Pop N Wood

Phalanx is a short range, terminal defense weapon. It is also obsolete and being removed from ships. The one on the Stark was turned off at the time of the exocet strike, so not really the weapon systems fault. The white house staff does have sholder fired Stingers. But a PAC3 missile battery would be cool. Now that would do some damage.

I hope my Z looks half that nice when it grows up. The only thing I would do to that car is drive it.

Funny. Quite a number of the ones I am talking about were in the military overseas....

I have seen that happen more times than I care to admit. I watched one guy self extinguish his flaming face when he puked. Seems like every generation needs to learn for themselves.

I was going to mention the MSA replacement speedo. Specifically intended to replace the 85 MPH units. Also it is my understanding that speedo shops calibrate speedometers by installing a "ratio box" to change the gearing to the speedo. This is not a cheap process either. The speedo shop I talked to wanted some significant money to make my speedo accurate. IMO the best (but not necessarily cheapest) route is an electronic speedo with a pulse sender you hook to the tranny. That way you can calibrate it yourself with a hand help GPS and a screwdriver. You can then recalibrate it should you change gearing or tires.

MSA sells a kit.

Restoring old Harley's is like mining gold. Pick up a basket full of parts for $5K, drop another $5K to $7K in parts and chrome, sell the whole mess to some rich urban biker for $25K easy.

I dropped several thousand with them when I lived in LA 12 years ago. They were most definitely top notch back then. Haven't really dealt with them since I moved to the east coast. They were also a good source of used parts. Hate to hear of so many people having such troubles with them. They have an incredible parts selection. I like to see the Z community thrive. I once emailed them and asked why their 4x4 brakes were so expensive. Never heard back on that one.

If they combined the two holidays, Alex could kill two birds with one, well, you know.

An intermittent electrical connection will do exactly what you are saying. Work fine some times, but wiggle things a bit and the power goes away. You need to fix your electrical problem first. The hard part about fixing it will be getting to happen long enough to find the source of the problem. You could have a problem anywhere between the MSD box and the battery. I would find a permanent fix for the fusible link problem. If your radio is cutting out also than the link is a prime target. The starter gets it's juice directly from the battery, but the radio and MSD box gets it through the link. Take some sandpaper to the wires to clean it up, and with enough heat it will solder to the connector. You still need to look for chaffed wires shorting to ground. This is not an easy thing to do but it could be why your link blew in the first place and why power keeps going away now. Hope this isn't too simplistic, but think of electricity flowing through a wire like water flowing through a pipe. Get a kink in the pipe and no water will flow. Put a hole in the pipe and the water goes out the whole and not where you want it. Switches and relays are just valves. The ballast resistor is only important because there are two different power sources to the ignition. When you are running it is thought the ballast resistor circuit. When cranking the power comes from a terminal on the starter solenoid. If the wire from the starter is shorted out some how, then it could only bite you while cranking.

Look that up in your wikipedia....

You need to see what your spark is like when the problem occurs. Pull a plug wire to check. Sure sounds like not enough juice to the ignition. I will bet money you still have electrical gremlins. Bad ground or dirty contact with your power wire. Could also be a chaffed wire shorting to ground. Did you ever figure out what caused your fusible link to blow? Hard to trouble shoot over the internet. But you said you have an MSD box. So I assume the ballast resistor is bypassed/removed and the ignition is powered off normal run power only. This is important because with a standard points ignition, the coil gets power straight from the starter solenoid when cranking, but through the ballast resistor when running. So there is still a chance one of the other contacts in the ignition switch is bad, allowing the starter to turn over but not power the ignition. About the best advice I can give is first do a full visual inspection looking for dirty or loose electrical connections. Check your fusible link and grounds again. Check the power wire from the battery. Look for any wire shorting to ground. Pay special attention to where wiring harnesses contact sheet metal. If all good, then hook a voltmeter up to the power of the MSD box and try to recreate the problem. If you see low voltage at the box, then start working your way backward till you see good voltage. That should isolate the back contact/short. Another test would be to hook a jumper wire straight from the battery to the MSD box. See if that makes any difference. Good luck.

Very true. But hooking the starter up to the horn has nothing to do with powering the ECU and fuel system.

Don't the NASCAR boys also rebuild their engines between every race? I know you have to pay to play, but I can't afford to play that hard.

Once you have power to the coil, all you need to do to engage the starter is get power to the S terminal of the starter solenoid. This is quite easy to do with a screwdriver. I do this all the time when I want to start the engine from under the hood. It is very common knowledge. Also, if turning the key doesn't cause the car to crank, what will stop the theif from push starting the car? I understand it will make the car that much harder to steal, but the starter circuit is so easy to bypass it just doesn't seem worth the day to day hassle. IMO a better way is to install a hidden switch that shorts out the coil power to ground. That way even a jumper wire will not work.

Definitely not your Mom's cherokee anymore. Good call sticking with the black wheels. Gives it much more of the urban terrorist look rather than a shinny bling bling look. Some diamond deck fender flares would definitely scare the pants off the local neighbor kids.

The horn button will handle the load without any extra relays. After all, that is what the solenoid is for. IMO this is not a worthwile mod. Any bozo with a screwdriver can easily jumper the starter solenoid contacts bypassing all of your security measures. And when you are all done, you will not have a horn. How will you keep the minivans and SUV's from changing lanes on top of you? If you want security, let the starter spin but figure out a way to cut out power to the ignition when the starter switch is released. Just my 2 cents.

The kid had a point. The only thing a 350Z has in common with a 240 is a marketing guy's dream to sell cars. Personally I don't see the "heritage" in anything but the name. Even that is shaky since they dropped the name Datsun.

Man, what I wouldn't give to take that ride with 3 buddies, all armed with shotguns and maybe 400 rounds each. Keeps me awake at night thinking of the possibilities.

Maybe stiffer valve springs and a rev limiter? Total speculation on my part buy maybe valve float is allowing the roller to extend past "full lift", then when the rocker and the valve come back together it is with excessive lateral offset? Either that or a stud girdle (if that is the correct term) to limit lateral movement of the rocker studs. Something is letting the roller tips walk off the side of the valve. Shoot a PM to Grumpyvette and see if he has any insight. Obviously you will have your head check for cracking and the valves reseated when the engine is rebuilt. If your lower cylinder pressures have anything to do with your valve problems, then you have other problems as well.

Doesn't Terry's set up require you to drill out the threads on the caliper mounting bosses on the strut itself? Means once you put those on you are committed to that set up (if I remeber correctly) I have the exact vented S12 front and 240sx rear set up in my garage waiting to be installed. The front calipers are heavy pigs. But they will allow me to upgrade to a lighter set up at some future date if I wish (Ross's or JSK/wilwoods) As for stopping power, I know that has been discussed in depth in previous threads. I think the answer will be somewhat inconclusive. A lot of "it seems to me", and "my set up works fine" but not nothing like "this set up stops 10 feet shorter than the other".

You should be fine. Everything AUX says is true, but I think everything in the service manual will still be helpful. The big thing to me would be the carbs. As long as you have the early SU's you have the important parts covered. FWIW there are also differences in the size of the brake booster, mounting position of the clutch master cylinder, and I think the door latches were changed by 73. But none of that stuff should matter as far as the manual goes. The only thing I might double check is the tune up specs. Grab a Haynes at Autozone or the local library and make sure the timing, dwell, plug gap, etc numbers are still the same.

I would do a general tune up before heading straight for the ECU. New plugs, wires, air filter, PCV (if it has one). Just the basics. Then I would check out the O2 sensor. Chances are idling an engine with that many miles may have fouled them. You can clean them up, but if they aren't too expensive just get new ones. Finally, search though some of Tim240's old posts about smog tests and add some (I think) tolulene to the gas. Will help lower emissions and clean up the engine. Then take it out on a high speed run. See what all that does before you give up on it.

Ford made a big block 351. They used it in trucks.

The clam shell mount can also be used to adjust the height of the front of the diff. Just cut some of the rubber out. Thinner rubber means lower front end. Plus it doesn't interfere with the brake cables.