Tony D

I have to ask...how does that gasket go on but any way BUT the correct way? It's non-reversible. You can not swap it end for end, you can not invert it. By design it can only go one way. How would you propose to put it any other way that the way it currently goes on with the thermostat at the front, unless you swapped it to the other side of the head with mirror-image ports???

Gee what's that then...8.2:1 on a flat top L28 bore and 9.2:1 with a 3.0? Given they run 10:1 on high boost engines with this chamber design....gee either sounds just bolt-on perfect for a turbo application. Wonder how that ever happened?

"PETROLBURNER" "ANTIPRIUS"

Do you find this happens when you have a completely full tank of gas?

Do not bore ANYTHING. The power is in the head, cam, and turbo.

Car Boy L-Engine Shootout 1989 has a slew of times, I think they did it one more year before being overwhelmed with RB Fever as the first skyline GTR's were coming off the first three year inspections that next year...

I like that "Nissan" ... With "Nissan" and "2800" is wouldn't draw any untoward eyes... Though that may not be what some in this crowd are after...

I was going to say "wet plugs" - change the set. If the floats weren't set right or stuck, or the starter ststem was on and you flooded...this can happen. On EFI cars it floods from extended cranking and the cold start valve over fueling....or the Coolant Temp Sensor coming unhooked...

On the North American Market cars, there was both a VIN and ENGINE number related to the vehicle. Look at the ID Plate on your right strut tower, you should find a VIN (HLS30-XXXXXX) as well as an ENGINE Serial Number (L24-XXXXXX) The VIN should match the one on the firewall near the brake booster, the tag in the driver's door, and the dashboard tag. The ENGINE serial number is only on the engine bay tag, and the pads you mentioned in the engine. In 77 or 78 they stopped the serialized listing of the engine on that plate, stating just "L28" so there is no real way to certify a "Numbers Matching 1978 Black Pearl without the original documentation (copy of Nissan MSO) or other archival documents. With the advent of reproduction plates...it makes chicanery in this region easier.

If nothing else, posting a screen shot of the pages relating to fueling, constants, timing, etc makes it easy for people to visualize and interpolate to their setup. Great to just upload a file, but it's nice to see the charts for cross-platform usage as well (different system other than MS or version incompatibility with .msq file.)

Yep hot spots, same as you get on clutch surface of the flywheel. Cooling vanes may be thinner and heat up faster than the thick "web" between them. Are you using your parachute to scrub speed? Is there a limited shutdown area that requires hard braking? We would hit the chute and then start braking once below 100... Sometimes waiting until a tailwind dumped the chute behind us.

Well Curtball, we all anxiously wait to see your build thread. Admittedly midgets can have very aggressive shop tops, those of us 5' 9" or taller have practical limitations to how much you can chop a top.

They're about $500 MSRP for the kit, with headliner, and shipping. http://www.slidingragtops.com/21.html

NASCAR bearings and a split tower frees you from the lift limits of the fixed cam bearing diameter on the L-Engine as well...

The ITMs are not forged, they are the sacrificial parts you are using to tune the engine. Any money spent outside Pistons and head gaskets is wasted. It will blow until it's tuned right. Having a turbo cam that peaks power around 8,300 rpms calls for forged parts. Cam it so it peaks at 6,500 and you can likely stick with cast. USE AN ELECTRIC EAR TO LISTEN FOR DETONATION. If you don't attend to cooling on a 300+ HP Nissan it WILL detonate to death...Turbo or N/A, how soon is a matter of degrees.

You are running EXACTLY the format I tell people they will go through: two head gaskets...and then on the third the ring lands are probably gone. A set of ITM Turbo Pistons and another head gasket...repeat until tuned properly. How much this costs is ENTIRELY dependent on your ability to learn a proper tuning methodology and make logical, progressive steps in tuning. I go like this: run the junkyard engine until the head gasket blows, at the point when the ring lands sink, replace with ITM, and put in your ARP fasteners on the head and rods. From that point it's pretty easy to go two head gaskets every third head gasket... The gaskets usually blow on the intake/exhaust side... After JeffP sunk two sets of rings on his Rebello Bottom End at a cost of $3,000 each time he saw the logic of $200 OTM Pistons and Fel Pro head gaskets. The MLS Gasket he had in there didn't blow....the Pistons just broke. After swapping to a junkyard bottom end, he went through six head gaskets, and two sets of Pistons getting his system tuned to 475Hp at 17psi and 7,400 Rpms... At this point the map below that point is rock solid. No detonation. Fueling timing and spark is optimized with his higher-flow turbo, and now he's going to listen again and on his first pass make an 8 psi run until power peak of the cam is verified, then CALCULATE airflow and fuel requirements to then get a rough idea on pulse widths and if his turbo will make enough air for that power peak. What he is quickly realizing is with a high flow turbo and cam you don't have to pump the bejezeezus out of it with a Troglodyte Corky Bell Maximum Boost build...but can keep it below 20 psi and everything is MUCH easier. What confounds him most is he had surpassed the 450 Flywheel HP he had before at 25psi boost, running under 17psi now....with less spark issues, and much more "fun" powerband and on a STOCK BOTTOM END!!! I mean he had forged Pistons, Carillo Rods, VO7 stroker crank and 3.0 liters...and now it's a bone stock L28ET bottom end making more horsepower. External Bolt-On components. It's kind of crazy to sacrifice parts...but sacrificing to the God of Speed is best done with relatively low cost parts. It hurst less losing a set of Pistons for 375HP or 475HP and being out $300, than doing EXACTLY the same thing and having it cost you 10X as much! This is not MY suggestion. 20 years ago Steve "Stealth" Webb and I were talking at the ZCON in Albuquerque NM...and he had blown his "good engine" three days earlier. He had put a bone stock L28ET with hydraulic lifters and 160,000 miles in with his externals...and just for the hell of it they threw it on the Dyno. 460HP....admittedly down from his good engine around 10%, but he said "if I was doing it again, or if anybody asked me I would tell them to just keep that stock bottom end. Rebuild or replace it for $200 when it blows, and get your tuning right on your setup BEFORE you spend the money on a forged bottom end. By the time you're ready for that forged bottom end, you will have made at least one core for that build...you will have learned to tune the right way so the few adjustments you will need to make on your expensive build you can do without blowing it up." Watching guys in the 20 years since has reinforced his words toooo many times to count. Save your money. Blow up a few more stock engines and get your system tuned and stable. Then build your durability engine. But again...if you cam it right, and port it right and get the tuning right...you might be waiting a long time until it blows to give you the justification to build the stroker!

As a citizen of the State of California KTM inventories ALL his eBay transactions bought from out of state, and then declares them at Year End on his taxes enclosing 8% or whatever State of California taxes on the total sum as required by law... Even if they are "gifts"!

7.4 CR is OK, sixes are far too low. I have a junkyard engine making 350HP more or less since 1985. It's not the interior parts of the engine that is your problem. It's your inability to properly control spark, fuel, and cooling that is causing your problems. If you proceed, all you will do is repeat the blowup and cost yourself another build. My suggestion is to get ONE MORE junkyard block, a couple of head gaskets, and start on fueling and spark in earnest. Get that RIGHT before this 'expensive' build. Until you are above 400HP, the stock L28ET components are still 100,000+ mile parts. Get fueling, spark, and cooling correct on your junkyard engine...and like me you will be waiting, 30 years to 'blow it up' to justify buying those expensive components! After Fueling, Spark, and Cooling.....Head Work and Cam is the next step. That will get you to 450 on the stock bottom end and until you tune that setup to reliably run there's no point in going to the forged components to get that last 1,500 rpms on the top end (7,000 to 8,500 rpms) to make really big power. Then again, 475 hp under 20psi is where you should be by that point... Exactly what ARE your horsepower goals? the 440CC injectors kind of limit you into that 400-500 HP range with the shotgun list of stuff you mentioned ... The stock rods are already forged.

BTU's is BTU's. The basics on the subject are so misunderstood and myths abounding with drain dead anecdotes it's insurmountable IMO. Guys overheat with the stock system in a stock car, start shot gunning and deriving wild solutions to problems that never were the root cause to begin with!

Looks good, I got a radiator crossmember similarly disfigured...

Haters will be quick to point out that Jpanese Tracks like that are only 400m long-8' shy of a rel honest to goodness 1320'... 11.80 is nice for a full bodied car with full interior. I wish time permitted me scanning the Ancient 1989 Carboy L-Engine Shootout Issue.

9.51 through the lights hard on the skids and sideways...totally owning the Mustang in my book! Looks impressive to me. What was the point of posting that first one again? I don't live in Pittsburgh, I just get paid from there. Nothing has changed since last year.

153624 advanced timing, crossed wires will do that. Along with hydro locking which exacerbates it!

Most of those are terribly mismatched turbo setups as well. Many here aren't making boost on their L-Series until 4,000, 4,500 under some misconception that smaller hot side A/R's will "restrict the top end" when in fact they give you boost sooner, FAR more power "under the curve", and greater drivability. What is really needed is an understanding that conventional boost control schemes are 50's technology, 60's at best. In the 80's there was a device called "the turbo group fueler" which utilized the smaller A/R to run double boost at lower rpms, and taper it back as rpms rose. This was on the premise that sufficient fueling existed for maximum horsepower in the stock setup for top RPM use...but because no flow was generated down low, that excess fueling capability was wasted. The device utilized it. Using a suitably sized A/R and staged wastegate a control scheme whereby 17psi runs at 1,700 rpms...and tapers or maintains to redline. You can do it in an L-Series...you can do it on this. It would be such a waste to see strictly conventional "stuck in the box thinking" limit the power curve on the motor. Power comes from flow, and this head has it. Pump it up and watch the torque bump up from 1,700/2,000 to where the dual valves start shining in a N/A revving application. Then again, running 4.44 or 4.62 gears isn't going to kill anything. The little A12's ran 4,000-4,400 rpms at freeway speeds and lasted forever as well. High Nickel Blocks were used for a reason!

Brady is noticing the things I did... Yeah they peak "high" when set up that way...but it's all in cams. A stock Datsun Crank is well within its capability at 8,500 rpms easily...if you set it up that way. You can rev the hell out of it and make interesting power. Or, you can put a mild boost to it with the flow it produces and have an engine that has stump pulling torque at 2,500, which pulls to a massive horsepower peak using less than 12psi at 8,500.... Acts for all intents and purposes just like a very large N/A that revs to 8,500... A head flowing 220CFM on the inlet with a cam that maximizes that flow for turbo applications will come on at 3,500 just like the stocker N/A, yet pull like a freight train past 8,000 at 12-15 psi and make well over 600HP This head will flow more than that...