Tony D

Yeah, I think with the L24 Rod (133mm) you are 1.5mm down bore for a turbo, and with the L14 rod (136.5mm) you are either flush or down bore. And with the L28 rods (130mm) you are down some more again compared with the L24.... All very old stuff and all from recollection. Some of this may be applicable with the LD28 stroker maybe that's where the L28 rods come in if you want a shorter combination. It's been what...30 years? The real deal was getting the pistons cheap. They won't be so cheap now, I was looking recently and found those Weiscos at the cost I quoted. And yeah, finding an L13 or L14 anywhere nowadays is like combing the sand in the barnyard for Hen's Teeth!

There was this guy in Pomona with 100 Corvairs. He was asking $110,000 for the lot of them, including spares. He wasn't getting many offers as it was an 'all or nothing' and while there were many individual cars well worth the money, he just wanted them all gone as it wasn't working out for continued storage where he was. It sounds like madness, but when the city came and broke into his yard, and CONFISCATED his cars, arbitrarily impounding them... well he had this lawyer that was a fierce property rights advocate and he HAD complied with manu varied and sundry local ordinances (even I almost missed his place were it not for a small hole that glinted distinctive chrome bits discernable to my eye at 55mph in the far lane...) that got her active in the case Pro-Bono. Sure, it took a little while. But the cars that were taken were stored (at municipal expense) and then were repatriated to his new location bought with flush funds from some unknown source, from some unknown settlement which he was (smiling ear-to-ear) not at liberty to discuss. So in his case, municipal blundering gave him the adequate wherewithal to finally do his envisioned retirement: take a car or three a year, work fulltime doing restoration work, and then sell them off. Just keeping himself busy in his golden years. When I heard his plan, I thought it not that insane. Therefore a guy with only 24 cars...considering I have more than that in my back yard! Insane, mad? No, not by a longshot!

I also have to comment that the RHD thing must be recent (well, since Marcos left...) We would ship containerloads of RHD cars cut in half from Okinawa to Manila where my two partners had relatives who welded them back together and sold them as used cars! At least that's what they told me they were doing. It may have been discount auto parts shipment, which is very profitable in P.I. Or for that matter, salvaging the drivelines to put into Jeeps constructed locally. My friend Cesar down in Lucena has a "1991 Toyota Jeep"...yeah, I'll look for that one in the Toyota Brochure...NOT! It was a looooong time since I've seen a 4K in ANYTHING, but there it was 4K heaven!

I'll be back in Cavite in two weeks if the controls gurus get the software debugged. It's on the main road you take to the San Miguel Facility like you were coming from Alabang. Pass this near the intersection of the Truck Service Center, the Junk Shop and the place where they make the tricycles. On to the NP Checkpoint, turn left, and the San Miguel place is right there. Continue on a little further, turn right at the "T" intersection and you go downhill over the river and up into Cavite proper where I recommend the new Inasal that recently opened! Bak Bak Mmmmmmaserap! and UNLIMITED RICE! The Chad, PM me and I'll call you on my Globe Number if it's still active. Don't want to give it out as I recently got notice it was close to deactivation. I did not get their OFW package, just a normal SIM so it's only good up to 90 days without top up or other activity. No biggie, I jsut get another SIM when I get there and I have a local phone.

I patiently waited THREE YEARS for the guy who sniped the HKS ITB's from me on E-Bay (for $400) to call saying he was ready to sell. Then I paid $2000 for them. REMEMBER THIS: THE HKS SURGE BOX IS PERIOD CORRECT WITH ITB'S! Frankly, Nissan made their own ITB's very similar to HKS and SK back in 1971 for RAC Rally Competition. They used a first generation BOSCH ECU similar in configuration to the units used in the Type 3 VW's in 1968. Triple-Style ITB's on a Weber/Mikuini Style Manifold ARE a 'period correct' vintage modification all the way back to 1971 AT LEAST! (And that is for an N/A application!) "Nostalgia" is the strange and mundane---not what everybody remembers! A vintage ITB setup (perhaps Hillborn Injection) There's a reason I bought that Hillborn. I may want to put methanol in a street car some day... Or convert it. I don't know. But what is more vintage correct than a Hillborn Injected setup?

FIA Appendix for 1975 Homogolated the L28 and it's EFI for racing. Most prep to this specification as the rules make the competition pretty stiff after that year. Prepping to FIA 1975, there were several 240Z's at Spa this year for the 6 Hours Historic that were lapping as fast as, or faster than the Shelby 350's running! Though I still have questions as why Miroux from Belgium was conspicuously absent this year... I know they had a stroker, there is NO WAY that car was an L24 (they contended it was, with an F54 block, yeah RIIIIGHT Jean-Claude!) and 'in every way legal'---but no L28 runs into Eau Rouge with that intake-exhaust note. My bet was 3.0 or 3.1 minimum. Perhaps the Scrutineers did a teardown? I digress... Oh, and I'm in the same boat as John C for the RACE car (not the street car)---we are not allowed an 'engine swap'---now if we ran like Burton Brown does in the 7770 Car (F/GT) then 'swaps' are allowed and an RB25 headed RB30 would be in there before you could say BOO!

I don't see any vacuum lines open in your photos. I do see the bowl vents open to atmosphere---normally they go to the inside of the air cleaner via hoses to prevent a float based rich condition due to dirty air cleaners....but vacuum lines? Nada!

Where the leak is will be the biggest consideration in repair costs. Underneath where you can slap a penny on a red hot soldering iron and do a solder job with jas pouring out (seriously, been there, done that!) is a total different thing from having to drop the tank to fix it. One takes 10 minutes, the other...."more"

That was a very strange duck indeed... If you want to try to get that RHD, maybe it will go to you. I tried to schedule a firm price to know what $$$ to bring, and have him commit to that before I loaded up the trailer and drove 6 hours and the guy just stopped replying. I was sorely disapointed, it was a car I really needed some components from to do mine up right. If there was someone local that could store it for say a month I'd pay a couple hundred bucks for pickup and storage on top of the price for buying it. The guy just didn't seem comfortable dealing with someone from LA who claimed he would drive up there on a weekend with cash 'sight unseen' for the car. Even after I said "my agents have already been in contact with you and assure me it's what I am looking for" (Seriously! In reference to you and your PM's to me!) You said it was good, so I was all for it. Done deal (or so I thought.) Apparently he didn't call you back either. I wonder if it's still sitting there. I'm coming home Thrusday, can be up there to snag it this weekend (again...) but the guy just responds slowly to e-mail and making calls from Shanghai will cost as much as the car! Vere strange duck indeed. Normally storage places are cool with pickups. Very strange indeed.

I have seen my good nature has been abused yet once again. So this leaves us where we began: anybody got a photo? I am often called to task with the 'just because you say it doesn't make it true'... Now is the OZ Calculator really something that shows a P99? Is there a P99? Like I said, I have not seen one. Anybody got a (real) photo or documentation to support what this 'mystery head' entails?

I watched them in the 10 second 1/4 mile range normally aspirated, and in single digits in turbcharged doorslammer trim in 1986 and figured 'thats more than I will need for my street car' and went from there. I ended with results very similar to Bernard above and that was good enough for me in a sub 2600# car that handles well.

"So why use a cat? On older cars it was a band aid and for years manufactures tried to work out the kinks. (mid 70s - early 80's) A combination of light emissions standards and crude systems let them just band aid the car and meet the mandate requirements. Nissan is not a good example of this BTW. Ford, GM, Chrysler, etc are with their carb systems and development into electronic carbs with fuel metering rods, and then finally onto crude fuel injection systems. Nissans use of the Bosch system that was well developed by 1979 put them WAY above the bar by almost 10 years!" This is true, and if you look to VW for the lead, they went with 1st Generation Bosch Technology in 1968 to comply with the FIRST generation of automotive emissions introduced in 1967. VW made the change on their 'new' car models then, and converted Beetles in 1975 to AFC style Injection (like our Datsuns.) Datsun was working with the first generation BOSCH systems in competition in the early 70's, and had a functioning ITB system in place on rally cars in Europe running Alpha-N/Speed-Density mix programming without O2 trim as early as 1971! Their success with racing the EFI convinced them this was the way to go for performance vehicles, and went that way. In fact, the 1973 Tokyo Auto Show introduced the new 260ZE model with a very familiar emissions control system on it---the second generation Bosch EFI AFC controller we got here in the USA in 1975! GM and the other Big Three was a 'bandaid' exactly as Ray says---they bet on lobbying efforts to skew the standards, delay implementation of the mandates and let them keep in production with what they had without any R&D (which was ironic in GM's case as they had functioning Analog EFI in high efficiency small engined cars--The Cosworth Vega---in the same timeframe as the Datsun. Management by committee, FAIL!) And to clarify I met BAR90 Standards as it was 1991 when I last legally smog tested one of my vehicles since this past year...

Hello Fire, what was that you said? I'm what? I'm black? Was a statement that 'coulda woulda shoulda' appropriate? Was yours needed---what did it add? I believe my post consisted of more than what you have quoted, whereas yours does not. Who's is really the most worthless then if we want to go down this road? As Dray points out, it was his persistence and keeping at it that got him the car. Not wishing it was so, or looking to some crystal ball for devine guidance on 'who can be talked down or not'! The art of buying old cars is 99% being in the right place at the right time, and 1% having the money when the two points coincide. Or I have it reversed. Either way, neither ratio swap involves 'wishing' to get it done. Both, however do require effort and capital to accomplish.

They indeed are for using fuel cooling of the bottom of the bodies. It helps quite a bit with fuel percolation on hotter days. The Mikuini setup states they are fuel coolers, not coolant lines. You use fuel as the coolant. The tank is your sink for heat.

I did put it into quotations!

Nope, never have. So this sounds like an 'export' engine option---not a NNA normal supply item (original foggy memory of OP stated 'possible canadian origin' or something?) As for the 'casting flash' theory.... I believe I stated "Must be something inside." Again, anybody got one for sectioning, they don't change casting numbers without a reason...

RE: Ray's Graph Our Stationary "Lean Burn" engines ran Methane in a Lanova-Style Precomb Chamber, to ignite a 22:1 AFR main combustion chamber. If you look at what the chart says you will see 22:1 for Methane is DAMN WELL FAR CLEANER than running at Stoich. You will find it hard to run that lean on a variable speed engine like a car becuase the transitions are so difficult. But in steady-state full load applications it not only returns the least fuel burned, but generates the least emissions. Then we had a five-stage Englehardt Catalyst Bed (6 foot X 6 foot X 6 Foot Stainless Steel Box with five separate honeycomb substrates in it) to SCRUB the gas. We had to inject stuff into the exhaust stream or run replaceable beds because of their being consumed during operation. As for my 73, I believe I was running around 17 to 18.5:1 for the old Idle/2500 test and passed with flying colors to 83 Catalyzed specs. It was hard to drive (understatement) I was on the verge of lean misfire. SU's tuned to 'lean best'... And it was CLEAN. I want to say 0.5% CO and 125ppm HC, but I think HC was double digits. If this thread is still active when I get back to the states later this week, I'll go to the glovebox and pull the sheet, I still have it. It was a real eye-opener to me that I could get the car sooooo clean with 'old technology'... I still have that emissions printout from 1990!

No 'purportedly' about it, you are wrong plain and simple. As Ray mentions they are a transient device. When the fuel control system is in operation, they are doing VERY little. Your comment that "cats are one of the best ways to clean up emissions IMO" sounds like a PeggyHillisim. Kinda sounds good, but doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The BEST way to control emissions is have a functnioning fuel control system on the car, then the Cat is just along for the ride. Like I said, emissions controls are VERY misunderstood by many people. The ONLY catalyst that is 'working all the time' is the proprietary Englehard Designed low-temperature catalytic radiator on the front of some Ford products. Seems the HC in the AMBIENT AIR was enough in some cases to throw the EFI system calibration out of whack far enough to affect vehicular emissions during testing. The only way to get the system compliant was to preclean the ambient air of Hydrocarbons---so the old joke about a car driving down the road and putting out cleaner air than what it takes in, has actually become a reality. If a Catalyst was a 'clean up device' then the HC in the ambient air wouldn't have mattered---it would have 'scrubbed' the exhaust flow on the back end. That is not what happened! They pre-cleaned the air using Englehardt technology and low temperature catalytic substrates applied to the radiator of the vehicle to clean the air, and relocated the air uptake for the engine to inside the engine bay. No CAI system will be CARB Legal on that car---the radiator is an integral part of compliance of the vehicle! If you have ever SMOG tested a mid 90's SAAB you would be amazed. It's VERY hard to detect when a catalyst has failed. They have such a sophisticated and accurate load map of the fuel system on those cars, they run clean with or without a catalyst! Likewise, early CVCC engines didn't NEED a cat to comply with emissions requirements, but Federal mandate had them installed. They were VERY small. They did nothing to comply with the emissions requirement other than fill a governmental box saying they had one on there because it needed to be on there. Yes, if your EFI is working correctly, your catalyst does nothing other than a transient cleanup. Keep in mind Federal cars didn't have them till 77 or 78. EFI ALONE met emissions standards. For California, it was again governmental MANDATE that they be installed. If you have ever emissions tested one with and without a catalyst (and the EFI is functioning as designed), there is VERY little difference in the readings. In fact, look at the CARB SMOG testing regimen, or the IM240 Dyno check for Federal Emissions and realize there are no big accelerations taking place, but rather very slow transitions. It's because they KNOW the catalysts DO NOT pick up hard transients well, and they would fail 100% of the cars---and the voters would be outraged. One thing worth mentioning was that there IS a 'NAPS' version of the L28 in some Japanese Sedans and Coupes---this used an ECCS system to control the fuel, not EFI like the older cars. The more sophisiticated computer controled the fuel better to meet the much more stringent JIS Standards for those particular years. The EFI Fairlady Z S30's and S130's had FAR cleaner emissions than US Specification (including CA) vehicles. They had the same Catalyst part number...but the fuel control systems were totally different in the critical years. As the conditions standardized later in the production run, they went 'back' to older technology as it would still comply. But there were some interim vehicles in the 78-80 time frame that had some pretty sophisitcated ECCS Controls on N/A engines! I have a 1978 Fairlady 280Z(X) with stepper motor idle air control, an O2 sensor, and an emissions sticker than has '0' for allowable emissions in one of the boxes (HC/CO/NOx, forget which!) Same catalyst as for the USA, though! It's the fuel control, not the scrubber out back that made the difference! The biggest thing IM240 Revealed was that, indeed over the older Idle and 2500 test (and you KNOW the catalyst is not active at idle in an old Z!) many more cars failed because they were in such poor state of tune that they could not accelerate the dyno as they should have and needed far more throttle putting them into open loop to move from section test to section test---and as a result puked out HC and CO like crazy and failed the test. When your car is running correctly, the cat is just along for the ride.

No, they do not! They utilize the excess hydrocarbons in the exhaust stream to keep to an operating temperature to scrub excess HC and CO from the exhaust stream during transients. Early catalysts such as found on early cars were not really 'three way'---the EGR and timing did a majority of the NOx cleanup, as well as lower compression. Run a catalyst on a dyno with ANY modern car at WOT for a while and watch that catalyst overheat and melt down. They are NOT meant to clean up exhaust ... They are meant to clean transients. Later cats (OBD2 timeframe) do more things. But early bricks are very limited in their scope of cleanup. The reason they are 'effective' at stoich is that NOx is at it's minimum near that point. In reality, the best way to run the car is lean, on the verge of lean misfire where CO and HC levels are almost nonexistent (but NOx is very high)... Then you run a NOx specific catalyst. This is what large industrial engines do as they have a constant load and don't have transients to worry about.

You gave no reasons, just asked a vague question. Not really cricket here. If you want to make a question like that, and 'know' the decision might be a poor answer for something else, you should say so. From his verbiage in the post it seems like he didn't understand the function of a catalyst. My 73 tested out the tailpipe CLEAN to better than 1983 CATALYZED STANDARDS with only carb adjustments and a properly operating AIR system. I don't know how much 'better' he thinks it's going to get when a 73Z with a 71 SU and Exhaust manifold with functioning AIR will pipe CLEANER than the specifications for an 83. That's damned clean! A cat would work on my car ONLY if I RICHENED it up and then that would produce the HC EXCESS needed to start the converter, and sustain it's operation. The only reason cars with catalysts operate at 14.7 AFR is to provide FUEL for the CATALYST to let it work when needed. You can get JUST as clean on HC/CO simply with carb adjustments and AIR without putting a flaming hot brick next to your transmission. Emissions controls are sorely misrepresented and misunderstood. The ignorance surrounding them is phenomenal. Educate, when possible rather than just punctuate...

When the exchange rate 'was as it should be' the items out of Melbourne were considerably less expensive than the TWM items, and every bit as serviceable. Frank280ZX had a set on his car and they worked well.

No need to be arsey about it, I've seen guys who work on thousands of compressors over several decades miss the seemingly most obvious things every day. Far more often than you think. Familiarity breeds contempt in many cases and people just stop looking. All I asked for is a photo to confirm it so I'm not wasting my time investigating what reason Nissan had for a P99 head (being it was the FIRST EVER time I can think of it being mentioned...) JSM has obliged with that. Now the question remains, what does 'exactly like a P90A' really mean? P90A Mechanical? P90A Hydraulic? Is this POSITIVELY a hydraulic head, in which case the proper reference would be 'The way to tell if you have a hydraulic head for sure is look for casting number P99'? As we all know P90A's are not necessarily hydraulic. I mean, we've got two people hoarding information on a casting which apparently is unexplored here....what gives? And more importantly, what did Nissan Change. They changed something---they just don't change a casting number for S&G. If you didn't see a difference then as Adam Ant says: "Must be something inside." Who's up for sectioning one?

" I think the oil has just slowly eaten away at the gasket. That is the only spot where oil is leaking and it's pretty plain to see. I will try retightening all of the bolts though." Two common misconceptions. Oil will not 'eat through' the gasket. Ain't happenin'. Retightening the bolts? Chances are that is what made it bad in the first place. The thing about sheet metal oil pans is they BEND. Tightening beyond almost finger tight risks deforming the pan rails which have to be DAMN straight to seal properly. Making a back up plate to sandwich the pan and gasket between would be a better idea rather than tightening already (likely) overtorqued fasteners. Jack the engine up at the bellhousing, drop the pan, flatten the rails till FLAT FLAT and then use a proper gasket with some backup straps (like at the rear of a turbo engine, save they go all the way 'round!) and likely that will solve it. Make sure your PCV is functioning properly, if not buildup of crankcase pressure will make the most stringently applied automotive gaskets start seeping...and once the leak path is started it's not going away (the second part of the fallacy of tightening already torqued oil pan bolts!)

I'm sorry, I've got to read that as "I'm angry I didn't call." As making an offer on someone's vehicle is what buying a car is about. If you didn't offer, the only one to be mad at is yourself. You don't know if you don't call. You don't know if you don't ask. The reason the car isn't sitting in your driveway is there, not because you weren't a fortune teller! As for the price, it's a good one. I'd be happy with the deal especially if you got title and paperwork with no back fees attached. It makes a project affordable to find one like that. As for rarity, more so than boogers, less than hen's teeth.

I bet I know what he's doing to "pump it up!"