Drax240z

OOh, OUCH. Glad you found the problem Andy... Hopefully you don't have other -ahem- problems to deal with.

Honestly, if you have any mechanical aptitude yourself, you are likely going to be much happier dropping the $350 for a wire feed welder, and doing it yourself. You'll save a lot of money, and know exactly what you have when you are done.

Well Davy, I'm no expert on the L series really. But I wouldn't do more than a .010"-.015" surface plane without thinking about tower shims. Most of the time when you hear about guys shimming their towers, they are going with a .080" plane, and longer valves with it. At this point I think your timing chain would be pretty sloppy without shims. As kevin was pointing at, more torque is probably going to help you more than peak power. Upping the compression ratio is a good way to make more torque.

I broke a U-joint today in a 74, silly thing... just decelerating for a stop light. Funny, you can beat on the car and it'll be fine, but when you take it easy and just cruise, you break something...

First off, its nice to see someone with a realistic power goal from their L28. 170hp at the flywheel shouldn't be too hard or too expensive. Were it me, this is probably the route I'd go: -Stage 1 or 2 cam (motorsports auto ones) -Header -2.25" mandrel bent, or 2.5" press bent exhaust -K&N filter That is probably enough to make you meet your power goals. I would be somewhat tempted to find a flattop piston block to put with your N42 head however. That would bump your compression up a bit, and give you that much more power.

Whoa pete, a little too much caffiene this morning? Hehe. When I first looked at the first picture I didn't seen the blue support in the background... I thought you had the car attached to the handle of your floor jack for a split second! LOL.

Summit racing has mandrel bent stuff for sale. Not much of an option if you are up here in canada, but for you guys down there it sounds like its a pretty good deal. Also I'd be very careful with cutting through frames/etc. A little can be a lot, in some situations. Just be 100% sure that after enlarging holes things will be strong enough. I'm sure some of the 40,000 resident engineers we have here could offer some advice if you aren't sure. BTW, love those door handles you have there. Awesome stuff.

Would it be easier to run dual 2.25"'s? Could be neat with one pipe out each side. Just make a Y after the downpipe. Not sure if it'd be easier than 1 3" in a roadster or not.

Personally I'd use the biggest one you could fit, and still keep the transitions smooth. I believe the reasn scottie made the 2.5" one for the Z that size was because he was able to use 45 degree bends, as opposed to 2 90 degree bends. I think a 3" pipe with 2 90's would be equivalent to a 2.5" with 2 45's for flow. If you can fit a 3" pipe in there with no sharp bends, go for it.

Lone, can't really help but to say that my 72 ones were a royal pain in the butt as well. I ended up scrapping 2 sliders, and making a custom panel for 1 slider... even that was a pain though.

I believe that all Z's used 225mm flywheels (from 70-83) except for: all 2+2 models, and all turbo models. At least that is the criteria I used when I was looking for a 240mm one. I hope that helps.

Well... it seems good? Hehe. I haven't gone too far in my install yet, though I'm hoping to knock off some more of my to-do list this weekend. Everything seems straight forward and well made, but until I fire it up I really can't comment too much. One problem I was having was that I cracked my lower thermostat housing when I tapped it out for the water temp sensor. I think from now on when I tap aluminum I'll go 1/64" too large on the drill bit.

I put on a Dynamax super turbo muffler today, along with the old resonator and pipe. The car is way quieter now, seems to still have good power, and is fun to drive! (no drone) Its probably too quiet for most performance guys, but I'd rather listen to the engine than the exhaust. (plus its a daily driver)

Sounds decent to me... BTW, I now have a L28 with a resonator and no muffler on my other Z. Its not obnoxiously loud, but its still fairly loud... louder than I care for. Granted right now the exhaust pipe ends just in front of the rear wheels (muffler fell off before I got it) so it does resonate a bit in the cabin. Tomorrow I am going to swap on an el cheapo muffler, maybe a glasspack just to quiet things down a little.

Hehe, I picked up my L28 longblock, with front cover, head, valve cover, oil pan, oil pump, water pump etc. Its no lightweight, thats for sure.

I think I may need a picture. Maybe its just too late at night. Thanks though!

Hey bud, glad to hear you are getting there. Sounds like you might beat me. Just wondering how you hooked up your oil pressure gauge to the junction box, since thats where I had planned to put mine. My gauges of course are UNF thread while the block is about the same size of metric. Did you simply run a tap in there, and not worry about it, or figure out something better? Let me know...

Got lots done, unfotunately I can't seem to get up island because I have so much going on. I am picking up a cheap driver for a month or two, so that I can get up there easier. Getting close.

Don't ever rule out plugs as a problem!!!!!! I've been there, and learned from experience. A buddy of mine had a 78 chev truck, with a rebuilt 350. Good rebuildt, no problems except an off-idle stumble. Finally we tried to track it down because it was annoying him. First thought was cap, rotor, wires, coil. All good. Carb... we swapped on a spare, same problem. Fuel pump? Well for $17 lets replace it anyway. Vacuum leaks? Nope. PCV? Fine. Well maybe its those cheap wires, nope. You get the idea. We checked the plug gap, and colouration, all was good. Turns out the plugs were slightly shorter than they needed to be for these heads though, new plugs and all was good! Its usually those little details that cause all the problems.

Since we're on the topic, (nice post BTW lone, I totally agree) isn't it sad when you go to a car dealer to check out certain cars, and you know way more about them than the sales people do? Subaru, BMW, and Lexus have all flat out lied to me over here, I've pointed out quite civilly that they were incorrect with their statements, but they haven't been too happy. The Subaru salesman claimed that the Impreza won the last 5 straight WRC championships. Anyway, just another pet peeve. Audi seemed quite up front and honest about their cars here. Their salesmen seemed to know a little about the cars that they were selling.

Is it silly to aspire for a Ph.D. just so people will call you doctor?

Stony, try talking to 240Z Turbo about the setup he had. I think he had NOS to help him with his spool up, and then it kicked off at a certain boost pressure. Sounds like a great way to us NOS if you ask me.

Just FYI, from what I researched, the requirements for tubing diameter was 1 5/8". This was for both SCCA and NHRA. Don't use this as gospel, but I would certainly confirm it for yourself.

I'm thinking James isn't far off your full blown race engine... Aren't you running a 4100rpm stall James? Sounds like if it gives you more juice over 5000rpm it should work nicely for your application.

My 72 & my 73 had them on the firewall. Both cars were made in september of 72, even though one is a 72 and one is a 73.