Tony D

BRASS or tool steel! A hardened setscrew will be a pain to perforate! I used setscrew as it was shorter than saying "brass internally-wrenched hex screw"! A simple one can be made using a standard brass screw, drilling the center, cutting it off, and then using a hacksaw to cut a screwdriver groove in the top. Loctite or staking it in place will keep it from getting loose.

As long as they are of comparable vintage 76---that is the year they swapped from small to large tanks. Roughly Pre-6/76 tanks are the smaller size, Post 7/76 tanks are the larger size---so chances are good that a 1/76 production date car, and a 8/76 production date car will have a DIFFERENT tank. 7/76 and 12/76: Same. 4/76 and 5/76: Same. Anything in the months of 6 & 7/76 should be visually verified... But the 2+2 and Coupe take the same tank. It's just 76 was an oddball year for North American Production Z's.

Satan, I think you got my point exactly! TimZ: That Exhaust Manifold....that....Exhaust....Manifold... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

Read the thread, I'm in it! Actually I was going to PM you so as not to waste anymore space on this thread, but that horse is already out of the corral... The friends you are collaborating with right now that assisted in your successful ventures---get used to them, 20 years from now, the group of you will likely STILL be collaborating. This is nothing new, and how it works. Established businessmen unwilling to venture their capital on young up-and-comers, so you do for yourself. Since the collaboration worked, you tend to go back to where you know and spurn other advances as you now trust the relationships. This is quituply-important in Asia. It may be years even decades of working together and it gets to a point you don't even question what your supplier is giving you, or charging as they wouldn't breach the long-term committment you both have made to mutual benefit. It is very different than here in the USA, and VERY hard to get broken into without either a local agent with their own local connections, or an outstanding proven product that they approach you for brokering rights. Don't be so quick to turn down old guys in Asia offering a relationship for distribution out of distaste for how they treated you when you were unproven in their eyes. You can do distribution on your own in Asia, but in most cases having a local agent with their own tendrils everywhere gets you a 10 year jump on the competition. I understand this because I'm Italian and we have something similar... But this isn't anything new---take a look at 'first movies' of actors or directors. You will start to see the same guys working together throughout their careers. Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, or Paul Neuman are good examples---look at bit part players, they seem to surface all throughout their career consistently. Either the director liked how they worked together, or the "Star" liked how they worked together and wanted them for this part or that. Same in business. It's human nature. Another Old Guy piece or advice: If they're a--holes now, it's not going to change. Pick them wisely, likely they will be with you for a LONG time, far longer than you think they will be! Unless you radically change what you are doing. But that rarely happens. Intimidation is not what it is, and trust me, the 'laughing' is something you will understand in about 20 years...it's not malicious or deprecating, it's just that once you see something enough times, you can expect it and predict it. It's actually pretty funny. That's what the 'laugh' is, more a chuckle that 'I've heard this before!' But not from me, I knew this all when I was 16....

Mustang yes. 240K not available in the USA sad to say... Search on '510Six' and you will see a user here with the L6 conversion on his 510... I would say the best '10' swap is a later Maxima Wagon, or the 810 wagon (earlier, but harder to find.) I assisted in a Smog-Legal swap of one of these some years ago, and the guy is still running around in it! Very sleeperish, they never expect a Maxima Wagon (and if you get really spunky that live rearend swaps to a Ford9" really easy, just like a VG30ET in an RT43 Corona... (I'm shutting up now before the swap-gods punish me for crossbreeding species-al taboos!)

I've found my photos and damned if it's not an open-chamber N47 with flat-tops in there... DAMN! Taken in 2000 "How to Change the Head In-Car" Step 1) Have a Head and a Car Step 2) Have a clean block surface. Step 3) Install Head onto Block. Step 4) Tighten and Test, and Inspect. Yes, that is actually how it came out and went in, BTW... And remember my 8 year old was taking the photos so there was a lot of 'freeze' and 'reshoot' time involved as he learned to work the camera and to 'direct' me on the best pose to have for the moment... Closer shot of the rattle-prone head: This should probably be a 'Sticky' for the FAQ section for when someone asks how to replace a head. It would be most instructful in that regard...

"However I feel some youth discrimination going on." Again, see previous quotation! Not in the least bit, but at your age that is the perception. Simple fact is you haven't see it or done it yet. You can't, you haven't had the time. Your response is typical of western (back to the Ancient Greeks) civilization which promotes youth over experience. In the end most of the time experience wins out simply because the aged know what it was like to be young and can manipulate them easier. "This generation has more millionaires under 30 than ever before. Why?" Decreased infant mortality! More millionaires are happening in Shanghai than in the USA...daily. It's a matter of volume, little else other than being in a transformational stage of the economy. The last time this type of economy happened was when Carnagie and those cats made their millions. Industrial Revolution / Informational Revolution, same sort of huge opportunities exist and likely they will be had by those with enough time to exploit them. If you are readily 'making due' with your current status quo, there is little incentive to go out and conquer the world. That's just human nature. It's not endemic to youth---when you see the desparation in some other countries, you realize older people make the millions as they have the incentive and in that situation the experience to exploit their opportunities. What you have missed in your 'frequent travels to Asia' is that you aren't a proven commodity. It's not that later 'the old guys want in' they see you are PROVEN and then respect you. The issue is more times than not, youth makes terrible mistakes and in their exuberance will not temper their course. If you succeed, great. But if you fail with someone elses' money---who takes the beating? The old guys. What you have experienced firsthand is that competence and proven ability to produce is what matters in Asia. Your youth and cultural dissimilarity had you miss this intitially. Had you come to them proven, they would have 'wanted in' as you say it... but going to them with nothing more than a concept or idea? With nothing backing you other than words? Good Luck! The funny thing is what you state...is well known by the time your 40. To you it's new. And to anybody you talk with likely it will be new. Which is why I said talking to someone in their 20's will likely reveal nothing more than what you already deduced on your own---and gives you a narrow perspective on the situation. Thank you for validating my original point! Now, what was that I said in my opening paragraph of this post?

"I wish I could be there but I'm working." I guess that's a dig to inspire Rob to get a gig, eh? "Wish I could be there Rob, pal, but man I got a job..." I'm halfway around the world, I got a sponsored ticket and can't use it...

Having worked abroad for some time, I agree 1,000% with the following statements: "A kid with the equivalent of a high-school diploma in Europe or Asia is 2-3 years ahead academically relative to his typical American counterpart. College, especially in engineering and the physical sciences, has to make up the gap. So our universities in America really have to pour the knowledge through a fire-hose, to get the students to a globally-competitive level. Actually, even a B.S.E. degree does not offer parity – that’s only achieved in grad school. Advance Josh’s situation by 4 years, and something similar happens: American grad students struggle in the first year of grad school, while students with academic degrees from Europe who study for their engineering Ph.D. in America just breeze through the first-year classes of grad school. But to be fair, in many countries an engineering degree takes 5 or 6 years; 4-year college is an American invention, and the engineering community perennially debates whether our engineering undergraduate curriculum should not, in fact, be extended to a full 5 years." I have worked with 19 year olds in their third year apprenticeship in the UK that have more theoretical understanding, and practical hands-on skills than the entire staff of field service representatives of a major company I worked with in the USA. AT that company if I'd let them know I was engineering capable, I would never have been hired because I would be 'overqualified'...as if an engineering background somehow disqualifies you from hands-on work in the USA! It's one of the reasons I am where I am: SoCal. I handle the Asia-Pacific Region for engineering technical support and training. If I could do it for Europe it would be similar. I have a real problem with the anti-engineering cultural bias and prejudice I see rampant in the USA, and the almost phobic disassociation between Engineering Programs here, and the hands-on application of theory ("A degreed Engineer as a mechanic? What a waste!"---sadly this seems to be the reality in the USA, that if you are hands-on you are merely a 'mechanic', and consequently the plethora of schools now teaching what used to be 'mechanics' courses are upping their status to 'Technician' when in many cases it's merely parts-replacing to formula that is called for in most places these days.) I am content teaching guys with Masters Degrees in International Finance how to inspect reed valves on a 3.5Kw compressor as they have no illusions about their technical prowess, they realize practical and academic are two different starting points and advancement in one does not necessarily entitle you to leapfrog to the top of the heap in another. I could get into my interview experience with recent graduates and their responses to my standard question: "So, what can you do?" but that would be a different thread altogether!

I'm going to dig up some old Sony Mavica photos I have of when I pulled the N47 head off my 260Z. This this will not run on premium unleaded (California) without ping-fest at midrange RPMS and at partial throttle. I don't recall if it was open or closed chamber, and I do know that with enough octane it goes away, but that seems to be in the 95 range if ratios of mix are correct. I did the head gasket in 1999 or 2000. When they go to oxygenated gas during the winter here, and we get a 70+ degree day the car is almost undriveable with premium and additives must be used to keep it rattle free. Terrible combination, and stock distributor/curve shouldn't do this---I assumed it was a lower-compression L28 N47 but this talk has convinced me to dig in my archive to see what we have in there... I may be putting the E88 stocker, or another stock L26 head on there to rectify this issue. Annoying to say the least. I couldn't imagine what it would do with another 200cc's of compression to deal with (mine is cranking at 150psig on all six, totally different than my L28 with 185 psi and not a rattle/ping/knock to be heard at any time!)

Yep, given the availablity of Holley or Rochester jets, a custom milled application would be already available to screw right in! Externally though, with the double plug external feed line, the head gasket will never weep oil there ever again...regardless of pressures encountered! A 10mm Keen Sert is close to that size, and has nice coarse threads to make removal/refreshing easier...

China, yes. Hoses, no. The small restrictor orifice in the head currently can be blocked (as shown in BRAAP's post, but that gives me another recollection...) and redrilled, but using an internally hex-headed screw of brass. This is common in some applications. What Braap's post reminded me of was the old 2300CC Vegas. They had an issue where the oil gallery would crack. In that case you sleeved the galleys, plugged the head and block where the oiling gallery was, and then drilled into the galleries externally, connecting the head to the block with a loop of copper tubing. This eliminated the massive oil leak that would occur there. It would also stop the leak at the same juncture on the Nissans. On the Vega, if this cracked you rarely saw it when the engine was cold, but wondered where the hell all the oil came from (or why there was none in the sump and your engine seized...) I don't know how many of these mods I did 79-84 while working in a machine shop... VERY common for people rebuilding the all aluminum engine (during the last time gas prices doubled in 3 months...) What is shown in Braap's post is actually a different way to make a threaded insert. Personally in that instance a nice Keen-Sert or Rosanne Insert would have worked for me. I don't know that I would have 'manufactured' one! But the process is similar---since you use a straight threaded (or flush-seal) plug, no need for machining flush, and you can do all your drilling to the threaded insert off the block. All you really need to do is tap the hole where the restrictor was... This also makes it a 'reversible' modification. You can always pull the head and replace the restrictor with a smaller/larger size. If you plug both the head and the block, you can put the restrictor in the external feed line and change it at will (like you were doing developmental work and wanted to see the effects of oil flow on an engine dyno between various oil restriction hole sizes...while comparing what it did to main bearing/rod bearing/turbocharge oil feed pressures.) For instance, that's all...

Yeah, oil operational temperature is 180 degrees, I would not consider that block heater to have warmed the oil to operating temperature...better than ambient, but not by much! Usually with the convection water heaters, they will heat the radiator as well. In a cool, closed shed, the block heater will warm the shed noticably when you compare it to the outside ambient if it's been operating long enough! (I use a 1500Watt electric heater to keep 1200 gallons of water from freezing in the Michigan winters in a -20 environment, and it hasn't let me down in four years running!) With the stick-on heater the oil will be near 180, but the water in the radiator much less than 160.

Didn't have time to wiki this stuff, but my only response to that line when I saw it was: "E49?" Now some may need a Wiki to figure that one out, but likely not Nigel... Quote from Tony D referring to his first encounter with an E49: "Wow, if they sold THESE in the USA when I was a kid, I just may have considered buying AMERICAN!" (With the obvious current GTO/"American" quandary! )

Threading that hole in the top of the block, then installing with green locktite a brass internally-hex-headed setscrew with the appropriate orifice in it makes removing it at a later date for inspection and cleaning both easy and cheap. In either case, this is usually done with the block out in conjunction with all the other work being done on the engine. I don't see a way to remove the orifice currently in the block that will creats LESS chips than simply drilling the orifice with a grease-packed drill bit as it currently sits. Neat idea with the setscrew, eh? Won't find that in any book-therefore it's 'hear-say' and subject to internet debate because I'm not giving my sources or providing a link. You can take it as it stands.

The long pipe issue is a bit overblown IMO, the piping is maybe 36" longer than need be, and given it's HOT iar that is in that section of piping it boosts intercooler efficiency. The biggest issue is non-mandrel bends on the piece going behind the engine---I could think of several items on the list that I would attend to before monkeying with a functional part like that! (A.K.A. getting the engine running...) At most, reclock the turbo to shoot 'down' and run the pipe you have under the back of the oil sump and up the other side...and then that's more cosmetics than practical change. It's a turbo, run 0.50psi more boost and the 'piping loss' is compensated for, it's not an F1 engine, it's an L-Engine on the street and not anywhere near the full potential of the engine where that kind of pressure drop would be anything near a 'practical' advantage or disavantage. Megasquirt: Bone Stock the increased drivability ALONE should justify the swap over anything else done to the car...if you are looking at an ECU or any appreciable costs to repair what you have...do the diagnostics and violate the 'always start with a running car' rule of the MS and just start from scratch. Really all you need is a CAS that works on your engine, and your MS will work from there with non-Nissan parts as (cheaper) replacements. Other than that, I'm in the "C-Camp"...

Porsche now does NOT put in 'break in oil' -- they start straight with Mobil 1 Synthetic, and advise customers that they will 'consume' oil and it's normal. This goes back to my engineering analysis of costs of wear versus costs of oil. You can buy a LOT of oil for the cost of an engine overhaul. If the rings are seated, even with Synthetic (you CAN do that with proper metallurgy or bore finish!) then sure, you don't have a 'perfect' seal, but your engine keeps on sealing progressively over a longer period of time. BMW's are known to seal better and make their most power after 30K miles! The old paradigm of 'scrape and seat' really is starting to be rethought, because the engines CAN last FAR longer if they don't undergo a lot of torturous break-in and simply let stuff slip and slide and seat gradually over tens of thousands of miles instead of a couple hundred. The 'loss' over the first 30K miles from 'marginally seating' pistons and rings is likely far less than thought previously (especially with modern machining techniques), and the cost of the increased wear rate simply isn't seen as paying off now. Effect: Engines that last even longer, and which move all normal maintenance intervals back another 30 or 50K miles! Much of this is driven by emissions requirements which are calling for a sealed engine for all practical intent, and something that lasts for 10 years 100K miles without requiring any maintenance. Not necessarily a bad thing... No stuff in the oil any more to poison the catalyst, so why not let it pump a bit of oil? Won't hurt the catalyst---whereas it would before. Pump a little more oil, use 30 quarts more in 30K miles, for what $90 cost, or even $180 cost...at the payback of having 30 to 50K more useable miles on the end of the engine's lifetime because of decreased ring and liner wear? Someone is in a back room crunching numbers, and it's going to intimidate a lot of people with entrenched paradigms in their mind about 'proper maintenance procedures'!

On the way to China, eh? Where? I'm packing now, and will be on the plane to Shanghai in about 6 hours. Hit the ground at PuDong at 2100 the 16th (Tuesday Night)...

Spoken like a guy who's 20! Perhaps (just some advice here) the 'details that are important when you are younger' are forgotten for a reason: They aren't important. That's the kind of thing you won't know for another 20 years. And if you think this job market is something new...think again, only this year did it surpass some statistical mileposts from the early 80's recession. Guys graduating then in some parts of the country looked at 33% unemployment in the local markets. Curiously those places are in about the same situation again this time 'round. This all goes in cycles, the longer you live the more cycles you see. The younger you are the terrible climate is always the worst it has ever been. Until the next time it happens (and trust me, IT WILL HAPPEN!!!) By the time you have been through several bad ones, it's not really a big deal. 73, 80, 96, 2002, 2006 MEH! Another will be along soon enough. Be open to the thought that someone may have lived through it before. If they lived through it, you can too. BTW, the comment about 'things that are important' is exactly what I was referring to as 'not getting a really different view' -- talk to another 20 year old and you get absolutely no perspective because you are both working from the same frame of reference. 30 was mentioned simply as 'pick a number' kind of reference point. In some Asian Cultures, you won't get any responsibility in a business environment until you are in your 50's and really won't make decisions about anything of substance till you're 60. And then you retire and the next wave of old guys comes in... There's a logic to this, business climate quirks won't upset an older guy like they will a younger one. "Steady as she goes" is usually pretty good in the business world when making decisions---especially long-term ones! You want an example of what happens when 20 year olds run anything, take a look at the Cultural Revolution in China, the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia, etc... Lots of things 'get done' short-term but the long-term consequences of that intensity carrys on FAR longer then they ever could conceive! Find old dudes to talk with... I sought out guys far older than me. I got stories of the 'great depression' that gave me perspective on the 73 and 80's recessions. The people who had REAL problems were the guys who were born in the 40's and watched their parents work through masssive expansion of the US Economy, expecting to have the full employment their fathers, and grandfathers had (though gramps usually remembered the depression, he rarely talked about it!) They had a lot of expectations, and nobody around them had seen a serious recession for over 40 years. The gaps between them get less, if you don't remember the 90's you weren't looking!

" if a brainy dude gets the computer then ruhroh" Brainy dudes don't buy broken laptops. People selling broken laptops don't have anything worth stealing if you DID find anything on their trash. Seriously, you must really be a snoop when you get the opportunity---this level of paranoia has got to stem from something you do. I would never think of this. A broken laptop can be had here for parts cost, maybe... FAR too many hot laptops that FUNCTION FLAWLESSLY and are reformatted and unlocked for $2-300 that the ONLY reason anybody buys a busted one around here is to salvage a screen or keyboard, or something like that. I bought a laptop without a hard drive once...it was $50. Bought it for my son, the hard drive was more than I paid for the laptop!

That 250 is possible with the STOCK turbo! The Eurospec Turbos were 200bhp and had no Catalyst, EGR, Pneumatic Conventional Distributor, and a 0.82 A/R Hot Side. That was at the stock 5psi boost. So 250 is child's play. 300? Stock internals, maybe a hybrid for efficencies sake, an intercooler and standalone like Megasquirt for proper fuel control. If you're not looking for 400+ right now, you need look no further than the GT30...if that as it likely will flow more than your engine can at some places in the RPM range. DEFINATELY not any 40-series GT! Absolutely, positively TOO BIG, period! No need for ANYTHING near that big. No way, no how.

You are misinformed. It has crumple zones---anybody with collision experience will attest to that. I personally have witnessed a 280Z at 70mph punt a late model Dodge Neon about 100 feet off course and be back driving the next morning (Neon was crushed to the point of unuseability!) If anybody says the Z doesn't have a crumple zone, they haven't done a 5mph run into a concrete pole and saw how they crumple! It takes a lot of EXTREME driving to do THIS: The culpable party is standing proudly by his carnage... That car had a roll hoop as safety equipment. A freakin' single hoop over the driver and navigator's head. No cage, no tubular frame... Looks damn durable for what it went through!

The Opel GT is MADE for a KA24 or SR20 Swap, not an L6. Mantissan Swap Yeah, I got an Opel GT in the back, and that KA swap looks more daily driver useable than hacking in an L6! You want one that I saw personally and which looked factory was a 1963 Ford Falcon Ranchero. Five Speed and all! Admittedly this is a modified version of the venerable 144 CID (Yes, 2400CC!!!) OEM Six in the Falcon, so you can see the L28 is an OBVIOUS swap---though the bits are 'wrongside oriented' Sotck Is Stock:

Apparently Great Minds Think Alike! Like I said, the block heater won't 'necessarily' warm the oil. At least it didn't on the BBC 454! The little flat oil heater though did. They are wired together in a junction box, and the plug is hard-attached in the grille like the factory Arctic Package...just plug in my extension cord with no worries of torrential rains as it's recessed behind the grille and hood drip line.

Uuuuuuh, no. Using ND30 or whatever DOES NOT hold the particulates in suspension to 'grind away at the cylinders/rings' it lets the particulates FROM initial wear between the cylinders/rings FALL OUT of suspension and go to the bottom of the crankcase or into the oil tank where they will be cleaned out before switching to a Detergent-Type oil which DOES hold particulates in suspension---small microscopic things like blowby carbon and etc... this keeps them from being deposited long-term over the internals in what is termed 'sludge'... I'd take issue with ND being in there for 500 hours as well, as that is a major inspection interval...my recollection was 5 or 25 hours or something along that line, but not till the first inspection interval! The reason they have oil heaters (similar to what I posted) is to keep the oil at working viscosity so it does it's job properly right out the shoot. Start and engine at -20 and put a load on it before it's at operating temperature and you will learn what they mean by 'bearing frosting'... Higher Speed Engines (turbines) must have this preheater or do an extended 'slow roll' to get parts up to speed without load till the oil is warmed to keep from frosting the bearings as well. Having things at 'operating' temperature is a good thing, if tolerances are tight, you will know it instead of 5 minutes into an idling session. Which brings us to specific cam break-in conditions...I hate starting an engine and running to 2000rpms immediately and then breaking in the cam when the engine is stone cold. I have ALWAYS felt more comfortable having the fluids preheated with the above devices when I have a cam that calls for a 'hot' tempering requirement.