HowlerMonkey

Spend a bit of time looking and know that the one best deals come when you aren't ready. I spend years looking for cars and they seem to fall into my lap when I'm not looking. As far as condition of car, it depends on what your area of expertise is. For me, interior and body to a certain extent is important because mechanical stuff is my specialty. Reject any car that has rust around the windshield or leaks around the windshield.......unless you are good with rust repair and auto glass. I bought a pristine 1987 300zx that had 300,000 miles on it but I've seen beaters with less than 100k on the odometer. Look for any fatal flaws of the body such as rust in the floors.

That's good to know but it is important people know the voltages will be slightly different. We run our race car near 15 volts to help fire the coils under crazy amounts of boost.

The toyota MR2 has a "sequential manual" box but it's simply a corolla/celica box that has servos to do the shifting and clutch. It's not really "sequential" as you see in motorcycle or racing car boxes.

One thing to consider is the voltage. In our standing mile car, we are able to simply use the tuning software to set the charging voltage and I believe you might need to have whatever regulates your alternator modified to charge at the battery's happy voltage. If the battery you chose runs more than 14.1 volts, remember that S130 and Z31 electronics such as climate control and a other systems react to voltages higher than it expects by shutting down or glitching. Do the research first so you don't end up posting an angry and misinformed review if things don't go well because you didn't do the research.

Yep.....fix it if you're running the stock J-tube because it's there to relieve pressure that builds when you lift the throttle under boost. It's there for the benefit of turbo longeivity. If you're running an intercooler system, you could get away without that valve if you have a "blow off valve" plumbed in but I run both the factory valve and a blow off valve set to recirculate to the turbo inlet.

Yes they are. The Z31 300zx has the engine quite a bit forward of the firewall so compared to the fs5w71b from a S130, the shifter will be a bit further from the bellhousing flange......but not as far as the Z32. I don't know the exact measurement but it should be the same or extremely close to the fs5w71c from the non-turbo as far as shifter location. I guess you could call it medium distance with the pathfinder Fs5r30 being the short distance and the Z32 being the long distance from bellhousing to shifter. One thing to know if you're contemplating adapting a VG30 engined car's trans to the L engine is that there were more than 1 starter locations so and that the pathfinder transmission bellhousing shape does not fit the Z32 transmission adapters. I'm not sure whether the adapters fit the Z31 version of the FS5r30a transmission.

We're going to inspect the above mentioned everglades jetport soon for LSR feasibility. https://maps.google.com/maps?expflags=enable_star_based_justifications:true&ie=UTF8&cid=6771187789820398104&q=Dade-Collier+Training+and+Transition+Airport&iwloc=A&gl=US&hl=en-US We've got exclusive access to the shuttle landing facility but the costs are unbelievable and use it only for nascar and lemans teams to come over and test as well as our own aero testing since it has smooth, shallow groove, and deep groove concrete portions which offer more traction than any surface other than a well prepped drag strip.

It's possible that the 1992 nissan stanza throttle body might end up being easier to adapt to the L28 intake manifold. I did a comparison years ago and it seemed like a lot less work.

I run my L28et with flattops and taking off from a light with even 40% throttle has me hitting full boost very quickly causing me to drop to about 10% throttle in order to accelerate in a non-aggressive manner. This is with the stock throttle body. A 90mm throttle body flows more at smaller throttle openings than a smaller one so, in my case (flattops), it would be pretty non-fun having to modulate it since it's already difficult. I've been using this setup pictured here for many years and once used something similar when we replaced a Z24 with a L20b webers in a truck. It leaves only one belcrank in the equation as compared to a stock linkage which has more. http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7376/9740858935_ae10ba1772_c.jpg If your 90mm throttle body is unmanageable to drive, you might try a stock porsche 944 cam which I picked up at the local yard for 6 bucks.. http://www.dietersmotorsports.com/tech/2001/images/clip_image002_002.jpg

I've seen guys get debris down the oil supply hole on the deck which then get's pushed by the oil and could be restricting flow somewhere downstream. You would be surprised how much stuff from the 3m wheels people use will go down a hole.

Pulling injector does the same thing without getting the willys from a big shock. So you're saying it only makes the noise on cold start? If so, high mileage L28s do get loose on the rod bearings and will rap on cold start and certain oils may make the condition worse if it takes too long to get pressure on start.

Unplug the 02 sensor and see if it still does it. Easiest test to perform before you decide to clean all the terminals. I've had this happen, unplugged 02 sensor, drove it for a year because it was seized in the turbo elbow. When I plugged in the new sensor after doing some other work that required pulling the turbo elbow, it was fine. If you're driving on the highway with rpms over 3500 or so, the system ignores the sensor anyway. (throwback from 55mph speed limit when car was made)

A "blueprinted" IT motor is far more than what the term "blueprinted" means in this case but also far less than what you can put together for a street motor while still using the stock camshaft. In Improved Touring you can go .025 beyond the service limit of cylinder head thickness as long as you don't increase compression ratio more than half a point. You can port match but not further than 1 inch from where manifold meets the head. You can't assemble an engine from multiple years meaning the engine specs. are for the entire package for the year you are representing as your car. .040 is the maximum overbore from stock. You can't lighten rotating parts beyond what you need to remove to balance the assembly. For pistons, they specify that dome/dish/valve relief configuration, ring groove width and spacing, and pin height relationship be the same as stock and weigh the same as factory pistons if you had to go with non-factory pistons. Valve guides might be open. Compression 70 to 73 are allowed 9.0 while 1974 260z is allowed 8.9 and 1975 on engines are allowed 8.3 I don't remember valve job angles and camshaft timing or specs but it is pretty well policed........if you finish in the top 3. Within the rules, there is a lot you can do to optimize an engine but on the street, the limitations above don't apply. I'm sure a F54 block with the MN47 head using flattops could make some big HP but you have to either run better fuel than california 91 octane, reduce timing below optimal, or find a way to reduce overall mechanical compression ratio.

Funny you mention fused ankle. I will gladly race you with my fused ankle as long as it's on a sandy beach.....which is where I do my interval sprint training.

Found some interesting information on oils and additives as tested at this link. http://www.nastyz28.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-256590.html The post is this year but not fully sure of the year the study was done.......which would mean some might have changed formulation. I was very surprised to see Castrol GTX 20w50 so high on the list.

I'd just like to see what can be done with investing in labor (porting, combustion chamber shaping, and valve reshaping) as opposed to investing money (parts such as camshafts). I don't think an Improved Touring engine would be a good reference to my question since they are limited by SCCA in far more areas than simply the camshaft and I've built ITS 240z engines off and on since about 1986. It would be cool to see how far a stock cam profile that will pass emissions and last 300,000 miles can be taken if you optimize everything except for the cam. This means my question covers any permutation of stock cams, heads, and blocks but with unlimited amount of optimizing everything else. I understand the changes to motor oil have not favored engines that have high psi loads between lobe and cam follower but I'm not seeing undue wear to factory parts in super high mileage engines even with the newer oil formulations in comparison to the many threads showing aftermarket cam or follower failure.

It was more of a question as to whether you thought your car could reach a higher top speed in 1.5 miles on concrete or ashpalt rather than salt. I'm sure come cars can but was interested in whether your large amount of experience with your well developed ride has indicated that it is possible?

I guess I posted this because of the huge amount of camshaft fail stories I keep seeing. I think you can get more power than most people think and have an engine that will easily pass emissions.

I understand bonneville is the big event but has anybody contemplated or attempted doing this on concrete or asphalt such as a runway. I'm sure there is a sweet spot where the traction advantage would allow certain class cars to go faster in a standing mile and some tracks can offer 1.5 miles of running room with at least .5 mile cooldown. We might be able to finalize our exclusive access to host events at the everglades jetport in miami and could very well spawn a timing association in which we simply use a "template" by using a lot of the "definitions" as defined by various timing associations and adapting them for running on the runway. Some classes would probably never run faster on a 1.5 mile runway than they would on salt but I'll bet a few just might go faster. Have you guys done the math for your salt cars to see whether it would be worth it to try a runway run?

In that I mean......."has anybody done everything possible to maximize horsepower using the stock cam". I know most people go to a bumpier cam when they want more power but I'll bet you can get a lot more power from a stock cam than most would think by optimizing the shape of the valves and ports to maximize flow at stock valve lift. A lot of the newer cars sure are making big power with relatively low valve lift. Is there a "record" for power on the stock cam?

Yes, they have two cr2330......one on each end of the circuit board. You can't simply replace them with a single battery as there is circuitry to ensure they coexist with the solar battery. The two batteries also seem to be in series with each other and kinda parallel with the solar cell though there are diodes in between.

Tony is correct. What I see quite often is an engine built to the hilt expensively and then quickly destroyed because of a tuning issue. Then the owner reverts back to his junkyard engine, gets the tuning squared away and motors on for years on the junkyard block ending up only 20hp below his super mega built engine's power goal. A "placeholder engine" is good to have around.

A couple of things about the harbor freight helmet...... If the batteries are dying, it will do odd things such as flashing or a delay before it clamps down as well as go full dark regardless of the knob setting. The flashing I can deal with by simply blinking when I strike the arc but it gets so dark you can't see your work even if you use some pretty intense lighting on it. It's fine when you have no arc going........can see the work......but when the arc starts, it's almost completely dark. I took mine apart to replace the batteries because it lacked the access panel to do so and it wasn't fun cutting the welded plastic or cutting the tabs which are remarkably strongly spot welded to the batteries. I can't imagine they use quality batteries on the harbor freight helmet so I wouldn't trust one longer than 2 years if the batteries are not replacable. Don't look at the sun with an auto darkening helmet because many sense the pulses of light to determine when you have an arc going and the sun does not have this which means you aren't activating the lcd. Sometimes when welding lower amperage with tig, you can end up not triggering the helmet but remember that the helmet doesn't react to steady light and a super high frequency might be read by the helmet as steady so a little fiddling may be necessary to find the sweet spot where you can trigger the helmet even with low power tig welding. Another issue I find with the some of the cheaper helmets is the sensors being buried deep in a "tube" which means you are obscuring them from the arc if you aren't pointing the helmet directly at the arc so be careful when you weld in tight spots.......especially if you only have a narrow line of sight which could very well obscure all sensors from the arc and you get flashed.

Does it have to be a Z car? How about a infiniti M30 with L28et?

I've been consulting on a couple of reno racers after spending years arguing with them about modern engine management and it looks like motec is a good recipe for 3500+hp without the worry of an intake tract explosion. Hoping to be in demand at reno now that pete law has retired.