Tony D

You probably overpaid by about 100% in LA with frame rust, and a car needing a smog! I could have sold you a 76 with NO RUST for $2,500... Did you want it with, or without factory air (GT one of both!) and a freshly rebuilt five speed... One of three bough out of a shop in Riverside that closed some years ago, mechanics lien cars...Wizard of Z's. picked up three 280Z's for $600, one of which went on to be "Mr Hankey" of LeMons Fame, inspiring at east three rule revisions...

I just spent $5,000 on a 9/71 240Z, most I've ever spent on a Z-Car. Came with a pickup bed full of parts incl two blocks (original numbers-matching L24 is one, Comp-Prepped N42 is the other, spare for the one currently in the car), three heads, complete Isky cam setup new in box... Basically anything taken off the car for replacement by a modified or high-performance part was kept and put in storage and came with the car. I haven't seen such a nice set of original SU's in years! Rust Free Simi Valley car from the son of the original owner, including all documentation. Still think that SoCal trip is "hassle" and not worth it? Renting a tow dolly and Enterprise van would have cost me an additional $2,200 to the East Coast... I lay money the buy is a better deal renting the van, trailer, and. Paying the $800 in gas, plus a couple of hotel nights than just about ANY 280Z on the East Coast for comparable money. Craigslist listed vehicle. EVERYBODY that called them tried to talk them down on price. I paid asking, no questions asked. That's when they said "I hope you have a big truck, there are a lot of spare parts that come with it as well..." In the end, they were willing to come down and offered $1,000 of the price back to me since I had registration in CA to cover ($608), plus I didn't hassle them on the asking price whatsoever. I didn't ask for the money, they just blurted out "I forgot to tell you about all those back fees, here, you should have this back for the fees!" It was awkward, but I really appreciated the offer, it helped immeasurably with all that went on that day (broke spring shackle on Rusty Shackle Ford, bought in December BACK EAST!) Funny how people give rebates when you treat them like humans with dignity and integrity. They truly were sad to see their 240 go after all these years. So really, it wasn't $5,000... I got a rebate! Still the most I ever paid for a Z... So yeah, the prices ARE rising... All that being said...the car in the OPis a 240! And COULD be as rust-free as a comparative CA car if it was inland and didn't make it to the beach that much. Humidity near the coast can be insidious, and these cars rot inside out...with perforations in mid-panel... If the car is documented to be "inland Mobile" and didn't spend a lot of time getting flooded in the past few hurricanes (I'm not joking, GET UP UNDER THE DASH AND LOOK WITH A FLASHLIGHT!!!) then the price is not "expensive" and likely the 95% "solid" rust condition can be comparable to a CA car in similar environs of the Cantral Coast, or San Diego... Could be good, could be bad. But compared to an inland CA car, with its life in the desert...almost ANYTHING is "rusty" by comparison. I would likely take that car if inspection panned out, play up the rust and the "undesirable 1973 Model" aspects and try to get it closer to $4,500-5,000. The value and selling prices for 240's is indeed up, but the economy is still down...and pricing should reflect that!

Seven Psychopaths is currently in there...

Is it a sign of mental disease to have "Falling Down", "Office Space", "Law Abiding Citizen", & "There Will Be Blood" on your travel iPad for viewing on the plane or hotel while traveling? When they say "35% Travel related to field resolution of engineering problems" don't f..king believe it! "The days and time don't mean s*** to me, a company says jump, I say how high, for how long, and where to. If they sent me to some hell-hole with a dictionary and told me what to do, I'd be tickled to death, and I mean it. I'd be doing what I love two times over. Working hard and learning languages." Better get pay straight or you will EAT/RUE those words! You really have no concept of what you can get into in the field, and I chalk this phrase up to youthful bravado. Remind me why you don't eat the bigger grubs with the iridescent green tinge again...

As ctc alludes to, "5-Why" is a knowledge revealer. After taking my first Demming Seminar, the theory of "if you can't answer why five times about anything you do, then likely you don't know what you're doing" was revolutionary to me. It tormented trainers to be sure... And what I found was, INDEED as Demming postulated, most people training you were incapable of telling you WHY they were telling you to do something a particular way! It set me forth on a course to understand "5-Why" for anything I did. (I am battling a Senior Engineer now who has had a 100% departmental personnel turnover in less than 5 years swear "the pay and compensation policy has worked fine for 30years!" Talk about CLUELESS!!!) If I don't answer why five times now, it's a function of codgery more than not knowing the next three why answers and wanting to waste time on repeating them out loud... And please..."Ishikawa Diagram"!

Watch for stray air currents...shield your MAF well, like with a long inlet tube. JeffP ran into an issue while moving that threw the MAF off compared to running and tuning on a dyno! Having it sit perpendicular to vehicle direction with at least 4 diameters of straight tubing before the filter does orders for consistency of flw numbers, stationary or in motion!

Come to think of it, there actually is a Nissan Part Number for that muffler...

You will find...more often than not, when coming to going fast and structural integrity, the fat old white dudes got it nailed.

"I cut it because i was 19 or 20 at the time and was more concerned with getting it up and running. I'm going through and ironing out my fuckups now." Hahaha! You mean "the fat old white dudes" might have been on to something? LOL Nelsonian has the right photos... I have seen people use stuff from strut bar braces to nice boxed tubing. Run a strut bar on your towers, triangulated to the firewall and the sway bar mounts first...then you can literally cut everything off in front and replace it with FRP as all your torsionals are taken care of already. In fact most of those shown are likely grossly overbuilt from aesthetics, rather than a functional requirement of stiffening if the strut towers are properly braced. I've seen cars in Japan with 10mm tubing (think Maserati Birdcage) in front holding up components like FMIC, Rad, oil cooler, etc.

Ford Lightning MAF... Argh! Someone is making an offset box for it because he's running off its calibrated tables already! Like you said, the airflow allows pretty easy correlation of dyno readout to Theoretical HP being produced... But the overhead everyone thought was there really wasn't... Not in turbo form above 7,000 at least! ;^p

Why on earth would anybody classify this as a "lie"? It's ignorance of simple machine practices on the part of the buyer and others not knowing there's more than one way to skin a cat. Sheesh!

Average cost for the Nissan Program Cars in SoCal, almost 10 years ago, was $7,000 to get a painted shell ready for component reassembly. That was bodywork and paint, not the actual stripping of the car to bare shell suitable for bodywork to begin. AVERAGE cost, not worst case, 10 years ago, with the benefit of bulk buying power working in their favour. To knock the costs down. Some cars had 2X that into them and more... If you're in the sticks, costs can be higher by a factor...

"Setting the record straight" is not a priority while the parties are alive or at least still working. That phrase is not used in Japan...it is far to forceful and impolite. The loss of face, even of an enemy would not call for those strong words.

Firstly, I never said Speedhunter's misquoted Wantanabe-San. My inference was that it doesn't matter WHAT Wantanabe-San said, Speedhunters is hyping their photo shoot in typical fanboy literature...which is what their site is known as...it is NOT an engineering review site. Basically I discount most of what was said because there are no QUOTATIONS FROM WANTANABE-SAN! To the second point,the scenario you posited goes back to the high school scenario, as since Rocky Auto built and sold the car, it is a Rocky-auto construct of the OWNERS desires. That is what they do. They not build what THEY want, and then sell it...they build what the CUSTOMER wants for THEIR car! So in essence it "is" the owner's car. Rocky Auto, and Wantanabe-San in particular states they are merely skilled t pleasing their customer. They may advise, but the inspiration for an individuals car can not. Come from the builder, but must come from the individual. Should the owner claim it is "his car" or even to go so far as to state "he built it" the people hearing it would likely snicker as a dentist or stock trader living in a flat in Roppongi obviously does not have the wherewithal to physically construct such a modified build. But, that being said, I posit Wantanabe-San, when others would ask "so-and-so says he built the car, who built the car?" Would answer "it is his car".... To FORCE the issue of construction after the sale would not only be impolite, it would be exceedingly rude and disharmonious. The most strongest reply I could imagine being offered and only if pressed would be something along the lines "we assisted his vision" if he chose to answer at all. The assumption that builders have a right to be insistent arseholes about what they built AND SOLD simply doesn't exist in the same form there. These questions wouldn't be asked in the first place for fear of putting someone into a corner where they would lose face. We have control panel screens which have Japanese Kana on them. They have been the same screens from 2003-2011. In 2011, a request was made to change three lines, which enraged the controls group thinking they were "customising" a standard product. I had to call after hours, and correspond from private e-mails to bluntly ask "The kana is old-style, and nobody wanted to correct it until So-And-So retired, correct?" NOBODY THERE WOULD SAY THAT, but it is EXACTLY what the situation was! And I assured them I would make our HQ understand. To this day the engineers can not fathom why someone didn't correct the translation of the lead engineer in such a simple matter. Face. To do so would have been exceedingly impolite. Riddle me this: why is it a "280ZX"? The same situation applies. On the surface it seems quite simple. In reality there is a LOT more going on than most westerner s would think. It's not incomprehensible, but it is not west Texas, either. And if your mind stays squarely in Odessa you simply will NEVER understand and make a cultural connection in Asia. Signing off now, back to Borneo. They had head hunters... Is there a problem with that? Or is it just "different"?

One thing experienced tuners do on the dyno is HOLD THE LOAD POINT... Let the tuning take effect and see what it does. It takes about 45 minutes to do most of the driving map with a WBO2 in the collector. It takes two to three times that long if its a sniffer in the tailpipe! You have to see what your lag is from a change to where it shows on the wbo2 as a STABLE reading... Then you know how long you need to stay in the load cel before making an adjustment

You also said you were going to "buy a smog" as well... Clean piped cars still exist.

Hahaha! Where did you inherit those standards? I in CA you're snogging back to 76... If it was 95 here, my red truck would be registered! Good to see I occasionally say something worthwhile or otherwise inspirational!

"Modern society has a long history of protecting ownership of ideas and creations, through patent and trademark/copyright law. It's world-wide. The concept is clear. There's really no way to make an argument against it." What transfers with sale of a vehicle, and what alterations allow one to claim it as "theirs"? Amalgam Creations are generally just that: things created by amalgamating others work. Was credit given for the heads, or did the constructor of the car cast hem himself? Patents and etc are restrictions from someone else MAKING AND COMPETING AGAINST YOU with an identical product. BUYING a truck or car, scraping off all identifying marks, placing YOUR brand on it and then reselling it as yours has ALWAYS been acceptable. Chevy LUV / Isuzu P'up comes to mind... Suzuki Swift / Geo Metro anybody? Why was Kia so set on an oval badge? To make rebadging as Ford for the Caribbean market easier! Once you've bought it, you can do what you want to it. And once you sell it, the buyer can do what he wants to it. Nobody questioned GM "stealing" Isuzu's Faster Pickup and claiming it as "theirs"--confirmed on many a holiday weekend in Detroit when the windows were shot out of "those damn Jap Trucks" at the Isuzu dealership, while the Chevy LUV's across the street were untouched! I guess having the Bowtie granted them citizenship or something! None of that applies to an amalgamation of parts like a car. Go look at a Great Wall Truck. D22 Frontier. To the point body panels were interchangeable. They had to change that as the parts were being sold as replacements for a Nissan... But a simple tweak and it was "legally OK"... Not much protection in reality! In China reproduction (exact copies) were highly regarded for centuries, and copying was encouraged. In Japan, taking an existing design of another and incrementally improving it is a source of great national pride. The indignancy of Western Thought Processes to Easter Cultures is bound to create friction. You can not approach this with a western mindset or you WILL be offended. Instead of flattered and complimented. And yes, I'd be curious to see what exactly was asked and answered in "the interview" by Speedhunters...

I would posit "playing devils advocate" is not productive in this discussion and only muddies the waters. Lots of assumptions there... And lots of ego here... Corvette Summer, pining for "your car" that got sold off. This is my take on the basic story here. How much is Speedhunter's embellishment or outright mistranslation? If you don't deal with it, the mistranslation of basic terms can be easily dismissed as nothing big...but in fact it's one of the root issues. I've yet to see Speedhunter's QUOTE Wantanabe-San. I see Speedhunter's filler, and it's typical journalist prattle to hype a photo shoot. And if this is the base of the issue everybody is getting upset about... Indeed, I will have to go see this car next visit to Aiya Tea and have some more tea in the office and have Mr. Okamura do some translation. Because Wantanabe-San doesn't speak English...

BS, that is not what I said, and your gross oversimplification thought process is the root of the issue here. It's a car. It was sold in a non-compliant nature, and could not be legally driven on the roads. You don't need to re-paint "art"... But if someone was to go and paint briefs on Michelangelo's David... And then could successfully resell it afterwards (is there a market for that?) then INDEED they likely could claim it as their creation as it most definitely is altered so basically and elementally from the intent of the original creator it definitely is no longer "Michelangelo's David"! In fact it is quite common that credit is given to conservators who maintain or restore the piece. Is that wrong? Should they be forever subservient to the original master, and never mentioned as "it takes away from the original creator to mention anything they have done." At what point does the car become "someone else's"? When you sell it? Is there a differentiation between mere possession and brokering, and creation? How much work must you do to a custom car to claim it as "yours" the same way this car is now "theirs" and not a Datsun? or do we start a PC hyphenation scenario of Datsun-Firstbuilder-Secondbuilder 240Z? Is the dealership mechanic spouting BS when he says he's a Nissan Mechanic? When I ask who's name is on hs pay check, not one yet has said "Nissan Motors NA"! They are frauds... You are missing the BASIC cultural difference that exists, and which I am failing to convey successfully either through poor communication on my part or poor cognitive skills on your part. The perception in Japan BY THE BUYING PUBLIC is that the DEALER/BROKER selling the car is the importer of record, and is 100% responsible for its content and presentation. You can piss and moan about it all you want, but that's the way it is... Is Watanabe-San is "Claiming Credit" for it... Or is Wantanabe-San standing behind what he's selling as if he had built it himself in his own shop? One interpretation gets you all pissed off and indignant and is very unproductive...and a characteristically western way to translate what he likely said. Another interpretation is an internal reflection of pride that a high-line builder of cars is willing to put his faith in YOUR workmanship and offer HIS name as a bond guaranteeing HE will stand behind YOUR WORK at HIS expense. Having met the man and talked about the business he does in Japan, it's my bet that it is the latter, and not the former which is occurring. If you choose to be offended, you will be. If you choose to understand his standing behind YOUR work at HIS expense and HIS reputation, perhaps contentment will be easier to achieve. How many of you will stand behind someone else's work unreservedly? At YOUR expense? If not, why not?

Hopefully I laid it out a bit clearer above. I was not the one mentioning the price. I'm right with you in this regard. Those who mentioned it...make sour grapes. It's similar to you boss saying "your pay is up there" while in salary review... It's a polite way to say he thinks you are already overpaid. Someone mentioning a 300% markup neither understands business, nor the costs required for Japanese initial compliance for importation of non-type compliant vehicles! As far as "claiming credit" I've tried to explain why it doesn't mean anything due to the conditions of sale, and the requirements to claim that status after-sale. By default, they made it as they are the importer of record, they got he car to comply with Japanese inspection standards, they are liable for any and all defects. Louis Chevrolet was long dead when the Impala came out, yet it bears his name. Boyd Coddington got credit for the ZZ Top Eliminator Car (Not Henry Ford who arguably created it, or Dennis Graham who did the distinctive paint on it...) I'll mention for years Chevy Corvettes and Camaros had the importer name prominently displayed. That Chevrolet assembled it was of secondary consequence, the IMPORTER was the manufacturer as it was THEY (them?) that made it comply to Japanese required specifications, not Chevrolet! Like I said, this really boils down to bruised egos from a basic misunderstanding of the culture where the car is being offered. Now, if the original assembler is offering warranty and service support as our company does for our in-country equipment vendor (again, who's name is on OUR machines...) then maybe I'm off-base. But if not...this is the way it is in Japan. Don't sell your car and expect credit in perpetuity. This reminds me of the rich kid in high school with the Firebird, who decides he wants a truck. So grandma buys him a truck from the local truck specialist... He now claims its his truck, and everybody in town refers to it as the builder's truck. But that was back in high school. As stated, some of you guys need to watch "Corvette Summer" again! At least that way when you o on a quest to go get "your car back" you know the right shots to take. And make sure you find an equivalent Corvette so you can say "A CHEVY?" When you find it on the rotisserie in the casino...

Close, but slightly missing the mark on importation rationale. Shaken-Sho is three years on a new car, then biannually until the car is 10 years old, then annually afterwards--and that is the "disposal point", when many Japanese simply drive their car to the scrap yard and go get a new one. Usually in May when Road Tax comes due. Note the cars being imported by RA are NOT FAIRLADY Z's for the most part but Export models. This is because REGARDLESS, any car FIRST registered in Japan is a "New Car" and they get the same three-year initial inspection, and go on from there... So the cars they are selling, American-Market Z Cars, are competing with NEW cars in terms of legal requirements. In fact, the cars can sit on a lot indefinitely in Japan and the paperwork shows first year sold...it causes problems when servicemen take a "1979 S30" back to the USA...no S30's produced domestically after 77... And OEM of hose sat on the lot awhile! If they re-import a Fairlady Z that was registered in Japan previously, and deregistered for export...there all sorts of hoops to jump through, as well as picking up annual inspections! I doubt RA strips complete cars, but they will go over them with a fine-toothed comb and do the myriad things necessary to legally sell the car for road use in Japan (flashing clearance lights, kph conversion speedometer, proper headlights and re-aiming for RHD, etc...

I was unaware 78zstyle was global morality arbiter as well as rule enforcement moderator now... The point being is that I regularly visit Rocky Auto and have seen their capabilities, and understanding the resale market in Japan and dealing DAILY with western misinterpretation with Japanese phrases I can see where a Japanese says one thing and its reported as another. Especially when dealing with the brokerage of vehicles. If Rocky Auto sells a car, IT'S A ROCKY AUTO CAR. Period. Doesn't MATTER in Japan who bolted it together, who engineered it, or where it was constructed. The guy that SOLD it is responsible for it, no matter what...FOREVER! Josh gets it partially. There is no superiority, but there is JAPAN. The car isn't being sold in Texas, it's being sold in JAPAN. As I said, our equipment is branded as our Distribution Partners Equipment. It is "not ours"... What my boss doesn't get is the service EXPECTATION on our end to support what is essentially OUR product, being marketed by our distributor. We, as the OEM are ultimately MORALLY bound (to satiate 78zstyle's narrow-focused western-morality prattle) to give our Japanese Distributor the same support for our product to them as they give to their customers for the product they produce. Meaning when it farts, I'm on a plane and accompany their guys from Tokyo to wherever to attend to the End User. Free of charge, forever. It's not the way western warranty support works, but it IS THE WAY IT IS IN JAPAN AND IF YOU EXPECT TO SUCCESSFULLY DO BUSINESS THERE IT MUST BE ACCOMMODATED!!! Now, if the guys carping about "stolen credit" (purely an ego-driven exercise here, what do you get from having credit given? Other than ego-stroke?) if they are willing to FOR FREE, IN PERPETUITY jump on a plane every time "their" machine farts, to go alongside Rocky Auto and hold their hand figuring out what the problem is, and fife ring warranty support on the product...then I apologise, and credit is due them for their creation. BUT... If this was the typical arms-length automotive transaction "as is where is, no warranty express or implied as a custom automobile" with money exchanging hands and then someone getting sour grapes over cultural requirements of taking complete, 100% ownership of the product you sell as if you built is yourself, regardless if this is true or not.... Then sorry, guys, that's Japan. The difference being, if Rocky Auto commissioned RS Okinawa to build it's engines, RSO would expect a sticker and credit for the engine at time of sake, and would stand behind and service that engine forever. They would receive credit fr the build of the engine, as they are willing to SUPPORT the engine they built within the cultural strictures present in Japan. Frankly, I don't see the builder of TIHS car, or any of the cars offered being willing or able to do this. And I seriously doubt any agreement was made at the time of sale for a "constructed by" credit at time of sale. Even if it was, I'll bet money most Japanese would discount who built it as soon as they realised they would play ABSOLUTELY NO PART in servicing the vehicle in the future. It would, BY DEFAULT become a "Rocky Auto Car" as a function of them selling it, and servicing it. Take it from someone who has had to sit inDirector-Level Meetings and bow deeply, apologising profusely for defects in engineering r design to absolve the selling agent of any responsibility in the failure situation in order to preserve their face. You can not apply what YOU think is "right" when you are not willing to provide the culturally appropriate items necessary to comply with what is required in that culture to claim provenance. If you sold it and walk away from the service...you aren't due the credit. That's the way it works there. If you want credit, set up shop there, and service what you sell. Otherwise you will merely be a minor footnote in the history of the vehicle. When a culture has a word that means "the same, but different" you realize it isn't Kansas anymore. If you can't comprehend what I mean by "the same but different" (often translated simply as "THE SAME" in western circles) you can not comprehend what I am trying to say above. I wish Alan T. Would weigh in to help explain the situation in this regard of construction and service.

And there are EVAP carbs that Mikuini made for Toyotas. You would need a properly sealed air box, canister, and bowl vents accordingly. Look for photos of later-model JDM Celica GT, Camry GT (1980) Sprinter/Trueno with either the 18RG or 2TG engines. The 2000GT would likely be the most applicable, there is a rudimentary 67-70 EVAP setup on it equivalent to period comparable 240Z, and is triple Mikuini OEM offering. It was available in the US Market, so you might be able to see some routing and accumulation information from Toyota USA sources. Technical details for the EVAP system are in the manuals for the other respective JDM vehicles. Joel Luz at Toysport may be able to sell some diagrams...if you can't get it all online with some searching.

10 or 12mm booster venturis? If you have 12's go to 10's and your main comes on earlier and wil clean up that lean spot. That should be where the mains start to tip-in. Alternately you could raise your float bowl level incrementally to see if that changes the point where the lean-spot happens...