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Chris, Thanks for all the powdercoating work you did. It all came out great. Pete

Drove it up and down the driveway! More glass, hood, grille, and then off the exhaust shop.

But that doesn't explain why cylinder 2 is missing when warm. I don't think this is a mechanical problem. Been wrong before though. Keep us posted. Pete

No, but give it a try.

I just discovered this thread, so bear with me. Just my thoughts on the Wilwood setup. I've had the Wilwood setup on my car for 5 years or so now, and many track days. I didn't measure the run-out on the rotor once mounted to the hub, but I had to turn them to stop the shimmy. So I have only turned them once, and I have not had the problem since. The rotors are showing wear, and I may replace them soon. This says a lot about OEM and aftermarket tolerances. The stock caliper is hard mounted, and you can go to Autozone and buy cheap stock rotors and not have to turn anything. There is a lot of junk in aftermarket. Not sure if the hats or the rotors are the culprits. I'm using the JSK hats and Wilwood curved vane rotors BTW. As far as the Wilwood pads, I'm not a fan. They are either way to aggressive, or not aggressive enough. I have three sets (B, Q, and T I think), and they are sitting in a box never to be used again. With T and Q pads, I'm better off with stock brakes and street pads. The B compound has tons of friction, but sound like I'm grinding metal. I've been using the Hawk HP+ pads for a few years now. They are a little noisy on the street, but the friction level and feel are great. They take a little longer to heat up than stock pads. No issues with fade on the track. Most of my track days are at Loudon, which is a track hard on brakes. Pete

If they are platinum plugs, that could be your problem. They are very sensitive to gas fouling. So if it was running pig rich at one point, change all of them. Use NGK BPR6ES gapped to .035 to start. Pete

So I guess you don't have a resistor pack? Do you have driver 1 (D1) driving injectors on cylinders 1,2 and 3, and driver 2 (D2) driving injectors on cylinders 4, 5 and 6? And you have swapped them so D2 drives 1, 2, and 3 and you still have the problem? What do the plugs look like in 1 and 2, are they gas fouled or dry? What plugs and gap setting?

Nothing is cheap about doing an engine swap. A lot of $$, and a lot of time. And to do it right, even more $$ and time. If you are just getting out of HS, and have a part time job, I would just focus on getting the original engine running good, and have fun driving it. Get it running and driving good, and have fun. Dam, at least get laid in it before you take it all apart. Pete

It is not the pump, or ignition system (distributor) if only 2 cylinders are being effected. Are you using a resistor pack or the PWM in the MS? If you are using PWM, what are your settings? Seems like something is heating up and then failing. When the engine is running on 4 cylinders, pull one injector plug at a time. If after pulling any of them and the engine doesn't stumble, it's not an injector/driver/wiring problem. If it does stumble, you know which injector to start looking at. Pete

You should be able to use any automotive silicone sealant. I use the high temp copper stuff.

I have used the OEM and aftermarket cork gaskets, and they are just "OK". I wish someone made a multilayer gasket like the OEM valve cover gaskets for the oil pan. Anyway, the most important thing is to get the block and oil pan clean and free of oil. Use brake cleaner or acetone. Make sure the pan is not bent also. You can put a thin film of silicone gasket sealant on both sides of the gasket. This will help. The most important thig is not to over tighten the bolts. Snug them up until the sealant dries, then torque them to spec. There isn't a gasket on the RB motors. On mine I again cleaned both surfaces, then used silicone gasket maker. I installed all the bolts hand tight. Then after the sealant dried, torqued them down.

Nice work! I know about color matching, it can be a pain. You really need to blend it from the flares to the body to make it look perfect. Looks like a good match in the photos. good enough for a track car Pete

I have tried two of them, and I guess I might be lucky (un) that they are both 78'. Doesn't the 78 have the same ignition module as all 280Zs? Does the 78' have an external resistor like other 280Zs? If not, it could explain it. Anyway, when I get an exhaust on my RB I will hook up the scope and spend some time looking at it.

I know my 280Z tach doesn't work with my R34 RB25. I will be putting a scope on it soon to figure out why. I'll post when I figure it out. Pete

When I had a stock cam in my 10:1 (flat tops, N47) motor cylinder pressures were in that region. I couldn't run much over 25 deg advance without ping. With a 460 lift 280 duration cam I can run close to 30 degrees, and the cylinder pressures are about the same as with the stock cam (+- 5psi). It made around 160WHP with the stock cam, and just over 180WHP with the performance one. Not sure why, but my stock L28ET has cylinder pressures in the 170-180 range. You can run 10:1, you just need to retard the timing to prevent detonation. So as you might expect, this limits the potential. This CR vs. max advance trade off discussion is all over this board. I still believe that even though you can't run as much timing, a higher CR will always get you more power in an N42/47 headed L28. With performance cam and 29 degrees advance: With stock cam and 24-25 degrees advance:

I have seen turbo motors (7.5:1) make 180psi across all cylinders, so I'm not convinced it is cam timing. bjhines might be on to something. I had a advance spring in the distributor break, and it caused similar symptoms. Remove the breaker plate and look at the two advance springs. Make sure they are intact. Did you measure the 38 degrees of advance with a timing light, or are you just estimating using the idle timing? Pete

What is your max advance? If you are having detonation problems, you are probably just running too much advance. The problem with the Kameari 0.8mm head gasket is that if it detonates with that gasket, it won't blow. You will probably break ring lands instead. If you want a stock-like thinner head gasket, use a Felpro (1mm). In general, bumping the CR up by 0.4 isn't going to make much difference in power. If you can get 98 octane at the pump, I would swap in flat top pistons to bump the CR to 10:1. This will get you at least 50WHP.

Ron, I agree with everything you say above (although the tuning a particular engine is easily handled by the factory ECU as long as it is in good mechanical condition). I guess my point to the comment was that many "think" that by swapping to an aftermarket ECU they can do a better job than the engineers that tuned it. And yes, in the peak power area I agree. Mainly because they have to warranty their product, so they tune more conservatively (not because they dont' know how). There are more factors at play in the commercial world, namely money. It is relatively easy (if you know what you are doing) to tune for max HP (get the most out of what you have). Drivability, economy, reliability, cold staring, etc. is an entirely different story. Engineers spend months full time tuning in these areas. And to think that we can tune in these areas in our spare time as good is unrealistic. Sure, there are exceptions to that fact (and Ron, you might be one of them ). It took me close to two years in my spare time getting a standalone to have the drivability of a new car. Getting max power took a few hours on the dyno. So that was my point. I think we can all agree that there is more to tuning an engine than just max power. We want to actually drive our projects on the street. Race engines are a different story. Because of he tight integration between the engine management and other electronics, standalone is probably the best choice. Pete

Nice work Ron. I know we all like the Wolf systems, but what mods to the engine are you planning that requires stand-alone? If you're keeping the motor stock (which will make that 260Z fly for sure), why not just use the stock ECU? Or, is it too tightly integrated with the rest of the vehicle electronics so that it is not worth the effort? Or, are you saying that you can tune a BMW I6 better than the engineers at BMW ? Pete

If, "it's got new f'in everything ....", then why does it need new connectors? Let's start with a simple question, is the engine completely stock? Also, clear concise sentences with proper punctuation will go along way on this forum. Pete

The only difference between the P90 and P79 is the exhaust port shape. Do you have a round port header? If so, it might explain why you are seeing less power. The P90 has square exhaust ports. Combustion chambers are the same BTW. Pete

Solid

Why are you assuming that you need more oil flow? I wouldn't drill anything out. You just need to buy the right adapter fitting. I think it is a 12mm inverted flare to -4AN male. Why run two oil pressure gauges? The stock one will do the trick. Pete

Those are my pics. It is the Bob Sharp 240Z that Paul Newman raced. No mufflers. This car hurts your ears! Here are the rest: http://www.zccne.org/simple_gallery/albums/ZCCA_Conventions/Convention_2003/691_.jpg

Here is a SR20DET powered drift 350Z that was at the 2004 Convention in Long Beach: Gutted, cage, pretty well done if I remember correctly.