Doc Hawk

You could also try to run them like that. Cut or bend any pesky metal that gets in the way. The spindle pull is NOT an insignificant issue - it's one of the only jobs on a Z that actually does require a "special tool" most of the time. Do a search on spindle pin, or spindle pin puller, and you'll see what a PITA it is. It sounds like you've had a bad experience with this shop, but it is worth it to take it back to them to get the pin pressed out and redone rather than doing it yourself.

Is that the spring that runs around the front cover seal? Ugh. It looks like it took a few trips around the crank.

You ever solve this problem? Deep gremlins like this one are always good to bring to light.

'Round here we call that an "El Cajon Lift." Probably meaningless to the rest of the country but for folks in San Diego, it conjures up a very specific image.

Throw another valve cover gasket at it? Sorry, couldn't resist. Black or white smoke = possible head gasket problem. Lack of power, barely idles but does fire = possible head gasket problem Lots of other stuff wrong, but you need more help than you can get on a forum. You need someone showing you the ropes. Find a friend, or rent one off of Craigslist. Good luck, David

I think it totally depends on the condition of the motor, and your use of the car. If you need to drive it regular-like and any down time will hurt, just throw a gasket at it and hope that your head is straight. If you can afford to have it down for a short time and have money to spend, buy everything you need, do what you want, and pay for what you don't want to do or cannot do on your own (machine work or more). If you don't want to spend the money but you can afford do have it down a long time, you can do whatever you want yourself, over time. If you're looking for an engine swap in two years (but not now), I suspect that means you probably aren't looking to spend the money that you're supposedly saving for a new engine. Also, if it is going to be out of the car in 24 months anyway, it's also probably not worth it to drop much money into this motor. The answers all depend on where you fall on the matrix of time, money, and need for the car.

End of story: CamH made it back to Oregon and the ol' L24 is OUT to make room for the new L28ET. Sweet build pics in your project log Cam, can't wait to see more. Where are the shots of the motor going in???

Not even sure how to title this goofy issue. I am working at tracking down a few issues in my car wiring. The issue I'm especially keen for input on is an overheat of the + wire (white/red) leading to the ignition switch (behind the key on the steering column). When the car is running, that wire overheats very quickly. After about 5 minutes of running, the wire starts smoking and the car starts running poorly. My guess is that the resistance of the hot wire gets so high that the electronic ignition starts starving for current. BTW, no I did not find this out by running it and saying, "let's see if it gets hot enough to burn up the car." I discovered the hot wire in the first place because of the smoke! Background: the PO did a hack job throughout the car's wiring, so there's no telling what's bypassed or shorted. The car runs and drives. I know I have a constant 3.1A draw on the battery, even with the key off and every single fuse pulled from the main panel. I haven't figured out where to start tracing for a short, since none of the fuses affect the draw condition. Q1) Does that mean the PO bypassed the fuse panel with some line, and it's shorted? Or, are there any suspect lines I should check that are unfused? Where should I start looking for the short? More info below... Also, I am not sure whether or not my charging circuit is working. Q2) How do I check for charging with a multimeter? A CLUE: After much head scratching, I disconnected the stock wire on the negative coil lead. The Blaster II coil is hooked up to an MSD 6A ignition, with a magnetic pickup. I don't know that the stock lead was doing anything for me, because my tach does not work with the 6A. After unhooking that stock coil wire, the white/red wire at the ignition switch still heats up, but only to a "warm" level rather than scorching/plastic melting hot. This is a significant improvement, although I'm still unhappy that the wire gets noticably warm at all. Q3) What could make it so that the stock neg coil lead would affect that ignition switch wire? Q4) Have I hurt anything by disconnecting that stock neg lead? Should I hook it up in a different way? I've seen some people suggest connecting it to the MSD white wire, but MSD says not to. Thanks for any assistance.

My racing class for this build only allows stock cams, so I'm stuck with 'em. Thanks for the input on the grinds; from the sound of it there just isn't enough difference to go to much trouble swapping cams for a different stock grind.

Thanks Jon. After a bunch of Searchie, I like the spraybar mo'better anyway, so I'll go with that and keep the A-grind solid cam. I believe the A grind has the best durations for a stock cam (opinions to the contrary welcome).

I'm concerned that the engine I just dropped in my Z might have a solid cam, while the cam towers are an internally oiled setup. It's an A-grind cam. When the motor is running, I am getting a "chirp" squeal/squeak from the #5/#6 area, up high in the motor either in the cam or in the valvetrain. It squeaks once per revolution and it is most apparent at idle. How can I tell if the cam is drilled for oiling? If it is indeed a solid cam, can a cam be drilled for oil, or should I just get another cam? Lastly, if replacement, what stock grind should I look for to get the most streetable power? I guess the other option is switching out the cam towers to a spraybar setup. Would that work as a drop-in swap? Thanks, David

Well, since I couldn't find the direct culprit, I did some deductive reasoning and solved the problem myself. Since I really, truly didn't change any wiring (just solidified what was there), and it was running last week, I decided that something I improved must have actually made a bad connection more solid. Sure enough, I found that the white wire to my MSD ignition was grounded, which puts it in anti-theft mode (no spark). It was previously on a very poorly grounded screw, so in the course of my wiring fixes I moved that wire to a better ground. I never bothered to find out what it was before upgrading the ground, since it was grounded in the first place and I figured it was in need of improvement like all the other crap hack jobs throughout my car (from the PO, I promise). The car is running and driving. I still have a 3.1A draw at the battery that I need to track down, and there is something seriously wrong with the blue wire in the photo (I bridged the fuse to see what lit up, and a bunch of magic smoke came out of the wire loom it was attached to). Well, she's running!

I should have originally stated that I'm getting a 3.1A draw; thanks for pointing out and explaining that a 12V reading is normal.

Yes, the neg terminal is disconnected. How could that be normal? Doesn't that mean that there is a 12V draw at all times on the battery? I thought that there should be no draw when the car is off. My primary test was by disconnecting the negative terminal on the battery, then bridging the gap between the neg cable and the neg terminal with the multimeter. That reading was 12V, which says to me that even with everything off I have 12V flowing throughout the car. What am I missing?

Well, testing the coil will probably be a moot point now. I just found that my entire car is shorted. 12V across the negative battery terminal at all times, even when the car is off, key is out, and all fuses are removed from the main panel. I have started unwrapping my main wiring loom and I'm going to try to trace it, I guess. Everything has current - I can get 12V from the negative terminal to the body, the engine, the alternator casing, etc. Is there a list of "most likely suspects" for a dead short like this?

I still need help on this please; I'm dead in the water until I can figure out this electrical issue. I have quadruple checked the wiring that I redid, and I have not found any routing that I changed. Major piece of new news is that my multimeter shows 3.1A flowing with the car off, key out, and all fuses removed from the main panel. I disconnected the negative battery terminal and bridged the cable to battery gap with the multimeter. Nothing was on at the time, and the doors were closed. That looks like a dead short somewhere. In case I didn't mention it, the starter cranks the motor and everything, just no start and not even a hint that it "wants to fire." I am pretty sure I have no spark whatsoever. My suspicion right now is that I may have had a short all along (battery has been known to go dead after a couple weeks sitting), and by improving the wiring I actually turned an intermittent short into a full short. Any help on any of these angles truly appreciated, guys.

The fuel pressure regulator is a fairly common point of failure, and the symptoms fit. Did you replace your filters, too? Lastly, how are the little bits of hose on and around your fuel rail? I rebuilt a 280 last year and the injectors and rail were all fouled up with little bits of rubber from the interior walls of the small connector hoses. They looked poor to fair from the outside, but inside they were truly junk.

I have a no start condition on my 72Z that was running normally when I drove it last week. The full story is here (all help on that thread appreciated). In an effort to eliminate possible issues, how can I test my MSD Blaster 2 coil? Should I have 12V on the red lead when the key is "on"? Thanks, David

I have a 240Z that was running last week, and was shut down normally last time I drove it. I went to start it today, and got no start. I found that my white (small, positive) lead to my starter was extremely hot to the touch, and I took that as a cue that it was finally time to redo the crappy twist-and-tape wiring that the PO had done, as something had probably come loose and was causing high resistance. I soldered about a dozen connections throughout the car today, most of which had to do with the ignition, main positive lead, or the starting circuit. I also did some various other housekeeping, but I didn't make any changes to the wiring, just made the existing bad connections permanent. After what I thought was a job well done, I still had no start. At least the white lead to the starter is no longer getting hot, but I hooked up a timing light and got no flash on #1 nor on the coil wire. I dug into the stock rat's nest under the dash, and found an inline fuse had blown, shown below: It was located in the center console, behind the main fuse panel, and the unplugged connector seen at the lower right plugs into the “choke” light on the fuse panel bezel. There was a smoked 20A in there. I replaced it with a 25A because that was all I had on hand, and when I tried to start the car it smoked that immediately, too. Two questions, then: 1) What is that line? 2) What might be popping that sucker? All help appreciated. I'm trying to shake this car down for my first autoX of the season, which will be next weekend. Additional info: MSD 6A, MSD Blaster 2 Coil, electronic ignition, fresh Yellow Top battery with 875 CA. Thanks, David

I felt the same way... not sure what to point at other than an opening somewhere in the manifold, or some other gross vacuum leak.

No love on this? Is it that people haven't seen it, or that nobody has any advice?

CamH, good thing that photo is in black and white so nobody can see the paint.

Dragonfly, I left just after your first set of runs, so I missed the carnage. Man, I'm sorry to see that. As a fellow member of the Keep Her Happy club, I think you are wise to bounce the car right back into drivable condition. Oh honey, this is just one of those things that happen when you race a car. A little afternoon fix and it's better than new! You were getting a lot of enthusiastic commentary from the announcer, so it was fun to watch you represent for the Z's. While it is a bummer to break a part, on the other hand there is a portion of me that cackles, "Muahahaaaa! The absolute POWER!" Congrats on putting it down the axle - it sounds like very soon you'll be putting it to the pavement.

Yes, it will, both in terms of cooling and in aero. Your description is pretty hard to understand (I wish you'd spent a little more effort in explaining it clearly), but from what I gather you're talking about exposing the entire radiator surface within your airbox, vs. enclosing only part of it in the airbox and letting the other part hang out. Cooling would probably be sufficient only partly enclosed, so long as the airbox was engineered well. Unfortunately it is beyond most of our time and talent to engineer an airbox that will give smooth, laminar flows and eliminate pockets of dead air. If it were me, I'd do it right and enclose most of the radiator. As far as the opening size goes, our intake grilles are huge, so don't worry about that until you're getting down below a square foot. Aero will also be affected, unless you are also adding a subframe tray under the car. The outside surface of the bottom of the airbox affects the air behind your front valence or airdam, so changing that angle and height will change the aero impact on the nose. To what degree, I do not know, as I haven't seen any aero data on that and I'm not smart enough to have a reasonable guess.

Is there a writeup for this conversion? I've searched all of the terms above in all their glorious combinations, and haven't found anything. I believe it would consist of the following simple steps: - Remove mechanical pump and install cover plate on head - Run a wire from the ignition "on" position to the electric fuel pump ... run through a relay? through an inertial switch? Opinions? - Install electric pump in the standard position under the car, right side, behind rear wheel, near tank. - Run a ground from pump to frame ... Ground at rear? Run ground back up to engine bay? - Install a fuel pressure regulator in the engine bay Anything missing, or is it that simple?