Daeron

Put a fully charged battery in the car. The spherical thing, might that have been a cylinder? if so it was just a little condenser to filter radio noise; it should be there... but mine isnt There is no external regulator, both alternators are internally regulated in your case. Charge the battery fully; autozone will do it for you while you wait. Bring the alt in to autozone, have them test it (may as well do both) and have them charge your battery while you are there. There are two TOTALLY different looking starters for the car; one is a direct drive, and its a simple looking starter: motor, solenoid, the motor connects directly to the flywheel teeth. The other is a gear-reduction starter, and it has the axle of the motor offset to the location of the flywheel teeth, and also has a small gearset that makes the actual contact with the flywheel. This gearset is housed in a neato looking aluminum "neck" of sorts, and is NOT co-axial with the motor.. I am guessing you switched from one to the other. I personally prefer gear reduction, but thats just for the sound and the cool factor. They both wire up the same; positive battery cable, negative cable on the housing, yellow solenoid signal wire. Start with a fully charged battery and see what happens. If you have a fully charged battery and put it in the car, and the thing will not start the next day, then your battery is either bad, or you have a drain. If you have a multimeter, you can set it to amperage (usually requires moving the red lead to a different plug on the meter) and check to see what amps are being drawn from the battery with the key off. If NOT, then fully charge the battery, crank it up, make sure its OK strong, and then disconnect the battery cable overnight, come back the next day and try to start it. If it won't start then, you have a bad battery. The battery was involved in an accident? Might not be a good sign. I have been known in the past to open up the covers and top a battery off with water, even though you arent supposed to do that anymore for some reason... it helps in some situations, IF the fluid was low. Good luck; the guys at autozone (or wherever) are your friends with something like this. get everything tested. there IS also a chance that for some reason your starter motor is dragging too much amperage. is the other starter still functional? Just throwing some ideas out there.

had to google "cow magnet." brutal. My question is.. would that part be considered an "engine internal?"

on my 87 subaru EA82 (1.8OHC, hitachi built EFI) the ECU has a green LED that comes on whenever the O2 sensor reads "rich" and cuts off at stoich or lean. Does the Z have the same thing???

IMO it is a matter of preference, for the most part. I think all of us would agree that a theoretical "ideal air intake" (given: limited to throttle plate type setup) would likely be ITBs with a Perfect version of Jeff's plenum on it. This ideal would likely cost arms and legs, thousands of arms and legs, so it will never come to Be... However, one thing I wanted to point out is that the primary benefit in having a plenum (cold air aside) is the common resonance chamber and assisted velocity from running all six cylinders though one common orifice. I may be poorly stating it, but jmortensen said as much above and I don't think enough attention was brought to it. This is one reason I am eager to build myself a dual TB bolted to SU EFI manifold, and start tinkering with an air plenum supplying them with fresh air. Once I get the bloody thing back together, that is. Obviously I will be fudging around in the dark, but in my mind it should be fairly easy to make it a "best of both worlds" scenario on a budget, if I can do it right. With such a pile of parts, it is hard to think of NOT using anything that I have already and buying something else instead.

Priceless.. The funny thing is, if you lose a ROD on an L, the engine stays running until you run out of oil... +1 for QOTM

Don't throw the other push-rod away. You never know when you, or someone you know, might get in a jam by getting a master cylinder that needs a different length push-rod. Ask me how I know this

Those alternators, if not identical, certainly should be interchangeable. Is the battery confirmed Good? Have you checked across the two terminals for amperage draw with the key off? Have you tested the alternator(s?)

I would do some stress-testing on the bond between the wood, the foam, and the fiberglass before bolting it onto my car and subjecting it to aerodynamic stress. It wouldn't do to have your spoiler fly off at speed on a highway! I like the foam idea, but I would have mounted the piece of wood to the spoiler with a few strips of fiberglass somehow, and THEN filled the apparatus with foam; I couldn't tell you exactly how to go about making these fiberglass "straps" or connection between the wood and the spoiler, but just something light-weight to add to the overall strength of the bond holding spoiler to car. Of course, I may be grossly underestimating the adhesive and cohesive properties of the foam stuff, but I have used it some in the past.. but you may also be UNDERestimating the force that the spoiler will be subjected to. I can't give you an estimate of how strong it needs to be.. but it is something *I* would tend to over-engineer for safety's sake. Hopefully I am being a granny about it; if the foam DOES seem to hold strongly enough than its a great scheme. Urethane air dam FTW, period. If the car is EVER going to be parked in a parking lot, it shouldn't have a fiberglass lower jaw. The higher the ride height, the less likely you are to ever regret it.. and vice versa. The urethane air dams still need the bracing you set up, though. That looks nice, BTW.

Don't forget to pull a spark plug after attempting to crank and see if it smells like gasoline, it may be getting drenched which is the exact OPPOSITE of no fuel, but still equals no start. Somehow, though, I get the impression you are noticing a lack of fuel rather than an abundance. So, just for clarification.. Are you getting fuel flow to the rail when you crank it, with the pump wired "stock?" I am going to assume no. Have you tried to start the car with the fuel pump "hotwired?" If you haven't go ahead and do that; it sounds like You have confirmed fuel flow with the pump hotwired. If it runs like that then you've definitely got a fuel pump power issue, and those can be FUN to track down.. but usually are fairly rapidly traceable to a failed component or broken circuit somewhere. (AFM, relay, or wire associated with either, or wire associated with ECU..) If you have ample fuel flow and correct pressure with the pump hotwired then I would try re installing the stock coil, or examining the installation of the coil again. Check firing order, eyeball the stupid stuff that everyone misses once in a blue moon. It NEVER hurts to take the rubber hoses off of the hard fuel line and blast everything out with some compressed air. If you DO find you are experiencing an "over-fuel" situation, the processes of diagnosis and troubleshooting are entirely different; you either have a bad regulator or one of the electronic components of the EFI system is malfunctioning with the result of far too much fuel enrichment. There really aren't TOO many problems it could have.. My brother once complained to me that it was so overcomplicated and over-engineered, but I couldn't disagree more. (He was possibly just expressing a frustration at the antiquated design?) It is such a simple system that, as daunting as it appears, some time studying the manual and patiently looking at the real thing in front of you is MORE than enough to really grok the entire affair in fullness. (Do you grok "grok"? If not, google grok. Then the preceding two sentences will make sense ) Good luck, and don't hesitate to ask questions along the way.

a clutch is fairly easy, because the transmission is so light. I am NOT a big guy, nor am I Hercules.. far from it, more the skinny little weakling type. Even still, I was able to handle the weight needed to jiggle the trans around enough to get the bolts threaded, no sweat. Actually, outside of a timing belt job, the clutch in my Z-car was the first major mechanical work I ever did on a car without the aid of an "elder" holding my hand. Piece of cake. If the clutch doesn't look problematic, then it isn't REALLY difficult enough a job in the future to spend money you don't have on it now.

I had intended the statement you quoted to carry the meaning of "not as impossible to attain" not as, "not as hard for me to do in my backyard" I had initially posted in this thread with a block of major skepticism, and I had (before seeing the windshield on that yellow car) pictured what might be done to add a little beef in the rear section.. I haven't made an attempt to draw it out yet because I haven't had much time at my PC and such an undertaking would take me about two hours. I am not extremely skilled at digital graphical manipulation; but I DO have fairly high standards, so a "quick sketch" would be something of a time investment. When I refer to the concept of adding quarter panels on top of the existing ones, is everyone with me?

I have looked extensively into firing an internal combustion engine using propane, but have never gotten my feet wet. It's been an idea I have knocked around since I was 14, though. My understanding is, by volume LPG has about 2/3 the caloric density that gasoline does... so gallon for gallon, you wind up with less potential energy.. but pound for pound, they are about the same. In the end, my impression has been that once you factor EVERYTHING in, (timing adjusted for the superior anti-detonation, cost, etc) you wind up burning about as much money per HP, but its a heck of a lot cleaner, pound for pound you wind up with slightly greater fuel efficiency and if I am not mistaken, even quieter and in all ways more "green." It is most effective if you can open up the engine in question and give it some more compression. Any chance of shaving the cylinder head on that motor? Maybe make it a 12 horse? That last bit (more "green") might only hold up so long as it is a minimal market share going LPG, but that seems almost certain to be the case until gas hits $10+/gallon stateside, and probably forever. As much as *I* love it for an alternative fuel, LPG will never be the answer.. it may be a substitute and a dual fuel option on a CNG vehicle, and CNG might be a better option than LPG for any number of reasons, but you aren't backing yourself into a corner that will be getting crowded soon by going LPG. Regarding a muffler, I don't know if I would bother with getting a muffler off of an automobile.. What size tubing would you be using, around an inch? I would think that a long, multiple-S shaped pipe would work acceptably. A neighbor of mine (unfortunately not my NEXT door neighbor) did that with his home generator exhaust pipe after the hurricanes we had a few years back. He basically connected it to a 20 foot long buried pipe, with the end of the pipe exposed somewhere safe in his backyard. Granted, the earth was muffling alot of sound, but sound waves get spread out in every which direction through an S-pipe, and length = noise reduction. Just a thought. As I said before I am still incredibly envious. I cannot tell you how many people have heard me talk about "this guy on HybridZ who must threw a motor on the tranny and put ten batteries in his car" in the last few weeks, and now they all get to hear that you went ahead and threw the gen-set in too

I think you might be stuck using one that says SSVd Tony....

You said the alternator tested OK, but my guess is that, regardless what the guy at the parts store says, its probably bad. Take it somewhere else and have it tested. Have you had to swap the pulley over? Why not find a good auto electrical place that will test it AND sell you the parts to rebuild it, rather than getting a rebuilt in taiwan alternator that you will need to tweak anyhow to change the pulley on? That way you never need to rely on a parts store for a "rebuilt" alternator again, and you make a good contact for the future. just to be 100% clear... you DID remove the external voltage regulator as part of the maxi fuse swap, correct??

you also have a 2.8 liter fuel injected engine, compared to his 2.4 liter carb'ed, don't forget that.

Wow!! thats amazing!! Maybe it wouldn't be so difficult as I thought.. If you stick with the fender flare idea that I mentioned earlier, of using front fender panels and rear quarter panels welded on to the unibody, spaced out from normal position.. then just left slightly recessed doors... ..THEN, you could tub the front and widen the suspension to wherever you needed. Use the top plane of the first fenders, and then the entire second fender, to finish the edge you decide. Wrap sheetmetal to the stock door/windshield/fender meeting point, and leave the stock doors, windshield, and fenders. You would have to have awkward rocker panels sticking out.. maybe? maybe just taper it back to stock "wasitline" around the hood/door section. Stock hood and hatch. Outside in the rear, what you do is fair in the tops of the additional quarter panels to stock roofline locations. This is done to accommodate the widening of the chassis.. which I can begin to picture but not well enough to describe. I am almost beginning to find it possible, but you would basically be just cutting the corners off of the car, spacing them out from the center a bit, and building new frame to hold it all together. It would be a strange job, but I could see it working.

I must confess I wasn't really THAT envious until i saw this.. details on the motor and genset??I did a quick scan of the past few weeks of posts, and didn't notice any mention of plans to make it a hybrid HybridZ.. Thoughts, ideas bandied about a while back I remember, but not specific plans. This, I REALLY envy. Its a safety net for when you just have to burn out and smoke that camaro on the way to lunch. Words fail me, so I'm just gonna stop talking and wait for more details and finish work to emerge. Bravo.

I am really more attached to the idea in a naive way TBH, function must take priority over form in my book as well. I cannot WAIT to hear this car as-is; the rest was just me daydreaming.

oh GEEZE, a BEAMER engine. oh, my, what a travesty. you are making a mockery of all things datsun. please stop this blasphemy, oh no, i cannot take it any longer. the pain, it burns to my very soul. In case you couldn't tell, that was sarcasm. I cannot think of any marque whose engines I would like to see under the hood of a datsun MORE.. (MAYBE an old DOHC aluminum alfa engine, but thats just silly personal reasons for that.) However.... your Bavarian Beast seems to be missing four cylinders though.... Getrag box, ZX-R.. why no V-12?? you KNOW we are going to want tons of photos..... and some video, once she lives.

have you gotten this car yet??? I keep thinking you should jump on it, but its easy to play with someone elses money

I find that my favorite tool in my toolbox is my set of craftsman six point metric combination wrenches. The six points tend to work better on rounded bolts for me than 12 points, and if you are a *little* bit more careful in making sure the head stays on the bolt, then it is also easier to avoid rounding anything off in the first place. Don't be afraid to mix and match things like the fuel rail and other various hardware that seems interchangeable. Are you going to be completing the entire turbo swap, and running the 75 turbocharged, or are you just changing over the longblock now and running it NA for the time being? I had thought you were just doing a shortblock swap, but now it sounds more like the whole shebang..

Awww, don't cry.. the car was already destroyed, look at the passenger side rear quarter, and the spare tire well. I've seen a Zcar cut up that was far better off than that wreck.. it was just rusted. Someone 86'd a beautiful 75 coupe here a few weeks back and took pictures... it was sad. That picture is sad, but only because the car was dead.. not because someone chopped it up. THAT is informative, turning lemons into lemonade.

Well, I really need to go an examine the damaged area in more detail. Once I unbolted that white bracket and REALLY got an eyeful of the damage, I was too disgusted to examine it closely and know exactly where and what is done, how... so let me take a good look at the bad stuff and I will get back with you.

I will need to go and examine my car in the daylight.. but you know the large white plastic bracket with all the harness plugs in it, above the fuse panel? On my car, the upper, innermost black, 10+2 gang connector, is melted and destroyed. I can re-use it for the top-side connector wire, and most of the gang of ten, but the bottom side connector wire is the green fuel pump wire that burnt. I am totally up in the air as to how I am going to proceed with my saga, and I *may* have pieces from my dad's 78 280Z that I can re use without much hassle and patch together a good, reliable harness.. but I very well may not. At what point in the chassis did you stop yanking wiring from the 75?

Why not chop the top and make it a roadster? Without doing that, this seems like a waste of time and money to me.. I REALLY hate to pass such a judgment on an idea here, and I do not do it lightly, but think about this. If you add 3 inches to the center, what will your windshield look like? You cannot do this without totally altering the curve of the windshield so that the curve is slightly flatter. This means, you have to fully rebuild the windshield channel. I do not even know how you would go about getting a customized windshield designed and built, but it would have to be exorbitant. The only way this would be remotely practical is to roadsterize the vehicle, and use a custom dashboard. In the end, it would be FAR FAR cheaper to simply scratchbuild a tubeframe vehicle, or get a tubeframe V8 car and throw a Datsun styled fiberglass body on it. To me, the simplest way to get what you are going for would involve a trick I saw in an old hotrod magazine. These guys were allegedly the first to put a big block into an S30, and what they did in the rear at least was simple. They took a pair of rear quarter body panels, and welded them to the existing body panels, gapped out about 2 inches, and simply faired them in. The doors were recessed, but this could be remedied.. you could actually theoretically just do this along the entire side of the car, from the windowline down at least. The front end would be an interesting job, but if you ARE loaded and perfectly willing to drop a total of say, 50 grand into this project, then tube frame the front and get custom fiberglass work done based on the shape of the original Z. This frees you up to put any engine you could possibly imagine under that hood... Heck, why not go crazy and get a Merlin engine, or something out of a tank, and go SERIOUSLY hog wild. Turbo-charged? Turbine-POWERED!