z-ya

From my experience, the MS gives you complete control over all parameters. It is presented more like an engineer would present it. Some of the aftermarket systems abstract more of that detail than others away from the end user. This is good and bad. It is great if the way they have abstracted the detail fits your application. Bad if it doesn't. An example is the cold start settings. With MS you have complete control over all parameters. On some of the Wolf systems I have tuned there is one control, 0-100, and that is it. The cold start works flawless on Wolf systems. It is much easier to get the MS out of whack because there are so many controls. Too many controls can be a bad thing to someone new to tuning modern EFI. Anyway, I love MS, and have been installing them since they first released the 2.2 board. Once you get the kinks out, they are very reliable. But I have had them fail, so they are not excluded from electronic failures. My $0.02

I've also seen that problem on hot days after sitting in the sun. I think it might have happened 2 or 3 times. Only on the hottest of days. Switch back to a mechanical fan with a good clutch, and find a shroud.

I think if you add up everything you have spent on MS, including sensors, and then time debugging new sensors, trigger wheels etc., it is more like a 2x cost difference. And you have a lifetime warranty. I think people new to aftermarket EFI need to realize that a lot of what we are doing with MS is experimental. I'm not bashing MS, but after supporting people that have gotten way over their head with MS, I wish I had suggested a commercially available unit instead. Things like simple mistakes in making the harness can cause problems that are very difficult to debug. When you are talking about low level signals from hall or VR type sensors running through a harness that is also carrying switched signals to inductive loads like injectors, it is a perfect scenario for these kinds of problems. The question is how much time do you want to spend debugging problems vs tuning and or driving.

I would look into a Wolf 3D unit. They have units that plug into the factory harness and use all of the stock sensors. Yea it is more expensive than the MS, but you will save a lot of time, and it has a warranty. I'll be doing the FI on a HybridZ member's RB26DETT swap soon. We are using a Wolf V500. Ron Tyler can hook you up.

I like the 6:1 because it has a standard 3 bolt flange. The 3:2:1 header has this crappy clamp on Y pipe. I like to be able to unbolt the exhaust system from the engine without having to deal with that Y pipe. The difference in performance? Maybe the the 3:2:1 flows a little better than the 6:1, but on most all engines the difference is minimal. Maybe on a full race L6 you can measure the difference, maybe not.

I've had good luck with the ITM pistons for NA applications. They are a heck of a lot cheaper than the Arizona Z forged ones. If you don't plan on going turbo, use the money you would save using cast pistons on head work.

The engine I currently run in my track car is a rebuilt 78' L28 (N42 block and N47 head), with ITM +0.5mm flat top pistons. Stock head gasket. Head was milled just a little to flatten it out in a few spots. CR is in the 9.9 - 10.0 range. The rotating assembly was balanced. The intake ports were matched to the intake manifold, and a very light port cleanup was done (budget racer). It has a mild road race CompCams camshaft in it. It makes 180WHP and runs fine on pump 93 octane with a total ignition advance of 28 deg. This is my reliable "spare" motor that I am using full time now since I had a piston melting problem in my supercharged motor.... The reason for using the N47 head was mainly that I had it, and I have a nice round port header. Again, this is a budget racer. Pete

For the street, adapters are fine. I probably would not run them on a road racer. Spacers are fine, as long as you have enough stud so that it protrudes beyond the lugnut. I run 1/2" spacers on the front of my road race Z.

What is your CR, 10:1? I was able to muster 180WHP from a 10:1 L28 with the same cam and fuel injection (port matched 280ZX intake manifold).

I thought I had seen it in the "Extra" code, but wasn't sure. Nice to know it is in the MSII code as well since that is what I will be running on this setup. Running a shielded cable fro the TPS sensor can sometimes fix these TPS glitch problems. If you run straight wire for everything you can run into these kinds of problems. Yes, I think I am going to start screwing with the SUs as throttle bodies now.

Viscous?

Yes, the most dangerous thing in your photos is the rotors. They can for hairline cracks that can cause the whole rotor to come apart. The adapters are fine. I am assuming that you mainly driver your Z on the street? Pickup a new set of Brembo or Mountain rotors and ditch those drilled ones. You will notice an immediate difference 1in your braking performance. Pete

I ran draw through SUs on a turbo motor for years, and the performance was poor. I screwed with the SUs for all that time and never really got the performance and or drivability I was looking for. Part of it was you can't really run an IC with a draw through setup (safely). Secondly, you have almost no control over fuel and spark, the most important variables for any engine tune, especially a boosted one. If you are just looking to screw around with SUs and a turbo just to learn something, fine. But if you want to build a turbo motor that is reliable, drivable, and makes good power, don't waste your time with carbs. If that L28 is already built, and has 10:1 CR, why not just run it NA with SUs? You could get 180-200WHP with the proper tune. Could be a hoot to drive. Pete

Tony, The linkage is all stock Nissan, so there is very little play from TB to TB. Worst case would be 2 times the max play from a one TB stock Nissan setup. Slapping a TPS onto the side of one of the TB is a lot easier than rigging it up on the pedal (I just love getting under the dash in an S30). A 240SX TPS will bolt to the 280ZXT TB without any modifications. I actually was looking closely at using a set of SUs to use just as TBs, but there is no place to easily mount a TPS. I'm wondering if on MSII you can use manifold vacuum change for throttle enrichment (I know other ECUs can do this). Or, I could mount the TPS under the dash. Mmmmm, thinkin' stealth mode again.... I'm liking this idea! Pete

There will be a balance tube, and only one TB will have a TPS. So except for getting the two TBs butterflys set close, it should work like a single TB intake manifold. Pete

Yes, I am using the balance tube. Once so that the TB don't need to be precisely calibrated, and it also provides a place to mount the throttle shaft stantions. I have completed port matching the manifold to the head. I have also smoothed the inside of the manifold where the EFI manifold was grafted to the SU manifold. There were some bumps that needed to be smoothed out where the two manifolds were welded together. The plan as of today is to use this manifold setup on a 3.1L NA sleeper. I will be retrofitting a stock 240Z air filter to attach to the TBs. It should make people do a double take. The car it is going into is a 71 which will be setup as a nice street modified Z. It will look mildly modified, but it have all the goodies underneath.

If you torque them to 30 ft-lbs by mistake, you will most likely strip the threads in the head. The head bolts do most of the cam tower holding.

You don't have a manual on hand that has the torque specifications? From memory the torque is 12ft-lbs on the cam tower bolts. Torque them like you would torque a head, start in the middle and work your way out.

30 wt is fine. I is just for initial startup. It is more important to pre-lube the engine using the drill with a gear-less oil pump shaft method, than worrying about what oil viscosity to use for assembly. As soon as it fires, it's what is in the oil pan that matters. I use cheap 30 wt oil for initial break in and assembly (at least an hour run time). Then put a good quality conventional oil in there for the first 1000 street, or 100 track miles.

First of all, it is a P79 head. The P79 flows very well, even with the exhaust liners present. With the P79 head and flat top pistons, your CR is in the 8.5:1 range. Your SUs should not have a problem delivering enough fuel. Now if you were running an N series head, you might be on the edge with stock SM needles (10:1 CR).

Tony, Great to here it fired right up! I know the feeling about being out of work, I was out for about 4 months in 2006. I got a lot of projects done, but not having money to burn, forces you be extra creative. I restored/replaced the interior of my 78' during that time. Soap and water, glue, and vinyl die are cheap. The resulting interior restoration came out great. Good luck on the job hunt! Pete

Here is what the rear valance looks like on my 1971 project: Here is a rear section I cut off the back of a 1970 that had no floors or frame rails: What I want to do is replace the entire rear valance, tail light area, and hatch jamb. I want to drill out as many spot welds as I can, then cut where needed. My goal is to graft in the new rear panel as it was done at the factory. When put it back together, I just plan on welding the panels at the original seams, and then weld up the spot weld holes I drilled out. Any other ideas that might make the job easier? Thanks, Pete

Update: Second half of fender work: 280Z lower valance mold making: Finished headlight bucket mold (needs trimming and wet sanding) Rear spoiler mold:

What distributor are you referring to?

I don't know this for sure, but I believe the solid lifter heads can be run at a higher RPM because there is no chance of valve float with the correct springs. Of course you can get solid lifter valves to float with a high lift cam and weak valve springs. My point is that hydraulic lifters cannot react as fast as solid ones, so at high RPMs (6500+), you may get valve float. So if you need to run the engine to 7000RPM to make the 400WHP (horsepower is a function of torque and RPM) your looking for, then you will need a solid lifter head. As cygnusx1 said, you can't run a performance camshaft in a P90A hydraulic head, mainly because there is no lash adjustment. Also, you can't really observe the wipe pattern because the engine has to be running with oil pressure. I suppose you could run a drill on a distributor as you would when priming a new engine to pump up the lifters, and then check lash. It would be easier to get a P90, or convert you hydraulic head to solid lifters as many have done (search). To achieve 400WHP, you will probably need to run one of the Isky or Schneider turbo grinds, which will only work in a solid lifter head with the correct springs and lash pads.