Pop N Wood

Doesn't get any better than this thread http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=28450 About half way down Dave posted this link to beaucoup pictures. http://12.224.118.250:8884/files/datsun/Subframe/

The H2's have the 6.0 liter engine from a Chevy truck. A turbo diesel is cool. But a rebadged Suburban? Taking the styling trend one step further

My sister had a 76 Olds Starfire. They came with the buick 3.8 litre engine (called a 231 back then). Pretty quick engine, BUT that car was one of the biggest POS ever made. The car was a hurry up design to try in get a "small" car following the oil embargo in 73. The front end was a worthless design that would not hold an alignment. It would go through a set of tires in 6 months to a year. The doors were something like 4 feet long and weighed 800 pounds each. They weighed too much for the hinges so by the time the car was 5 years old you had to lift the door to shut it. The car went through 3 transmissions in 7 years, the hatch never closed right and all the mirrors and interior parts fell off. The one thing that was nice was the V6. I talked my sister into buying that car instead of a Volkswagon Rabbit (since it was the Rabbit's first year) and I don't think she has ever forgiven me for that. The V8 Monza's had notoriously cramped engine compartments. Rumor had it the service manual required you had to loosen one of the motor mounts and jack one side of the engine up a few inches to gain access to the spark plugs. Well thought out design. Don't know how fast they were but I am truely amazed that anyone bothered to keep one alive all these years. My appologies to anyone who formed an emotional attachment to one as their "first car", but that particular model is one of the primary contributors to GM's bad reputation for reliabilty when compared to Japanese cars.

Installing a big block in a Z is no simple feat. In the one write up I have seen on big block Z's the guy moved the fire wall back 6 inches to accomodate that much motor. JTR is not applicable with big blocks. You might want to do quite a bit more research before attempting such a project with such a low budget. Maybe the cheapest route is to trade the buick for a small block then building it up like people said.

There is a place in Bristol, PA that sells a ton of LT1 and LS1 engines on ebay. They seem to have an excellent rating. This is where I plan on buying my motor/trans package. The LS1 engines are considerably more than the LT1's. But the LS1 t56 trannies are cheaper the the LT1 trannies. Go figure. If you are going to do a smog legal swap, then there *might* be some issues with the LS1 that the LT1 won't have. Other members in other states got hung up on ABS wheel sensors in the OBDII compliant cars. Being from Maryland myself I would be extremely interested to hear what you go through to do a smog legal swap. Keep in mind that part of the saftey inspection a car must go through to transfer title or get new plates requires all the smog equipment to be in place. This is true even for old vehicles that are exempt from testing. As for power, getting a 330 HP Corvette LT1, or upgrading the cams on a 285 HP F body LT1 should get you close to your stated HP goals. And a hell of alot cheaper. The option I am leaning toward is an iron head LT1 from a Caprice (cause they are cheaper) and a set of aftermarket aluminum heads/cam. Should easily push 400 HP with something like that. As you probably know, an LT1 will mount as per the JTR manual, whereas for an LS1 you will need to get much advice from other members. It has been done but it will be more work. And I would think twice about putting a carb on the LS1. That would be kind of like putting an 8 track in a brand new Porsche. You could never be smog legal with such a set up, and maybe someone has already thought of this, but you will still need the computer to control the ignition. If you want a carb and HEI distributor, then look again at the ZZ4 (or fast burn 385).

I was going to say. CD changers! You guys are low tech. If you get a hard drive based system you can easily load hundreds of hours of music and never have to worry about flipping (or losing) CD's. Another option is an MP3 DVD player. The burners for home computers are finally getting cheap, and a single DVD will hold over 7 CD's. Since an MP3 CD holds roughly 10 normal CD's worth of music, that is like 70+ hours of music on a single DVD. Yet another option is a 20 Gigabyte Apple iPOD with an FM modulator. You can use this in any car or even your home FM radio, and 20 gigs should hold almost 300 hours of music.

The link in this posting describes double clutching in excellent detail http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=28963

Having grown up poor with POS cars I couldn't afford to fix, I can tell you every time that has happened to me it was the master cylinder. Either the MC is rusty, or the rubber cups that slide along the cylinder walls ard old and have gotten hard. The harder and faster you hit the pedal, the more likely the rubber cups are to flair out and make solid contact with the MC walls. It only scares you the first couple of times it happens. After that you know to plan ahead cause you may have to "double clutch" the brake pedal to stop. Either way flush all of the existing fluid through all 4 corners before installing a rebuilt MC, then flush another can of fluid when bleeding the new MC.

Looks an awful lot like the ZF racing control arms Some interesting comments on that layout http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7884

Who actually has auto insurance that covers a blown transmission? It is not like they hit anything. Car insurance goes witht the vehicle. Loan someone your car and it your insurance that pays for what they did. Believe me I know. IMO the BMW owner is just SOL. But personnally I know I would step up and offer to help correct my mistake.

Nah' date=' a knife is much cheaper, it is reusable. Or a guillotine. I say make a slow moving guillotine that the person lays on their back to watch move down at them. [/quote'] We could always borrow an idea from the middle east. Sword, chopping block. Better yet, use a wood chipper and turn them into something usable: compost.

You need to replace the strut isolator with one that still has a D shaped hole. MSA sells used ones mail order. IMO doing anything else is unsafe. When I bought my Z it had a slight clumping noise in the front end. I figured it was a loose ball joint because that is exactly what it sounded like. I went over the front end top to bottom and couldn't find anything wrong. It wasn't until two years later when I decided to up upgrade the struts that I found someone had done exactly what you are trying to do. The D shaped hole had worn into an O shaped hole. This allowed the strut to wobble around ever so slightly. The scary thing is this movement had worn over half way through the strut rod!! I still can't believe the rod never broke on me. If you decided to ghetto rig it by overtightening the bolt, just make sure you pull the strut every year of so to ensure no wear on this suspension critical part. That one nut is the only thing holding one whole corner of the suspension on your car.

You have just described my car. Made in December of 1970, registered as a 71, and dents on both "subframes" when I used a floor jack on the "subframes" to swap my autocross tires. The subframes on these early Z's are notoriously thin. I only jacked the car up once or twice like this, but that was all it took. On the plus side what you have described is about as close to rust free as these early cars get. My California Z has almost exactly the same rust you describe. Believe me, the battery tray being "great" says "rust free" to me. Snap that thing up then take out the dents when you put in some full length subframe connectors. There is a recent thread with tons of pictures. Also do a search on 240 vs 280's. There is quite a bit of antecedal evidence that the early 240's flex considerably more than the 280's or even 260's. Also note that the early 240 "subframes" only go about 3/4 back before they end. Full length connects should help immensely.

The plate is visible in the video. Might take a little photo enhancement to get al the details but seems like if someone cared they should be able to track him down. Would be pretty hard arguing that one in court.

If you look at the import numbers, the overwhelming majority of the early Z's brought into the US never made it out of California to begin with. Combine that with favoriable, semi-arid climate with salt free roads and CA is definitely the holy land of early Z's.

You can get raw material at McMaster Carr. They even list tensile strength and things like that http://www.mcmaster.com/ Quite a few people have machined bushings because sometimes the ones you get with the kits don't quite fit. If you search through the old archives, there are a couple of places that sell complete kits for Z's significantly cheaper than MSA or VB. Might be more cost effective since you will have to pay shipping to NZ for the McMaster-Carr stuff anyway.

Didn't Pete buy his 406 from the same guy? How did his turn out?

If the search function is working today, there are some old posts from Z guys running the Subaru R160's in their Z's. They considered it their secret weapon, a cheap source of readily available LSD's. You can probably buy 2 or maybe 3 of those for the price of one new R200 LSD. The old posts also pointed out that an automatic tranny will greatly reduce the "shock" on the diffs. Thus an R160 might live longer with an auto. Also from past posts, when R180's "grenade", they usually fail in the spider gears. As someone said, it is the "one wheel burnouts in the bleach box" that kill them. I figured welding an R180 would completely eliminate that concern. But what I have wondered is if putting a Quaiffe into an R180 wouldn't be the hot ticket. The R200 is a hell of a lot heavier. As for gear oil, how important is that with a Quaiffe or welded diff? Clutch pack, or even viscous, LSD's have to dissipate the heat from the slipping clutches. Thus those guys will overheat and burn up. But the ATB and welded diffs shouldn't have that problem. Just cheap insurance?

Man, glad to hear that. I have a set of 225/50-15 BFG Auto-X tires on zero offset Riken wheels in the garage. I use to auto cross with them back in California. They were probably the #1 choice among the auto crossers I hung around. That was some years ago, so probably better tires available now. I will second the compound comment. My street tires are 205/60-14 (on stock steel wheels). Going to the auto X tires was absolute night and day. Go into a hard turn with the street tires and I would get a lot of noise and excitement. The first time I took a hard turn with the auto-X tires I practically ended up in the passenger's seat. Compound will also make a huge difference in the rain (as anyone who has ever upgraded tires on a pickup truck can tell you). As for feel? The 225/50's definitely transmit more road feel into the car, but if anything the steering is lighter and more precise. 225’s are definitely not excessive. The auto X tires have about a 1/16 inch tread depth so hopefully I will never experience them in the rain. IMO the #1 mod you can do to ease parking is to replace the rubber steering coupler with a solid one. Replacing the coupler and upgrading to urethane steering rack bushings made an immediate difference in turning effort. I went from needed two arms to crank the wheel while parked to using just the palm of one hand. No BS.

This engine comes up quite regularly here. If the search function is working, you will find there are many problems with this engine in a Z. The engine is too tall for a Z bay, there is some issue with the oil pan being where the cross member wants to be and the bellhousing bolt pattern is unique vastly limiting transmission choices. There are a lot of electronics, including variable valve timing, that will complicate things. Being so new, the engine will undoubtably have a high buy in price (not exactly littering the pick and pull) and a limited (read expensive) after market. And the aftermarket will be important, otherwise you are installing a torquey truck motor in a sports car. Not my first choice. Hard to justify all the work when the V8 option is so available.

What about the MSA TC rod kit? They allow things to pivot They also have adjustable http://www.zcarparts.com/store/merchant.mvc?

You may want to do some more research before you start hammering the tunnel. The shifter loction on the ZF6 is not a good match with a Z. The one picture of an attempted install I saw had the shifter coming out in the middle of the driver's hip. The guy was asking for advice on what to do, but unfortunately he never posted a solution. When I was considering an LT4/ZF6 package, about the best advice I got was to sell the tranny to a vette guy for big $$$ and pick up a t56. The trannys are very expensive to work on.

Check our G force tansmissions http://www.g-forcetransmissions.com/tran_gt-5.asp Don't know much about them other than their web site. But sounds like a valid option to me.

Man I love my screen name. Something about educate people calling me "sup dog" that I can't get over. All I know about the t56 I learned on this site. Quite a few members have commented about the gear ratios. Phantom and Mike Kelly come to mind. Good tranny in that it is well built, but read the comments. 6 speeds are somewhat excessive. Went on ebay today and $650 is so low I almost have to ask what is wrong with the engine that they have priced it so low? Type "LT1" into the car parts section of ebay and you wil see what I mean. That is a phenomonal price. But like I said, have to worry about used cop motors. Miles and condition will make a difference.

LT1's from F body cars with the t56 transmission generally go for over $2000 on ebay. The manual transmission really drives up the price, but if I remember correctly (and check ebay for recent sale prices) $1000-$1500 is not uncommon for an F body LT1 with auto tranny. The Caprices with iron heads do sell for less, especially if they are beat to death ex cop cars. That particular transmission has been discussed to death on this site, so doing a search will quickly tell you that it is a good choice. Many guys are using it. On the plus side the 95 engine is probably the best year to get. It has the reprogramable ECU but not any of the OBDII restrictions (if smog legal is of interest to you). There is some issue with the optispark, but I think it is easily overcome. Do a search on LT1 and read what the guys who have done the swap say. The iron heads are no big deal if you plan on upgrading to aftermarket aluminum anyway. Some people claim the iron head can be ported to flow better than the aluminum, but i still think aftermarket is a better way to go. I have been planing a swap for some time now. I have just about concluded a 95 Caprice LT1 is what I want. Mainly because I plan on upgrading the heads at some future date, so why pay the premium for factory aluminum? $650 for the set sounds very reasonable to me. But once again, check ebay to get an idea of what similar sets ups sell for. My only hang up is the transmission choice. I want a manual, but the t56 sounds less than ideal for a Z. Pricey, heavy and with less than usable gear ratios. The only other potential options that will handle the power of a built up LT1 are even more expensive (Tremec, G force T5, ???)