Pop N Wood

I don't know, but it would be my luck to get stuck behind that guy on the freeway. I like the way he removed the front bumper. Probably to increase the airfoil shape to give more lift. I bookmarked that pulse jet link. That is hilarious. They have plans for a home built helicopter with pulse jets on the end of the rotor blades. Can you say Wile E. Coyote?

Man I like your car. And if it were mine I really wouldn't care what any beauty contest thought of it. I am not really impressed with high $$ bling bling. Give me something that looks like it was built with a purpose with meticulously craftsmanship. Or better yet, let me build something like that.

Truely disorienting when the earth moves. Kinda shakes your whole foundation of beliefs. You ought to try a 7.1 quake. Talk about feeling helpless.

OK, to be a PITA. A JATO bottle is not a ram jet and V1 buzz bombs used pulse jets. A ram jet is just a hollow tube with a fuel injector and maybe an ignitor. It uses the forward motion of the jet to build up a pressure wave inside the tube in the place of a compressor on a common turbo jet. Your absolutely right, no moving parts and no real top speed because theoretically the faster they go the more efficient they become. But, like said above, you have to get to a pretty good velocity to get a ram jet to work. I don't know if you could get one to work at highway speeds. You can make small ram jets, surface to air missiles have used them in the past, so one small enough to mount on a car might be underpowered. Why not a hydrogen peroxide rocket? Or make your own solid fuel boosters, kinda like the space shuttle. Or even quicker, a bottle of Jack and some late night street racing....

In my case I wasn't raising the car properly. I had in on 4 stands and wanted to raise one corner a few more inches. When I put the jack under one corner, it started to balance on the jack and the one jack stand on the opposite corner of the car. Not a very stable situation and that is when it rotated around. I guess if you have to get all four corners in the air, then my suggestion is to keep the jack along the car centerline when raising it, keep the stands as near the corners as possible, and try to keep the car as level as possible. This may mean going back and forth between the front and rear raising each a few inches at a time.

Doesn't sound safe to me. I have never seen a factory tank with any play whatsoever.

Black Hawk Down is probably one of the most graphic, compelling and realistic war movies. The Battle of Britian is the one I have seen the most times. But I gotta vote for the Battle of Midway. Awsome flick.

I would think taking a quick look under the car will tell you more than any of us guessing can.

Not all gun people are nuts, but a few certainly are. All it takes is a few very visible wackos to make everyone look bad. I think the stats are that less than 1/10 of 1% of handguns are ever used in the commission of a felony, so believe it or not the overwhelming majority of gun owners are good, stable people. Guns are so political that all reason seems to go out the window once one is used. Did the guy tell you to make certain you only carry factory ammo in your gun and not hand loads? People have gone to jail for using hand loads because someone convinced a jury that "special" hand loads were proof the shooter's was looking forward to the day he could shoot someone. Yeah, God help you if you ever really have to shoot someone in self defense. Your troubles could quickly go from bad to worse. BTW, Georgia Flash, you are lucky you don't have to carry when off duty. Some cities actually require their off duty cops to carry. Personaly choice, but I know it makes me feel good to know there are more good guys packing than bad.

My Z has an oil cooler from MSA. Their set up has an adapter that (I think) screws onto the stock oil filter stud. A stock oil filter then screws straight on top of the adaptor. Two hose come out of the side of the adaptor to feed the cooler. Sounds like your set up is quite different. I know MSA also sells external oil filter adaptors also, so I would start there and see if you recognize anything.

Man, could read a lot into that statement. I have often wondered if it was safe to crawl under a car with just a floor jack. Now I can quit wondering. BTW, using jack stands under all 4 corners of a car is not safe either. I did so once, and as I tried to raise one corner another inch or so, the car began to teeter on the jack in one corner and the single stand in the opposite diagonal corner. I got the hell out of the way and the car rotated around and pushed a jack stand through the gas tank just as neat as you please.

The way they report HP changed from 1970 and now. One is (I think) gross and the other net HP. In 1970, then took a hand built engine, hooked it up to a dyno with no mufflers, water pump, alternator etc. etc. and measured HP. Modern ratings are based on engines taken right off the assembly line with all the accessories. It is a much more reasonable measure of HP. Plus manufactures are know to fudge the HP ratings (either up or down) for one reason or the other. The 1970 cars did have the highest compression ratios and a different smog tune. If your exhaust still includes the stock manifolds, then the air filter and free flowing muff might buy back some of the HP the engine has lost since it is no longer new. Like Mudge said, you are probably at 130 Hp at the crank. You might want to consider headers while you are doing your exhaust work, and an aftermarket ignition with the faster advance of the Euro distributor is also a worthwhile bolt on.

It was my understanding that the LS1 engines use TTY bolts everywhere, but does any SBC from an LT1 or older use these bolts? When I was in the Navy I got to watch them torque the bolts on a reactor coolant pump. The torque spec on those required measuring the change in length of the bolt as it was stretched by the nut. Not something they let us lowly sailors do.

Could you snap some pics of the torque tube? I like the idea but have no clue what it would entail. Thanks.

I don't have any experience with the 4 barrel on a Z car but someone mentioned the dual Weber DGV's. I have those on my Z and a 90 degree bend would be a step up for those. The adapters actual drop down an inch or so before turning back up...more of a C than a 90 degree turn. The dual Webers are not the ideal set up, but they were CARB legal and cheaper than replacing the worn throttle shaft bushings on the old SU's. The accelerator pump makes them easier to start in cold weather, and I think they had a bit more power than the stock SU's. Definitely more tuning options than just needles. But the drain pipe traps are a PITA. If the engine is cold, extended idling allows gas to puddle in the trap. When the car starts stumbling and exhausting soot, you know you need to blip the throttle to burn off the excess gas. I make is sound worse than it is. The engine runs nice with the dual webers. But if it wasn't for the smog, gas mileage and $$$ things then I would have installed triple webers.

My dad had an 80 something Impala with a 265 CI V8. Just a small motor. The Impala drove nice, but I can't imagine many people considered it a hot rod.

You don't need to buy anything from JTR (EXCEPT THE BOOK). Just make the set back plates and engine spacers to their specs. Most guys on this board have made all their own parts. You might consider buying the engine spacers from them, because their aluminum ones are cheap and look a lot more "factory" than welding together 3 sections of pipe cut to the right length. You will need the driveshaft yokes, so JTR is probably as good a source as any. I think the only other "spacers" are the isolators they put between the transmission crossmember and the body. But if the search function is working there are better solutions than the jury rigged JTR mount (IMO) People tend to like the JTR position over the MSA one because the JTR positions the engine lower and farther back. This gives argurably a better weight distribution and lower center of gravity. The JTR mount also positions a manual shifter better in the stock shifter hole. Maybe not an issue for you. Read up on transmissions. The 350 without overdrive revs the engine too much with the typical Datsun rear end ratios (typically 3.54 or higher). 4 speed overdrive autos are pretty common and cheap thus unless you have a free Turbo 350 there is really no reason to consider one. Also you can recore the stock radiator to a 3 row core. This will cool a V8. However you will save a lot of weight with an aluminum Griffin radiator from Summit. A search should give you the exact dimensions most guys are using. Oh, and a 2 speed electric fan from a Taurus seems to be the fan of choice, althougth I prefer a mechanical set up as per JTR. Get the JTR book and I think you will answer most of your own questions. The book has full sized templates of the set back plates. The JTR kit is more of a convenience than a requirement.

Don't get any more specific than this http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pparaska/structuralmods.htm

Summit sells them.

Didn't the first 240 imported into the states go to either Bob Sharp Racing or BRE (maybe Jim Cook? Definitely a racing team). A matter of perception but I would say there was more than a little factory support for racing. Maybe Datsun sent 4 speeds to the US as a marketing ploy. Having grown up in the late 60's-early 70's I know the phrase "4 on the floor" was heavily associated with a performance vehicle. Hell, my 69 Camaro had a "3 on the tree" (as did most run of the mill cars) so a 4 speed floor shifter was definitely the performance set up. Remember what 442 stands for. Back then foreign cars were looked on with more than a little distrust. Things like 5 speed transmissions, rack and pinion steering and McPherson struts were viewed as exotic, overly expensive and overly complicated engineering (at least to the high school crowd). Americans were use to 3000+ pound cars with recirculating ball power steering and 70-30 weight distributions (i.e a Hemi Cuda). Judging from the way the early Z's sold it is hard to argue that Nissan didn't have a clue as to what the American market wanted.

I don't know about the SBC swap being "definitely more expensive". It all depends on how cheaply you can find a used turbo motor that doesn't need any expensive work. Those engines haven't been made for a while now and aren't getting any cheaper, nor are the FI parts and turbos getting any less likely to need work. Budget V8 swaps can be done for $1000 to $1500. I imagine a turbo swap could be done for less provided the used engine doesn't need any unexpected repairs. The V8 swap doesn't have to add any weight if done correctly. If you believe the JTR manual using an engine with aluminum parts and a transmission other than a T56 should make the weight gain a push. The V8 will also have a better weight distribution then the inline turbo. You could probably get 250-300 reliable, streetable HP out of the turbo motor with some $$. But remember, a very mildly built V8 will produce this peak HP rating, but with a MUCH wider HP curve. (Stock LT1's out of a 90's F body were rated at 275 HP) The V8 will have bettter throttle response and be a much more enjoyable street engine all the way around. And, if it is still not fast enough, the V8 will be strong enough that you could easily add 50 to 100 HP and still have a streetable ride that won't blow up if driven to the edge.

When I bought my Z it had a thumping noise in the front end. I checked ball joints and tie rod ends for play, retorqued the strut tower bolts (top and bottom) and the strut cartridge gland nut (if that is what it is called). Still had the bump. Went for an alignment. One shop told me I needed the front strut tube bent to get a proper alignment. Took it to another shop, and they told me it aligned just fine. I didn't find the source of the problem until I replaced the struts about a year later. The top of the strut cartridge bolts into the upper isolator through a D shaped hole. This hole had worn out over time allowing the strut shaft to wobble around in the isolator. Scary thing was the strut shaft was half way eaten through. Sorry to ramble on, but the problem could be in the lower ball joint or any of the bolts holding the upper part of the strut and strut cartridge in place. You might also have a slightly twisted body causing the upper strut mount to be out of place. Check everything for play, retorque all bolts and take it to an alignment shop you trust for an assesment.

I don't know that the car isn't easily worth $5-$6K. For an all original, early 240 with the good carbs...even has the original ugly a$$ hubcaps. A 30 year old car needing paint is not out of the question. Paint fades with time and exposure to the sun more than miles driven. What worries me is the quality of the paint job. If you look closely they might have painted over the door latch in the inner door jamb and the front strut bolts. Hard to tell from the small pics, but I would want to inspect the quality of the paint prep before buying. Not to mention the condition of the weatherstrip, dash, suspension etc. etc. But even if the paint is less than perfect, paying 5 or 6 grand for a 72 Z with all the original equipment is not a bad price. However I wouldn't consider this a good candidate for a V8 swap. I would buy down and get a car with minor rust for half that or less.

510's have R160's, or so I have read. some guys on here use them as a cheap source of LSD. They won't hold up to abuse the way an R200 or even R180 will. Do a search on R160

There is a place in Bristol PA that sells a ton of LT1/T56 combos on ebay yet have a lot of positive feedback. They look to be a major yard and will obviously sell off the lot if desired. Here is just one sample link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2411292851&category=33615 I have no personal experience with this yard, but it would seem to me anyone who does this much buisness and still maintains happy customers must be doing something right. ebay is an excellent resource to determine pricing. Get on ebay, search on LT1 and see what is offered. You can then click on similar items , since ebay keeps a record of what past items have gone for.