cjames

Aviation gasoline 1 gal = 112,500 Btu Gasoline: 1 Gal Gasoline (mid grade) = 125,000 Btu's Yes I copy/pasted the above. and after the little bit of actual research I did to back up my first post, mid grade gasoline is commonly assumed to carry the above listed energy, in british thermal units. Make up your own mind. In response to the original question, the answer IMO, is no, your stock engine, in stock tune will NOT make more power by simply filling up with 100 octane AVgas at the local airport. Nuff said outta me.

Higher octane fuel contains less BTU/gallon than lower octane fuel. plain and simple. Unless you can make up for this loss of energy somehow like listed above, there are no advantages to running higher octane fuel. Given the fact that there is less overall energy in a given amount of fuel, in turn makes it more stable for combustion. Add more boost, change ignition timing, raise compression, One might be able to use this to their advantage to achieve more overall power. With that said, Ill go out on a limb and say that an engine in a given state of tune, will make more power on 87 octane pump gas, than it will on 100 octane race gas. Personally, I run the lowest octane rating that I can without pinging.

When selling a car, I normally tell people up front what I want, final price is $____. If you make me an offer below that, I keep the car, you move on. When buying, I offer what I think its worth TO ME. If the seller has other ideas, he keeps the car, and I move on. I sold a car on craigslist a while back, what a mess. I made the mistake of saying $1000 or offer. I had people get quite upset when they came look at the car, offered me $400, and I didnt take it. It was the same thing, they talked about how nice it was, how clean and rust free it was for its age (1960 Ford falcon) and then made a totally un-reasonable offer, and got mad when I didnt accept it... whatever, just a pain in the rear is all it was. Some people seem to want something for nothing.

Yea, I watched it on craigslist for over 2 months. I finally went and had a look. I looked it over pretty good, I offered him half his asking price, and he took it. Ive found a few things I wasnt expecting, but for the most part it was everything I knew it would be. I wanted the tranny, diff, and a core ET engine to build up. Ill post something in the project forum when I get a chance. I need to go through all the extra parts he threw in and start selling stuff to help pay for the engine overhaul. Im sorta over budget allready... I have plenty of time, My 76 is still running great as my daily driver. Id call the chassis junk, but thats just me. But I did get a title, and a ton of parts that I cant use.

Anyone have experience with this cam? Delta offers what they refer to as a 270-260 grind that works well on the street for a L28ET. I'm having them surface my rockers, ($100) so I might as well have them cut the cam too.

Just got an email back from Delta cam. They quoted $100 to regrind a set of rockers. One day turn around. And I think that includes return shipping.

someone slap me if im wrong, but I'm guessing that if it were really and truely making 99psi or more in the oil galley, the oil filter might complain.

I think I'll start looking around for a crank, but I'm still curious if anyones had good luck putting inserts in. I'll have to weigh the cost between getting a crank with good flywheel bolt threads, and having it turned or polished, and what it might take for me to do the inserts, assuming it can be done succesfully.

Is there something wrong with your oil pump other than wanting a higer pressure spring on the relief? Its very common for engine builders to modify oil pressure by shimming the relief spring. I've done it on many engines for one reason or another. However, if the spring is well used and gone "weak", the shimming it would be a temporary fix as the spring has allready lost some of its temper. Just my opinion, but I've built more engines than I can count, and never had a problem doing this.

this might do the trick too http://www.race-cars.com/engsold/other/irl991/irl991pa.htm

tonyd, you have a very good point... I see a perfect crank, without as much as a scratch on the journals, when I should be seeing a piece of steel that will require probably $100 worth of inserts, and a few valuable hours of my time.

Got the crank out of the donor today and found more nasty things. A few days ago, I found a new clutch and flywheel when I pulled the trany. Today I find all the flywheel bolts stripped. Has anyone had luck putting inserts in an L6 crank? I've done it before on much larger crankshafts, but the L6 doesnt have much meat around the bolt holes as it is. Looks like it wil be tight even with heli-coils (not my first choice for inserts). I hate to condemn an otherwise beautiful crank if theres a reasonably good chance of repair. I did a search, but didnt come up with much. I'd like to hear other thoughts before I pitch this thing in the scrap pile.

HA! thats exactly what I was looking for, thanks! It's interesting to note the difference between the two P90 grinds, for auto and manual applications. What that means in the real world I dont know, but I do find it interesting that the auto would have more overlap and a little more lift on the exhaust. hmm.

I took the cam from my donor to my grinder today. He's going to cut me a new one due to the bearing journals being wiped out. Not sure what grind we're going to do yet, and I'm not even sure what cam I have to start with. Is there a quick way to identify the stock turbo camshaft from an '81? Maybe a casting number or something? Ive searched the archives, and I cant find any reference to stock specs, or how to identify. Any ideas?

Hi all, new member here. I posted in the new member forum giving a little info about me and my project. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=127682. So far, I got the ZX wreck home saturday, tore into it and found all kinds of fun things. The PO was still in highschool when he tried to put this all together, and he failed, hard... It's been sitting outside for 2 years. He had the AFM in backwards, many wires not connected. He tried like crazy to get it going, cranking and cranking (so the story goes). He got real caried away with RTV on the head gasket, enough to plug the oil hole to the top end. There was a broken injector housing on #4, and it appears that rain has flooded into #4 intake over the years. The cam towers are toast due to lack of lube (Braap did you get my email?), the cam and rockers are shot, and it has some stuck vlaves. At least rusted, maybe bent. The timing chain tensioner was installed wrong, and ate itself. I havent got the bottom apart, waiting to pick up a hoist this weekend. I cant wait to see what I find down there... At this point, if I can use the block, crank, and rods, I guess I'll be happy. I'm dropping the head off with my machinist in the morning, I'll know more about that after he has a look. Also making a stop at my cam shop to see if we can save that. The good news is that the turbocharger looks to be in good shape, with only one small nik in the compressor wheel. Doesnt look like its been leaking oil, and from what I can see, the shaft looks nice and clean inside. I'll be taking that apart for a rebuild and balance in the future. I also have a metric butt load of ZX parts to try and peddle on FeeBay that dont fit my '76. Let me know if theres anything yall might need. Theres a brand new, yes, brand new black dash in the car that the kid just bought. The 5spd and the 3.90 diff will be going in my '76 as soon as I find a proper driveline. Heres a link to the photos of my mess sofar. More to come as things progress. http://s168.photobucket.com/albums/u196/cjames_album/Zcar/L28ET%20donor/