speeder

I have not had good luck with stock type seals of any color, although the brown ones do seem to be the best. The A series or Ford seals are a real improvement over the stock design as the rubbery sealing material is better stuff and the metal bottom sleeve that fits over the guide top has to be a more solid way of attachment. I believe they'll last longer and seal better, in addition to giving the height reduction I need.

Here are pictures of the Fel - Pro German Ford seals. Sorry about the poor photography. They seem to fit perfectly, are indeed Viton, and are available at your local parts store for ~ $20.00. As I said, I will update on how they perform.

Looks as if I won't be able to post a picture of my new seals, but the machine shop guy says that he used Fel-Pro # SS72686 seals, about $20.00 per set of 12 in the parts stores. When I get this motor together and running for a while I'll update with results.

Yup, definitely room for improvement.....

I have not seen Nissan seals like that. I'm sure they are a big improvement over the stock Z stuff. Joel's look very much like the Ford seals - metal bottom part, low profile, but the Ford ones have 2 spring rings on them and green Viton seals. According to my machine shop guys, the Ford items are a very common item in stock in most machine shops. Pictures to come early next week.

I'll be picking up the head Monday, and will get a couple extra seals for pictures along with part #s.

As discussed in a previous post, I'm using Schneider's #68022 Spring set as sold by MSA on my new P90 head. This spring/retainer combination is advertised to support in excess of .600" lift before coil bind, with reasonable valve seat pressures. However, this doesn't take into account the fact that the inner spring locating sleeve on the retainer is very long and will contact the stock type valve stem seal after about .475" compression. My new cam's lift is .515" on the intake side. I instructed the machinist to check for this during spring height setup (Thanks for the pointer Jon) with instructions to shorten the retainers if necessary and he came up with a better fix: Shorter and better valve stem seals. Turns out that there are some seals from a German Ford 2.9l V6 that fit the L head perfectly and are said to be made out of a better material (Viton I think). They have two of the little spring rings around the flexible seal, are made to work submerged in oil on an OHC head, and just look like a better part than the stockers. With these seals in place a valve travel of .600" plus can now be obtained with the unaltered Schneider retainers. I'll get some more info and post pictures in the next couple days.

What a hoot. 5 Mil and rising. I know this guy. He's 17 years old, lives in St Louis, and bought a car from me. I emailed him and complimented his goofy scam.

Contact James (240Ztwinturbo) Another shameless plug. James, you owe me buddy!

TEP? Be afraid, Be very afraid. I'm one of those who bought a TEP turbo cam that was totally wrong for a turbo appication. Can't say that his na grinds are similarly wrong, but I bet you'll find better stuff and much better 'tude at the more established cam grinders. Iskendarian, Webcam, Elgin are among many who do a good job on L Motor cams.

I have a 60-1 wheel in a machined to fit to4e 50-trim housing. Not sure what you call the compressor trim now... The turbine side is a P-trim to4 wheel in a machined to fit T3 housing. The builder (Turbo Specialties) calls the turbo a "T61". This turbo makes 12psi by 3200 rpm, with a big hard hit above that. I guess it's not a road race turbo, but I likes! I think the 60-1 or equivalent is definitely the right compressor for the L motor - just pick your turbine for the kind of spoolup response you want.

I went through this same decision process when deciding what direction to take when building my new engine. Starting from an engine that is going to be completely built for turbo performance, the differences are: The LD28 crank, and L24 rods. Everything else you do to build a performance engine is the same between L28 and L30/31, including machine work and forged pistons. There is big power to be made from stock bottom ends, but for durability and ultimate power capability you will need forged pistons, good head work, and exacting machine work including balancing. If you don't have an 89mm bore, there is room for boring - but I'll point out that if you're reboring your performance stroker, you're buying new forged pistons for 600.00 and up. Personally, I would do another block from my pile of spares, reuse my forged pistons, and be ahead of the game. Whether the cost of the crank and rods is worth the extra displacement is an individual choice. I opted for a 3-liter stroker because I already had the correct rods and the extra cost amounted to what I paid to get the crank, which added less than 10% of the complete engine.

The sway bar and control arm on my car ((77 280Z) stay pretty much parallel throughout the travel. with this setup. After redoing tthe boots and swaybar links I checked the fit by getting the car up on a lift and using a tie-down strap to pull the car down. I think 240Zs have a different rear swaybar mount, though.

Yup, I had a problem with the links from the A-arm ripping the outer CV boots. I have the Suspension Techniques 7/8" bar, but I think this problem will occur on most any bar you use. My solution was the same as 'Gad's - Got a shorter bolt for the link and eliminated the spacer in the center of the link. Funny thing about this- When I first did my CVs I did shorten the link with a shorter bolt, but still had a little spacer in there. I put the car on the ground and watched while it was bounced by someone standing in the rear deck area. The link never came closer than 1/4" to the boot, but after a pass down the dragstrip with shocks set to soft I had ripped boots. I've had no problem with the no-spacer setup and there is no difference that I can discern with sway bar performance.

Hey, I was just going to ask this same question before my engine buildup - 87.5mm bore, L24 rods, custom forged pistons with rather short skirts. Right now I'm thinking about test fitting the pistons/rods without rings to check the rod - to - block and crank -to - piston clearance. Think I should forgo this mockup and just build it? If there are block clearance issues which cyllinders are most likely to have the problem?

I used to be a Porsche guy - Had a new 71 911S. I planned to get another when I returned from overseas ( Bermuda NASA Tracking Station) in 1977, but prices had gone too high for me. I bought a '77 280Z brand new, light metallic blue, $6800.00 with 5-speed, A/C, and Cassete Stereo. The car was a little slower than I remembered my 911 was, but that was quickly remedied with a 7psi BAE turbo kit. This was done before the car had 10,000 miles on it - voided the warranty, which I never needed anyhow. I owned my original '77 until 1996, gradually improving every system on it and learning about turbos/ tuning the hard way (destroying pistons). Then one fateful day I was driving to work at KSC, and a big Lockheed van ran a stop sign and T-boned me in the passenger side at about 45 mph..and drove the Z into a tall curb on the other side of the road. My companion of 19 years was now a banana car, as my body-shop guy put it. I remember that all the windows were shattered , and there I was, sitting in a wadded up car full of broken glass. I was uninjured except for a burn on my wrists where the steering wheel whipped by and a bruise on one knee. the driver of the van came over to see if I was all right and I cussed him out for ruining my car. At this point I hadn't thought about checking my condition. The KSC firemen had to pull off a door to get me out, and I wouldn't go to the dispensary until I had called a tow truck to haul the Z to the body shop. I used some mechanical pieces of my wrecked '77 to begin my current '77ZT, and used leftovers from that project to put together my '78 daily driver. And that's my Z story.

The way I see it, early Z cars in stock trim weren't much to begin with. Their potential as a platform for modifications is why we're all here. I will never understand the purist mentality.

My cam is by Elgin. It was recommended to me by a friend who runs a well set-up, high - horsepower turbo. They, along with Iskendarian and Web-Cam are all good stuff, and all can make you a cam to do anything you want. This particular one seemed to suit my needs the best, and someone else already did the research. Jon, do you happen to know what lift your cam makes? Just when I think I have everything planned, I have something else to stress about!

I'll soon be setting up a P90 with the Schneider #62002 spring/ retainer set that MSA sells. Just wondering - at what valve lift does the retainer - to seal clearance become marginal? Schneider claims that this spring set will support valve lifts of .600 plus when spring heights are set per their specs. My new cam has .515 lift - much bigger than any I've used with these springs previously.

I won't make it tonight- Have to do a late 2nd Shift. Sucks.

I'll be around too - Wed night sounds good, I'll probably make it there late after work. Will pm my cell#.

Hey, We do doggystyle at my house - I sit up and beg, She rolls over and plays dead. I kill myself. Seriously, Congrats! Ive been with this one for 32 years. Think I'll keep her. She tolerates the Z, doesn't like the money / time spent on it, is suspicious of my Z friends, but concedes that I could be getting into worse trouble if I wasn't always in the shop.

Polarity makes no difference with any injector I've ever seen.

The LM-1 I'm using failed right after the firmware update - I never did get to do more than take a look at the RT monitor screen. I'll have to wait until this one is fixed or a new one arrives before playing some more. Joel, You probably will have to go into the TEC2's O2 sensor calibration and make sure it matches the LM-1 output curve.

Bastaad, Top-end pull definitely improved by retarding the cam. Interesting to note that the old rule of thumb about gaining some low end by advancing the cam didn't apply to my setup. I think that the turbo actually spools faster with the cam retaded to straight up! Of course no two of our cars are the same - And, I do believe that detonation resistance is improved with the lower EGTs.