jt1

You can mark the seats with a magic marker, put the valves in and spin them (with a drill or with a stick and rubber hose) and see if the nicks are actually on the contact area of the valve and seat. If not, they're probably OK. If you know someone with some engine building experience, you could get them to take a quick look. jt

That's a pretty extreme angle for a radiator, but I suspect it will be OK for street driving. Like goth says, you need to fab a fill that is the highest point of the system, including all the passages in the heads. Otherwise you will have air in the engine and guaranteed bad results. The R180 will last a while. How long depends on how hard you hit it with the clutch, and how much grip the tires have. With narrow street tires and driven as moderately as anyone will drive a V8 Z, it could last quite a good bit. jt

Glad it worked well. No Pics?????? C'mon, man, kick out!!!!! jt

Jason, I think your combo, with a decent exhaust, would make 400chp pretty easily. Torque would probably be more, and the hp peak probably in the low 5k rpm range. Looks like the cam is 218/228 @ 50, and with 11:1 and iron (?) heads, it may have some detonation problems, or at least require careful attention to fuel and tuning. Of course, 11:1 advertised doesn't mean you will wind up with a true 11:1, so it may not be a problem. Otherwise it looks like a fun combo to me. jt

It may work just fine.... I hope it does, I'd love to see a SB2 Zcar. I've pondered it a bit, since the used nascar stuff is readily available around here. I concluded the extra expense and effort wasn't worth the extra hp, at least for what I was doing. The eye candy factor alone would be huge... if anybody's built a SB2 Z, I've never seen it anywhere. I think the driver side header will be a particular challenge, with the motor mount, steering shaft, TC rod and footwell all coming into play. The SB2 ports are maybe an inch wider than 23deg, but at least a couple of inches higher. Also the DS valve cover will be pretty close to the MC. All that can probably be dealt with. There's a local guy here who buys used nascar SB2 stuff and builds dirt late model engines on sbc blocks. They start off at 840 hp, and go over 900 if the buyers budget supports it. Lots of potential there. jt

23 degree heads vs. SB2 head

The torch works, but then you have another mess to clean up. jt

You've got to throw compound in the mix also. Sometimes a smaller softer tire might be faster than a larger harder tire. jt

The cam, lifters, and some of the valvetrain is different depending on which block is used. Pistons are SB2 specific. You probably should stick the headers on it and see if it fits between the strut towers. SB2's are much wider than sbc's. jt

Is it built on a SB2 block or a SBC block? jt

Be sure you can find an intake for the tall deck, I think they are specific. As long as you do all the stuff you normally do for a blower, I don't see a problem. jt

You know you own a Datsun when... You are getting ready to go to the track and you reflect on the fact that the tires, wheels and brakes on the car cost substantially more than the entire car did when it was new. You're looking the car over after coming in off track, and a guy driving a nicely modded GT3 or Z06 comes over and says "What kind of car is this? It sure does sound good when you pass me!!!" jt

That's a lot of cam for a road race car. It will really sing at 7K, but you might not be happy with how it pulls off the corners at 3500. Are you going to cut out the firewall to use those headers? If not, you're going to have to position the engine really forward. jt

Brian, I've never used the Ultimate compound, just garden variety stuff. One time I bought the Zaino setup, and it worked really well. Pick out an area where the swirls are worst, strip the wax, and try compound again using light pressure and making longitudinal strokes rather than circular. Then polish longways and wax it again, and see how that looks. I had a black vette once that would show the circular marks no matter what, but it looked nice if you went longways, following the body lines. jt

Usually the swirls show up from a not-so-great compounding job. You might be able to wax it a couple of times and cover them up, or you may have to go back and redo the clay bar & compounding job. My 73 is 904, it looks nice on a Z IMO. jt

John, where did you put the tubes? I tried a set, couldn't get them in the collectors, put them in the cones right past the collectors, and only had so-so results. Vac at some rpm, but not all. jt

The split collar is an ongoing, pita oil leak that's almost impossible to seal. There's just no good way to keep oil from escaping thru the split. Drag racers use them, but they're not as sensitive to oil leaks as an OT car. The only way they don't leak is if you're using a vacuum pump or dry sump system so there is negative crankcase pressure at all times. With the wide rpm range and on/off throttle of an OT engine, there's inevitably going to be positive crankcase pressure at some point, and a breather/pvc system just can't keep up. Then oil is running down the back of the block, hitting the headers, the black flag is out and when they look at you the back of the car is greasy. The split collars were an answer to heavily cut blocks/heads/intakes, or tall deck blocks. They have their applications, but OT isn't one of them. I like the orings on the shaft. Oil leaks from the lifter galley around the shaft, and that's oil that doesn't get to where it can do some good. Sometimes they are tough to install. Before a block gets a final cleanup, I like to put a small chamfer on the dist hole in the block. Sometimes with a standard distributor, the gear contact isn't what you would like, and you may have to shim the gear, or entire dist, up or down. You can do that, if needed; lots of times it's not, but it should be checked. You will never get the split collar to stop leaking. jt

Good move on skipping the Procomps. They are a false economy. If the 215 heads you're looking at are ported bigger than 1206's, they're a pretty serious race head, and it's going to take a pretty serious intake to work with them. Neither of these are going to work well with a low compression hyd cam stock shortblock, you will be disappointed. The big heads won't have enough velocity to make good torque at lower rpm, and the stock shortblock won't turn enough rpm to get the heads really working. I think a set of vortecs would be excellent for your goals. You'll have to use centerbolt VC's and a vortec intake, but that's not a big deal. Why don't you check out Ryan's stroker page? It's a compilation of builds with dyno results, and you can learn a lot there. You can meet your goals without blowing the budget, all it takes is some planning. There's over a hundred combos there. http://ryanscarpage.50megs.com/combos1.html jt

Sell the split collar dist and buy a standard type, shim it if you need to. They are a drag race only item and not suitable for track use. BTDT and almost saw a nice engine blown because of it, the only thing saved it was the driver was on his toes..( I wasn't the driver !!!). jt

210 cc heads are too big for a hyd cam motor and your target hp. It will be down on torque and you won't be able to turn it high enough to use the heads with 350 cid. Some bowl ported cleaned up stock heads will meet your goal and save money. I recently helped a fellow freshen a motor with procomps and the core shift was so bad the intake barely sealed. Save up for some better heads or use some stockers. jt

John, there's no change in the blocks themselves regarding the front seal. What makes the difference is the pan and timing cover. Some pans and covers are made for thin seals, others for thick, and then you get tolerances thrown in the mix. Felpro makes numerous versions of the blue gaskets for thin, thick, and different dipstick configurations. I went thru several with my comp cover/canton pan setup. The most frustrating part is that it won't leak until you actually get it on track and run it hard. A call to hamburger may help. Edit; Also, if a block was line bored, you sometimes have to fine tune the dowel holes in the cover to get the front seal centered on the damper. that detail is overlooked lots of times and can cause problems. jt

That's some nice work. Thanks for taking time to post up the details. I'm pondering something similiar and you've given me some great ideas. jt

Not a bad price if the machine work and assembly was done properly. If i bought it I'd have to tear it down and check it, but I'm just that way. If something was done poorly and you have to correct it, you might wind up with as much in it as if you did the build yourself. jt

Definitely not JTR. It looks like a scarab setup to me, but I'm not familiar with the nordskog setup. jt

Mike, it's almost impossible to have a leak from the head in that area. Look at the valve cover, the intake and distributor, the plug in the top of the deck where the hole is drilled for the center cam passage, or the oil pressure port. jt