josh817

That means the blow off is working... Even if the pump makes excessive pressure (more than 60PSI at idle) the fact that the gauge reads 60PSI at all times and doesn't rise above when off idle, tells us that the blow off is working. Even then, the oil supplies rear main, not the seal. Rear main seal... I installed mine terribly and always had a drip from the rear, but other causes could be if you don't have a vacuum on the crank case. For carbs, hook the crank case to the manifold for constant vacuum, for turbos, I have no idea. For both, be sure to use a PCV valve and make sure it is working properly. If the valve is stuck, on a turbo system, I can imagine you pressurizing the crankcase to 13PSI of boost or whatever you're running. For carbs, sometime the spit out fuel and back fire when cold, and can pressurize the case like a firecracker; maybe blow out a seal. An old worn out motor obviously has some blow-by too which can pressurize the crankcase. Another thing to consider although doubtful is the crank itself. Sometimes for instance on a diff or tranny flange, the seal wears a groove into the flange. I just put a new rear seal in my tranny on the truck yet it still leaks. For flanges, you can get a Speedy Sleeve which restores the surface to its original or slightly larger size. It's a sleeve that taps onto the sealing surface; runs about $35. Can't see this working on a crank though because you can't press a sleeve on due to the flywheel flange... Just a thought though.

I was just saying! lol I don't even mess around with that.

If its not the turbo dizzy, then you can just as well put the oil pump spindle thing at any which way you like, twist the dizzy until the rotor engages. Bring the motor to TDC compression #1 (do this by bringing it to TDC and checking if the two from lobes on the cam are pointed up). At this point put your cap on. If the rotor is pointing at one of the prong things on the dizzy cap, make that #1 spark, and then of course go counter clockwise 1-5-3-6-2-4. Here is the tricky bit, if the rotor is pointed somewhere between two prongs, you can either use the two adjustments on the dizzy or pull the spindle out and do it the right way like the FSM says... One adjustment on the dizzy is either an 8mm or 10mm hold down bolt, the other is.... I can't remember I think it's on the underside of the dizzy or something. You can adjust both on the car, I know that much. This helps if you're trying to get more advance but your rotor was pointing between two prongs, so you're not limited to how much you can twist the dizzy until you run out of slot on the hold down bolt. Another trick if you can't get enough advance or have way too much is to rotate the plugs counter clockwise or clockwise. For instance lets say the rotor is pointing this way on the cap at TDC compression #1, which one do I choose?: If I make red #1 then I have to twist the dizzy clock wise a lot to get the advance I want, because at this point it's way too retarded. You may be able to twist the dizzy a lot but maybe not as much as you would like. Maybe I can't adjust to get as much advance as I want. So in this instance, I can just as well make #1 the blue prong. I will be far advance, but perhaps it will be enough for me to retard the timing by twisting the dizzy counter clock wise That being said, my dizzy both on the Z and on my truck had two adjustment points. Do realize that with 6 cylinders (6 prongs) that means every 60º of rotor rotation is a spark. Point is that on my L4 truck motor, the rotor was stuck between two prongs and I wasn't able to adjust it all the way out by using just the top bolt with that goes into the slot with the little line on it to point to "adv" or "ret". However, by adjusting the second screw and then the slot, I was able to not only get the advance that I wanted but also the dizzy is jammed over to one side which limits how far I can go. So that long lost point I was getting at... 4 cylinder, the rotor rotates 90º between each spark, which means I had to be able to twist the dizzy a lot to get what I want and if I could do it on there, then one could surely do it on a 6 cylinder dizzy where they don't have to twist the dizzy around so much. EDIT: Here is a picture of my dizzy with the two adjustment points circled. First point rotates the dizzy housing on the plate, the second adjustment adjusts the plate to the pedestal. It's the second adjustment that is the 10mm bolt that you can see when looking into the engine bay. That's usually the one you twist to time the motor. The bottom 8mm bolt is the one you can see but should be there and will help you get more twist if needed. Now this was my personal experience on the truck. The rotor pointed down to 7 o'clock instead of 11 or whatever it's suppose to be: So I put the cap on and see which one I'm near. I circled the one I chose for #1, but I could have chosen the one over to the left, clock wise. This would make it extremely advance, and I would have to twist the dizzy counter clock wise to fix this. I was closer to the one I circled, and this allowed me to advance it to what I wanted. Edit again: Two hours too late. Your vehicle is as reliable as the quality of parts and car you put into it... My Datsun's require small things... The biggest dump I had was after trying like I stole the damn thing for 3 years and a miscalculated down shift I blew 3rd gear syncro. Replaced a tranny in a night and was on the road again. $300; tranny, new tranny mount, shift lever, new shift lever bushings, right sized drive shaft, 2 quarts of oil, and one night of work. Where else do you get a tranny change for $300 in a night? Oh yah, my mom got owned with $2000 on a Honda Civic automatic tranny and a week without a car. Then again, labor costs.

Just curious as to why you don't put a pan under the car, a new.... non-fram filter, start her up. Tighten it as much with your hand, don't be light on it, and then most importantly.... check the oil pressure gauge...? If you drove for 30 minutes, didn't check the gauge so who knows what your oil pressure was, and got to the store without a rod knock or anything (obviously there was oil somewhere in there to prevent self destruction) then it doesn't sound as eventful as the other stories these guys are posting. All I'm saying is start her up and check the gauge! It's old and.. well old, but it will tell you whether it's pegged past 90PSI or not. The best we can do is diagnose from what you report and relating occurrences. Your gauges will tell, you in most cases, far more than what we can, without us being there. I put a $5 MECHANICAL gauge in my 521 (doesn't have a gauge) and just for a reference, that blow off is set for 55-60PSI and it's the same pump used on all the other L engines. Hopefully you didn't pickup and pay for that pump though just yet unless if what you have is used and what you bought was cheap. That relief valve is the great big nut on the pump. Should be right there on the bottom when you crawl under there. If in fact your gauge says you're at a crazy high oil pressure, pop off that big nut and pull the spring out... if I remember correctly the ball comes out too. This way you don't change the entire pump and spend the money. Perhaps when you pop it off and take a gander at it, maybe spray some cleaner in there, you will free things up. One thing to note: once again if and only if your gauge is reading stupendous oil pressure and the relief valve is the problem, we must think... the valve is only a ball and spring. What can happen to this setup? It could get stuck and not release... or the spring could break and then it releases to soon or all the time giving little oil pressure. Did you have the pump apart like you see in the picture below? If so, did you put adhesive to that gasket between the pump cap and the pump body? Do realize that the clearances between there are very small so you can create good oil pressure, and that is why that gasket is very thin like wax paper. Point is if you put too much adhesive (I don't you're even suppose to put any but sometimes I do) it will ooze out the sides and as you can imagine, it has potential to ooze into one of the holes thus clogging it. If you're broke like me, what I would do in this situation if I was indeed over-pressurizing the system, is check the relief valve. Not relieving pressure for whatever reason? Go into parts bin and pull out another pump cap. If it's used and has scrapes where the rotor goes then pull the dowels with vise grips and sand the surface flat, getting rid of the scrapes. Make sure the rotor spins when you put the cap on. Install the pump back on. I say this because if it's a new pump, you may still have the old one. It's a very simple setup, as long as holes aren't clogged, springs aren't broken, and the clearance is correct, you can't really go wrong. This is why I have a hard time believing there is something wrong with the pump itself, as in like the rotor and body, and therefore doesn't need full replacing especially if it is already new. Just for reference, I use to use Motorcraft Fl-1A on my Z. It's a big ass filter, probably holds 3/4 quart, so fill that baby up as much as you can before you put it on. Anything but Fram. Red arrow points to relief valve nut. Pull that and the spring and ball should come out. Stick the tube from some carb clean back into that port as shown in the bottom left picture and spray, see if nasties come out.

Clippard Pneumatics. Derek on here referred me to them. I never went through with my project but they have press fit hoses. You know the type where you press down the sleeve on the fitting, stick the hose in, and when you try to pull the hose out it locks it. First I saw them was when I use to play paintball... and you're pressurizing the system to 250psi on that so I think they will hold. The hose is a tiny thin hose, it could fit inside 5/8" fuel line; 6 of them (still don't understand why you want 6?) would tie wrap nicely. http://www.clippard.com/fittings/ They're called "puch-quick fittings" They come inline, elbows, T's, whatever.

That is one thing I detest to on an EXTREME level. I only work PCA, BMWCCA, CVAR, Drivers Edge, etc. I don't do SCCA, Nascar, IRL, any of that. From what I have seen with PCA regional races when the directors come in and start calling the shots... they usually have no idea what the hell is going on, on the track. Thankfully they didn't have the authority to call yellows and blues but they had control over black flag. The guys I work with who have been doing it for god knows how long with all their cool workers licenses... they'd go so far as to not follow instructions in an unsafe situation. For instance a director wanted a standing yellow rather than a waving yellow but a worker was out on course responding to a car. Nope, sorry director but you're just the guy sitting in the tower, you'd want a waving yellow covering your butt if you were responding on a hot track. Other instances like a guy goes 4 off and spins/loses control, whatever, they get the black flag to come in and get their car checked over real fast and make sure they're ok. A director says don't black that guy, don't black that guy either, on and on. Eventually, and you can see it in their driving, the drivers start getting very aggressive and make some really stupid calls because they know the director is here and they won't be black flagged, thus they won't lose their Saturday or Sunday race from going off and being black flagged 3 times in a day and you can't do anything about it until someone gets hurt. Last example I have seen, we're holding a surface flag for some car guts on the track. Get a radio call saying drop the flag. Nope, sorry, you aren't standing 10 yards from the track. You're more like 3/4 of a mile away since we're way in the outfield. Surface flag is only a warning to the drivers, as is blue, it doesn't hinder the results like a yellow or a black! We wouldn't black flag someone if the directors said not to because the driver would come in while black flag chief is asking why are you even in here no one said to black flag you... Basically, just a safety thing, don't change the outcome of the race. No passing under yellow regardless of standing or waving status but the difference is how much attention the drivers give to the flag. Urgent waving will hopefully slow them down a little and keep an eye out for where a car may be sitting. Then again MotoGP and AMA are a bit bigger than club racing, so the directors have camera's and resources to make good calls. I should edit my statement "I detest directors calling the shots in club racing where they don't have a track side perspective". Workers can bicker amongst each other all day about flagging etiquette. Haha Those first two hours during dinner are the worst because all the workers scrutinize each other on how a previous situation should have been handled. In the end, the situation in the video, we ultimately only discuss amongst ourselves. No metal to metal occurred, no accident was caused, therefore unless you are a chatter box on the radio (everyone despises you) then there is no reason to make a call. If words were exchanged between the drivers then whatever... We try to stay as neutral as possible unless it was a serious offense. Keeps the all those pesky accident reports to the minimum.

Hmmm good point. However when I was being trained they always taught us to get a good idea of the different speeds because the person in charge of blue flag must be able to think "that car is far away right now but by the time they get to my corner/section he will be right behind them" Blue flag isn't always shown right when the guy is blazing his lights in your rear view. My area of coverage, basically from my post to the next post, if I think some passing will occur there, then I use the blue flag. But... then again blue flag is practically an optional thing. If I throw a blue flag and they fast guy hasn't caught up yet, it's no big deal. Not like throwing a yellow on accident or even grabbing the wrong flag in the heat of the moment and accidentally throwing a red flag! If the blue wasn't ever shown then indeed the both drivers have a more valid argument. Workers would probably get **** the next day of events "the drivers are requesting more blue flagging".

Just coming from my... flag dragging standpoint, the corner workers should have been on their tip toes waving the hell out of the blue flag when leaders or two classes with big speed differentials come up behind traffic. Once the blue flag is shown it's nothing but the drivers fault for not backing off and staying on the line while the big boys come through. Blue flag only means check your mirrors and considering the pass was made on a straight, he had plenty of time to check as compared to in a corner. "I didn't know he was coming up or else I would have moved out of the way" is a poor argument if you plan on exchanging words with someone after a race. Corner workers can scrutinize all they want though... Generally keeping it to ourselves unless we know the dude. In that case at the end of the day you go to his or her pit and bust their balls about it. There was one time an instructor with a spec racer ford complained about not enough blue flags to get the rest of the PCA drivers out of the way and for good reason since they can't see him well. He complained so much one of the workers took all the blue flags he could get and waived like... 10 of these things every lap, just for him. It seemed to work well until the next lap he came around and no one was in front of him but he still got 10 blue flags so he knew we were busting his chops... "If we were perfect we would get paid a lot more, or you can come out and work with us." Pretty cool to see the speed differential though! I could easily see how a person on the highway is hauling ass and to someone like my mother... "GEEZ IS THAT GUY DOING LIKE 150MPH?!"

Thanks for the reply! I'm still waiting for the car to come in, it may not be until around Christmas time that I get the motor apart. I will keep your email until then and hopefully you still have them... Got a price and how much they've been turned? Maybe even some main/rod bearings to go with it so I can get it from one source?

Lucky I said "for what it's worth" in case if it was worth absolutely nothing. Haha

I'd hate to bump but one thing to note in case none of you have noticed on any other motors you may be working on... But the ring on the back of the crank to center the flywheel can also be found in BMW 2002's with their M10 motor. For what it's worth, one version or another of the M10 motor was used as for an F1 car in the 80's... Disregard the knife edged part, that's not stock.

Looking for a U20 crankshaft. Preferably one that isn't turned down .040" or anything and no gnarly key ways either please...

The thread I posted about the thing in the muffler, later on I posted saying it was most likely just a device that was used to reduce noise because after all some of those cars are road worthy. Wish I could go back and change some things in there so people aren't mislead. I was basically splurging all the information I found.

Where is the point? Is the L28 not at standard 86mm bore from the factory? Run an L24 crank in an L28 block get big bore or run an L26/L28 crank in a L24 block and get big stroke. L28 crank + L24 bore = L26. I wouldn't mess around with it if you have doubts. The money spent on boring the block out to that and then perhaps it works but maybe it doesn't, just get a junkyard L28 and save the time, worry, and money.

Wasn't until a few years ago that they cleared that area out if you went off track. Use to be filled with rocks that would mess you up pretty good if you decided to go agricultural. The problem with that corner, well only for corner workers, is that when people go off they drop into that area so you can't see anything but the roof of the car; can't tell if the driver is ok. The oval to in-field transition is kind of ugly in some spots too. If you hit it wrong the ass end is going to squirm, especially for the Porsches. The only other nasty bit of the track is turn 13, that last zig-zag before you get onto the oval. If you over do it you more then likely end up in the center of the track facing in a direction less than desirable. For old British cars, mainly Triumphs, it claims axles from the sudden change in loads. My dad broke several axles there until he designed a solution. BMW 2002's have the same axle-breaking-wheel-flying-away problem in that area. Haven't heard anything about Z's dying that way, yet.

Two, Nick. Lol Vintage cars, and many vintage drivers!

It's not that big of a straight. They don't go on the oval part. We just happened to be put right on the end of the straight where they dive into a sweeping left. Everyone is pretty good except for A-Prod... they always slide off and make a mess.

Some Group 1 cars, I guess known as A-Prod/Sedan to SCCA back then?

Got back from Texas World Speedway this weekend. Same Z that's always there but he was kicking some major ass this time, first place! He always use to be behind 3 or 4 faster Porsche's but this weekend he did great. We went to visit him as usual during lunch and he said he put in a better fitting seat but the main thing that got him to the front was that his heat shield wasn't port matched to his head/intake manifold! His particular shield, granted I didn't see it, but from the way he described it bolts between the head and the intake manifold. They were basically restricting the motor from breathing up where he has his power. Vintage racing, instead of listing what you can't do it's easier to say "whatever rules they ran that year for SCCA" 1972-and older. The exception being three later 1980's (I think) Formula Atlantic cars that get tossed in with Formula Fords. Strict group as far as what you can run, authenticity, and consequences for misbehavior, but very welcoming and fun. Some very rare and very expensive cars play in this club.

I like it but way too modest. Love the sterling fan or whatever you want to call it. Warm colors, fireplace as a centerpiece, keep it rustic. Unfortunately, I'm not one to just sit around a fire, I need to watch some TV too.

As long as you have a fire place and some family you're fine! Cygnus, don't you have a WOOD STOVE hellllll yah. I tell yah what just sit down and have yourself a nice book, something warm to drink, with your fire going, playing this: For someone like me... living in a dull apartment, everyday is exactly the same. Hell, Thanksgiving will come and go and you wouldn't even know it. To get my mood on, I use a fake fireplace. Can you tell, I'm a big fireplace type of dude? Also, if it were me, since our wood stack started running short ever since I convinced Mom to STOP mowing down trees otherwise there won't be any trees left; I would take advantage of all the fallen wood.

If you screw up the guide bore and have to oversize I believe I have 25 oversized guides. Bought them but figured it would be cheaper to get the proper size and do them the way I want (shortened...). I'd have to check how much over they are. Don't plan on using them though; do it right the first time!

I want snow. :[ We can swap places.

I love shoveling snow! but I'm from Texas...

Don't think it's ignition advance. If it was too far, but only "by a little" it would crank when the motor is cold and then give you **** when the motor was warmed up. Some of the things we do on our track cars that don't run vacuum advance so you have the timing set high to begin with, is you add an ignition toggle so you can crank the motor over, it spins up quickly and then flip the switch to get spark. I did this on my 521 truck, but it's more of a theft deterrent. I bet it's the gear reduction, perhaps its jumping teeth on the gear/helical drive however it works internally. If it's drawing way more current then normal, granted starters draw a ton of current and actually since it is directly connected to the battery and a battery supports "unlimited" or a "****-ton" of current for a few seconds the limiting factor is really the gauge of the wire/when it will start to melt stuff... probably just a bad starter, since you can turn the motor over by hand. From what I have read on the Nissan truck forum, maybe here too, stick with Nissan starters. I bought a brand new starter, no core charge, from Napa for my L20B for $37 a few weeks ago. It's not gear reduction, those are about $75 from what I saw. Should be the same starter for L24-L28ET I would assume. Also consider this; if were something on the flywheel or clutch like a bolt that backed out and hits the bell housing, it would be constant as it rotated around. This isn't constant and from the sounds of things once it's started you have no problems? If you found your socket or anything else loose in there, I'm sure it would be clunking around as the motor is running.