Daeron

Aww, crap.. I guess its time fer me and Paw to go set fire to the ol' motor oil-dumpin hole again!!! Better git er done now before its too late!

Can't you get something like that locally for less? It shouldn't be much different from steel brake line, as long as the diameter is sufficient. Personally I would look into having your tank that you already have repaired. The fit is superior. Where is the hole at? If it *happens* to be on the bottom, you might even want to consider cutting athat section of the tank out and welding in a sump (picture the bottom of an oilpan) to catch the last bit of your fuel and help avoid fuel starvation while cornering. It isn't a wicked-bad issue for a street driven car, but a racecar certainly has issues using the stock tank. Never underestimate the beauty of a 16+ gallon fuel tank. Having the capacity hurts nothing; you can put 5 gallons of fuel in a 5 gallon cell or a 16 gallon tank. One tank will get you from West Palm Beach to Key West and back; one tank will run dry all the way down there, where gas has been $0.25/gallon more than here for the last 30 years.

google xenons130. find the website, and see if your FSM is available for download. That will be INFINITELY more helpful for this than a chiltons or haynes.

I prefer the Haynes manual for working on a 240Z. If you have a 280 it isn't as helpful, because ALL of the "280 stuff" was lumped into one chapter at the end. Make sure the choke cables work freely, make sure you put in new NGK regular old BPR 6ES-11s, make sure the carbs are topped off with oil (not joking)and change the oil and filter. After that, throw a battery in, see what kinda shape the electricals are in, fill up the tires, get her to roll, and find out what the brake hydraulics are like. Chances are at least 50/50 you'll need new hydraulics, but if its still full of fluid then you may be fine.. I just resurrected a 72 and wound up blocking off the rear brakes (not recommended, and more complex than it sounds, if you MUST you can ask me about this via PM) but got the master and the fronts to work OK simply thru disassembly and refill. The car never really saw the road, but it COULD now. (this car has major rust issues; its a parts car i was debating throwing together for a DD for a coupla months.) Okay, air in the tires, good sparks, you already gave it good gas, and now, the vehicle can be stopped. Your throttle linkage and your choke cables work adequately. The battery hasn't started a fire yet, so lets REALLY give it a chance by mixing battery and fuel! Turn the key and see if she starts. Sometimes you need to get a little starting fluid to spray into the carbs so the engine turns over enough to really prime them with fuel. If it starts on starter fluid but no other way, check for fuel. If it won't start with starter fluid, check the QUALITY of the spark coming out. Should be blue; yellow or white aren't acceptable. Consult manual for further direction on this front. If it starts up, and runs rough, chances are you need to adjust the carbs.. BUT first, buy a set of feeler gauges, pull the valve cover, and set the valve lash. Consult manual for direction. Then, start dickering with the carbs. Yeah, that was alot of info.. but I should have you covered. Resurrecting a Z-car... its whats for dinner!!!!

83 turbo slicktop still owned by original owner could fetch some serious scratch, if the owner was patient in selling it, and the vehicle was in good to very good condition or better.

A man after my own heart... Mikuni, Mikuni, Mikuni!!!!! Isn't there a rule here about having "bests?" THE RULE IS, THERE IS NO BEST!!!!!

You know, if you whack that tube with a hammer hard enough, you can usually dislodge it and pull it right out. Its just press-fit in there; it leaves a hole that might be able to be threaded, or if not, you are left without any remnant of the pipe there and you can weld a cleaner plate. (I *am* right, right?? thats the tube you can never use as a handle when picking up a bare block because it comes out half the time... right?)

If this is really a low budget road racer, you ought to find a way to make the 72 manifold work for you or get ahold of some headers on the cheap. Most of the headers on the used parts market (or the new parts market for that matter) are mass-produced items that aren't really any appreciable improvement over the stock exhaust manifold, as far as power production is concerned. That being the case, an old dinged up MSA header (for example only, standard MSA headers are a perfectly adequate piece but nothing to write home about) can probably be had for $50-100 locally, if you keep your eyes peeled. We've got one that (if we sold it) would go for $50 right now, but with four Z-cars to think about.. a spare header is always nice to have around. Besides, cross-country shipping would kill that right out. My point is, keep your eyes peeled... 25 pounds is ALOT when you could slap a manifold that weighs more like 10 on there. Low budget road racers win through three ways: Superior piloting (that depends on you being good, and on your opponents being bad;) Superior L-gata knowledge and wisdom (thanks to my uncle and my dad there ) and LESS WEIGHT, better handling. Chipping every bit of sound deadening off; removing the interior and zip tying your stock speedo up next to the used autometer tach you scored cheap, and finding an aluminum plate to attach all the other switches to; finding the lightest manifolds, radiator, alternator, wheels and tires (BIG one there,) etc to use; THESE things add up to one MAJOR checkmark you can frequently count on on your list of "Things To Do To Win." Somehwere around here is a thread titled "280Z rat rod" or some such thing. I posted some pics of my Dad's Grey Ghost up there; IMHO, that baby was the ULTIMATE S30 budget road racer. So I am biased; shoot me!

Wow... and I thought being short a couple cylinders was only literal. Connecting rods, and the short block, all have a certain point beyond which they will explode. That point is expressed in horses. If you can make a given engine to 500 horsepower on stock internals, nut not to 600, then it doesn't matter if the engine is making 600 turbo or 600 NA, the engine blows up. Simple. Rods, block, and cylinder head all fall into this category; no matter what the induction, they have a threshold beyond which they BREAK. You seem to be arguing that, straight out of the box, the SR20DET makes more power than the KA24DE; yah, no duh. However, if you want to go beyond 400 horses, chances are any engine you pick, whether its the L6, the KA, or the SR, you will need WORK done. At that point, there are only two MAJOR differences to be seen between these three engines: Cylinder head combustion chamber shape, and cylinder head port shape and size. Once again, the less primary factors like rod length to stroke ratio come into play, but nowhere near as majorly as the combustion chamber shape, and the ports' shape. Camshafts and pistons pretty much all need to be custom beyond here, and stock rods would need to be prepped. From what I understand virtually all stock Nissan rods (at least on their "better" engines) are VERY robust; 600 on a 30 year old L6, and about the same on the more modern 4 cylinders. Once again, I must reiterate, these engines are each DIFFERENT. NONE of them are "better" in any way shape or form than any other, UNLESS you want to compare straight out of the box stocker engines. If you can't understand why that is, you need to open your eyes and pay more attention to the details I am trying to explain to you, rather than try to continue arguing your theory that an SR20 is a superior engine for boosting applications because SOME of them came from the factory with a little turbo bolted on the exhaust manifold. I say that with absolutely no venom whatsoever; I MEAN that. You need to put a little more effort into understanding how these things (internal combustion engines) work.

+1000 on all points.

The filter on the fuel injected cars is located on a bracket screwed to the front side of the passenger fenderwell, just in front of the shock tower. This is also the normal location for the inspection lamp on S30 240, 260, and 280Zs. I can't imagine how yours got over there, but I would be willing to bet you can find holes from where it was originally. I am fairly certain that I have seen them over on that side before. It makes more sense to have it over near where the brake and clutch hydraulics are IMO, but honestly if I had my choice I would have about three of those under my hood.

badass little econoboxes to be sure.. my uncle claims 40+ mpg out of a 3 speed auto b210 fastback. Buy it!!! I don't understand why your camshaft swap question is at all relevant, and I doubt highly that any pushrod cam could be swapped with an OHC cam. I would be willing to bet that you could make the whole L20b work in the 210, though, and I bet you could avoid seeming much of a mileage decrease if you kept your foot out of the pedal.

Because enough Z-cars are stuck with four-speed transmissions already! I have a question for all those who would prefer to stick with an "engine that was built for a turbo." What makes an engine specifically built for a turbo? Pistons, combustion chamber shape, camshaft. Sure, rod ratios and angles, piston speed play a minor part, but basically its piston quality and strength, combustion chamber shape (a function of the cylinder head and the piston crown) and the camshaft. Manifolds, fuel supply, engine management.. all of these are interchangeable things. Turbo SR20s were not available stateside, to the best of my knowledge. So you want to import your special turbo engine. What makes it so different from the SR20s available stateside? Is it a different cylinder head? different pistons, rod length, what? I know they are slightly lower compression, but that can be achieved a number of ways. My point is that you use what you LIKE. I am looking at possibly getting a free 88 sentra with an E16i (TBI, 70 horses of augh!) My heart is set on swapping a GA16DE into it. You know why? I LIKE the thought of getting myself into a nice 80s nissan with a simple, reliable little DOHC 1600 under the hood. My Z is going to stay with a L-6 no matter what, because its what i like. (especially that solid valvetrain noise, oomph!) In fact, I may go to great lengths to bore it out, obtain a Japanese/australian market crankshaft (L20A) and DE stroke it just to find out if I would like THAT. If you must use something for reasons so obtuse as "Well, it came from the factory with a turbo, so they must know what they are doing!" then please at least refrain from explaining to other people that they are foolish for going with their motor for reasons of their own.

The AFM is a potentiometer; more like a later Throttle position sensors frequently found in more modern cars. Think of it as a volume knob, attached to the gateway that meters the air. The more airflow, the higher it cranks up the volume. Right now I am not 110% on the wires on the datsun AFMs, but two of the wires are input and output for a safety cutoff switch that goes to the fuel pump relay. One wire is for the air temp sensor, and one wire is the potentiometer output. What the fifth wire is, what colors are what, etc, I cannot tell you. google xenons30 or xenons130 and find your factory service manual. While you are at it, look up EFI bible and download that as well.

this sounds like an intermittent fusible link problem to me.. have you tried jiggling each one, unplugging and re seating each to make sure the connection is good?

Why not wire two sensors, one in either collector, and simply switch between the two electronically? This leaves you the option of getting a dual gauge in the future. FWIW most consider a pair of EGTs or a pair of narrowbands to be sufficient for tuning a pair of SUs.

I have also heard that the flat top needles make good street/performance needles in a pair of round top SUs. I doubt much difference will be had between the two stock exhaust manifolds TBH. If I were in your shoes, I would ignore the minimal advantage in flow that you MIGHT get from using one over the other, and go with the manifold that "fits" best.. look at airspace between exhaust and intake, heat shield options, cleanest look, etc. You are trying to decide which unwholesome looking apple to take a bite out of; I wouldn't worry about which one is granny smith and which is a macintosh, NEITHER is a red delicious.

I just skimmed it and it looks rather like an abstracted and shortened version of the description they have posted at Ztherapy, the carb rebuilder's website. That site also has the benefit of having a few actual photos interspersed with the article and schematic drawings. Anyone who finds this article enlightening would do well to google Ztherapy and spend an hour or two reading through their website. Great little carbs, though, aren't they?

Step 5 on that sheet says at the beginning to use ARP Moly assembly lube or other good quality moly based lube, then later says SPECIFICALLY not to use any other brand moly lubricant.. Whats with that?

I think he meant to suggest using the valve cover tube as the connection point for your catch-can.

make sure it is covered in oil; it would behoove to get some thin oil like air tool oil, and put it in a spray bottle, and spray it down with a light coat, then wrap it in a good, heavy duty garbage bag. that is the SURE FIRE way to make sure that 1, 2, 5, 10 years later you can reach for it and still find it easy to clean, and even 10-20-?? years it should be USEABLE... obviously you don't want it SOPPING with oil but you get the idea. A sponge bath, maybe, something along those lines. IF you are interested in keeping the motor, it doesn't do to keep it in a manner which destroys it; that was said above. Time WILL destroy it, and since you don't have any particular plans for it... who knows how long it will be?

I love these motors, and watching threads like this.

+1

That is what I described here I had it happen in my Subaru, and out of my own ingenuity I simply went to the boneyard, grabbed a few Bosch relays and a couple plugs, and set up a relay that was fed power from a fused wire I ran off the battery cable. The relay was signaled by the solenoid wire already on the vehicle, grounded at the mount of the plug, and the output went to the solenoid. What happens in this situation is, the electrical pathway between the battery and the solenoid terminal has somehow gained ALOT of resistance ofver the years. Could be a solder joint, could be a joint between two wires, could be one of the contacts in your switch, or it could be an aggregate of ALL of those places and more. The solenoid isn't a VERY high amperage device, but the Bosch relay is FAR FAR less. The deficient circuit will almost certainly supply enough electromotivation to activate the relay for the next 100 years, and the relay power supply wire and wire to the starter are brand new, out in the open, installed by yourself, and easy to troubleshoot. I drove my Subaru for over a year with an occasional click, click, click, Start! that eventually turned into buying a new starter when it failed completely. The new starter worked great for all of 24 hours, then I was back to square one. Through it all, the screwdriver start was my backup. There were times when I decided against driving it from my house because it was difficult to start; but I never missed work or got stranded. I installed the relay the day after the starter, and never had a problem again. No relays blown, no fuses blown, starts every time.

10-15 bucks is cheap for two new cables. Never assume the cables you have on the car are good enough until they have proven themselves.