Dragonfly

Unless you do like AK-Z did you are going to find your dash lights very dim, you will also find your tail lights brake lights etc. will seem quite dim unless you are directly in front of them. The reason is because LEDs only create light in one wavelength (except white which is a weird blend and cost more than double what colored LEDs cost) and that light is colimated (it only goes in one direction unlike an incandescent light which goes in all directions) and is only projected out of the end. There are some places that make the lights (LEDs) for tail lights that have a ring of LEDs around the bottom so that they reflect off the mirrored surfaces in your lens housings, these lights cost more money but they work much better. Dragonfly

I do not intend to hyjack this thread but as far as the picture goes that I posted: Yes that system does cost an arm and a leg, the dampner and water pump pully are the same size so that the water pump turns 1:1 with the crank shaft. I am not going to go into any details about the dampner at this time as Jerry (owner of http://www.zraceproducts.com and the distributer for those dampners) is not ready to start selling them yet. But just to be a tease I am posting a couple more pictures of Jerry's engine. That is Jerry posing with the engine. Dragonfly

What do you think of this dampner from http://www.zraceproducts.com? Dragonfly

I may be wrong on this but I was told a long time ago that if the car came from the factory with AC that the timing mark was on the drivers side and if the car did not have AC the timing mark is on the passenger side. My 260 with factory AC had it on the drivers side and so does my friends, but my 240 without AC and my wifes 260 without AC both have the mark on the passenger side. There should be a place on both sides of the timing chain cover were you can attach the timing pointer, just find the correct pointer or one of the pointers that only has a single point and no degree marks. Dragonfly

I have tried to pull the fill plugs on several Z transmissions and I think that I only succeded twice, what I found that works much better (and probably what the guy at the xpress lube place did) is to remove the reverse light switch which is located right beside the fill plug. When you remove the reverse light switch the whole switch comes out leaving you with a threaded hole just like the fill plug hole (only slightly smaller). I don't know why but it seems that the fill plug it torqued much more than it needs to be and the reverse light switch is torqued at about half of the fill plug. I would think that if you lost a lot of fluid like you said when changing the seal that they did put in the fluid like you had been told. Dragonfly

This is the type of tool that works the best. If you do not have something like this or can not make (or get) something like this for the speedometer take it out of the housing and hold the "cup" in the back while carefuly twisting the needle and pulling upwards with your finger and thumb. That will not work with the tach and you will need to use some sort of puller, but DO NOT use any sort of tool (screwdriver etc.) to try to pry the needle off the post as you will damage the post, the gage face, the needle or all the above. Dragonfly

What I have been doing to remove spot welds is using a die grinder with a carbide bur (round tip). I start with the bur almost flat on the spot weld then rotate it slowly to about a 45 degree angle as the bur cuts through the spot weld. It is very easy to see and control the depth of your cut in this mannaer and since the carbide bur is a lot harder than the spot weld you can do probably all of them without dulling the bur. The bur that I use is the "SC" on this page http://www.carbidebur.com/shapes/burs.htm. Dragonfly

I have been doing mechanical, electrical, and architectural drafting using auto CAD for the past 11 years, and from what you just described I personaly think that auto CAD lite would work very well for you. You can find very inexpensive or sometimes free night classes for auto CAD, you just need to do some checking around with the adult education programs in your area. In my opinion in order for you to use auto CAD with any real effeciancy you should take at least one class prior to self teaching and using the how to books. Once you understand the fundimentals (learned from classroom teaching) then you can gain alot more from the how to books. As far as a version of auto CAD I am personaly using version 2006 and I would not recomend that you start with any version older than 2004 because you will already be out of date for the majority of the industry. I also have SW and Pro E and I can tell you that for your job (from what you discribed) auto CAD is best but for enginering and making 3D drawings etc. stay away from auto CAD and use SW or Pro E. Dragonfly

I decided to take a few pictures of my doors so I could post them on this thread... this is the door with the holes in it. and this is the door without holes in it. this is a complete shot of the door with holes in it. All those holes only shaved 1 pound off the weight of the door. Dragonfly

Mack take a look at your cam lobes... the opening profile is different from the closing profile. Your cam is designed to open the valve quickly and close it slowly (reletively speaking) therefore it takes more energy to open the valve than is recovered from the spring trying to re-seat the valve. Dragonfly

I have one primary concern after looking at the pictures on ebay... weight/mass. Those weigh more than mine (which are lightened) and look like the would weigh more than stock and of course as soon as you start adding weight to your valve train you start to loose performance from the increased mass. The real question is if the gains from the roller are greater than the losses from the increased mass. For me personaly I would have to say no they are not, for someone who is running a stock valve train they may well be worth it. Dragonfly

I agree with everything that mom'sZ said but there is one thing I want to add that I have not seen yet in any of the postings on "welding/body work". It has been and still is common for brazing with brass in the repair of automotive damage and as stated above one of the primary reasons is because it is fairly easy and the metal is not heated as much. What I have not seen stated is that brazing with a brass rod when done properly will create a bond that is stronger than the base metal alone. What is very important when brazing (just like welding) is that the metal be maticulasly clean, but the other important thing with brazing is that the metal should always have at least a 1" overlap otherwise you won't get the "penitration" you need. There is nothing wrong with brazed body work but if the work looks subpar then you have more potential to have things come apart than if it was welded. Looking at the pictures I would say the work in the boxed in area was subpar which would make me concerned about the rest of the work. I would find someone in the area who knows body work and have them take a close look at it for you then take thier advice on where to go from there. Dragonfly

I had that happen to my rear diff also, the pin came out close to a 1/2", but with mine it also damaged the carrier so I ended up scrapping that diff which was to bad because for years I would get equal traction from both tires in a straight line although around a turn it acted like a typical open diff. Be careful because there is the chance that your carrier may have been damaged or weakened and you don't want that thing to handgrenade on you while racing. Dragonfly

I think all of that can be fixed without to much dificulty. A good body/frame shop will put the car on a rack, attach clamps to it and apply force to it while tapping the dents and they will pop right out. The rest of the work is cosmetic. In the pictures I could not realy see the front of the frame rails but as long as they are not torn they can be straghtened out fairly easily. If some place gives you an outragous price to have the work done go somewhere else, in my opinion outragous would be above 8 hours labor. Dragonfly

You can run stock springs on a .460 lift cam with no problem, with a higher lift cam you do not need to change the springs so much as to machine down the spring perch in the head then shim the springs accordingly. The book "How to Modify Your Nissan/Datsun" by Frank Honsowetz has pictures and detailed information on making modifications to your head to accept larger cam profiles i.e. machining down the spring perches etc. if you don't own the book it is one of the best purchases you can make if you want to stick with an L series engine in your car. When I was running the su's I was using ZTherapy's rebuilt 4 screw round top carbs that were flow matched and using SM needles. If you have junky or worn out carbs the best cam in the world will not do you any good, so keep that in mind before spending your money. Dragonfly

In my opinion the Schnieder cams that MSA sells is probably one of the best things they sell. I have the MSA 2003 cam which is a Schnieder .460 lift 270/270 cam, the kit comes with new rockers, lash pads and springs and it is claimed to provide good power from 3500 rpm to 6000 rpm. When I was running su's that cam gave me gobs of torque and it pulled hard all the way through its stated range, when I switched to 40mm Mikunis I had to modify the carbs considerably to work well with the cam as it is to small for the carbs. In my opinion the primary cause of the cam wear problem you have experianced is from A) improper cam break-in improper cam geometry. I had a car many years ago that the cam was not properly broken in on and within a matter of months the lobes started showing wear like you have on yours. One last thing (my opinion again) unless you truly have no clue you should never completely trust someone else's work, when they are done take it home and recheck everything yourself, even the best mechanic will not treat your engine the same way he treats his own. Dragonfly

Back when all this was still fresh in the news I read an article that listed the vehicles which are most prone to roll over and the ones that are the most difficult to roll over. What I remember most about the article was that they said the Corvette was the most difficult car to roll over but that it was aslo the car involved in the most roll over accidents. The article said the reason for that is because the drivers don't realize the limitations of the vehicles and thier own ability to maintain controll. I guess what I am saying is what most everyone else has said... it is not the fault of the manufactuer but rather the nut behind the wheel. "The way to make drivers safer is not to make a safer vehicle but rather to put a sharpened steel spike in the center of the steering wheel, that driver will never do anything stupid behind the wheel" that was taken from a show on Discovery Channel about dangerous driving (the quote may not be exact as it has been awhile since I saw the show). Dragonfly

I have '72 doors that at this time are completely empty, they weigh 26 lbs according to the bathroom scale I have in the garage. The "track thingy" is the side impact beam, in the '72 and older Z's they are nothing more than a thin piece of metal that screw in on one side and weld in on the other side. On the '73 and '74 it is a much heavier beam with some substance to it and as said earlier they add at least 10lbs to the weight of the door. The '75 (280Z) and newer have a different latching mechinism in the door and a redesigned window crank mechinism both of which work better than the earlier ones but they also weigh more and the side impact beam is even more stout (heavier) in order to meet the newly addopted side impact laws. As far as using a 280 door on a 240 and vice versa the doors are the same physical size but the latching mechinism is different enough that under most circumstances it is more work than it is worth to swap them. On my 240 which is predominantly a track car (with full cage) I have drilled several 1" and 2" holes in the door to lighten it but still allow me to retain my window mechinism and handle/latch mechinism, one of the other club members whos car is a track only car cut the entire inside portion of his doors out, removed the glass and made a modified mount for the inside door handle but even by my standards that is to extreme for a car that will see any street driving. BTW with the holes drilled in my doors it brought them down to 20lbs each. Dragonfly

Yes it is lb/in and it means X lbs = 1 inch compression, so a 250 lb spring would compress 1 inch with 250 lbs sitting on it. The better springs on the market are close to linear which means that a 250 lb spring would require 500 lbs to compress it 2 inches etc. so if you have 4 inches of travel it will take 1000 lbs to compress it all the way. On my car I run 300 lb springs in the back and 250 lb springs in the front and my car is quite stiff I could not imagine running springs that are on the plus side of 400 lbs on anything short of a smooth race track, on the street that would beat you to death. Dragonfly

Here is a link to what I have on my Z, http://www.ground-control-store.com/products/image.php?image=http://www.ground-control-store.com/images/fullsize/4516_fs.jpg&name=Coilover+Conversion+kit%2C+70-74+Datsun+240%2F260+Z+WELD it does have an inner lip to keep the spring located on the perch but the perch itself is ground flat. Dragonfly

On a quality set of coil overs the perch is flat and the springs are ground flat so there is no wrong place for it to re-seat on the perch. Beyond that I have to agree with Auxilary. Dragonfly

My cars name is Dragonfly. Dragonfly was named by my wife, and she came up with the name from the Dragonfly Clothing Company which makes most of the clothes I wear http://67.15.104.79/~admin45/shop/htdocs/retail/roadhouse.php. Dragonfly

Brandon I don't carry a jack either, but on the street I carry a can of 'fix a flat', I also have my AAA card. That kid at the races was pretty young and I know that he told me he visits Hybridz occasionaly but I have not seen him here that I can say. Maybe after I get my car on the road again and if Paul is not replacing his head gasket we can all get together at the drags and kick some ***. Dragonfly

Well Paul I was not able to make it out to the races, but I am curious how you did. I have recieved my flywheel and I am very happy about how it looks. I took the FW with me when I went to Southland Clutch and we went through several blank clutch hubs until I decided on the six puck sprung hub, then while I waited they assembled my clutch for me and set me up with the proper pressure plate for the clutch and fly wheel. At this time all of it is sitting in boxes in the garage along with my new ripper shifter and fully rebuilt BW T5. Its a bummer that I am not going to be able to make it to the dyno day because I really wanted to see what it has while the rest of the clubs hanging around. Dragonfly