blue72

Or just break out the plasma cutter and welder to meld the 280 framerails to the 240. That way you get to keep the lightweight of the 240, and can reuse most of the 280 panels as well.

Try http://www.geocities.com/z_design_studio/ Thats the link to the Z Transmission Calculator. It will tell you what differences there are between the transmissions as far as gear ratios are concerned. I personally run a '78 5 speed in mine because that's what it had when I bought it, although I wouldn't mind a better 5th gear ratio. Also, read this for some more info on the 4 to 5 speed swap: http://www.geocities.com/jasonparuta/gearbox.html

Even a big screwdriver would do to just run it through the gears, or like Globerunner said, a stick.

That's what I'd do, shift it through the gears. If it has five then its a five speed (seems simple enough). On another note though, there are three different 5 speed transmissions. The early style has two "ears" at the back of the trans near the underside of the shifter location, and the later style has only one. Then there was also a Borg Warner unit available which wouldn't look quite like the ones in the pictures above.

Front air dam I'd love to see, but it would have to integrate well with the rest of the car. MSA sells the BRE style ones in CF, but no others. Headlight buckets I've only seen once, but a few guys have great looking CF roof skins. Those would have to come with a disclaimer and detailed instructions though. Hatches and hoods are readily available, as well as the new taillight panels. All we need to complete the car are quarter panels, cowl and fenders.

I believe that they will retest within 60 days for free if you fail. Lets you tinker some more to find the right tune and mixture. They give you a printout with all the HC and CO levels on it.

In Maricopa County, and a few other parts of the state, every motor vehicle produced after '66 has to be smog inspected. I took my '72 to be smogged twice, and failed twice, even after leaning the carbs all the way. I didn't feel like readjusting the needle seats at the time. I eventually got collector car insurance through Haggerty. Around $110 for a whole year I think @ $4000 declared value. As long as you own an insured "daily driver" they usually will accept your application. Once I got my insurance papers from them in the mail it was a brisk journey to the DMV to pay my $21 registration and collect my Historical Vehicle plates (I get asked about them all the time.) Now I can legally drive my pig rich 240 wherever I want and reek of fuel all over the place. Oh, and they do pop the hood to check that at least all the hoses look like they are connected (doubt they know what half of them do), and do a pressure test thing with your gas filler. Its a state law that properly insured (collector vehicle insurance) older vehicles are emmisions exempt because they are not going to be used as daily drivers on the street, and don't contribute significantly to emissions and particulate matter. Hope that helps.

I've stumbled upon a few posts in the past that linked to entire tables with engine weights on them. Just requires some digging through search results probably. I found some good reading here as well: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=134393 Personally, I'd go with an RB series, but that's 'cause I like them inliners.

I've never seen a vacuum diagram either, and my Z came with hoses that were obviously in the wrong places. What I did was troll search engines, HybridZ, and as many online photo albums as I could to find photos of people's engine bays. I tried to get as many angles as possible. In the process I learned what most of the components underhood were, and between the two I learned how to route them correctly.

Ooh, those pinholes can be a real pain. Hope all goes back together well.

I used to make small talk at my last job (hotel), and whenever I mentioned my '72 it was almost a given that someone would chime in with a Datsun story of their own. Its my personal opinion that everyone has owned one themselves, has a brother/sister/friend/distant relative who once owned one, or always admired them from a distance. I've had a man on a bike spot me working on mine in the garage, stop to chat about them, and then offer to sell me the one he had in his backyard. I've run out of gas and had a man stop because he thought it might be his own son on the side of the road because his boy owned a Z car like mine. My personal favorite was having an early 300ZX rev its engine at me from across the other side of the intersection. I had to wave back because my horn still isn't hooked up. It was then that I felt accepted by my Z bretheren.

First intall them on the block and look at the angles they sit at. Then look at your engine bay. Adjust as necessary. That's what I did when I forgot.

Good find. I bought my '72 in N. Phoenix for $900. It too had one dent, minimal rust, and a crushed framerail. That's one of the first things I did was to rip out the interior. I had to pound the floors straight with a hammer, then por-15 went on the whole floor. I'd replace your old rotted hoses right away. Mine sat since late 70's or early 80's, and I've eventually succumbed and gone as far as to swap engines, redo the interior, etc... Not the most financially sound principal, but It's starting to look pretty good. Now I just need some paint.

It almost looks to have a wiggle in the metal around the shock tower on one side. Could be evidence of a side collision. I'd look it over very carefully.

Did you read my post on page 7 of that thread? What I've come to find is that you buy the gasket for the block. There were different designs for different years. They blocked different passages for reasons that I haven't found yet, but they must have had their reasons none the less. The FSM pictures I've found of head gaskets match their Fel-Pro counterparts exactly.

The yellow wire is usually run to the thermostat housing for your water temp sensor. Mine was hooked up to my distributor for some reason when I bought mine. As long as your distributor is working correctly and the timing is set (mine is at about 16 btdc) as well as having the plugs in the corrrect firing order, the next order of business I'd suggest is to fiddle with the carburettors. There are some very good writeups on how the SU's work if you search online. Buy or borrow a carb synch tool first off, you could be way off as far as having them synchronized together. Next I'd check the fuel metering screws on the bottom of the carbs to make sure they're set at the appropriate levels (can make them run rich or lean). Also check to ensure the carb pistons are traveling fully as well as making sure they have oil in the domes for damping. At least that's what I'd try.

Here's a picture of my '72's engine bay with an arrow to the fuel filter. It is held in the engine bay with a bracket. I had the fun experience of changing starters and not marking the wires. I wound up putting two of them on backwards, and fried the ammeter in the dash. I would go through and make sure all of your connections are good. As extra protection you might go to autozone.com, or google '72 240Z wiring harness. I have a few saved on my hard drive that show exactly which wires go to where, and you can determine which fuse controls what pretty well.

Modeling the rest of my header and oil pump for 240Z in my signature pic. Consulting on the repairs of a fishing boat fuel pump, drowning some worms, and researching foreign wars on Wikipedia.

A few relevant threads http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=127846 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=107191 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=120531 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=98351 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=113862 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=96677

I've taken the morning to do some looking into the gasket/blocked flow thing. I've found that there is quite a bit of variation on both blocks, heads, and gaskets. This is to the best of my knowledge so far, so correct me if I'm wrong. First, the blocks. From my researching (my own engine blocks, and photos on my hd of others) I've seen a few basic block differences as far as water passage holes. The earlier design P-30/N-42 engine blocks look to have more small water passages on the passenger side of the block. The F-54 block has fewer small passages on the passenger side of the block (except cyl #6), but four extra, large passages on the driver side. I don't have a '75-78 N-42 block, and my pictures are small, but it appears to have at least 1 extra hole on the driver side. Same goes for cylinder heads. It seems that the pictures/examples I have of E-31, E-88, and N-42 heads are missing the large, driver side holes, while the MN-47, P-79, and P-90 heads (I don't have an N-47) have them in addition to all of the passages the others contain. Now gaskets. There are 4 styles divided by years. Up to Oct 70, Nov-70-74, 75-Feb 81, March of 81- end of production 83. Makes sense. Not having access to actual Nissan head gaskets I have instead looked at fel-pro and B/A for reference. Again, I only have early and late, not mid, but early has holes in the gasket for the small, passenger side water passages, while the later (F-54 block) head gasket blocks these holes completely, but does have three of the four extra holes on the driver side. I have a few side by side pictures to illustrate: First is an early style head gasket/L-24E/N-42 side by side. The other picture shows a late head gasket/F-54/P-79 side by side. I admit that I am not a Nissan Engineer, and don't know the exact reasoning for different configurations. It may have to do with siamesed and non blocks, different flow theories, turbo and non applications, better heat transfer, what have you. I'm going to swap P-79 heads on my F-54 block this week, and won't modify my new H/G. I'll assume the Nissan people made it that way for a reason, plus I have the same head gasket in my car now, and it runs fine. (and 1fastz who built my head said it was inconsequential at my power level.) After reading this thread through though I'll definitely be adding some water wetter when I refill the radiator. As a side note, it looks like the metal head gasket zxtman has allows flow of the small passenger side holes, but blocks two of the four large driver side holes, like his pictures show. I assume he's got a F-54/P-90 combo. I haven't seen a turbo specific head gasket listed, so I assume they used the same for N/A and turbo applications, which in my case blocks the small holes, but opens 3 of the 4 large ones. It almost seems like his is a universal gasket for the many 75-83 combos people could come up with. Boy, I too would like to see the plastic head where we could watch the flow with different varieties of gaskets and bypasses. Either that or the 3-D scan with simulated flow data. I'm not picky For now I'd settle for some pics of actual Nissan head gaskets, and maybe some pics of a 280 block and N-47 head water passages for more research.

I'm waiting with bated breath on the head gasket question because I am just about to swap heads, and noticed a few holes which are blocked by the gasket on my Fel-Pro as well. I'll have to take some pictures of my own.

I've been having fuel starvation issues at high rpm, but I attribute it to the p/o plugging the fuel vent line at the tank. Once I fix that (and get my ported and polished head, and then get my carbs back from Rebello) I might try again. My personal best so far is 104 on the GPS. It managed to just tick over 5k on the tach. '72 240 with L-28, '78 5-speed, and 3.9 r-200. 195-60-R14 tires, but eventually I'll change those too. Calculator tells me I should be able to hit 133 @ 6500. Kinda sad though, that I've gone faster in my 1970 4x4 Suburban.

I purchased my '72 while in Arizona, but still had rust in one of the doglegs. I had to cut it out, and repair the damage behind it, then weld in the external patch panel. Other than that I have been lucky to only discover surface rust under the battery tray. Just look it over very carefully, underneath, inside the engine bay, under the hatch, carpets, everywhere you can.

My vote is that he hid all the wiring by threading it through the tops of the fenders. That way you'd still get power to the headlights, etc... I wonder if anyone's ever done a smoothed firewall in a Z though.

I just calculated my gas mileage from my most recent long distance trip. A tad over 25mpg. My setup is an l-28 +1mm overbore with '72 su's, early 5 speed and 3.9:1 rear end ratio. I was taching 3500-4000 rpm most of the way (75mph = 3700rpm). I'm interested to see what will happen with a port and polish and bigger carbs.