Tony D

What kind of efficiency was that guy getting? 14mph? The Widowmaker was running bogs at well over that speed with VW Power! He must have some hellacious leakage on that hydrostatic drive setup if an L28 won't power it.... especially with it's steady-state ability at higher revs!

Back in the 80's there was a guy running the competitive mudbog drag circuit with a black VW Powered AWD car called "The Widowmaker"... The rest of the competitors complained and protested because he thought to use Hydraulics to run motors on the front wheels in conjunction with the conventional transmission out back so he could alter how much power went to the fronts. When he would start bogging from rear drive only, he slid the lever and had the fronts dragging the mudbuggy along. Sanctioning judge had a real succinct answer for the protesters: "You guys are running Blown Hillborn Injected V8's and you are whining because you can't beat a little Beetle-Bug four-banger running some hydro pumps on the front wheels? Give me a break! Get competitive or give it up!"

Buying that, flying to Colorado, and driving it back would have been WAAAAY cheaper than the project sitting in my back yard...

But what of the VIN Number? Are these Chop-Shop Counterfits with the same VIN? I'm sure the feds will be all over this one like the Skylines with falsed-up numbers!

There is a photo of the rear of the engine, showing the turbocharger piping on the dyno like if you were standing to the driver's side 3/4 view. The engine/trans plate is clearly on there, and if I recall, there is a bit down below that you can make out for the 'front' mount. With the engine laid over as much as they did, I'm wondering if it wasn't just a front single prop like a tripod mounting arrangement. I'm near U-Tapao AFB Thailand, and my copy is several days travel away, otherwise I could do a quick browsing and give you page numbers. This isn't much help, but (you can see why a shot on the dyno is more helpful!)...

Funny thing is, I'm about 100 km from where the RPG scene was shot... It's a debate if I try to make a 'weekend trip' for some RPG Action

Having an 'undersized' turbo is not necessarily a bad thing. Having a car that drives like a much larger engined vehicle is not necessarily a bad thing. Methink's he exaggerates the effects or has a brick foot. I could get 17psi at 1700 rpms on my old 73, and with the right tires it wasn't an issue at all, modulation was touchy with ITB's and any appreciable throttle input would put the manifold positive... but that's a driver technique issue. I guess you could blow off turbine gas to keep it out of boost at the lower rpms... but what's the point of that?

About car stuff, or Adult Latex Products?

Cygnus, run me a test at 8psi and show the benefits of an intercooler versus not having one. Then do it at 10psi. Then do it at 12psi. IF YOU DON'T GENERATE THE HEAT, INTERCOOLING (while THEORETICALLY advantageous) IS NOT REQUIRED! Read the above quotes and show me HOW MUCH you GAIN from an intercooler on 8psi. There are MILLIONS of non-intercooled OEM fitment vehicles out there...with 100,000+ mile reliability. Are you saying they are all defective designs? Engineering takes reasoning, not rote memorization of a set of components. Show me any place (even in the much vaunted "Corky Book") where intercooling is mentioned for ANYTHING below 12psi. If you have the flow, don't have the heat, the increase in density in marginal at best. For the bother, a 2 gallon methanol kit can be installed with FAR GREATER advantages for as much as you use boost.(Lets look where the CG of the installed components would be, for instance...) A 2 gallon meth kit on a 10 or 12psi setup (even 15psi) would last two tanks of petrol to one fill of anti-detonant. If filling oil on your oil injected two stroke is not a big deal, filling your water tank isn't either. If I can make 350HP UNINTERCOOLED in 1985, on carburettors.... I'm thinking with the advances in methanol injection and EFI it should be even easier today. 40,000+ miles and I'm still on the original head gasket. Better than I can say for many WITH an intercooler in the same horsepower range... Thinking gains dividends. Following the pack means your view never changes unless you're the leader.

I bet they swapped VIN tags... And ban me for shooting them? I only said .22 because that's all my backyard stop will handle. Rest assured I will properly shoot them when I get a chance to go to the Desert. 7.62X39 and 30 Carbine will be a spectacular end to them. It's my release. Either that, or I reconvert, pick up some RPG's and start doing long-range moving vehicle hits in ungodly hot places again. 7.62X39 is a damnsite cheaper. Ever price an RPG and fullsize car these days?

How to modify has some shots in B&W, look again!

No, 55mm Webers are suitable for use on L28's, depending on what you are doing. Arguably and dyno proven they will give power under the curve. But this is a relatively mild street engine and 40 or 45's will be fine. You simply won't get power above 7500 with 45's, and if you are operating in that area, it becomes a very hard decision to go with 48(7), 50 or 55's as they take an entirely different manifold due to the massive port sizing. Or, you can go with 45mm ITB's and pick up RPM range and horsepower over the 45mm Webers you formerly ran. 45mm ITB's will run power levels unheard of in anything but 50mm or larger Carbs. But in ITB's you don't need vacuum to make the petrol flow. So pumping losses are reduced, and power levels rise. We made 20HP more at 7500 rpms on 45mm ITB's compared with 45mm DCOE's. We also had a continued rising power point to 8250rpms (where it was making 40+hp more!) using 45mm ITB's over 45mm DCOES. All on the same head, same manifold (match-ported to the head) and same cam. The cost of 50mm Mikuinis and a new manifold (or gowd forbid the 55 mm DCOE Weber Monsters) was compatible with the E-Motive TEC2 at the time, so we went EFI since our racing class did not disalow EFI for cars that came with EFI from the factory (woo hoo 280Z!) For the street in the USA, 45DCOEs are more than enough. If you are serious about power and can give up the lower end of the rpm band...then go bigger. But in this case, 45's are more than enough. And likely the 40's will work fine, if not be a little restrictive in the useable RPM range of the engine package.

You can search on this, but gross valve lift permissible on stock springs will be in the 0.470" range before you hit coil bind. If the 272 degree range you mentioned was at 0.050" lift, congratulations, you bought a cam larger than what holds 17 world land speed records at El Mirage, Bonneville, and Muroc... If that gives you any indication on how 'large' of a cam you got! If you have stock cast pistons, you are going to be restricted to 6500-7000 rpms for longevity, meaning no durations over 240 at .050" (or 272 GROSS DURATION). Yes, a 272 cam GROSS is relatively mild, and with a 460" lift would be good for what you have. But 272 at 0.050" VALVE lift is more like 290 or 300 degrees GROSS duration. This is all in the archives, take some time to search and you will be O.K. That cam with 0.579" valve lift is designed for operation and rpms above 7000, and is unsuited to the piston configuration you stated. Hope you got a good price on it! Actually Gude's shop is about 20 minutes from my house. It's one of the places I can actually ride the bus to visit! LOL ($2!) Aren't I green and clean using public transportation...to pick up my big lopey cams? <EDIT> so glad this posted, my internet shut off and I wasn't sure it went....

Thinking on this and seeing your signature...where did you buy your Fairlady? Up in Jackson from someone named "Steve" by any chance?

Argh, please edit the previous comment about 'thinking' SU's didn't have spacers! For god's sake IF YOU DON'T KNOW DON'T GUESS! They DO have spacers, ALL of them do. Some are thin, later ones are thicker. It's the reason there are different linkages on 73/74 cars than on earlier cars. I run TWO (per carb) of the thick spacers on my 260 with EGR studs as the carb attachment method. I used a throttle pedal 'through the firewall' linkage as my downlink as it's adjustable so I can set it properly for over-center prevention. This setup gives a dyno-proven bump in torque. There are two spacers, thin and thick. 8-10mm or 15-17mm thick dependent on year and carb style. They are the relatively the same dimensions if you aren't running manifold water. If you are, then you need the right spacer for your manifold/carburettor combination to allow for sealing of the water passages. If you install them on the manifold, beware of the linkage angles, and of the heat transfer that will be happening. They all should still be available from MSA. I've re-used them after shaving off the old torn integral gaskets and replacing them with standard grey gasket material from someplace like Kragen...etc...

even if you had LEDs front and back, one ceramic ressistor plced across the contacts where you have space would allow the cheap thermal relay flasher to work. I've replaced thermal element flashers in all my cars years ago, as I like the ability to 'change the flash rate' of the electronic flasher relay. Bimetallic Flashers....uhg! I may as well ride a horse to work! On a stinging bit of irony, I was eating dinner two nights ago in BanChang Thailand, and a FREAKIN' ELEPHANT was being 'driven' on the street. They actually had a small red LED light wired on his tail. I sat there and though "So that's what they mean by a TAIL LIGHT!" Even in the sticks, they use LED's on their Elephants. No reason not to keep your Z firmly rooted in the 1800's with incandescents!

I converted all my cars, so this would be a pointless discussion in my case...

This is the "Retrotek Speed" unit with the Pulsewidth Modulated Fuel Pump (so you don't need a return line?). They are great! I've told some people about them after talking with the guys that made them in Corona CA. They are 'niche marketed' to several different places with custom 'dashboards'... It was one of the first EFI systems I came across with OEM-Style long and short-term fueling compensation (learning ECU). This allows the mapping to be a matter of driving it, like you said, with the ability to save the last configuration as the new map. As you mention, the closer you are to optimum, the faster it will make minuet adjustments. Eventually, you have a complete fueling map for 'sensor failure' mode and will be able to drive home without really feeling like there has been a change in the system. Great package. The reason you don't hear about them is because they are marketed under SEVERAL different names in SEVERAL different markets. BOSS EFI is one system and sold to retro-rodders who have triple strombergs on the car... you can never tell it's EFI the way they ahve it set up. Claude's Buggies sells the SAME EFI CONTROLLER called something else for their VW-Niche Marketed crowd. There is a LOT of press on this system, but you have to be on top of it to find out about it. It is not a 'drag racing 100% balls out' setup. It is an EFI system meant to be bolted on to an existing hot rod by someone who knows NOTHING about EFI, doesn't have, nor want to install a return line, and is under 500HP. Bolt it on, drive it aroudn in 'self tune' mode, and become amazed. You could use it for racing, but it's not focused on that. It's focused on OEM-like drivability using self-learning tuning. It's the wave of the future. There is a shop in LaHabra that packages this ECU as their own product, and they are big in the water-cooled VW market for racing, as well as doing other Euro-Trash cars with the system. High-End performance for the street. But you won't hear it called Retrotek there, either... It's like Redline Performance EFI and who actually makes their setup...

I have a vast repository of useless and arcane knowledge when it comes to doing stuff with other stuff not meant to be used that way. You should see what I can do with Adult Latex Products and some general hardware store supplies...

If the guy has too much boost at low rpms, he doesn't have proper boost control OR wastegate control.

Costs for even prototyping were more than most people have in their cars. My backyard foundry is not something I can get into at this point, so we won't be cutting up our Euro Manifolds or making any in Stainless Steel. If you want one, you will have to get one from Europe, same as the rest of us!

What is expensive about injector bungs and a piece of extrusion for a plenum? Guys make this a lot harder than it needs to be. Triple manifold was used on the basis of many EFI cars back in the day and to this day.

E-Motive had back motor plate, and solid front tilted at an insane angle to the right side of the car.

One other thing to mention is I have discussed the use of a PID Loop Controlled Blowoff on the intake piping of ANY supercharger (mainly turbocharger) system to allow for no-boost lost shifts and anti-surge control on turbos where the compressor is sized for a maximum horsepower level, but will surge at lower engine speeds. The answer is to keep the minimum stable flow across the turbo compressor at all times. This separates hot-side wastegate control into something more closely related to maintaining a set turbine speed for maximum efficiency, and then blowing off excess pressure to remain at stable flow rates and aways from the surge line. The PID loop could have tie-ins with the TPS for rate of change and active closure (sort of a derivative action) to premptively close off the overboard dump in anticupation of rising engine demand as the reciprocating portion of the engine comes on to peack efficiecny levels and demands all the flow the turbo is capable of producing. It's in the archives...

Tightening the clearances on any industrial blower will allow you to make pressure. The standard Toro Leaf Blower when run with adequate tip clearances in the 0.015-0.020" range will boost a 3 liter engine to 5-10psi at speeds acheivable through simple flat-belt speed multiplication. The original blower fan is plastic, but order the replacement unit and it's magnesium. Easily run on greased or oil filled pillow block bearings to the required speeds off the crankshaft. "Gator Superchargers" Put two on the 5.0 and you're set. I am not joking.