blue72

It took a little while to get my cabs back, but I did and now they're on. I went ahead and dug out my stash of SU carb manifolds and thought I'd give the numbers I have for each. I took the averages from both manifolds in the set. N-36 Carb/TB mounting face average: 47.2mm Cylinder head side average: 35.83mm (previous disclaimer: I already gasket matched this side of the intakes.) Thinnest spot I could reasonably measure: 2.9mm +/- E-88 Carb/TB Mounting face average: 47.08mm Cylinder head side average: 34.78 Thinnest measureable spot: 3.7mm +/- E-46 Carb/TB Mounting face average: 47.92mm Cylinder head side average: 34.61mm Thinnest measureable spot: 3.4mm +/- Nothing real groundbreaking there. They are pretty close to each other, so on port size alone there's not much difference. The greater differences that I noticed were in the port shapes and lengths of the manifolds themselves. The E-88 was overall 14.3cm, the E-46 is 14.2cm, but the N-36 manifold looked to be half an inch shorter. I didn't measure it because I was too excited to put it on. Left to right: E-46, E-88, N-36 As far as inside the manifolds there seemed to be two main differences between each variety. Both the E-88 and E-46 manifolds have a sharp radius on the 2-3/4-5 side. The casting sticks out into the passage and forms a sharp lump inside. Also, where the two divide into individual runners is a sharp line. I'll try illustrating with a few pictures: First the E-88 Next the N-36 On the N-36 manifolds the bump is significantly smaller on the 2-3/4-5 side, and forms a nice smooth radius. Where the 2-3/4-5 sides divide into individual runners is also a much smoother radius, and shorter as well. To my untrained eye the #1 and #6 cylinder runners looked identical between all manifolds. Hope this helps someone. Its info I'd like to have had in the past.

If I had the money mine would be shod in those tomorrow. Looks great, and no mods had to be done. What more can you ask for?

So that's where my spiral bound notebook wound up.

First I'd buy the book "How to Rebuild Your Datsun & Nissan OHC Engine" by Tom Monroe. Once you've read through the most pertinent sections contained in there you'll have a pretty good idea of what tools you'll need, which areas to look out for and which parts you might need. I'd also suggest Bryan Little's site: http://datsunzgarage.com/rebuild/ That said, I rebuilt my L-28 on the garage floor (very clean garage floor) with parts from about four or five parts stores. Some parts I bought: ITM pistons and rings (usually pistons can be reused) Fel-Pro head gasket, timing chain set, rear main seal set, oil pan and valve cover gaskets. Cloyes timing chain. Clevite 77 rod and main bearings. Various NOS Nissan small gaskets heater and radiator hoses through MSA. Head studs and misc SS nuts and bolts from Ace Hardware. Oil, fuel and oil filters from NAPA. etc... etc... It depends on how far you want to go. Will you need to replace the pilot bushing, or thermostat housing gaskets? Will you be rebuilding the head as well? It will depend on your car and perhaps your budget. Try and find an import parts store too. That's where I was able to get some things that Autozone or Checker/Kragen wouldn't have readily at hand. If all else fails go for the mail order/internet. Good Luck. Its a good feeling when it fires up and runs for the first time.

That's the kicker. If your going to use RTV then let it cure first. Otherwise you'll squish it all out to float around inside your valuable mechanical bits. I installed mine dry and made sure to torque it correctly and haven't had a single leak yet.

Thats the only bit that I don't like about the full covers. They don't cover the sides completely. That and the fact that the color of the plastics don't quite match. I just have mine in place on the dash, but not glued down for now. As soon as I glue mine in I'll have to Armorall it to see if it changes to a more suitable shade and matches the glove box door.

You can R&R the pan with the engine still bolted to the mounts as long as you don't have an L24E in your 240Z like mine did. Then you just curse until you find an L28. The correct torque spec for the pan is 7ft lbs if I remember correctly. I let mine hang out a few days and re-torqued it as necessary while the gasket slowly compressed.

You can take and leave that over there if you want.

If you follow the link that JSM gave you it would handily tell you where the block's casting code is. Do you have any reason why you want the '81-'83 F-54 block vs. the '75-'80 block? There seem to be many opinions on strength one vs. the other as well as the siameseing of cylinder walls, but in my mind either should do. In fact, 1fastZ uses the earlier blocks for his turbo and stroker motors because he has found the cylinder walls to be thicker doing his own research.

I'm with you, I'd rather do it right and do it myself than trust what any number of previous owners have done. Good work so far. Keep it up as long as you've still got some money left.

Regardless (not irregardless) of geographic origin it seems that way too many people use "fer" instead of "for". Generally it is short and unnoticeable. Some of my other favorites are "meeer" instead of mirror, "cran" instead of crayon, the old egg/aegg debate and I'll throw in February I guess.

I've thought about this before, but haven't taken the time to dive into the logistics of it though. If it were me and I had all the money and resources at my disposal I'd widen an S30 body. Inside I'd recommend a complete tube chassis with the original exterior welded onto the outside of it. You'd need at least one parts car to come up with all of the extra sheet metal you'd need. Those compound curves would be extremely time consuming to recreate. Another thing needed would be a great working relationship with a pro body man. Moulding all of those pieces of metal together with that much of a stretch could consume months and months of time. The roof, hatch, hood, cowl, splash pan, and rear of the car would probably have to all be worked over by hand. Then you would need a custom windshield, hatch glass, and rubber moldings for those. The hood and hatch might be easier to make in a composite material like carbon fiber or fiberglass. At the same time you are widening the body I'd go ahead and chop the roof like I've seen from two different people. That way it looks extremely exotic, and it knocks down wind resistance. All the small pieces would have to be remade like the trans tunnel, firewall, core support, etc... Then you'd have to source or custom make wider front and rear suspension, engine and transmission crossmembers as well. With widening/customizing the suspension there would come rear tubs at the least. Then most likely custom rims to make the backspacing correct. That's just the bare minimum for bodywork and suspension. Then would come the drivetrain of your choice along with its own custom requirements. If you did it right, with the right stance I think it would roughly approximate the dimensions of a new Corvette, but have the unmistakable body lines of a Z. It would cost more to make than a C6 Z06 though. Tell you what, when I strike it rich I'll build this car and tell you how much of a pain it was.

Reminds me of a 700R4 output shaft I snapped in half once upon a time. I'd look for custom made halfshafts machined from some stronger material.

Same here. I already replaced my sending unit and o-ring with OEM Nissan parts because the old one had gone south long before I bought the vehicle. My new parts only read half full when the tank is completely full. I just brazed the fuel vent line back onto my tank and while I was there, bent the float rod a little to try and compensate. I'll see if it was successful on my next fillup. Mine isn't too difficult to reach, but its a '72.

First navigate to the Brakes, Wheels, Suspension and Chassis section of this site. Second, read The Strut Thread all the way through (top of the page, sticky). Third, use the search function to find other threads about strut sectioning. After that much reading and mulling on what you find you will probably have many of your questions answered.

Shemp? I think if it were your cam towers interfering with the rotation of the cam that you would have aluminum shavings, not magnetic steel ones. The softer metal of the cam towers would sooner disentigrate than the ultra hardened steel of the camshaft. I rebuilt my L-28 on the garage floor very carefully. More than likely the engine is junk if there are floaty metal bits all over. Did it run before this? Did you drive it? If not I'd break out the tools and begin the teardown to determine the cause of the problem.

Have you taken the door panel off from the inside yet? Its pretty simple, just a few screws and tabs that hold it on. Then you can have a look inside the door toward the rear where the locking mechanism is. It might just need some lubirication, or perhaps it isn't hooked up at all. See what you can find in there first.

Wow. Do those motor mounts line up, or will you have to do some cutting and welding? Personally I'd check all the Pick-n / Pick-a part kind of places for a pan because it'd probably be the cheapest route. Another option might be an aluminum pan like the ones on arizonazcar.com.

I get my overbored SU's back from Rebello sometime early next week, so I'll probably be enlarging the bore on the "meaty" side. I also have in my collection a set of E-88 and E-46 SU manifolds that I can measure as well. It'd be best if we could come up with a standard system to better differentiate the variations between the iterations. I'll probably have them all side by side in about a week and give the results from my untrained eyeball if I find anything interesting.

Try posting in the parts wanted section, or go to arizonazcar.com and check out his finned aluminum pans. MSA and Kameari sell them too, but they're a bit pricier.

Best price I've seen are the NISMO units from Courtesy Parts. Fortunately I have a 300ZX R200 with the 12mm bolts in the back of my 240Z. Listed at $835, and that is the best I've personally seen. Unless you want to weld the spiders or buy a cheapie solution that'll break in less than a week.

I have very similar findings from an N-36 manifold: Carb/TB mounting face diameter: 47mm +/- Cylinder head face runner diameters: Average of 35.8mm (disclaimer: I already gasket matched this side of the intakes to my Ported and Polished P-79, but not much material was removed.) Thinnest spot I could reasonably measure: 2.9mm +/- I picked them up because of the rumor, but now it appears unfounded. BTW they came from a '73 240Z with the square top SU carbs.

I've dropped the tank by myself with only a cheapo floor jack and chunk of wood to distribute the weight. The only difficult part of the ordeal was getting the straps back up far enough while trying to balance/shove the tank back in place (I did it with perhaps half a tank in there). Now I've learned my lesson and know how to align them better, and try to run it pretty dry before playing in the little black room that spews fumes. No weight = easy 1 man job with some wiggling.

'92 2 door XJ. 199,9xx miles, but as clean as can be.

Swapping a head gasket is an afternoon affair as long as you have all the right tools and don't drop the timing chain (I've got it down to about 2 hrs now). I personally would want to know if and why the HG blew in the first place before trying to drive it around too much more.