brokebolt

Wow I've seen a lot of intake air filtration systems in my day (maybe not as much as some) I would strongly recommend that if you don't want to use the individual oval cleaners to use a plenum system (like what SKiddell is pedeling) and get a good aftermarket round filter from Summit or Jegs. They are supper cheap at about $26.69 (or so). Search Cone filter. Then mount that bad boy on the end or make a SS pipe and run it out the front and mount the cone on that. Simple easy and a cold air induction kit to boot. If you can weld aluminium you could fab one up in a few hours, simple square box should be fine for the garage monkey... SKiddell I may be intersted in one it the price is right, the Dollar is weak right now so may not be the best time for me.

Friends, Who has the yellow convertable 280Z in Durham, N.C.? I don't want to post the liceinse plate number or words but PM me if you know who this is...Long story short, I was recently in Durham, N.C. on business and seen it at a local business part... and at a local Pizza Hut...Nice looking ride, does it have a hard top/soft top?

With a dead head system it is possible to produce excessive wear on the pump thus low presures. As the pump warms up it is possible it will develop less pressure and you are getting more leakage in the pump. It should be a rotary vien pump for safety reasons and this type of pump also is excellent for moving fluid but not developing excessive presures and spikes. This type of pump uses the fluid to help seal the veins in the turit. If you use a open end system where a return line is used than you may be in the same situation with no pressure but you will have flow. You can benifit more from this system as you are always moving fuel in the pump which deminish the wear isssue (you will always have wear), and you can install a fuel cooler and help with performance by cooling the fuel and returning all the excessive amount of fuel back to the tank. I would guess that at such a low pressure your guage is not too accurate but I would definetely suggest using a return line. Hope this helps.

To answer your question, the DGV and the DCNF share a very similair bolt patter but not the same. The good news is you can fit them in one of two ways. First if you don't car about hood clearence, than you can use an adapter that will fit one bolt pattern to the other. The bad news on that is that you will gain about 2 inches in height, well bad for hood clearence, good news for out of the hole performance. So you will need to SawZall a hole for each carb or do some type of cut and hack job to make them fit. But if you do the hack job you can make some nice air intake scoops on the hood to feed each carb or do an air box or something like that. That would be cool and original. The second option is to make an adapter plate out of... oh lets say 3/8 inch aluminium plate stock. You are no longer looking at hood clearence issues but you will need to port your Cannon/TWM adapater manifolds to make it work at the base of the carb. If you look at the adapter manidold it is shaped to fit the two difference sized butterflies and they are much smaller 32 mm on the small side vs. as you stated 44 mm. That is a little over a cenitmeter not much but definetly a bit of material to remove. And you need to make sure you get the bores centered in the opening so as to not hender performance. A bit of planning but it can be done. So, yes you can mount them; just depends on how far you want to take this project. Happy motoring, Mike. P.S. I do like the Peirce injection throttle bodies. Get three of those with Megasquirt that too would be cool.

What venue are you planning to run the car in? Street Strip or other? If you use a oil cooler or automatic tranmission cooler, mount it infront of the other coolers your using, and run the fuel through it before the carbs this can cool the fuel before it is feed to the carbs. The unused cooler fuel can return to the tank, helping to keep the tank cooler. While I've mentioned it, Z's are the worst design for gas tank temps, all the engine heat and exhaust pipe heat hits the fuel tank dead on...through the tranny tunnel. Relocating the fuel tank to a higher point in the car could also eleminate this condition of heating the fuel in the tank. I like a cool can before the carbs to help combat this, but who drives around with a ice chest full of ice slurry and a aluminium coil running though it anyway. A fuel cooler, fuel cold can (when needed at the strip), free flowing return fuel line, heat shield between the carbs and exhaust, thermal wrapped exhaust manifold, and cold air induciton plumbing, all used in conjuction with each other would help keep under hood temps low and intake charge cold. Don't know how safe or legal that would be for the street though. Mike

IAT's not familiar with this term...I don't think. What is it.

K.I.S.S., Keep It Simple Stupid. Words to live by. Yes, changing one thing at a time and measure the effects is a very effective way to trouble shoot...but very time consuming. Easy stuff first is also a good ideology. If your fuel pump is the stock version, you may not be able to get more than that due to age and leaking check valves. I don't know if they still offer a rebuild kit for those old pumps. I need one for a pump I have on the shielf that has a hole in the diaphram. That is the one bad thing about triples, if you start to play with the tuning parts everthing is in quantities of six. I've been suggesting it for years that triple carb guys ban together and "Group Buy" a large selection of parts and then when they have there stuff dialed in they "buy out" the parts from the group. Check out a local club, if you already haven't, and see if they offer something like this. Also clubs are an excellent source for guys that have gone down the road before you; so they have already made all the "stupid mistakes":cuss:, this would help in diagnozing some issues and pehaps give you some advice in other areas besides your triples, just a suggestion. Keep us posted, happy trails Mike

You have multiple issues I see why no one was brave enough to tackle this one. First off you need to find what is causing pressure, that is a very bad thing; very, very bad. Your tank should be placed in a vacuum condition not pressureization, if all is normal...no! This does not mean you should have 30 in of vacuum only that as you are drawing fuel out is a slight vacuum condition should or could exist. You can disconnect the power wires form the electronic pump to see if the problem continues, as it sounds you are leaning on that. I can't see how that would cuase any issues but try it and see what happens. Are you 100% sure you only have 3 PSI from the fuel pump? I would gain to venture you have more presure and your guage is skewed a bit. The carb dieing problem may be related to the tank over pressureization, and maybe due to excessive fuel not starving. Pumping the throttle should surge the accelerator pump circuit in the carbs and that would be adding more fuel, thus it loads and dies faster due to fuel being added at a faster rate. Do you have a chilton book or factory service maual? If not, "invest" in one, your not "buying" one, your "investing" in one like a house or stocks. Re-plumb all your hoses to location that are in the manual to like locations in your existing set up. Example; all things that hook to the intake manifold "vacuum side", that is behind the thorttle body, should hook to the same location on your triple manifold, behind the throttle blades. All things that are under the air filter should be moved to the same location, under the air cleaner. You may need to add air cleaners you didn't mention if you were running them or not. Be advised that if your hooking something up to one runner only, like you break booster and there is a leak in the hose or plumbing somewhere, than that cylinder will run lean, not that it could run lean it WILL run lean. That sets the stage for major catastrophic engine damage...which is never fun for anyone...except the guy you pay to rebuild another engine. Keep us posted.

Ok I know this subject has been malled over for years, but my brother (ole doc martin) sent this to me...poking the bear with a stick as it were. He is all about EFI, I like the carb personally. Nice read, but nothing concrete. As always, he said, she said...go here. http://carcraft.com/techarticles/849/index.html I like this quote best, sums it up nicely. "Warren Johnson: Properly tuned, carburetors make more peak power than EFI in a Pro Stock engine. A carb’s pressure differential atomizes the gas a lot better than spraying fuel through an orifice. But EFI has a broader powerband and superior cylinder-to-cylinder fuel distribution. The 1,100- to 1,300-cfm dual carbs are good only over a narrow range, about 1,500 rpm at most. EFI performs well over 2,000 rpm or more. On average, if optimized, both systems perform about the same as far as how fast you get down the track. However, the EFI system is much easier to tune than a carburetor." For those that don't know Warren Johnson a.k.a. "The Professor" is a long time NHRA Pro-Stock drag racing veteran. He knows his way around a carb. He is one of my personal HERO's!

Just to let ya' know, I bought mine off ebay at the suggestion of MAT73GNZ and they are real quality items. Thanks for the tip.

I am interested in: 1 X REAR (large) 2 X FRONT (small) Mike

Hey all, are the carbs with the fuel inlet on the side of the carb old style or new style? I've got a set of 44's that I'm rebuilding for a winter project and hope to unvail them in the spring. They have the inlet on the top. I know squat about Mikuni carbs, this is the first Mikuni set up I've worked on. Question, any chance you sell jets and such, I'll need to tune them sooner or later? Very nice grab bag of parts though. Mike

Hey, we got some real good positive and correct info here. Say tool man quicker240 what would a "hub shark" cost a guy? Mike

Below is a cut and paste step-by-step on rear axles that I've been handing out for a few years. If your not getting any success with the slide hammer or center punch with a hand driver method I'd remove the axle housing with transverse link and shock tower and spring and have a machinest press them out. This is the lowest risk method. After all the car isn't operational without the axle shafts so what's a few more hours or down time. You will need to only blead the brakes lines on install, else the process isn't that much more difficult. Mike Rear stub axle tidbits: To remove the rear axles take the car to a qualified mechanic with the tools and equipment to do the job right. For the rest of you who want to do this in your garage on the weekend do this. Get your tools together: first get a 36" long 1" I.D. 1 5/16 O.D. sch 40 pipe and then get some flat stock steel 1"X1/2"X36" drill two 12.5mm holes or 1/2" (it doesn't have to be a precision bore) spaced 4 1/2" center to center or 3 1/4". Then buy thread lock, a 3/4" breaker bar and 1 1/16" socket, 1/2" center punch and 40 oz. hand driver. Next a tire bar 21mm or 13/16" and two 14mm combo wrenches. You should have needle nose pliers plus and minus screw sticks and other common tools. Most important, a service manual like Hayes or Chilton for general information. Set the e-brake and jack the car and support it safely then remove the tires. Disengage the e-brake and remove the four half shaft bolts from the hub, removal of the four bolts from the third member is not required but is recommended for ease of accessibility. They are a shoulder bolt 14mm on both ends. Then the axle nut will be visible looking from the third member towards the wheel hub. (It is best to remove the A arm with strut tower and take it to a qualified machinist and have him remove the nut.) It is best to remove the crimp or bend it back but this can be more difficult than just removeing the bolt with the crimps in place. Either method you risk potentially damagings parts. Bolt the flat stock to the hub using the wheel huts and brace it against the car or the ground. Put the breaker bar with pipe and socket on the nut. Send the children to the neighbors house, their ears will be the better for it and now rotate the nut, or at least...try. The nut is crimped on so this can be tough sometimes and this is where most possible damage can occur. Once the nut is removed the half shaft flange should slide off, some don't, but don't worry it will. (It is better to remove the A arm and strut tower, take it to a qualified machinist and press the axle out.) Chilton recommends using a slide hammer and center hub puller. I use the center punch and place it in the dimple of the shaft and with the hand driver strike the punch with firm square blows. *DO NOT DAMAGE THE THREADS!!!* Glancing blows may cause damage here and a lot of hassle. The axle will take a few good blows but it will start to move. There is a whole pile of goodies to loose like two seals, two bearings and a center spacer inside the hub so be careful and don't loose any of it. Now is a good time to replace bearings and seals. On reassemble it is best to use new nuts, but if you use the old ones run a die or rethread tool through it, and on the axle shaft can't hurt either. Use the red thread lock on the nut to ensure it doesn't back off and make sure you tighten the $&!# out of it! I torque on the high side of the recommended 181-239 ft. lbs. (actually I go to 250). To prepare a axle shaft to recieve a nut that is not in 100% good condition. First clean the shaft off the car and on the bench with a good bench grinder, or 4 inch hand grinder and a wire wheel or abrasive pad wheel to remove any bad areas on the shaft end, not the bearing seat only the threads. Next get a good rethread tool, M 20 X 1.50. I use one from my Snap-on set that I bought on-line RD-20. Next install the nut over the shaft and turn. I like to use tap-magic to help the tool glide over the threads. Unlike a die, the rethread tool or thread restore tool will cram the remaining metal back into shape to help revitalize the old threads. With a rethread tool, if the metal will not comform back to shape the tool will remove it and leave clean threads. A die will cut new threads in any metal that is there, that is the key, no metal no threads, their is a difference. This is only a fix to the issue of removing a nut that had not been properly prepaired before de-installation. Am I am the worst person for not preparing the nut before removal. Best of luck.

I think the point missed here concerning manifold issues only, is that the two version of 4bbl that I have run and seen for the Z car is that, the first is a plenum (Clifford research) the second is a dual plane, log style (Bob Sharps original design) and later a true dual plane, log style (AZCars). They are not the same and do not perform in the same way. In a plenum style the air is only restricted at the runners. The plenum style, the runners are all the exact same length and diameter! Go here and look at the construction of this manifold, http://www.eng.fsu.edu/~jthagard/ (Nice work!) it is a plenum style due to the box that will be installed over the intake horns. This is how all plenums should be designed. But I've yet to see another for a Z car like this. The other dual plane style has a smoother flow pattern and here the runners too are the same length and diameter, the last runner (cyl one and six) the log turns and ends at the runner, or becomes the runner if you so would like to look at it. This is a good design because the runners snake off the log and flow very smoothely into the runners. The SU manifold for the Z car is designed like this and performs very well. If you want to test exhuast gas temperatures on each cylinder (EGT) use a lazer temp gun, Fluke makes one for about 100 bucks. This will test surface temps only but is a good easy to use tool. Point at the metal base of each plug, not the cylinder head. Make sure the plug holes are clean and the plugs are in NEW condition, and use some plug thread goo for good, equal thremal transfer. This is as easy as you can get for EGT testing. I don't beleive that cylinder distribution exists on these two manifolds. Or even the SU manifold eventhough the 2nd and 5th runner lengths are shorter. A better test would be to buy six "coulor tuners" and you can see the color difference in each hole and compare for cylinder distribution. Use six temp probes in the hole for the smog pump injectors and test for EGT there. I'm just too cheap to purchsae this quantity of equipment. But if anyone has one for loan or items for sale at a cheap price, contact me. I have seen other manufactures that take a runner off each cyl. and run it to the carb. That type of manifold would not yeild distribuiton issues with A/F ratios but the different length runners do affect the engine in negative ways. After the butterfly the A/F ratio is not changed unless negative things happen like puddling, which is a sign of other problems. As long as the runner diameter and length does not change from cylinder to cylinder it will not affect the engine dynamics. I've run them all and I like the trippple's best BUT the 4bbl has some good design manifolds that perform well. Mostly becuase the people that designed them and there demand for performance. I'd like to see that custom intake linked above have a plenum with a 4bbl on it or even a few sidedraft SU's. It would be so easy to change the plenum box and play around with intake combinations with that custom manifold. Gets a guy thinking...Hhhmmmmmm. Mike

Someone should contact Ken Jones at Sport Z magazine. He has access to a Dyno and has done several articles about perfromance related issues and he has posted his dyno results in Sport Z mag. The summer issue 2004 he states he is going to be doing some projects on this 280 Z, one of which is a supercharger mounted on a Clifford manifold. The other upcomming project is a Weber Trippple 40 set up on his 3.1L. Before he pulls the 3.1L out and does his supercharger have HIM do some testing with a Bob Sharp (AZCar) manifold and his Clifford Research manifold and his Trippple set up; which he says he is already going to published. I know he has already tested the SU set up on his 3.1L in back issues of the publication he writes for and was addressing using a larger carb from a Jag. Would be nice to see him package the results on all the testing he has done for a ongoing issue to issue "Induction Challenge". This would be nice to see. Dave, I posted my results of the 4bbl, "the 4bbl may give the driver the perception of more power due to the different power bands of the induction", and " the 4bbl doesn't take up that much space it is very compact. Ease of maintanence, yes parts are more readibly available at autoparts stores and such; ask your local parts guy for SU needles and nozzles or even needle valves." Just no MPG numbers to state. Mike

Dave, I under stand you point and you reasons for the post. I have been preaching for years about the options available. As I've stated there is a stigma that follows the 4bbl. Most folks make claims about hood cleanances and such not ever running one or seen one upclose. I've run them all, I've tried to be impartial not bash or back up anyone or claim unless I can prove it. Like I've said before in other posts I've bought stuff from you in the past and have recommend you for parts to select personel. Go here and read the first sentence and then scoll down and read the last sentence. http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/496289/6 I think that eveyone who reads these recent threads about 4bbls will see that the most important thing here is information about the facts. I feel we have made some positive ground in the discussion about the 4bbl and perhaps posted some arguments both for and against the 4bbl. After all this site is dedicated to the HybridZ. Plainswolf, what kind of MPG numbers have you experienced? Cold weather starts are a true testiment to any induction. I grew up in Idaho and anyone who has tried to start an engine (any engine; tractor, car truck, etc) at 30 below zero knows that those are the hardest conditons possible...especially for a street machine/daily driver. My Z has issues at 40 degrees above zero. Mike...as Adam Corolla says, "Good times."