony, and he has helped me a fair bit. He has a fair point, you might have seen this coming a bit earlier, and while you were correct that ARP tripped you up, one must not assume anything in an engine build; every component is suspect, every spec needs be triple checked. Tony has earned the right to be a pain by having felt the pain.

Tony, You got me scared again. I have long ago decided that I was not going to build an engine or trans. A car? Sure. A man should know his limits.

Hmmmm. One pulley would indeed be awesome!

Hey, So you may know of my quest. I have a '73 Triumph Stag into which I have insinuated a L6, SUs, and a Maxima auto four speed. The Stag came fitted with AC, but that has long been deleted and I expect that the matrix under the dash is toast: I would need to pull the system up from the foundation to the top to get it running: none of what I actually have would be of any use. That said, I have come near to deciding that I am going to swap in a manual (5sp) and ship the auto off to another member whose wife would be glad to not need to shift. God bless the wives. And then I am dumping the torque converter and a whole lot of other stagnate inertia on the drive train. And there is a strong argument to get away from the three row damper that I have. Without the AC I have one row I don't need. But I do need power steering, and that is, on the accessories that I have, the outermost of the pulleys. Was there an arrangement that had two pulleys and power steering?

I'd be thrilled to have 175 hp from what is basically a very slightly tweeked engine. You prove the point made earlier that spending money is not necessarily the path to success. Lots of gear gets bought that does little or nothing to make an engine run.

Wow. I am inclined to believe this is a standard to beat. Pretty reasonable compression, what sort of octane do you run? Peak HP at about 6000? Not bad. Mine is definitely a road car. I cannot dream of an engine that spins regularly to 7000, just not part of the plan. I really like this mix. Lots of power for the money.

$50? I only wish. I was just at my local pick and pull. They want $150. For that money I would expect to buy one here and get a warranty of some sort.

You found threads that will tell you what the ratios are of all the gears on a 5sp just by looking at the numbers cast on the trans and referencing a chart? You have better skills at searching then, because I tried three or four combinations of search words before I started this thread. Care to share the threads you found? And the way to get more power out of a 280 is to slap a bigger turbo on it.

Fundamental indolence.

Well, that blows... I don't have any transmissions at the moment.

Fundamentally, if you use SUs and put more that 175hp to the ground you are really accomplishing something.

Ben, I have posted a few photos on "other projects".

It had occurred to me, I have done it many times when maintaining my yard sprinklers.

$110 later, Tyermans has extracted my oil filter nipple. With an enormous extractor. I have a standard set, I can pull broken bolts and studs, but nothing like this. And it took LOTS of torque. Valentine (the mechanic) busted his knuckles and bled on the project. The automotive gods were slaked.

"This is not meant to be an attack on ztherap, on the contrary, I think they charge a fair price for their service, but on the other hand there's a lot of other options out there for the performance minded." Perfectly correct. I am running currently a pair of SU's on my Triumph Stag with a Z engine because it looks British to do so. Frankly, I would be persuaded to go to fuel injection or even better a turbo when next money rains from the sky. The THING TO KNOW about the ztherapy carbs is that they have beat the leaky throttle shaft utterly. SU's with leaky throttle shafts are impossible to tune. What you pay for is real engineering of the throttle shaft. And damned well worth having.

Thanks, I'm hoping to find a number cast on the trans to tell me which trans it is and about what year it is from......