Jesse OBrien

Many will disagree, but I think this is the best advice anyone could've given you (and you gave it to yourself!) Finish what you're doing: That's what 99% of the people I don't hire failed at. They have a billion half-hearted projects that are incredible, but lack any sort of follow-through. Finishing a degree you set out for initially doesn't really prove anything, but it's a strong indication that you're the sort who likes to finish what you start. It's a little off-topic, and not necessarily helpful ... but I'm tired of interviewing smart, useless people.

I just installed a 225mm ka24de XTD clutch/flywheel combo, and hope to have it running and driving this month. From what I can see, it's made of metal, some machining has been done to it, and the mounting holes all line up where they should. I'll happily throw my feedback into this thread, once I have some miles on it.

I'll throw my $0.02 in briefly. I'm a systems engineer and software developer at a company that runs online CAD training (not just AutoCAD, but all the AutoDesk products). Our clients are ALWAYS looking for applicants who are familiar with the fundamentals of whatever product they're using (MEP, AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit is HUGE right now), and it's amazing how many engineers don't know the absolute basic interface controls. I'd suggest getting a little experience with any of the AutoDesk products and getting familiar with how things work in those software suites. AutoDesk also offers Student versions of their software, and I believe they can offer them for free. Show up for an interview at an aerospace company with an example of a design you created and a scale model either machined or 3d printed, and you'll have a HUGE leg up on most of the other applicants. It won't make MONEY for you, but based on what I've seen (take it for what it's worth), it's a big step in the right direction.

Sold! To me! One of them, at least. I hadn't looked too carefully at the one I have, and had assumed it'd work. Just let me know when/where you want to meet up, I have another list of parts I need, as it turns out. Now I know where the shop is, just give me a ring whenever it's convenient for you and I'll head down.

Mine look like they're the same as yours, and I'd say they fit quite nicely, even with slightly lowered suspension. I didn't have any interference issues. They're 14x7, and I had 205-60R14 tires on there at the time.

I don't want to pay $250 to ship a $100 transmission. New England is totally different from the bay area, parts-wise: http://nh.craigslist.org/search/pta?query=datsun

During the n42 carb mockup, I noticed that the n42 exhaust manifold interferes with the 240z intake manifold toward the front of the engine. That may mean that I need to switch to a proper exhaust manifold (tubular header), which would only be a disappointment because it would push the timeframe back even more. ARP camshaft bolts for a Chevy LS* fill the role of Nissan pressure plate bolts, and ARP flywheel bolts for a Toyota 3sGTE fill the role of flywheel bolts. After this, they got a bit of blue loctite and a healthy bit of work with the torque wrench: They're slightly shorter on both counts, but that's really just reducing overpenetration: I also received a second shift knob, but haven't decided which to use yet. I'm favoring the 4speed one right now It's a little taller, but I'm not going to complain about that: More transmission woes. The early 4spd clutch fork had a hole for a return spring and an entirely different throw than the newer 4spd and 5spd fork, but my early-4spd slave cylinder was seized and rusted from a few years of living in a snowbank. I decided to use the later 280zx slave cylinder I had and either find a newer shift fork or modify the early one I have. However, I ran into a bit of a problem mounting the newer slave cylinder: Back to square one. Here's what I'm working with, and I'm open to suggestions for a slave cylinder that'll work:

I have one in the for sale section as well.

I got home from work today excited to find that my clutch/flywheel combo was being delivered. Overall, the quality wasn't terrible, and everything bolted up fine. The Ford Mod v8 bolts don't fit anything on the Datsun, as far as I can tell, but Chevy LS* camshaft bolts could be a match? We'll see, since I ordered some. I never think to go to dealerships, maybe I should start doing that. I also ordered some 3s-gte flywheel bolts, since they're reputed to be the same as the Nissan flywheel bolts. We'll see when they arrive. In the meantime, my Datsun/Nissan l-series rebuild book states that OEM Nissan flywheel bolts are re-usable, so that's the plan. Unfortunately, I only have 3 pressure plate bolts, so this is essentially just a mock-up until the new bolts come in. I'm willing to bet that the assembly will need to be balanced anyway, but I'll get to that after I know I have a full car worth of parts that I can assemble at will. Right now I'm essentially stuck in the mock-up phase, but constant progress is keeping me excited about it. Here's the stock n42 l28 flywheel, the 280zx flywheel that came with my s130 manual conversion package, and the lightened '11lb' XTD flywheel, side-by-side. You may also notice some wheels beneath those flywheels. Those aren't technically anything special, but they came off my first 240z I had ever owned, and Gollum was nice enough to hang on to them for me when I fled California, and even took the time to ship them out to me (I highly recommend Greyhound if you aren't on a strict time budget). They're just 14x7 (or 14x7.5, perhaps?) aluminum meshes, but I'd say they look perfect on an s30, and tires are obscenely cheap for them. I haven't decided what I'm planning exactly, but right now I think repainting them black with a polished lip would be superb. For right now, they're on the backburner. Nathan Gollum also shipped out my old turbo from my l28et build, a lunky Turbonetics t3/t04e hybrid and a few accessories I had picked up to go along with it. I don't have any immediate plans for it, and it might go up for sale ... or I might start building my next engine with this attached. I have a bit more research to do regarding the throwout bearing (it looks like I have an early-series 4speed, but a late-model slave cylinder, and it looks like I'll have to find a way to fit them together) and I'm waiting on the rest of the pressure plate bolts, so I can get the powertrain installed.

That's exactly what I was asking. Odd, I had search classiczcars but didn't come up with anything. Looks like I've got it backwards, and was just about to try installing this trans. Thanks much for saving me the time!

I'm back, documenting progress from the weekend. Very little actually got finished, since I'm waiting on the clutch to install the transmission to install the engine. I can't install the carb manifold until I have the manifold gaskets, and I can't do any kind of tuning 'till it's all installed. As it turns out, the OEM Nissan flywheel bolts are re-usable, but I ordered some ARP toyota 3sgte flywheel bolts that should fit the new pressure plate that's en route to me now. I spent the majority of the weekend cleaning and organizing the garage. I definitely need to build some shelves or some similar storage solution. I have far too many parts. Since it's high time to start cleaning up the excess, I'm selling off all the interior panels, all the efi bits, and any other non-essentials that someone else might consider to be worth money. With some luck, that engine will be installed next weekend. It'll still need some small things, like crank case ventilation, fuel lines, fresh vac lines, water pump pulley nuts, a vbelt, etc ... but the broad strokes will be complete by then. I sourced some seats and small electrical parts from a local on Craigslist who's prepping a 280z for 24 hours of lemons (I've always been intrigued by 24 hours of lemons). We're planning to meet up at the next Mt Ascutney event, 3 weeks away. That works out for me for a few reasons: I finally get to see a hillclimb event in person, which is the end goal for this car (not on the 10-week budget, of course) I get inexpensive seats that'll work for now I get to meet someone who sounds pretty damn interesting Keep an eye on the parts-for-sale section for the stuff I'm planning to offload.

With most motorbike carbs, which is where the bulk of my experience lies, an air filter modification results in a drastic change of how much air is available to the carb. Even drilling extra holes in the airbox on a bike often requires re-jetting. At some point, you'll hit the limit of how much air a carb can accurately meter, and can't tune for any more. I'm not really discussing performance; this is a bone-stock 2.8 n42 with unknown miles and unknown compression (I just know that it rotates). I just want to get it running as inexpensively and reliably as possible right now. I have an airbox that won't work (square inlet, 3-hole mounting), and the correct stock airbox is prohibitively expensive (I haven't found one on eBay for under $150).

I haven't been able to find definitive information on which airboxes exist, or if SU's have been tuned reasonably well on individual pod filters. What I do know is that I have a 3-hole airbox, which isn't compatible with the carbs I have: Help and/or suggestions?

I have a (some-year?) 4speed manual with an 1973 automatic crossmember going into a 1973 chassis. I didn't bother to check if the crossmember should lean 'forward' or 'behind' but I do know that it's much easier to change now, while it's out of the car, than after trying to fit it in the car. Can anyone help me out? Which way does the crossmember face?

I'm all for resurrecting this thread. I just picked up this shift knob, which should be going in the car (along with the transmission, engine, and drivetrain) within the next couple of weeks.

I just looked around on the ip.board dev section, and it looks like this would be really straightforward to write (closer to 1 month to have it stable than 3). However, to ensure that it's safe and doesn't muck up any existing data (and is easy to throw away when the time comes) it should really create a separate TABLE in the database (rather than appending a separate field to every user). That table would be pretty straightforward, just having a userID (which I would assume to be formatted like 3652-jesse-obrien or just 3652 since I think I can still modify my display name) and a max_size attribute. It would essentially search through that custom table for the userid (3652 in my case) and if the userid is found, create a variable of $user_image_max for that session. This is just pseudocode to show the logic, but this is pretty much all it'd take to replace that chunk of CSS dynamically. If someone chose not to set that variable, they wouldn't see any change from how it is now. If the board admins wanted to get rid of the plugin altogether, it would just mean deleting the custom application folder, and/or deleting the new custom table. Either would disable the plugin altogether, but I like removing all traces of a plugin instead of leaving code-dingleberries dangling all over the database. if [ -d $session.user_image_max ]: do: image_sizing = "<style type='text/css'> img.bbc_img { max-width: $user_image_max !important; max-height: $user_image_max !important; } </style>" else: image_sizing = "<style type='text/css'> img.bbc_img { max-width: 100px !important; # or however admins normally change it max-height: 100px !important; # same as above } </style>" endif

That's a whole lot of images. Call me crazy, but I think I'd appreciate that thread even more if the size were 640px. The images are a part of the story. They were added in to be viewed. That explanation does make sense, though. I'm going to look into plugin authorship for IPBoard. Would you mind sharing what version we're currently using, and is that something that might be considered if I can have it stable in a month or three?

It may not be an option, I haven't done any backend work in IPBoard before. I'll offer my hand at it, though. I don't imagine writing a plugin would be too difficult.

Ratsun is too extreme in the other direction. I'm just looking for ~640px wide images (ideally), which won't affect the loading speed appreciably. I suppose it'd be nice to be able to set on a per-profile basis (so I could have 640px or 800px wide images displayed, and BluDestiny could keep the current 100px indicators that an image might be in the post). Actually, I just double-checked, and you're downloading the 640px version of the image, then client browsers are resizing it down to 100px wide and 100px tall. Pages would actually load FASTER with images set to 640px limits, as you wouldn't have to wait for the images to be re-downsized again after downloading them. Here's the offending code: <!-- Forces resized images to an admin-defined size --> <style type='text/css'> img.bbc_img { max-width: 100px !important; max-height: 100px !important; } </style>

A flex plate is significantly slimmer than a flywheel (they're designed to bend, where a flywheel shouldn't have any discernible flex to it), they're very different parts whose only similarity is that they both bolt to the crank and drive the transmission, and both enable a starter motor. KellyCo, if you have PayPal and I'm not breaking any rules by selling to a low-post-count member (I couldn't find any specific rules against it) I don't mind selling it. I'd suggest getting one locally though, I'm not sure it's even worth shipping.