Xnke

I have had this EXACT type of damage in my car; only I thought I had broken the cage and everything went to hell...this is not the case, looking at the outer CV cup in the photo above. The damage in my case, is caused SOLELY by having the CV axle pull itself apart. The top edge of the CV cup, that you see in Jmortensens's photo, has a ring pounded into it from the balls riding on the edges of the races, and it is slightly expanded.(his is not damaged that I can tell...but mine sure is, after seeing another one.) Turned out that the broken cage assembly was a result of the CV pulling apart under power. I had exactly the same problem as the OP, but I am not using M2's axles, I made my own and mis-measured. Same terrible noises...but since I had an open diff, I just rolled backward down the hill into the parking lot and called the tow truck. Gotta measure correctly, folks!

To my knowledge, no, there are no stock throttle bodies that include a fuel injector that also match up to the stock SU carb manifold. I run a pair of 4G93 throttle bodies on my carb/FI manifold and I did have to weld the old holes shut and redrill the bolt pattern. The ZXT throttles are not hard to find if the ZXTs are not hard to find...but they are not the same bolt pattern either. You will need to enlist the services of a reasonably skilled TIG welder to fill the bolt holes properly. They are deep, threaded, dirty, narrow holes and it is a real pain to work down in the bottom of those holes.

So I changed my plugs the other day, and noticed that #2 is black and appears oily, where all the remaining plugs are a nice even tan color. This engine has 18,000 miles on it, and has had a light miss since I went to the fuel injection setup. The engine doesn't appear to be using oil excessively, and the head was reconditioned with new valve guides when I had the valve job done. I am using the Ford Capri V6 valve stem seals, and #2 also has an exhaust leak where the manifold gasket is burned out. The leak has black, oily soot emerging from it, instead of the dry soot from the leak in the same spot on #5. I haven't checked compression yet, that is for this weekend. I do not notice any smoking at all, just a light miss that goes away above 5% throttle or 1400RPM. Am I looking at new valve stem seals, a faulted injector, or something more sinister?

Mind if I see a shot of your condenser mounting? I am using the same condenser...I think. I had to re-bend the aluminum lines and rework some of the fittings on mine to make them mate up to standard hoses, but mine blows COLD as well!

Throw away the stock cam, and go with an aftermarket Cleveland cam, and you can EASILY get 450ft-lbs of torque from a 400M. After reading up on the very few people working with these engines, including Jon Kaase, I swapped the cam in one of our old work trucks that has a 400M in it, went from a stock cam to a very small cleve pulling cam and it totally changed the engine. These motors can become torque beasts!

EXCELLENT! finally I know who makes the good manifold gaskets..Ishino! That felpro gasket has given me nothing but issues, on three different cars. the first gasket I used was a fel-pro, but it was the graphite composite like that ishino you're showing, and I never had any issue with it...ever. When I changed the intake manifold over, I had to go with the cardboard garbage, because I couldn't find the graphite one again.

Do not install stainless threaded fasteners into an aluminium female thread. You will have trouble trying to remove them after a few heat cycles, because the stainless will grab and tear the aluminum threads out. It will do this 7 times out of 9. It really, really sucks. The holes will look fine sometimes...but you will find chunks of the aluminum threads stuck in the stainless bolts/studs. In my experiance, even good quality copper anti-seize doesn't stop this from happening.

It's probably a stock cam grind. The marking will be faint...take some fine sandpaper and lightly rub across the back of the cam, often this will show the marking very clearly.

the cam stamp will be on the back of the cam, not the front.

Go with the bigger valves, 44's if you can get them, and a 5-6" manifold length if you can get it in there. Lift the ports and run a milled face mikuni manifold with the air horns coming out a slot cut in the hood!

Ok, so I've been running various CS series alterators (CS130, then a CS140, then a CS140, then back to a CS130) because the bearings keep failing. My backup CS130 has now failed the bearings, and so my alternate alternator is going back on the car till the bearings in it fail too. I've been running the belt JUST tight enough to keep it from slipping...it still slips on startup and if the electrical load is increased suddenly. I know that this is not excessive belt tension, but it seems like that's the only thing it could be. Is there anything else to check for?? Is anyone else having this kind of problem? I've been using aluminum alternator pullys, that I machine on the lathe in the shop. I've tried a few different drive ratios, and have settled on a 2.150" OD pulley as having the best balance of output power. I don't have a stock pully to measure, does anyone know offhand what size it is?

Mainly take note that the car has an inch suspension travel before those wheels hit the inner fenderwells. I've had my car that low, with some VERY hard springs and I STILL was bouncing the wheels off the fenderwells on every road seam or irregularity. I then went to a softer spring, and two inches (TWO INCHES) of suspension travel, and while it was greatly improved I STILL layed frame all over town...mainly because my tires weren't hitting the fenders and acting like bumpstops. Going back to stock ride height, I drive it daily and have no issues. I'm planning to work on getting it dropped a little at a time till I find the happy medium, but let's get real...the car in the article has at best an inch of suspension travel before his back wheels hit the inner fenders.

I am not running the same cam...but I have similar issues. Advancing my cam timing brought the power band down, but at the expense of total power. I am running a stock cam sprocket and so only have 0, +4*, and +8* available, and am currently running in the +4* position. Prior to the change, I had NO low-end...nothing at all under 3500RPM. Cam came on about 3500, and pulled strong from 4000 to the rev-limit, and would pull past the ignition-retard rev-limit if I didn't get my foot out fast enough! Advancing my particular cam in my particular engine by +4* brought the cam-in to 2800RPM, and now the good torque comes in at 3000, pulls hard to 6500-7000RPM (rev limiter), but I have not had the time to get it on a dyno to see exactly how the curve was affected. Are you running a stock cam gear or an adjustable? What adjustable are you running, if you are? If you can advance/retard in 1* increments, without pulling the timing chain, then get it on the dyno and make a few pulls, retarding the cam timing a degree at a time, till you move your powerband where you want it. If you have to pull the timing chain to do it, then my advice is get someone to help you, and don't drop the chain. It can be done, just work the chain around the cam sprocket till your bright link is where you need it.

Hey look, it's the gas-price-adjustment tool! some local guy built one a few years back when gas hit 4.30 a gallon here, but 12 miles out of town it was 2.90 a gallon...started running down gas pumps and "evaded" the cops for about four months.

Perhaps an L20 oil pan? NOT the L20A, but the L20. They are not the same.

Yes, they are all over this site.

You have a ground fault under the dash. Fix that, or you run the risk of installing a high-output alternator and high-outputing the entire car's wiring harness into flames.

So far, I've had the best results with the #5 cooling port being returned under the thermostat, returning that line to the upper radiator hose resulted in erratic engine temperatures.

The primary length varies based on the RPM range of the engine in question. I belive John was talking about the L28, if I'm thinking of the correct thread, and so it may be different for the V-8.

Take a welding class at the local community college, and learn to TIG before you spend the money. Just like any other machine tool, the welding machine is only about half the cost of getting setup to weld. You'll need: TIG power supply (600$-60,000$) Foot Pedal (100$ and up) TIG torch (15$-150$ bodies, 5$ handles, 40-50$ cabling) Torch parts (3$ collet bodies, 1$ collets, insulators, 2$ cups, backcaps) Tungstens (10packs usually 20-30$) Gas bottle (Mine is 50$/year lease, plus 36$ for Argon fill, I fill about every two weeks) Gloves (12$/pr) Filler rod (aluminum 5.60/lb, steel 4.30/lb, stainless 8.90/lb current and local) Figure in if you are starting from scratch, that you'll go through two packs of tungsten, 40 collets, 8 cups, a pair of gloves, 30lbs of steel rod, and probably 8 tank fills on a Q size tank, before you are able to produce a consistent, clean, saleable weld. Now, if you take the TIG class, then you get to pay the 400$ and burn through as much in the way of supplies as you want...get as good as you want...and THEN spend the big money on equipment, after you've already spent someone else's money on materials learning.

It's a PROCON carbonator pump...can be had on ebay for 50$ or less, they're in every soda fountain. Brass body, 1/6HP motor ususally. Direct drive.

Using an old 10" radiator fan scrapped out of the Z when its partner died, so now I have to work in a 12V transformer or find a 120V fan... leaning toward finding a fan. Trying to keep the system as uncluttered and as small as possible. Going to build a case to go on it, panel-mounted connectors and interlocks to prevent lighting up without the coolant flowing. Such can be disastrous to the torch and cabling, since the cable is cooled by the coolant as well as the torch head-no coolant flow, and your cable burns up in under a minute.

So I am working on a project that requires a lot of welding on thick aluminium, and when I get the casting up to temperature I want to keep it hot and keep welding...it just works better that way. My torch is an air-cooled 250A DC, 150A AC torch...and I've been dropping the full 250A AC through it too much. Overheats nearly instantly, and just stays HOT. Not hot enough to fail, my hands can't take that kind of duty cycle, but hot enough to make me cuss at the end of a bead as I toss my gloves off! I am upgrading to a water cooled torch, I can get a complete no-name torch for about 80$ delivered, and a no-name is good enough for me and my chinese welder...which until I took the cover off it and showed my friend who works for Miller, was indistinguishable from his Miller, except for the bombproof foot pedal. That thing could be used to beat the spindle pins out! I like it pretty good, and I've put it through some challenges already. 694$ including tank lease, torch and accessories, and shipping for a 200A AC TIG with pulse, arc control, and adjustable duty cycle is a pretty decent deal. Anyway, I looked at the price of the torch assembly and thought "wow, that's not so bad!". Then I saw the price of the coolant circulators to go with it! LWS had two options...one was 600$ and the other was 900$...too rich for me. I asked to see inside of one, and the counterman grinned and pulled the cover off, so I could see what I needed to see. Didn't look too complex...certainly not 600$ complex. Circulating pump, resevoir, fan, radiator, and a few bodgy-looking bits to get hooked up to the torch. I can do this. Headed down to the scrapyard/recycling center and kicked around for a bit, unloaded my bags of aluminum cans and scrap copper wire, some old cylinder head castings and a few other things, got my cash, and headed out to the "unsorted" area. A literal gold mine for scavengers. I quickly located an old soda fountain and yanked the carbonator pump and motor, check to make sure it still turned, bought it and tossed it in the car. Hunted up two aluminum fire extinguisher bottles, a huge load of 6061-T6 aluminum bar stock in varying sizes, (Major score!) and some bits and pieces of aluminum angle. All done, and I still left with 60$ in my pocket, having shown up with lint and a few pennies. Headed to the hardware store and got some copper tubing, flare nuts, flare fittings and some screws, then back to the house. An hour of cutting and welding, two hours machining a nice heavy o-ring sealed threaded cap, and then I realized I didn't have a 3/8 NPT pipe tap. You know what they say, don't scrap it, J-B it! So I did. If it doesn't hold up, I'll weld on some bosses and go buy the right tap. Hunting around in the leftovers I found a 280Z A/C condenser and evaporator core, and some wire for the power cord and other important sparky bits. This is the result: The black hose is just looping the pump output to the evaporator core, I was leak checking. Total cost: A few hours, about a gallon of gas, and some scrap metal. So far, so good!

I wouldn't have painted that CHRA behind the turbine shield....that'll flake off for sure, and will lay there, chewing at the turbine shaft at 100,000RPM...

Alex, the cranks are counterbalanced, but only partially...plenty good enough for 95% of usages I can think of. Only the first 3K or so (I think, It's been a bit since I looked that number up) L24 cranks were different, with fewer counterbalance weights on them...the rest of them had more, but are still just shy of "fully Counterbalanced".