Pop N Wood

Ron Tyler documented a budget V8 Z. http://www.home.earthlink.net/~rontyler/blackbird.html He did it for under $2500. If you went with swap meet OEM style carb, intake, exhaust and grabed a Camaro radiator you could probably cut another $600 or $700. But good luck. He got a hell of a deal on the car to begin with and managed to keep from getting too fancy. Like posted above, t56 trannys alone run around $1500 on ebay.

Hey, Mike. I just realized you are down near Dahlgren. My company does buisness with the NSWC, I think T42 department. Do you have anything to do with the base down there?

I thought golf ball dimples let you control the direction of the ball in flight. Just like the stitching on a baseball let the pitcher throw a curve ball or rising fast ball.

Grumpy once posted an idea to pull a spark plug and fill the cylinder with Marvle Mystery Oil then measure the volume of fluid that is pumped out when the crank is revolved. If this sounds promising you might do a search because he gave the volume of fluid that would be displaced with each engine displacement.

Thanks for the tip. I have a spray gun can of Rustoleum black I used on the pipe. Guess I'll do the drawers and line them with the rubbermaid drawer liners. Or maybe see what it would cost to get them powder coated.

To get ready for my Z conversion, I decided to build a workbench out of pipe with sheetmetal drawers. I need to coat the inside of the drawers with something. From the ads POR 15 goes on thick and should be chip resistent. I've never used the stuff. Any experiences or comments?

No one told me this was a quiz...

Just reread your final comment and got one more idea, although maybe no better than what you have already tried. Maybe you could turn the strut cartridge into a true slide hammer. Try mounting the strut assembly upside down in something solid. Wedging it in a vice and hanging it over the edge of a workbench would be great. Then slip a heavy weight over the strut rod and weld a washer or piece of steel plate on the end of the rod. You could then safely heat the tube while using gravity to slam the weight up and down. Actually, at this point with everything the strut assembly has been through, I think I would be looking at a pick and pull anyway. That tube is either bent or has mondo rust inside. If you get a replacement tube, then be sure to section the old one with a cutting torch. This should determine once and for all why the cartridge won't come out AND give you the statisfaction of putting that bad boy out of it's misery. Finally, I want to apologize if I offended you. I have a pretty biting sense of humor and sometimes people who don't know me take it the wrong way.

Oh, man. I was just razzing you a bit. Just trying to play off your earlier comments about your neighbors enjoying the show. I could tell the picture compressed the depth of field and that the gas meter really wasn't a threat. And I was honestly trying to be helpful with the heating advice, from the picture it was hard to tell. All that aside, I was wondering whether your strut tube could be bent? Since the other three struts were FUBAR, it sounds like the car has led a rough life. Do you get any kind of side to side wiggle on the cartridge? I am just wonder where the restriction could be.

"The main advantage of a diesel engine is its high thermal efficiency. Diesel engines can achieve thermal efficiencies in excess of 50%. The best gasoline engines are only about 30% to 33% efficient, and then only at wide throttle openings. As a result, diesel engines have better fuel economy than gasoline engines." "Thermal efficiency is defined as the amount of work produced by the engine divided by the amount of chemical energy in the fuel that can be released through combustion. This chemical energy is often referred to as net heating value or heat of combustion of the fuel." "MARINE DIESEL ENGINES Large marine diesels operate on the same principles as automotive DI diesels, but on a much larger scale. The pistons can be three feet (one meter) in diameter with a six-foot (two-meter) stroke. Because of the high mechanical stress involved with moving the large pistons, they operate at lower speeds, 70-100 rpm. Due to the slow speeds, these engines do not usually employ methods such as swirl to enhance mixing of fuel and air, as they are not necessary. These engines typically have compression ratios of 10:1 to 12:1 and can have thermal efficiencies of up to 55%."

WE WANT VIDEO!! Man, this looks like the makings of America's Funnist Home Videos! If that chain had snapped and put a link through the gas meter on the house... Seriously, I am a amazed this hasn't worked. One thing. Heating metal makes it expand (get bigger) and cooling makes it contract. Thus you want to heat the outer piece of metal and if possible cool (or keep from heating) the inner part. You have something else going on. Good luck at the pick and pull.

Don't want to rain on anyones parade, but the myth of a carburetor that gives a Cadillac 200 MPG have been around for years. They also get debunked every time around. But even if a super carb did exist that completely consumed the gas and turned it into heat, none of that changes what I said above. You still have to turn that heat into HP. This is where the Carnot cycle and the 2nd law of thermodynamics come into play. They give the maximum theoretical efficiency. You can't do better than that, no matter what you do to the engine. I don't remember numbers, but the Carnot efficiency of a gasoline engine is very poor. Probably less that 50%. Now be careful with efficiency numbers. Since the Carnot efficiency is the maximum efficiency that can ever be obtained, a lot of people will consider this the "100%" number and state an efficiency that is a percentage of this max theoretical number. Thus you may approach "near 100% Carnot efficiency". But keep in mind the actual percentage of energy released when the gas is burned that gets turned into mechanical HP is very small. To put numbers to it. Steam plants efficiencies typically run in the 33% to 40% range. Thus 60% of the energy released in burning coal or nuclear fission goes out into the river as waste heat. An automobile engine converts 6% or 7% of the heat from the gas into usable HP. The overwhelming majority of the waste heat is expended through the exhaust. That is why turbo charging is so lucrative. You recapture some of this otherwise wasted energy and put it to good use.

Yeah, that is what all of the experts say. Invest for a period of years and historically the market has returned double digit returns. Hard to do when you see the balances dropping like a congressman's pants at an intern party. As for the 20's, they say the market is a completely different now. Back then it was easier to buy stocks based on speculation (read money you don't have). They say the laws are such that a 20's style crash can't happen again. I will probably just ride out this downturn, but like you I wish I had a better idea of what to do.

Alright, I'll delay writing a trip report a little longer. Black objects radiate heat better than white objects. This means black objects should theoretically run cooler than light colored objects. Well known in racing. I have seen pictures of people who have painted their Z engines flat black to better dissipate heat. Now for the 2nd law of thermodynamics business. Looking in a text book, the second law of thermodynamics goes on and on about "entropy" and "reversible processes". Simplifying things a bit, the 2nd law essentially says that it is impossible to build a 100% efficient heat engine. If you read a little further, they will talk about Carnot cycles etc. Details are unimportant but Carnot developed equations that let you determine the maximum efficiency of a heat engine. Weeding out even more details, the maximum efficiency of any engine is dependent upon the temperature difference across the engine. I use to have to worry about this sort of thing when I was in the Navy working on a steam turbine. The larger the temperature change in the steam as it passed through the turbine the greater the efficiency of the turbine. Efficiency is good because that means you are converting more of the energy of the steam into mechanical energy. So back to the statement. A car engine is a heat engine (a very inefficient one by the way). The cooler you can make the exhaust run, the greater the theoretical efficiency of the engine and hence greater HP. So maybe what your friend was trying to say is this. If you paint a car black, it should run cooler. A colder car means a lower exhaust temperature, hence by the second law of thermodynamics you will generate more power. A pretty nerdy argument if you ask me. Two things to add. Icing down an intake or adding an intercooler is a different principle. These things cool down the intake charge allowing you to pack more fuel and air into the cylinders. This means you have more energy to begin with and is different from "efficiency". Second thing. Just like cooling the exhaust increases the amount of power that can be extracted, raising the operating temperature inside the combustion chamber will realize even larger gains. That is why there was so much research in ceramic engines a few years ago. Ceramic engines can run with the heads glowing red hot. This gives (in theory) better gas mileage and lower emissions. I don't hink they were ever intended for performance gains though.

A student of life enrolled in the school of hard knocks here!

I guess the thread got carried away from the original question. Yeah, the question of "which handles better" needs such a long list of qualifiers that it probably does become meaniningless. But if the question is morphed into "starting with which chassis will allow me to build the better handling machine", then it becomes one more pertainent to this site. The question I turned this thread toward was "which chassis, with heavy modification, will allow me to build the best handling V8 Z".

Not a big deal (I think). Strap the bad boy to a tree or fence post or clamp it in a good vice. Worst case put it back into the car. The whole goal is to get sufficient LEVERAGE. This translates to LONG cheater bars. If you can somehow immobilize the axel shaft by wedging in a breaker bar like gramercyjam said, then get a long enough extension on the nut socket (like slipping a 6 foot piece of pipe over the socket handle), SOMETHING will give. If you can position the breaker bar and the socket handle so they are only 30 degrees or so apart, you can squeeze them together like the handles on a pair of scissors.

What you are saying will probably do the job, just be careful because chances are the jack will lift the car off the jack stands before the nut breaks free. Just make sure this doesn't cause the car to bounce off the jack stands. I once put a jack stand through a gas tank doing something similar. Another option would be to do just what you are saying, but instead of using a jack to lift, put a long extension on the breaker bar and stand on that bad boy. At the same time tap on the nut/socket while you are applying torque. The vibration is most helpful to start things moving.

Don't overlook a fuel problem. A weak fuel pump or sticky/restricted/poorly adjusted float level could be the culprit. Especially if the engine runs properly once the load is off it. Also which SU's are you running? In the states the 260's switched to a redesigned SU that had flat tops. These smog carbs were notorious for vapor locking when they got hot.

You can buy paint on conductor to fix small breaks. It goes on just like nail polish to bridge small to large breaks in the grid. But if your car is anything like my 70 you will end up repainting the entire defroster grid. I am not sure how to fix mine short of total replacement (or summer's only driving!)

These guys are probably right. The early 240's are lighter and probably handle better (all else being equal). As far as which car to start with, it probably doesn't matter. Just get the cheapest, rust free car you can find. They all have their pluses and minuses and in the end it turns out to be a wash. The early 240's are lighter and, being older, have less legal restrictions on them (smog and bumpers). However they are older and harder to find. The early 240's are also achieving some collectors appeal. All of this makes it more difficult (and expensive) to find a rust free one. They are also not as stiff and hence flex more. My 70 has paint cracks in the C pillars near the rear hatch. The 260/280's are heavier, but propbably a better starting point for a V8 conversion. Not all of that weight was bumpers. The chassis are stiffer. The 280's also start with an R200 rear (a necessary upgrade for a V8) and are a LOT more common. The early 240's have smaller brake boosters which cannot be upgraded due to the positioning of the clutch slave cylinder. There are big differences in the engines, but none of that matters for a V8 conversion. But I can't stress enough, try to start with a rust free chassis BEFORE you establish an emotional attachment to the car. Otherwise you might be looking at an 11 year project car.

Man, I really like the clean look of your car! Is that the MSA Aero front air dam? That route could be cheaper than replacing my bent up front bumpers. What does the rear look like? Also MSA has side view mirrors that mount in the corners of the window frames. I have these on my 70 and think they would look good on yours. What side view mirrors do you have planned?

If the engine keeps "running" after the key is turned off, that is called dieseling. It is typically caused by carbon build up in the compression chambers. The carbon build up increases the compression and allows the engine to run without spark just like a diesel. This was a very common problem with late 60 cars in the 70's. The late 60 cars were built with high compression ratios and needed high octane gas. Unleaded gas killed cheap high octane. When I was in high school it was not uncommon to see cars dieseling for several minutes after they were shut off. If your current engine is the 5/70 L24 with the E31 head, then you have the highest compression ratio engine Datsun put in the Z. These engines were rated for 93 or 95 octane gas to begin with. The fact you are burning oil makes carbon build up highly likely. IF this is your problem adjusting the timing probably will not help. Once the key is off there is no more spark. (I say probably because incorrect timing can make the engine run hotter, inturn heating up the carbon.) Important to note that turning the key off kills the spark, but as long as air is being sucked through the carb the flow of gas continues. This is why having the choke on makes the problem worse, more fuel to the diesel. This is also why FI engines don't experience this problem. Try using higer octane gas or octane boosters to see if the problem persists. You can also leave the engine in gear when turnining it off to make the rattling stop a little quicker.

What I have "heard" is that sugar in the gas doesn't hurt anything until you turn the engine off. Then the heated sugar cools and turns into a gooey sludge that gums up everything. Try heating sugar in a spoon and see what it looks like. As for your Tacoma, how did you determine there was no compression or that the "valves freed up one by one"? With an old car that has been sitting the big worry is water in the gas. Letting the truck sit allows the heavier water to collect in the bottom of the tank and can make starting difficult. Did the engine cough and studder when starting, or did it just spin at a high RPM until it suddenly fired? Uncle Ben's in the radiator. I'll have to remember that one.