Tony D

I haven't seen anybody mention it yet, but you should be able to go against the insurance on your friend's claim for the additional $1500 of your deductible.

"Sent the kids home yesterday little one's first day of school, wanted to be there for her, but this kind of makes up for it all..." What a refreshing revelation of osmeone who has his head in the right place. A little portion of that winning money sack should set the little one up in a good school some day! And Boris... I think Boris is a little ticked. I think he's got the right idea, just go find him when there aren't any cameras around. (I've never done that!) Boris, a bit of advice for next time the crew gets in the way: "Sweep the leg!"

Can always just hang around for a couple of weeks in Wendover...World of Speed is September 14-17, right? <edit> STILL in the Philippines, but headed to Malaysia later today. And so starts the slooooow trip back to the USA in time for the previously mentioned engagement...

Use the speed sensor from a manual transmission, 1991 240SX. Bolts in like any other speedo pinion and meshes perfectly to give you a modern speed sensor on any older L-Engine Tranny. This is in the archives with further details. It's my gift for the day.

And how does it differ in sound? I'm missing something here, other than the loud backfires... Yeah, that was an 'odd' header, not your typical LY, but obviously a good enough attempt at a head conversion that it had most fooled! No big advertisements, and made from a SINGLE head. Probably easier than the other CF option everybody drools over here... All it takes is time, money, and a willing engineering works and you can just about do anything you want. Frankly, I like the look of this one, "very OEM-Like" the Red Wrinkle-Painted Valve Cover is a nice touch.

Machine the block and head to match the gasket that you have access to, it's the more expensive option, but you know everything matches next time you need a gasket!

"It is; but it also applies to turbo motors when the turbo is not spooled up. " Like I said "especially at lower engine speeds"... JeffP's engine had a marked reduction in the 'black runner' phenomenon Xnke speaks of with the step, versus when he had a 'properly done' matched port. The porting guru mentioned the smaller runner "won't appreciably hurt anything, and will likely help quite a bit with reversion'..." By "Porting Guru" it's one of the guys who "wrote the book" everybody is reading... The problem is that theoreticians will spout and tout the matched port in all-out race engines because it made 3hp more on the dyno at the peak point. So 'matched ports are the best'... Problem is, at 3000rpms, you're down on power because you're fogging out the carb throat like an old 2-Stroke Rotax when you go WOT because of the reversion (well, maybe an exaggeration, but you get the idea...) The 'theoretical' points on the internet just blow my mind. There is PLENTY of stuff out there on DATSUN engines which shows match porting (not a tapered runner, but MATCH PORTING) doesn't do ANYTHING! To get the best advantage, you need that tapered port, AND EVEN WITH THE TAPERED PORT, the 'down low, useable everyday rpm range' benefits MORE than outweigh what 'penalty' you have at Peak Power Production Point of 6500rpms (or higher) from that tapered runner. Remember, there WAS a tapered runner on Jeff P's engine, it now has a distinct 1.0mm step at the manifold / head junction. This (as far as we can see) has resulted in absolutely NO penalty that we can discern on the engine dyno, but we CAN see there is far less reversion evidenced in the intake, and like mentioned above, even with a plenum-style manifold, there was a noticeable change in fueling requirements (especially around Peak Torque) once the 'step' was added to the intake runner.

Want hard-to-find: Toyo Proxes R1A's in 225 50-14 and 225 40-14... I personally touched them at a tyre shop in Japan yesterday afternoon. It looks like I will be putting some 'excess baggage' on the return flight from Japan come this October. Once again, my 14X9 Watanabes will ride again!!!

I knew a guy who bought an old storefront outside Chicago. Big Building... Really bad area, but the front was boarded up, and he entered through the roll up back doors. He was paraplegic, and it allowed him to roll his wheelchair right out of the van. Had the kitchen over in one corner, living room was 'over there'... he parked the van close to the 'kitchen' bedroom was not really enclosed at all. Had a bunch of exotic birds that lived 'all over'... More than once we drove go-karts in the place. Ever seen a hand--control go-cart? He was a really neat guy, lost the use of his legs in a car accident when he was 17. He figured he lived in such a crappy place nobody would ever think to rip him off where he lived. I think any of the winoes in the area just thought he was a drug dealer or something. In that place, that Cobra could actually get up some speed. I think we could reach 30mph in the karts if you handled the arc along the back wall correctly. Man he got pissed when I ran through the living room across the carpet to 'shortcut' the circuit we agreed upon. To see guys in F1 doing it now always makes me hear clear as day: "I SAID DON'T RUN OVER THE FU*KING CARPET TONY!"

Sigh, not listed in 15X13... Watanabes still on my list for the Shark Car's upgrade to Lamborghini Countach Tyres... I just saw some Proxes T1A's listed in 225 50-14 and 225 40-14's. Looks like I'm going to have to ship some tires from Japan to fit my old-school 14" Wats! That won't be cheap.

FYI, I just landed in Manila and on the plane was catching up on some new Japanese Magazines that I picked up at the airport. Latest offering from SARD: A FUEL COOLER! Nice to see someone else noticed what a tremendous effect fuel temperature can have on the way the car runs under load...to the point they now offer a neat cooler to combat the heat put into the fuel in it's little trip through the engine bay and back to the fuel tank. Understand IAT and Vapor Lock is not the same thing. The heat soak you get after a shutdown is something that you can't avoid unless you run a cooler thermostat (then you only limit it's starting point and terminal rise...)or remove your hood to let it radiate to the atmosphere instead of being all cooped up underhood. The fuel vaporization in the fuel rail is relative to pressure rise after shutdown, a leaking anti-return valve on the pump, or enough heat present to flash the fuel to vapor at the pressure it sits in the rail. That's not really vapor lock--though flash-cavitation at the fuel pump inlet can happen when the fuel in the tank gets hot.

Colortune is Colortune. The difference is the thread size and reach. Alas, the anodized aluminum tubes and polished stainless mirrors are now gone...replaced by plastic tubes and vacuum-chromed plastic mirrors, but they work just as well as they always did. Have you read the directions in the CT? A little orange on initial acceleration is tolerable. Welcome to "Layman's WBO2, circa 1979!"

The anti-reversion effect is FAR more important than the little 'drop' in flow you 'might' see from the step. Of course, if the HEAD hole is smaller than the intake manifold, then you should do something about it. But if the head hole is larger than the end hole on the intake manifold, I'd say 'leave it be'... As to the comment about about alignment, ALIGNMENT is different than PORT MATCHING. And RACERS are not STREET CARS. Racers have ported both the intake manifold AND head to a consistent taper from one end to the other, and as a result any misalignment will result in a flow disruption. But as I have said in the other post: some racing head porters WILL LEAVE THIS STEP for an anti-reversion effect. So don't read or rationalize into this something that isn't there. Don't add non-relevant situations which will only confuse the issue. This is why the post was up there in the first place...there is a LOT of stuff out there, but the problem is people can't differentiate between PURE RACING and STREET applications, and what transfers and what does not. Having an aligned port is one thing. But consensus is that the effects of 'port matching' (which means you take any misalignment and grind one of both of the pieces back 25mm or so to make a tapered blended transition with no step) doesn't have any appreciable BENEFIT, and in some instances because of the removal of that step where the intake is smaller than the head port compounds losses due to reversionary effects. Again, that 'vortex' MAY 'lose' flow, but the anti-reversionary effects MORE than compensate with increased torque, consistent AFR's, etc...

Free works for me. As I recall the last ones I got (3 in fact) were a 'load them up today and you can have them' kind of offer. If they ask for an offer, offer to take it out of their way since it's sitting there, takes up space, and obviously they're not using it, aren't going to use it, and therefore should be happy to have you do their cleaning up! And yes I'm being serious. Time is your friend. Go back in a year, say "I see that's still around for you to hit your toes on..." If they ask for an offer, they're fishing because they never thought it was worth anything. If they didn't value it before, they're trying to see YOUR valuation as it's obviously going to be more than what they thought it was worth...which was NOTHING. Someone asks ME for something they see laying around the yard, they either get a price or an 'it's not for sale' immediately. If I don't have a price in mind, chances are I'm as likely to say 'take it' than insult someone with trying to milk money out of them with a 'make me an offer'... They think you value it more than they do? Show them they're wrong: offer to take it away. If they're insulted, it's just because you called their bluff. Besides, starting from "NOTHING" is your best negotiation tool anyway. For a pig-in-a-poke laying on the ground it's worth scrap value (It ran when we took it out...yeah RIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! )

There are generic low cracking pressure check valves available at most performance hose shops.

"The 300 wheel HP mark is so easy to hit with a Turbo-L setup that it's been done quite a variety of ways. That being said, one of the most asked questions on these forums is "can/how I make 300hp with my L28ET?" It's actually quite frustrating how often it comes up. It's like space invaders. It doesn't matter how hard we try they just keep coming! I've seen people do it with the stock turbos. Others that did it with the stock ECU. One guy even did it with stock injectors running over 100psi. The beauty is that 300hp is the sweet spot in which it's quite difficult to blow it up unless you've got some serious tuning issues. You can reach 400 without reaching the limits of the internals, but tuning becomes a knife edge extracting that much power as slight detonation can become catastrophic." Amen, Brother! 1985: Bosch Dyno Tuned the stock 24,000KM 1977 Nissan Cedric L28 to 348 RWHP and ran it until I scorched out my last turbo, and then decided to let the car rest... That was over 40K miles of HARD driving on a BONE STOCK engine. It was the 'minimum price of entry' if you wanted to be considered 'credible' in Japan in the mid 80's. By the time the 90's rolled in, with electronic fuel injection the price of admission went higher. Heck, Frank280ZX took Yetterben's old HKS Blow-Through setup and bolted it onto his dad's Eurospec 280ZXT and cranked out 248 HP at the rear wheels as I recall (there's your crankshaft horsepower...) Maybe we just need an FAQ post entitled "I want to turbo to 300(Crank/Rear Wheel)HP on my L28, what do I need to do" and then when you click on it the screen flashes saying "NOTHING, JUST ADD BOOST AND FUEL IT RIGHT!"

What you experience is WHY on DOMESTIC PRODUCTION engines, "port matching" was so important. They used castings which weren't necessarily precision. Cannon is USA manufactured, and is 'off a bit' while Mikuini is made in Japan and has a nice consistent material wall as they used a more precise casting/construction technique. Gaskets are bigger than the holes they seal PRECISELY because of this phenomenon. If they were 'precision' then the ports would HAVE to match up exactly (racers index the manifolds to the head using dowels, not the bolt holes!) On a production engine, the gaskets being larger than the holes allows for a mm or two of misalignment between the ports without the gasket becoming another potential point of restriction. Just because the gasket is bigger, doesn't mean the hole in the head needs to be that size. FYI, the FIA Homogolated Dimension for the intake runners at the head surface is 35mm. If you can get 210+ CFM port flow on the intake side of the head with the hole being 35mm, exactly what are you looking for by making it LARGER? Less velocity? More flow? What? BIGGER is NOT better when it comes to manifold runner size. I don't know TimZ's port dimension, but Jeff is supporting 600+ HP on a 34.5 or 35mm maximum diameter head port hole size. He gives up 30CFM per runner off that 210+ CFM by using the stock EFI manifold which has an Extrude-Honed Runner Diameter of roughly 33mm. What was that about you wanting bigger port runners again?

Correction on the "pre-standalone"--there WERE standalone systems available when that car was built. Don't think there weren't! Haltech is one of the oldest out there and was available at the time. (SK, HKS, and several other JDM manufacturers had Analog EFI available at this time as well, comparable to the Haltech.) That doesn't detract from the Old-School approach taken on the car, but it's definitely not 'Pre-Standalone' construction era for sure.

My N42 Head doesn't have Injector Cutouts, it is an N42 CEDRIC head. The other N42 with the injector cutouts... it is an N42 GLORIA head. Where does this 280Z head you guys have come from? Is it high performance? Is there something special about the N42 280Z head? Where can I get one failing sniping the one off the Craiglist advert? BTW, that N42 Cedric head, it's been 17-21psi boosted since 1985...

Heading to KIX tomorrow. Looks like Okamura-San has another 'tony requesto' to fulfill!

E-Code H4 Lights with the shade caps removed and a relay kit does it for me. I got mine from www.h4lights.com, he sells at a reasonable price to Z-Car Guys and supports what he sells. Had them in the 260 since 95, the first set of high-wattage bulbs burned out just last year (low beams)...

Since when is 'no title' an issue? That's a new one on me. No title? No problem! It's a lein sale or otherwise impounded vehicle, you can see it has had one of the ubiquitious 'for sale as is' califonia stickers in the windshield. The other car in the photos are indicative of an impound lot. This is your typical Impound-Lot Auction Car. Pick-a-Part will bid this car to between 225 and 350 (depending on prevailing price of scrap) and they will take it to their yard and part it then crush it. Done all the time. Matter of fact, I got two coming down to my place on a trailer from that region on the 18th, no space for a third...and besides, it's a 280Z...I already got two of those out back anyway! FYI: In CA a lien-sale car will get clear title without any issues whatsoever so long as an insurance company hasn't written the car off at some point in it's past. I can't count how many cars I have had that were bought that way.

JeffP's engine has the step, and he's there with Tim in power numbers. But Jeff and Tim BOTH have ported heads AND manifolds. You're not reaching any stated high flow regions, therefore the step would benefit you the most. The step helps with anti-reversion from big cams, low port velocity, etc. On mild street engines, it's where it shines the most. The problem here is inability to differentiate applications. Just because it's good in one application making 600HP with a turbocharger cramming in fuel and air does NOT necessarily make it applicable to a stock-rpm range N/A engine. In some cases it does, but it goes back to 'total package' thinking. Additionally, as you yourself are now realizing: If you take it off NOW, it will be HELL putting it back on later! Frankly most people are advocating leaving the step alone, I don't see where the confusion is on this matter. When you build a bottom end capable of withstanding 600 or 700 HP, THEN I'd start worrying about it. Below 450? I wouldn't waste my time.

Are we talking on the rear or the front? The front is simple as pie and covered in the FSM, the rears even easier. STANDARD studs come in and out of the back without anything special. EXTENDED studs can be installed in the rear WITHOUT removing the axle from the carrier. This was discussed in the last year, and a link to my cardomain page where the process was detailed. Find it, and you're set.

Not this week, but likely during World of Speed 14-17 September. I'm in Philippines now...