Pop N Wood

Go to Holley's web site and look up their recomendations. Vacuum secondaries means the secondarys are opened by engine vacuum, meaning the second set of butterflys only open if the engine needs the air. Mechanical secondaries are opened with the throttle linkage. Holley doesn't recommend a mechanical secondary unless the car weighs less than 3200 pounds and the rear gears are 3.7 or lower. Basically a car that is going to accelerate quickly. Our Z's fall in that catagory. But supposedly mechanical secondaries are more work to tune and like said above can get worse gas mileage. So that is something else to keep in mind.

I am pretty sure that is not true. The big block is, well, bigger than the small block.

Unless you don't have a rev limiter

Ethanol has 3/5 the energy content of gasoline. You would have to make the engine significantly more efficient to make up that deficit. Brazil is doing well with ethanol production, but the US is unlikely to match their success. It is harder to make ethanol from the starch in corn than it is from the sugars in sugar cane. We don't have the vast tracks of rain forest to slash and burn and convert to sugar cane, nor the cheap labor they do. There is a continuing debate whether ethanol production from corn doesn't actually consume more fuel to grow and process the corn then one gets from the ethanol. If we were planting the crops by hand with little to no commercial fertilizer, then we might have a chance. The other reason we will never match Brazil's success is the shear amount of energy we consume per person when compared to Brazil. Every little bit helps is probably the answer to our energy problems. So why concentrate on production while ignoring the other side of the equation?

What year/make of Honda? The GM unit can go back if need be. Wiring is simply not an issue. Only thing I want is a good belt route that turns both the alternator and stock water pump. I won't even need 50 amps with this set up.

The problem with MTBE is it leaks out of the gas tanks and pollutes the ground water. I think they have banned it's use in most states. The ethonal blend is a regional requirement for emissions. And there is a huge difference between 10% ethanol and 85% ethanol. I had a Ford Fiesta that dropped 5 mpg every time I filled it with 10% ethanol. Did it as predictably as the tides. They called it gasohol back then. Oil companies don't mind you buying ethanol blends. You are still buying it from them. So they get money from the government to put it in their gas and money from you when you fill your tank. Saves them from buying oil from someone else. What's not to like? Get rid of the SUV.

Slightly more work than hitting the shift key at the start of each sentence. May be more than you want to get into.

Did you ever stop to consider that driving a Prius would do more to "big oil" than anything you could put in an SUV?

Yeah, the cross member needs some bracing. The drop pieces were made from 3/16 plate that I had lying around, but some gussets between the motor mount pedastals and the side plates are probably needed. I got the idea to do what jbk240z is suggesting on the drive to work this morning. I will permanently mount an angle piece on the underside of the frame rails and bolt the sides of the engine xmember to that. That is after I wrap the frame rails with another layer of sheet metal probably 5 or 6 inches on either side of the crossmember. Not sure if I will tie the engine cross member into the stock member in any way. Starting to have visions of speedbumps, so the back of the engine needs to come up. Which of course means building a new rear diff mount to change the pinion angle. Need to improve on the stock one anyway so no big deal. The engine may look farther back then most guys because the corvette accesories places the belt 3/4 inch closer to the block. I noticed on a stang site the shifter tabs Phantom was talking about. May just get a piece of stainless and forge my own shifter. Why do anything the easy way?

After struggling for the last 2 months to build my own mounts I was just thinking how nice it would have been to have used the JCI stuff. Other side of the fence I guess.

Are you sure your stock pieces were never damaged? Was the car ever wrecked?

The wife came into the garage to tell me something. This is the first time she has been in the garage since I started the swap. I had just finished setting the engine in place for a trial fit. When she saw the engine in the car, she stopped mid sentence and said "That is SCARY! It looks like it will go too fast." I think it is starting to look pretty good. Got the cross member tack welded together. Needs more fitting and bracing, but good enough to help set the engine position. Hooked the tranny to the engine for the first time. Fit is looking good. Engine probably needs to come up a little bit, and just a bit farther forward. Amazingly the TKO fits the tranny tunnel with the stock Datsun trans mount ears still in place. I can get my hand all the way around the trans. The TKO mounting holes are a few inches back from the stock ears, but I might still be able to make a cross piece that bolts to the stock location. Shifter is too far forward, but I think I can get an offset shift handle from a Mustang place that will work without modifying the tunnel opening. Worst case I lose my ashtray. The laser alignment tools I made make aligning the driveline an absolute snap. Just hold up a sheet of notebook paper and count the number of lines between the dots. The light comes right through the paper. Just move the paper from the front to the back and when the dots are the same distance apart (up-down, left-right), then all is good. Gave me good clearance between the firewall and bellhousing when I realized how much engine tilt is needed to match the stock diff. I am a little worried about ground clearance. I have the bottom of my cross member level with the bottom of the oil pan and about a half inch lower than the stock cross member. That part is good, but with all the engine tilt I think the trans/bellhousing is the low part. Car is still in the air with the front end higher than the back, but what do you guys think from this side view?

I second warped brake rotors as a possible cause. My Z doesn't shake, so don't believe what those other people are telling you.

JB weld Only half joking. Humvees are glued together, as are some high end aluminum bikes. Maybe you can find some industrial grade adhesive and a few bolts to hold everything together.

The JTR radiator looks like a good solution. There are a LOT of people running those sucessfullly. Like Lason I have yet to run my motor, but I really like the look of the JTR unit.

Sorry to hyjack your thread. This is a pretty good birth announcement for your car. I won't argue that EFI isn't the better solution in most respects. Carbs are metered fuel leak as some call them. But there are a LOT of reasons why a carb is a better solution in some cases. Try pricing new crate motors and see just how much the FI is going to cost you. Then look into how much added cost and complexity is involved fitting a FI motor into a carb era Z. I deal with computers all day at work. Don't like the idea of coming home and doing the same. I also wonder about parts availability 20+ years down the road. For a daily driver, FI is the only way to go. Cold starts, mileage, passing emmisions. But my Z will never see a winter day. I will drive so few miles that mileage is only a passing concern. Emissions don't apply, and with so few miles I won't be contributing much environmental damage. But the #1 reason for going carb is I have wanted a high performance motor since I was 17. Took me 30 years but now I am building it. Just want that super simple, old school look. BTW, I notice in the GM performance parts catalog that GM makes an optional distributor drive for the LS motor. Said it is for the racing bodies that require a distributor. If some classes require a distributor, they almost certainly require a carb. Also VinhZXT, you are right about the alternator hitting the steering shaft. Got some work ahead of me today.

A used computer is $100. Seems like a good price, must be for a used unit. Replacement O2 sensors about the same, each. IAC motor, what, $60? HPtuner is $500, per car. That is if you already have the laptop or an old computer handy. TPS, MAP sensor, replacement harness, FI tank, new guages, 140 amp alternator. Stuff adds up. There are a lot of advantages going with a carb on an old Z. Not the least of which GM somehow rates their carb'd LS2 as have 40 more HP than the same motor with FI. Something about the look of a clean engine bay and huge air cleaner that I like.

My guess is that one will end up on snopes.com before too long. Why post a video of yourself jacking a camera at gunpoint? A cell phone would have done a much better job of defusing that situation.