Derek

Speaking of V2. Starting to chug along. The head has been held up waiting on radiology testing so I've been working on other components. So I bit the bullet and decided to try my hand at making cam towers. They are machined out of 6061 T6 and match the factory specs except for the cam bore size. I opened the bore up to 1.25" since I have a nice Sunnen hone and the smallest it will go is 1.25". I increased the cap thickness accordingly. I also changed the design on the cams a bit. The front is the same as a KA24 and matches the cam gear. I'm doing away with the adjustable hubs and replacing them with multiple dowel holes and a drilled gear. With this combo I'll be able to have 1.25 degrees of adjustment with 2 dowel pins. Stronger, cheaper, better. I'm also incorporating the thrust bearings into the cams and having Crane grind them to size when they do journal #1. The main reason for this was it let me increase the diameter of the camshaft at the end. Mucho stronger. I made a fixture plate to bore all 7 towers at a time but for right now I'm only doing one at a time. I bore each opening without moving the table switching the towers in and out. This way the bores are all in line. Went a lot faster than I thought it would. The bores came out wicked smooth. Much better than the used towers I'm running on mine. SMOOOOOTH Hope to have my hands on the head next week to start machining. Derek

I saw a post on the Tomitakau site that he CC'd his head at 30cc's. I don't think he expected that and could be chalked up to surfacing. Also if the chambers were as cast then hand finished there could be some discrepancy from head to head. That was all through google translate though. on this build I'm shooting for a NA chamber size of around 43cc's. The motor that V2 is going on has a Rebello stroker kit in it. According to the Ozdat engine calculator it will put him right around 11: 1 CR without a piston change. All that extra meat in the combustion area is going to really make things nice as far as customization. Derek

You may want to pull the head and check the bores. At one point Nissan unloaded a bunch of NOS short and long blocks. I bought one of the short blocks and it was fine but I heard from a couple people that found rusty bores on the long blocks after they pulled the head. Derek

I used the factory bezels from the speedo and tach and had to bring them in through the back. With the cap they would no longer come in from the front.The gauge areas on the cap I used looked like it wouldn't interfere with the 3 stock gauges up top.

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a couple of years. I put it off until I had my Speedhut gauges. Well I no longer had any excuses. This is not a cheap way to fix your dash but a lot cheaper than sending it out for recovering. It is destructive to the original dash so if you plan on having it recovered in the future this is not an appropriate mod. The basic premise is this. Bond the cap to the existing dash. Fill any gaps between the cap and dash with expanding foam. Fill and blend all the seams and gaps. Paint entire dash. I had done the “fill the cracks and texture paint” kludge to my dash years ago. It worked for a little while, but soon a new crack started and then the old ones opened up again. I decided that I wasn’t going to fix the cracks again and opted for a full cap instead. Most of the installed caps I’ve seen were warping and generally ill fitting because of it. I knew from the start that I was going to get the thickest cover I could find and then float it on the existing dash. What I mean by float is let the cap stay as close to its original shape as possible. I had made a couple of posts looking for thicknesses on different caps but didn’t get much data. I called Palco Industries which makes the Dashtop cover. I was told the base material started out at 1/8”. This is the same thickness I use for my speaker panels so I was pretty optimistic that it would have a decent thickness in even the deeper draw sections like the gauge pods. Unfortunately when it arrived it was pretty obvious that the base material was a lot thinner. Most likely 1/6” I decided to stick with it as the overall look was really nice. The hair cell texture was your standard ABS so it isn’t an exact match to the factory but it wasn’t too bad either. You have to pull the dash for this and it is not hard to do so no matter what, don’t convince yourself you can do it in the car. I pulled the dash and did a test fit of the cap. It was immediately apparent that it wasn’t going to just slip on. You could wrench it into position but in doing so it put huge stress on it. Over time that stress would lead to warpage and de-lamination from the pad. I knew it wouldn’t be perfect but I was surprised at how far off it was. The plastic in the gauge pockets is extremely thin so be really careful you don’t tear it during fitting. In order for the cap to sit in it’s natural position I had to do a fair amount of grinding to the pad. Mostly to the tops of the gauge pods and the outer corners. Even then I had to throw in the towel and accept a small amount of stress. I took a DA sander to the entire dash surface with 80 grit to improve adhesion. In reality something even rougher like a 50 grit sander would be better. Speaking of adhesion I decided to use SEM 2 part plastic repair #39847. It’s made for repairing plastic bumpers and is sand-able like bondo with almost no shrinkage. I already have the dual mix gun but if you don’t have one you will need to get one. By the time it was all said and done I used the entire 7 oz tube and 6 mixing tubes. The next part is how I should have done it not exactly how I did it. Slip the cap over the dash and hold it as best you can in position. Four hands would be helpful. Press the dash cap in different areas looking for low spots. Make a mental note of where they are. I was mostly concerned with the top surface. Take a drill and a 3/8” drill bit and drill through the dash pad all the way out the back through the metal frame. Make sure you don’t hit anything important. These are the holes you will use to inject the foam. I can’t tell you how many you need but for every injection hole I figured one or two vent holes. You don’t want the foam to build up pressure so a 2:1 ratio is probably pretty safe. Now you are going to glue down the cap. I did mine in multiple steps. I wiped the inside of the cap with lacquer thinner. This will clean it but also etch the surface a bit. First area to glue was the top and a small amount down the front. This helped me create a stable base so that as I pulled the rest of the cap into position it wouldn’t effect the top. I concentrated the glue around the edges and the high spots that I knew were contacting the cap. After that I put a few dabs in the shallow in between the foam holes so that it would help keep it from distorting. I slid the cap down over the dash. I only needed a couple of clamps to hold it since I sanded the pad to fit. I pushed the cap down in the low spots so it would make contact with the glue. When it springs back it will hopefully have a ribbon of glue between the dash pad and cap. The glue has a 7 minute work time so you need to have everything well rehearsed. After about an hour to dry I then methodically worked my way around the rest of the cap glueing things in position. I masked off areas of the dash that weren’t covered. Pay careful attention to the glove box area. I didn’t and my glove box door is now a very tight fit. No problem as it’s non functional but if I wanted it to work I would have had issues. You need to pull the cap outward as far as you can to have enough clearance. So now you have the basic adhesion done. Now you are going to glue ALL the edges. This is where you decide how well you want it to look. I was really nervous about the gauge pod areas warping over time and ending up in the sight line of the gauges. I took a heat gun and a pair of heavy gloves. I heated the plastic that fit poorly and then shaped it against the dash pad with my gloved hand. This is really tricky. You go from not hot enough to disaster in the blink of an eye. After I was done shaping I went around and glued most of the edges. More on that later. So now that all your edges and high spots are glued you have a dash cap that is theoretically under little or no internal stress and held in position with the old dash. The problem is that you now have hollow areas that have little or no adhesion, plus there will be a temperature differential between the bonded areas and the hollow areas. Can you say “air gap”. Time for the foam. I used low expansion window foam. It seems to be the right choice. It stays soft like the original pad. It also has a bit of adhesion going for it. Not much shear strength but every little bit helps. Position the dash with the gauges facing up so that extra foam falls away. Gravity is your friend. I would shoot the foam in one hole and watch for it to appear in one of the vent holes. I moved from section to section. Don’t over do it as even the low expansion foam expands quite a bit. If it has no place to go then it may distort the dash. I found that if you kept the fill holes clear of foam then it allowed the still expanding foam a place to go. That may just be a guess though. After the foam dried I noticed a huge improvement in the feel of the dash. It felt solid with almost no discernible hollow spots. This is why you seal every edge. Time to finish. I took the remaining glue and used it as filler to build up the areas I wanted to feather in. I sanded them with 80 grit. Most of the areas I was working get covered so I wasn’t too worried abut it being perfect. If I was trying to do a flawless job I would fill the areas and then use the SEM texture spray. That stuff really works well. I cleaned off the dash and sprayed it with SEM trim black out of a rattle can. Looks great. Do’s, and don’ts. When working with the glue and foam where multiple disposable gloves. This way you can use them like tear-offs. Make sure you mask off areas that you don’t want glue on. It’s much quicker to mask stuff off than it is to try and sand it later. Be careful with the gauge areas of the cap. They are thin and fragile. Remember to drill the foam holes before you mount the dash cap. I didn’t think about foaming the dash until after I had bonded the cap. It limited me to only being able to drill a few holes. You can scrape extra glue off with a thumbnail for about 20 minutes. Also sand the glue as soon as you can. It’s soft and will cut like buttah. Be really careful with the foam. It can get out of control really quickly. Don’t foam it and go to lunch. I thought it was done expanding and I looked over and I had a new area growing. The SEM trim spray is lacquer and really susceptible to moisture. It will blush really badly if it’s too humid. Ounce it blushes it can be a real PIA to get it right. Here is the finished product installed in the car. I’m really happy with the results. It’s the hot season in Florida so I’ll update the thread in the fall. I daily drive the car and it’s parked outside in the sun. I do use a window shade most of the time. Derek

Core boxes?!!! We print cores man:)

I wish. I'd love to do that project some day but that may be a few years off if ever. We'll see how well the heads sell.

Hi I believe the B series spins CCW. The K is clockwise. Where things get confusing is I take the entire K series valve train and rotate it 180 degrees. The cam grinds are all referenced from the front of the cam and what direction they turn. At least according to Crane. And this only applies to asymmetrical grinds. So even though I have things all twisted around the custom cams make it all work. Whitley Tune may jump in and correct me but this is my understanding of the lobe design. Derek

Panels are now in production. Well they will be on Monday:) These things were a PIA to make work. Although it seemed like a simple concept to me when I started it really wasn't. There is a lot of things to have happen in a very small area. Drivers side mimics the existing ECU cover and uses it's mounting screws. Good space to get to the dead pedal but you may have to adjust your driving style to get to it. Passengers side mounts using the existing upper trim screw and a piece of industrial velcro attached to whatever the black control box is above it. To get to the fuse box you loosen the trim screw, pull the panel away from the velcro and slide it out. The screw hole is slotted so you don't have to remove the screw. If this seems like a lot of work to change a fuse you probably should fix what's blowing your fuses before buying speaker panels! Here is a small sample of the scrap I made getting the fit, the vacuum forming and the CNC routing worked out. Now for the fine print. Price is $115.00 plus shipping for the pair. Right now I'm only saying they fit a 77 for sure as that is what I have here. I've lined up a 78 and 76 for testing. I'm looking for someone with a 75 test fit as well. So if you have a 77 you're good to go if you have a 75 or 76 and want to participate in my testing program PM me. I looked at pictures on line of the different year interiors and they all look the same to me. The clutch pedal is really really close to the grill. There may be cars where you have to dent the grill a little up front at the top so be prepared for that. I was more interested in keeping the dead pedal as clear as possible. There is 2" of clearance from the mounting lip to the ECU for speaker depth. You may be able to do a deeper speaker with a spacer ring and some grill mods but I'm not making any claims to that. The Pyle PLS502 fits as it is. PM me if you are interested in a set. Thanks Derek

4 1/2" 2 3/8". Here is the link to his info post. http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/109469-group-buy-on-speedhut-gauges/?hl=speedhut Pricing depends on what you buy. And yes it was quite a bit cheaper going through him.

Yes your right, Speedhut did a fine job on those gauges din't they I machined the caps but they are based on something I saw online. Derek

Update time. Tried to get some decent video and still sounds like crap. I will get something going but right now my efforts are elsewhere. I have about 2000 miles on it mostly daily driving with at least one or two hard pulls a day.I think I've developed some chain slap as I'm getting some noise on startup. The pull side guide is way too far from the chain. I knew it was a problem going in but things got a little crazy at the end. V2 uses a KA chain but a new guide arrangement. Did a teardown and inspection of the cam and rocker assembly at 1500 miles. No big surprises. The rear oil supply line came loose so the rear tower may have been starving a bit. It's hard to say as the towers were used and a few of them were "well used". It runs really well. I stopped having Jeff tune because it just didn't make sense trying to get the perfect tune on a motor I'll be switching out. He has it running very dependably and that's what I'm looking for at this point. Here are a couple of shots of the finished engine as it sits right now. And since I've been a good boy I decided to splurge on something I've wanted for a while. I'm so Happy! I got them through HybridZ member ihiryu. Saved me a bunch and the order went flawlessly. Cutting the cam cores for V2 as we speak. The head is scheduled for radiology testing Thursday. Derek

Something fishy with that. Probably someone trying to scam. Not exactly they type of thing you would sell on craigs list. 1 fast Z (bryan) was supposedly going to be doing the machine work on it.

.090" of runout sounds like a lot to me. I would proceed with caution.

Well I got the Palco cap in. It's nice but the base material was 1/16" not 1/8" like they said. It seems to be well made but I'm not sure it's worth the extra money. 1/16" in the Florida sun will probably not stay flat. Time will tell. Plastic stretches when you vacuum form it. The deeper the draw the thinner it gets. The gauge pods are the deepest draw and they get down to 1/32". I wanted to take the time and do a proper job of installing it but now I may slap it on there. No sense killing myself if it's going to warp in 6 months. Derek

The wall thickness at the opening is only about .1875" wall. The ID tapers in to match a NPT thread. No matter what though, if you wanted a mating surface you would have to weld or screw something on. I was restricted by the exhaust on the bottom and the top head surface on the top. This is basically the biggest I can fit and still have it clear the cutter head during surfacing. One other thing I did that you may like is I added extra internal bosses on the exhaust side. Now the head can be drilled for a one piece flange like mine or individual flanges. That should give you more options when you are designing a system. Derek

Something fabricated or perhaps an inline unit. I imagine it will be according to the type of build people do. 1 1/4 NPT will make plumbing it pretty straight forward although there is enough meat to weld on something custom. For this build I'm thinking an off the shelf inline unit. 90 degree turn off the head, inline Tstat, straight to the radiator. There is also nothing stopping someone from milling the whole thing off and building a manifold like the OSG if they wanted that look. Don't worry it will look a lot more normal when I get done with it. Although there is plenty of quench area if I left it like it is:)

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't had time to get any video done. Been a little busy with this: This is V2 of the head and most likely the production version. The major changes are: I now have the water exiting over each exhaust port and flowing into a central tube. This is the same way OSG and others do it. I opted to try and make it part of the casting to save the cost of making a separate water manifold. Plus it's a really good example of how versatile 3D sand printing is. The outlet is designed to be tapped 1 1/4" NPT but you could easily weld something on instead. I added a rear sump for the oil to drain into the stock oil return. This will do away with the external drain tube that I'm currently using. I bridged the rear cam tower boss and added a connecter between the back of the head and the tower. This is where the rear oil feed will go. I redesigned the combustion area so that it has plenty of meat for those who want to get creative. There are a ton of little changes that reflect things I ran into during the machining of the prototype. Here is a great shot that shows 3 of the upgrades. The sump, the feeder boss and one of the water exit ports. Here is the combustion area. The sand is really rough because I went a little overboard blowing out the loose sand. It all get's machined anyway. Water outlet and core print in the front of the tube. The core prints are designed to be tapped 3/4" NPT so that one could be uses for a sensor. Now I have to get it in the mill for machining! Derek

I ordered the Palco a couple of days ago. I'll measure it up with a set of calipers when it gets here. Derek

I called Z car depot and he felt it was a lot less than 1/8". I then called Dashtop/Palco and they said it starts out at 1/8" and thins out in the deeper draw areas. It would be almost full thickness on the top section of the dash. At this point I'm leaning that direction. It's a lot more money at $159.00 but if it is indeed thicker it's worth it to me. My car is a daily driver and sit's in the Florida sun all day.

A variation on NewZeds idea. Have a sleeve machined that has the ID of the OD of the transmission and a wall thickness of .125" or so. Preferably interference fit. Heat the sleeve and slip over rear of transmission. Pop new seal into transmission. Pack the cavity between the seal and the new ring with JB Weld putty. Not sure if your drive shaft yoke has a dust collar or not but that could affect things. Derek

It looked good for a little while but cracked again. I'm going to do a full cover and spray it with the SEM trim black. My main worries are the new cover warping because it's too thin. They recommend putting adhesive only on the edges when you install. I guess this lets it float above the old dash. I would prefer to bond it all over but you run the risk of having the glue areas leave "witness lines" through the cover after it's painted. Derek

Thanks for the reply. Do you happen to know what thickness the plastic is? Thanks Derek

If you don't have a lot of blow-by then you may be able to have a breather element on the valve cover. But then you only have half of the system hooked up. The only time you will be evacuating the crank case is when there is vacuum present at the PCV valve. During no/low vacuum high RPM there will be no assisted evacuation. This is how I have mine setup and so far it seems to be enough. The blow by has a place to go and that is through the filter on the valve cover. If there is a lot of oil mist in your blow by then the filter will become soaked and start dripping. If I had an air box as opposed to velocity stacks I would probably consider plumbing it there.

Hi I'm looking at full caps. There are a few out there and I was hoping to get some feedback from people who have recently purchased. So far I'm looking at these four sources https://zcardepot.com/interior/dashboard-parts/dash-cover-cap-full-overlay-interior-black-70-72-early-73.html http://www.zcarsource.com/dashboard-cap-full-face-240z-70-6-72-new_8_77937_65035.html http://www.dashtop.com/products/dash-cover-1970-1972-datsun-240z http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/50-2040 For all I know they are all the same cap just different suppliers. There is quite a price difference as well. From $92.00 to $159.00. Knowing what I do about thermo formed ABS the thicker the better. I'm open to other sources. Thanks Derek