Hey_Allen

Have you looked for any sign of the steel rot moving down into the joint between the frame rail and the firewall? I didn't think to look at that point when I bought my car, and only found out about it today when the owner of a local Nissan specialty shop expressed his concern when I mentioned the prior owner's "repair" of some rust just below the battery. I found that my whole firewall to fender to frame rail area was rusted heavily between all the pinch welds, enough so that it's parked until I either fix it or rebody the power train. Just a thought, since I'd never thought of it until I got my nose rubbed in it.

There is another possibility: pick up someone else's project and finish it. I bought my '73 for $1500, and am something like another $1500 into it, due to having to rebuild the upper end of the engine. Admittedly, it's a low tech gen 1 small block, with easily available parts, and I'm going to have to do a little body work to get rid of a little rust, but I figure that comes with owning a 30+ year old car.

Heh, you aren't the first wondering this... I've been discovering bits of rust here and there, (such as the fender below the battery being plastic sealer applied from the wheel well, with a faint coat of rust remaining! ) It definitely has "character", but nothing that I'm not willing to work on. Honestly, part of the attraction for me is that it's a car that's old enough that I can attempt sheet metal on it without wincing, learn fiberglass on (again, without wincing, much..), and still relatively easy to work on. The wiring is definitely going to be getting attention soon, as the PO was a bit creative in how closely he followed the JTR instructions on parts of it, notably the fuel pump power source, and the main power protection. (Directly from ignition switched power without oil pressure inturrupt, and none, respectively. Ouch.) As something to drive around and have fun it, it may take a bit before it lives up to expectations. As something to keep my hands busy, it looks like it's going to be a little more effective than I was originally expecting, but still manageable, especially with the forum as a resource to dig into for information!

I never really introduced myself, rather I lurked regularly, and posted occasionally, but I now have a (mostly) running '73 570z about to roll out of the garage again. About 5 months ago a 240z project car showed up in the car for sale section, as well as in the local Craig's List, out in Spokane, WA. I ended up buying it, only to have it blow both head gaskets 9 miles from the previous owner's place. Partially due to my not checking it over as thoroughly as I could have, and partially due to less than optimal parts choices in the original build. After a short jaunt overseas caused a 4 month break in the project only days after purchase, I got the opportunity to tear it down and see what all broke. The fun turned out to be both head gaskets blown, both inboard exhaust valve seats cracked, one push-rod, rocker, and valve bent. The last appears to have been from before I got the car, so I suspect that it may have been the reason that the PO quit driving it on the 1/8th mile as he had in the past. A few quick calls to Summit netted me a pair of heads and various little bits to round out the project. The easy part done, I got the opportunity to work on one of my worst skills: patience. Wait for parts, figure out what I forgot to order the first time, wait for those parts, repeat as necessary. Finally, tonight, and at a time that only owls, bats, and crazy mechanics should be awake, it coughed, sputtered, and then took off with a roar, shortly followed by a couple of back fires, before I remembered that it's at reference timing, and that I really shouldn't be revving it until it's set! Now to get the exhaust replaced, burn off the old tires and get the rubber replaced, and see how I enjoy this new toy! Pictures should follow in the next day or so, once I have daylight, and a chance to knock some of the dust and cobwebs off of it. Sorry for the rambling, and lack of pics, but I had to share, and just wanted to say thanks to all of you for the great information available here in the forums!

Tardis isn't so bad... At least if you're a scifi fan!

The pictures aren't showing up here, just an error message. That being said, I'm interested to see just what you've done to the ipod. Also, next time you might be causing condensation, you might unplug the battery pack prior to that step. Since you already have the case open, you can unplug the little pigtail easily and avoid the stress over seeing it do funny things to the display.

Out shopping for parts for my Z, I saw an amusing window sticker on another shopper's truck. "I see stupid people" and then in slightly smaller letters, it continued, "I drive on I-5" This might be slightly lost to those who don't commute in the Seattle/Tacoma area, but I suspect the highways in any metro area are close enough to get the general impression!

On 280Zforce's car, what gauges are out in the Tach/Speedo holes? I was looking at this company's offerings, and see nothing but 52 and 60mm gauges, nothing in the 5" size for the large holes.

Those of us in the military can usually get away with a few months on the stabilized fuel, but it doesn't keep it perfect. I typically end up using my stabilized gas for something less picky than a high performance engine. For instance, my bike had a full tank of stabilized fuel in it. It fired up, which is better than my friend's bike who didn't stabilize the gas (his seems to have separated, and possibly varnished the carbs), but it's pinging. So this tank of fuel will be going into the gas tank of another friend's old F250, which doesn't care what octane it drinks. For the car at hand, putting out that kind of HP, I'd play it safe and put the fuel aside to another vehicle, one with lower performance requirements.

Ok, I have a simple solution to being annoyed by those ads. If they are indeed caused by Google Syndication, and if you are running FireFox browser, download the NoScript plugin. Then in the little 'S' logo that turns up in the bottom right corner of the browser, right click, and select the "forbid Google Syndication" item. The browser will then never run any of the java-script from the google syndication domain area. Any scripts that the page attempts to run are stopped until you either allow them temporarily, permanently, or forbid them entirely. If google syndication was serving up the questionable ads, you should be rid of them. If they are still there, try looking for other java-script attempts in that list, they should point you at other questionable junk running. Mine currently shows googlesyndication.com, hybridz.org, and articracing.com as having active javascript on this page, for whatever it's worth.

I don't know Mopar, but could it be overbored if you wanted more displacement? Heck, if it's a common block, just with different bores, you could theoretically overbore it to the 400 dimensions, and drop in 400cid pistons. Again, I don't know the engines of that line.

If you aren't set on keeping it as a single line system, you could run a second line back to the tank as a return. Doing so would allow the use of a "normal" fuel pressure regulator, much as you would on other cars. One solution I saw someone talk about not too long ago, they installed the fuel pressure regulator back near the tank, with a short return tube back into the tank. Then you only have the single line running to the engine, but it's still capable of varying the fuel pressure at the demands of the engine management system. I don't know if this really works for your application, not knowing Hondas, or your project in specific, but if you are intending to use a rising rate regulator, or something along that line, it should work fairly well. Pressure doesn't tend to drop much over distance, when working with liquids, so the pressure shouldn't vary much between having the regulator in the engine bay, or having it at the fuel tank.

When I had mine done on my last car, it set me back ~$200 as well. I was wincing at the price, but it was a good installer that the dealership actually recommended, he used 3M tint, and warrantied his work. He also worked fast. I'd say it's worth it for a decent job that holds up over a few years, especially without turning purple like the cheap tint!

There is such a tool, I think it's called a repair detector, but I'm definitely not sure on that. If I remember correctly, it looks a lot like a tire wear gauge, but has a magnet in it. The last time I saw one, I think it was in the Eastwood catalog. edit: After doing a little searching, I'm not finding the item that I was thinking of, but one site suggests using a little magnetic stud finder as a bondo detector. I'm guessing you watch the little magnet wobble, and when you're over bondo, at least any that is very thick, it will droop. A comment at epinions http://www.epinions.com/content_89568415364 explains that to some extent, and has a picture of the type they are talking about.

I buy my CO2 5lb ones from Grainger Supply, and I'm pretty sure that I saw the larger ones in there as well. http://www.grainger.com/ As to the pricing, I couldn't tell you, but they have a lot of businesses that have discounts with them, so you might get lucky and find your employer has one. (The military branch I'm in has one that they honor for members, even if not buying for use at work.) Edit: I went and checked the online listings, and the 10# that I found retails at ~$200.. I'm guessing that isn't what sort of a good/great price you're looking for!

Sounds like you may have gotten a bit of advertising spyware stuck on your machine. No such happenings on this computer. Maybe it's time to take a whack at it with Adaware, or Spybot Search&Destroy? Best of luck!

I keep one in my working area, and usually have one in the trunk of the car as well. Since my daily driver is a diesel, having a CO2 extinguisher around is just about the only cure for a runaway engine, so I generally just keep them, instead of having a bunch of dry-chem ones as well. That being said, they all have their purpose. If I had more room to keep such, I'm another that would like to keep one of the flightline bottles from my work! Nothing inspires quite as much confidence as having ~75# of Halon sitting at hand with a 1.5" hose attached, ready to put out the possible results of projects gone wrong!

Drawing on military engine shipping/storage, another possibility, if you have the space, oil it as you can, and drop it in an empty lube oil barrel from your local service shop. As said above, a dessicant pack would keep the humidity level down, and inhibit rusting on any surfaces you didn't get coated with oil. For long term storage, you can also charge the barrel with an inert gas, displacing all the oxygen, and preventing any potential rust. Probably overkill for this short of a storage term, though.. Another possibility would be to wrap it in canvas or burlap lightly soaked in oil, making a oilcloth wrapper. From what I understand, that was a common method to prevent rust at sea during shipping in the past. To keep from making a mess, then wrap that in plastic. Just my $.02, though.

As far as the Mercedes questions go, you might take a look about over on http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/ The newer MB cars seem to be a bit worse on the expensive to maintain attribute than the older cars. I can speak from experience on the '80s S class, if you can maintain it yourself, the majority of the parts are not badly priced, and it's surprising just how much of the car was engineered to be repaired, rather than just replaced. My daily driver is an '82 300SD. A little grumpy when cold anymore, but it'll get me there, and still turns in ~30mpg.

I've found a few resources for figuring out the wiring sizes, but here are a couple. The first one is aiming more at building power, but gives conservative ratings. Just above the actual table there are a few disclaimers about the information, and explaining about some of the ratings as well. http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm On this next one, they are targeting automotive wiring, and the chart (about 1/3 of the way down the page) lists wire gauges and length of run for each rating. They also explain wiring selection criteria and common calculations to figure out wire types yourself if need be. Overall, I suspect this one will be more useful to you, as they are giving pointers on planning out a car wiring project, admittedly, I think it's car audio, but many of the points made are valid. http://www.termpro.com/articles/powersys.html If you want more resources, I just went to Google and searched for "automotive wire gauge current ratings", and these are among the first 3 or 4 that popped up. I hope this helps some, and happy wiring!

I have to ask, what sort of a price do the HY-35's demand currently? I'm not looking to turbo the Z, (at least not yet), but I need a replacement for the stock turbo on my 3liter MB diesel that's about to eat itself alive. I keep drooling over the thought of yet another turbo car, but as it sits, I just want to get the Z up and running as a usable car!

I a half dozen dents popped out of my now deceased subaru, and was amazed as I watched the owner of the shop poke the tools into little holes that I'd not even noticed, managing to pop out the dents far down the body panels. It was also amusing watching as one of his apprentices was trying out his newly learned skills on another car nearby. The tricks they use look easy, but I think I'm going to leave any later work along those lines to the professionals, likely the same shop, if I ever need such work again.

That level of intellect is one of the biggest things that turned me off of ever owning a Honda car, just due to getting lumped in with them! Even though she owned a stock honda civic, a friend of mine kept getting kids bugging her to race. Finally, she offloaded the car after it got broken into, and then stolen and stripped. Too many idiots. Another friend's younger brother bought a Honda S2000, which I would call the second fastest Honda sports car built. His take on it, even as an owner, was that it had no torque to speak of, finally earning it the license plate "NOTORQE". Personally, given the keys and a windy road, I found that I couldn't stand it's engine behavior. I much preferred the 300ft/lb and 300hp that I had in the Subaru.

What about the hatch latch and lock assembly? (for that matter, will they swap onto a 240? Mine went missing..) Thanks for any info.