Tony D

If you think it's too much, don't buy it. How hard is this, people? Sounds to me like your rationalizing spending the money as a substitute for lack of ambition to complete the project on your own. If this is the case, it's a valid reason for paying WHATEVER price someone is asking. Who cares how many other people 'think' the price is 'too much'---if you want it, buy it. If you think it's too much, don't buy it. But for gawd's sake don't kvetch about it incessantly worrying what others think about what you paid for the damn thing! ********************************* Know what? In 1984 I thought paying $3200 for a 1971 Fairlady Z was too much when I could buy a 1975 with two year inspection on it for $2400. Someone else bought the car instead. Today, that $3200 1971 Fairlady Z 432 is worth somewhere upwards of $100,000, whereas the US Model I ended up taking home is worth at best 1/10th of the price. There's always a reason to do or don't. Rarely will you EVER have knowledge if it's a VALID reason beforehand!

Good Luck with that... Once again, have you looked at the size of the cutout you plan on using? I'd suggest you start there, first. Alternate plan popular in Japan: 3" Brass Gate Valve with threaded pipe adapters brazed onto muffler tubing. Valve handle extended into driver's compartment through small hole to accommodate stem. Driver would use left hand to open valve going down the road (right hand in the USA chassis...) Cheap and works well. Again, search out "Knife Gate"...

Yes, pilot may need to be bigger. I've seen 65's in come cars. I have to agree with John, define "2.5 turns out" 900 degrees from seat (360+360+180)? Or is it 450 degrees (180+180+90)... It's 1AM here, so forgive mathematical errors, you get the idea. As John says, that seems way out (if it's the 900 degrees!.) In ANY case, I will repeat: 57.5's are WAAAAAAAAY too small! You RUN on the pilots at highway speed you know! And I repeat again, lower AFR for idle is better. I would ask if you have 10 or 12mm booster venturis (not necessarily main venturi as most people do), as this will affect when the main system comes into the main bore...but up to that point (around 3,000 rpms) it's ALL your Pilot Jets. If you see a gradual taper on your AFR, that is telling me your pilot jet simply is not flowing enough fuel into the circuit and it just goes dry. If you have 12's you can try 10's to amplify the signal on the main jet and get more fuel in earlier...but this is too early for the main to cause you trouble IMO. The accel pumps 'dribble' under really slow accel but by 2000 you should still be all on the pilot jet. A recurve on the distributor might help, but you can also simply advance your timing to see what happens and give you an idea if you need more advance, earlier. ONE QUICK CHECK: If you can kill the engine (or at least make it run like crap) by a 180 degree turn of the idle mixture screw, your jet is probably the right size and supplying the fuel it needs to---as I recall ideal position was 360 degrees from seat, with an adjustment of 180 in either direction RADICALLY altering your engine operation. This points again to your pilot jet being way too small. Especially with a cam! OR: "Arrow over, arrow down. Ctrl-Shift Arrow-Up" Jets? FAGEDABOUDIT! Good Luck.

Subscriber, Mother Earth News Alternative Fuels Newsletter. Attendee Alcohol Fuels Seminar, 1979... I made and ran my VW on pure Alcohol for better part of a year in 1980. It is a lot like you mention Gollum---kind of like making batches of Biodiesel. Works great for around town, and when you can get Sugar Beets by the ton, cheaply! Wood Chipper..... Ahhh yes, memories. Record Keeping, somewhere I actually have my old Distiller's License from BATF... Thank you Jimmy Carter! At that time, your 'profit motive' was to take your home-brew and mix it at least 10% by volume to get back your Federal Tax Money for every gallon you turned into "Gasahol" --- I wonder if that is still in action? Hmmmmmmm...

A microswitch works for that kind of setup. Long stainless lever and away you go!

"As far as the pick-a-parts are concerned, Its not hard to get away with the stuff that Tony suggests. Factor in the weight advantage, and even if it costs $150 for the tripod graft its still an attractive option." All I ever suggested. Why he got such a freakin' hard on at an alternative opinion is beyond me. And to retort to his last comments showing his ignorance of PYP Yards in SoCal, obviously: "No, they won't" And I don't see how taking Subie tripods off any less 'destroys the axle' as I don't know if there is a big market for the axles for a Subaru... Mack: The STi's have LSDs or even better, ATB's (Think Quaife...) All installed, in corporate packaging, corporately set up for 200,000miles + of motoring.

Actually on a Z there are plenty of things you can do to regain suspension travel if you don't get stupid with tire size... It involves a large hammer, and sometimes a blowtorch to persuade the offending metal to yield to your will!

Yep, city lights. There was a time you could get bulbs for those city lights that were 35Watts. With those on ALONE the cops leave you alone because they are nearly as bright as the old stock Sealed Beams!

I'm missing something in this translation... You said 'dual exhaust---one muffler, one straight out the side'... why is that going to be loud all the time. Do you know what a 'knife gate' is? Look at a Y-Pipe, Knife-Gate, and regular piping. Myself, I used COT Boom Tube and changed the floor pan... E-Bay is your friend...

Silicone Plug, large syringe of plastic, Hydrochloric Acid Dilute 10% Solution (maybe 20%)... Plug back end of fuel line. Use syringe to fill line. Let line sit, then flush with water, follow with some vanish or other caustic solution from toilet cleaning that you pump through---air dry. If you get pinholes, you needed to replace the line anyway the rust was that close to perforating.

Did you connect the WOT microswitch from the Datsun? That will hold the autobox in gear longer, and frustratingly kick it down out of gear to get rpms up. Talking with Bernard may also help as there are shift kits available that will alter how all that happens as well. It's an old mechanical slushbox, some drilled holes to fill accumulators faster, some springs to make things grip tighter, you can have quite a fun time with a Juicebox if you want to spend an hour or two dropping the pan and valve body to put in another shift plate!

When you gas-axe the Subie Differential out of the back of the car, the stub Tripods come with the differential for the cost... And taking those to the (same 280ZX Tripods you need for your setup so that's a part wash pricing wise) axle shop for the $50 swap onto the ZXT Axles (they pop out, you know) isn't a big labor charge if you can figure out how to drop the pumpkin in the JY I figure you can pop the tripods out of a Subie Diff same as out of a Nissan Diff (since they are made by the same people, that's not surprising.) Like I said, this swap is VERY popular with the guys in SoCal. There is a shop downtown that does the tripod end swap for $50 a pair with new boots and grease. You just bring them the Subie Stubs, the ZXT Axles, and say "I want these stubs on this axle" and in 45 minutes (if they are slow) you got them, along with the ZXT stubs that went in that heavy noisy R200 you left in the junkyard where it belongs when you're watching your weight! I'm not going on about anything. You simply can't grasp my simplest of statements: An R180 fits right in where an R180 came out. No mounts to change. You have a shop change your axles (you CAN keep flanged axles, but I haven't done that swap. I HAVE done the Tripod Swap countless times...) and you change the grease seals and companion flanges on the stub axles. It is less work, and weighs less than your proposal. No matter how much you talk around it and belittle me, nothing will change that fact. My original comment was 'why would they want to do that' and clarified it being a weight and unnecessary swapping of components. The ONLY advantage you have in your little tirade is the possibility of keeping flanged axles. I don't run flanged axles on anything anyway so that never entered my consideration. Take the R180 out, put and R180 back in with LSD or ATB and smoother running (less vibration) axles. Man I'm an ******* for suggesting such a travesty. Get a life, dude.

And Careless, seriously, if you have the ability to go into the 7K region and are going to look for power (having somehow solved the oiling issue---I'm thinking dry sump) don't waste your time with the Z31 box, you won't fix it. Go get the Z32 CAS, convert what you have, go COP and don't look back. Someone once said you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. This is just one of those cases. For a high boost cast-piston motor that won't go over 6500 you can make gobs of power with the Z31 box. Some people want more than that will produce. If you go beyond that point, bin it--don't waste the time, effort, or money. Learn from our mistakes, don't repeat them. You can beat your head into the wall trying to get that to work, and the inversion of the coil trigger gating simply makes for a fail. The 930 Turbo Coil is (as far as I know, and you will notice it on all the NNA Factory Racers with VG's...) the 'fastest' rise time out there. But even Bosch has limits... I will say this: 25psi of boost on ports flowing 218CFM with a cam that idles with 5" Hg vacuum, and the ability to run those revs up and shift at 8K+ on a street car is something that you will not quickly forget! As for 'the Z31 Crowd Benefitting'---all they had to do was call Nissan Motorsports when they were in Gardena. The were quite forthwith about the 930 Coil and supplied us with the part number as 'the coil to use if you are going to try to operate at higher rpms with that trigger scheme'! At the same time, in the same face-to-face discussion at the NNA Motorsports Offices, we were also told the Z31 Coil was the hottest one Nissan Ever Made up to that time. So that I what I run on my L28 cast-piston Turbo Engine.

Six Shooter, you are arguing semantics. The ECM's make adjustments on the fly. In layman's terms that is 'self tuning'... The same sort of subroutine is used in the BOSS EFI to self-tune the ECU. By selecting to save the adjustments, the BOSS system then makes the trims PERMANENT (something the GM unit doesn't do for obvious reasons.) If you take something that is running, and in five minutes of idling things have changed internally the way the ECM sends signals to the injectors and it does this AUTOMATICALLY, I would argue that indeed that would be considered 'self tuning' by 99.99999% of the people out there. I'm not going to split semantics. As for the other issue regarding Z31 boxes: The L-Engine DOES NOT have a shite oiling system. So putting a Z31 box onto it will REVEAL the DEFECT in the Z31 box that inverts the coil signal. There is (or was) EXTENSIVE DOCUMENTATION on this issue at JeffP's website. We spent a HELLUVA lot of time trying to get that pig to have silk ears, and that pig just don't hunt, son. It doesn't reveal itself on the VG because the oiling is so crappy. Sorry you guys got a bum oiling system. But DIDN'T THIS ALL START when someone ignorantly suggested putting a Z31 Box onto an L-Engine? BEEN THERE DONE THAT, FOUND THE SHORTCOMING AND EVEN WITH THE 930 COIL THE BOX CAN'T CHARGE THE COIL FAST ENOUGH FOR CONSISTENT SPARK OVER A GIVEN RPM POINT UNDER BOOST. We (JeffP and I) went so far as to make an environmental chamber and test bench in his garage to simulate under-boost pressures to check for spark blowout. Z31 Box on Turbo-L Series=FAIL Like someone said earlier: End of discussion. If you're going to apply something that won't do the job to the capabilities of the engine block it's on---why bother with it? If you want a Turbo Z with an L-Series and want to REV IT LIKE AN L-SERIES IS KNOWN TO REV, don't waste the time on the Z31 Box-you will be sorely disapointed. Go STRAIGHT to the Z32 Box and COP system. It's good far as our test chamber and bench without fail to 22,000 engine rpms. Works for me. This ALWAYS happens with Z31 guys, nobody can say ANYTHING about the car no matter HOW factual without it becoming some sort of penile-threatening statement that draws out people calling anybody disagreeing with their love of all things Z31 "Stupid" or "Ass Talkers" or what have you... Man grow UP! I'm done with it. I know what I know, I know what we tried, I know what Cunningham Racing told us, I know what the National Service Manager at Nissan North America said, I know what our dyno results showed consistently over TWO YEARS of trying to make that goddamn box work, and I know what the brain trust at Nissan Motorsports finally said when we quizzed them about it and what we had found. If you guys can't handle the shortfalls of your system that's your issue to handle. You want drawings and prints? Jeff went so far as to have the boards for the Z31 box reverse-engineered in a vain attempt to figure out something in the circuitry that maybe could be altered to make it work... I doubt he will part with them, but that's how far we dug down this rathole of a box to find out in the end it just don't work. Get your ego and investment out of it, and READ my conditions and caveats. PLEASE.

Hey PMC---send me some in-country contact information via PM. I'm going to finish out here in the sea (New Caledonia) earlier than expected. It's a longshot, but maybe I can swing through. I'm up for pissing off the boss with wild flights to nowhere just for the hell of it!

Go take a look at those electric cutouts first. They aren't small! You may simply find putting a 'Lakes Pipe' with blocker flange at the end is easier to package. Three Stainless Steel Bolts and it's off at the track. Or back on. Cheaper, too! So what if some exhaust goes out the original pipe---the reduction in backpressure is what you want by the cutout, and this would do that in spades.

Damn, I GOTTA pull The Blue Turd's screens and check them. I think they have been in for 106,000 miles and at least four regular fuel filters... Whaddya think they're plugged just a bit?

Plain old GT35R is worth well more than that! JeffP made 475 on a stock Low-Compression bottom end using the GT35R...He's finding excuses now to refit the new "X" series because when we were doing the Forged Bottom End, the GT35R was running out of air above 17psi and 7,000rpms (600+ RWHP) He's just getting greedy! Who really needs an 800HP 7,800 rpm Street-Driver Turbo ZX?

Depends on where you live, really. And what you consider a 'long trip'.... I daily drove for several years Full Size Ford vehicles with CNG and their mileage limit without reserve tanks was around 250 miles. Same for the new small stuff. All depends on the ability to carry the 3600psi tanks. The Civic CNG has nice small tanks that are tasty for a Z Conversion.... Curiously, 240 miles is about my refill in the Z now! If you plan, it is possible to go cross-country on CNG, you just need to know where the stations are.... They can be right under your nose and you never know about them. In many cases, school bus fleets are converted, and it's informal CNG Protocol to 'assist when needed'---meaning I can't count how many times I watched someone who was low on fuel go in and get a FREE fillup at the local School Bus Yard from their slow-fill fueling spot. When's the last time someone gave you a free FILL UP (not a splashed gallon, or a ride to buy a can and get a couple gallons when you ran out---a FREE FULL TANK!???) The Real advantage is for people driving under, say, 125 miles a day one-way in a commute (er, like me....) With a Phill Station at home, and 40 cents per gallon fuel, and the ability to piggyback off the entire CNG Infrastructure in most any major city it becomes really convenient! LA, Denver, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego Bay... I would service the CNG pumps in HANFORD from my place in Perris. That's a longer trip than most make. And I've been to ElMirage and back (100 miles+ one way plus driving around) on CNG. Yeah, it's more expensive commercially, but there's just no way I'm getting 40 cent per gallon E85 and my house. The nearest E85 is 3 miles from my house (100 Octane Racing Fuel there as well...) The nearest CNG fueling is 3.2 miles from my house, and it's running cheaper than E85 right now, and probably will stay that way. I just don't have the time now to do anything other than theorize about making my illegally converted CNG-Turbo-Z!

didier does bring forth the most pertinent point in the difference in HP potential between carbs and EFI. The restriction of the venturi necessarily limits the airflow to the engine costing you horsepower. Our Bonneville engine, all other items being identical, peaked power 750 rpms higher when we went to EFI. We also gained 40HP at that higher point. somewhere about 16-20HP at the former peak with 45DCOE's (7500rpms) Recently with a new Isky Cam we've duplicated our previous HP, but back closer to the old Carb RPM peak point. Ron has some ways to do things that make L-Engines BREATHE! 278HP at well under 8,000rpms. Amazing (Thanks Ron!)

My contention was there is not an advantage of an R200 over the R180 in Auto-X, and it adds weight. And yes, the tripod section from the Subie R180 is 100% compatible with the ZXT Tripod, you simply take it to the driveline shop and have them do the swap. In L.A. that is $50 for new boots, grease, & labor per PAIR of axles (as I said, Brian S. knows where this gets done!) So the Subie differential, bolting directly in, with a $50 axle change. If you want one without the ATB or LSD (don't know where 'locking' came into it) you just need look. The R200 goes for around $80 here in the PYP yards as they usually call it 'Truck Third Member' whereas the R180 for some inexplicable reason goes for $20 Less and is tagged as 'Third Member' (note, not referred to as 'truck'...) http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/107093-r200-390-open-differential/ No smokescreen. We got a LOT of subaru's out in SoCal. Probably up in the Atlantic Northeast as well. Abundance drops the price. It's not "arguing for arguments' sake"--I STILL don't know why you insist the differential needs to be opened up. You do nothing of the sort! I just think the R200 is a LOT more work than the R180. The only thing you need is a tripod grafting that costs $50---you want the companion flanges, they're the same as you are doing on the R200. But no special mounts, none of that other stuff. Just seems like a lot more work. HENCE MY ORIGINAL QUESTION: "Why on earth would he want to do that (for an Auto-X Car)? Drags, maybe. Auto X? What's the point. It's just adding weight.

I want to Thank Gollum, for once again READING what I've written and taking it in the manner which it was put forth. I'm not the one pissing on a fence to build up a ridiculous statement. I'm just the one showing respect due to the Engineers who spend thousands of hours making each of these systems work when new. Some people (including me) appreciate the pains OEM guys (and by that, I mean the factory engineers) take to get these systems to do what they do straight off the lot, for hundreds of thousands of miles. Been there, done that. Point of issue I would take with Gollum's comment about 'improvements': "Computer Controlled GM Carburettors" -- my god, talk about beancounters torturing engineers to hold on to tooling and obsolete ideas! FINALLY it just wouldn't do and they went to real TBI...and not solenoid controlled metering rods. In that case, I'd take the old Quadra-junk over THOSE! Definitely not an improvement!

"Still not sure where you got this incorrect theory of the Z31 EFI being unusable above 6500rpm" Try to make turbo power with one at 7200 and show me your dyno sheet. At 6350, the coil switching changes, and the dwell goes to hell. It's why all the guys running the Z31 Box make their HP at 5800-6300 and why they ALL have that divot in their power curves at that time. The box inverts the signal to the coil at that point. Unless you use a Turbo 930 Coil with a super-fast rise time, the scheme simply doesn't allow proper coil charging of a SINGLE coil to power cars under high boost. That's why. Been there, DISCARDED THAT! Moved on to the Z32 COP system. FAR better than that Z31 POS Junk! Don't waste your time... Especially if you want a 7500 or 8000 rpm Turbo Screamer. (738RWHP / 7200RPM@16psi where the turbo just plain ran out of air... That's on the Area 51 Mustang Dyno down off Bake St. in Irvine, BTW... Couldn't get close to that on the Z31 Box. The Z32 Box? Sky's the limit! Tested to 8K and other pressures... Photos on the engine dyno previously posted at this site...) Actually, the Z32 system was stable up to 11,000 CAS rpms... But what do I know, right? And I was correct, putting words in the mouth that never were said. Wonder WHY the box has an OEM limit at 6600? THINK about this, will you PUHLEAAAASAE?????? Yeah, I can rev a stock engine to 7500+ as well. Doesn't mean it does anything. Believe what you will, I know the truth of the Z31 Box. So does JeffP. You don't EVEN want to get him into this thread regarding the time wasted using the Z31 Box when looking for serious horsepower! No, don't EVEN get him started! That dyno video looks like most of the others I see---where was that power peak again??? Pretty close to where Steve Mitchell's was... Same point where ALL the turbo Z31's make their peak. Hmmmm, wonder WHY?

Any of the LT1 V-8's. I had to learn about it when the Father-in-Law couldn't get decent service, and then my Buddy put a 94 LT from a Camaro into his 74. From there I learned the Tunercat Package. Basically the 94 LT ECU has both short-term and long-term fuel curves that use switching from the O2 Sensors as a method to make adjustments to the programmed base fuel map. This is what is 'reset' when you disconnect the battery cable. It's not just GM stuff that does it, they ALL do it now because of the 100K emissions requirement. They HAVE to self-adjust or they will fall out of compliance with EPA requirements for long-term emissions compliance. The stuff on the mid 90's Nissan stuff does it I'm sure. I just knew the GM does it, and with Tunercat it's so easy to turn things on and off, toggle this or that, reprogram the slushbox shiftpoints. Anyway, it's not the SErvice Number, BCC but it is an example of the Year, Model, and Engine Family which should allow you to check into it. Get TunerCat at the same time, it's an OBD Interface connection, it was really intuitive. Running a V8 I don't know why I'd use a Standalone if using a GM Product---the GM ECM has all the capabilities you really need when using the TunerCat tool and your laptop. It's got OEM reliability/durability. Something not found with aftermarket systems. In fact, the BOSS EFI systems being sold for the past few years use this same GM-Style Short and Long Term Fuel Trim as a 'save option' after driving the car to change the base map---sold as 'self tuning' it really truly is! Aftermarket following the lead of the OEM's... This is the same thing the EEC332 EFI system did, and really when you look into the Megasquirt they relied heavily on GM programming. GM was hacked long ago... Their programming really is straightforward, when you see the subroutines, you realize most of the programming and changes between boxes are due to emissions requirements. With the Long and Short Term fuel trim, there are fewer base maps, and the things tweak themselves for best drivability. Pretty neat bit of engineering. I see there is other drivel posted... I guess the piss mark isn't high enough on the fencepost yet. Wanna make a bet he didn't READ a goddamned thing and is just going off on the same broken record yet again???.

Or simply condensation in the exhaust system if running rich and idled for short times only like during troubleshooting... Disregard smoke unless it's copious (like a mosquito generator) and you can SEE your radiator level dropping, or it positively SMELLS like something. Too many wild-goose chases from 'smoke out the exhaust'.... if it's doing it at speed down the road way, it's one thing. Sitting there in the driveway it doesn't really signify anything most times other than built up condensation in the exhaust system.