Tony D

That piece is a 'buy it new and don't think about it again' The time it will take you to clean and repair it properly will exceed the cost of a new one! They're under $100. Probably closer to $50. Last one I bought was $45, so figuring it went up in the last year or so...

Just got around to seeing this again... Looks like a JDM piece for either an S30 or Early Skyline. Neither would have the clearance issues with the Brake Valves shown in the photos, and the Box and Kenmary Skylines had slightly more room in the fenderwells than either the S30 or S130. Sucks about the outcome. Maybe next time. Now you guys see why I love my Fairlady Z so much!

Ohhh! Scotty and Chekov revealed that to us earthlings to save the whales in one of the Star Trek Movies!

It was always fun to get stuck behind the corpse truck leaving the Dairy Farms on their way to "Render Row" near downtown L.A. as well... Full 40 foot container full of gore, the 'daily haul' from the Dairy Farms out near Riverside. Which answers the question 'why would anybody think of moving a dead cow with a tractor bucket'... To which the obvious answer is: Because if you stick a rope around it's neck and attach it to the hitch, you don't move the whole cow nearly as efficiently... LOL "Been there, done that!" What was that Nissan or Toyota Ute ad with the cow stuck in the mud? "Oh bugger!" LOL

Mine that are driven regularly are "pleasure use" and are ridiculously cheap to insure. The 'sit in the yard' ones are under 'classic car storage' meaning no miles, but if a tree limb drops on them I get a payout. I have 12 cars under that coverage for $200 a year. Formerly I had a rider on my homeowners insurace that covered automobiles not registered, but stored on the property. My storage is through my homeowners policy, how they ended up wit hthe 'classic car storage' terminology as opposed to what I had before is a mystery for me. I think the 'parts cars' were all valued as "Condition 7" 240Z's from the Old Cars Price Guide, something like $2500 a piece. AAA would not insure anything I had that wasn't registered or didn't have plates on it. Became an issue when CA linked insurance and registration and started suspending registration when the car was not insured. For a car that hadn't driven ANY miles in 10+ years, we just paid the $29 annual fees without thinking, then got a notice it was 'suspended' but then couldn't 'PNO' it because it was suspended... Catch 22... I ramble...

It's your location and time of year. Move to SoCal and get some sunshine, and suddenly you won't think of killing yourself anymore, or unloading your Z. It could be worse, you could be driving a rustbucket 84 Chevette Diesel... (Though you could park in the UAW Local parking lot then, instead of across the street...)

Agreed on the Singh Grooves...kind of misapplied 'for the sake of having them'---call it 'Hidden Rice' in that case. I did some work at BP in Castellon earlier this year, and found one guy there that was big into Hondas. Had a hot Civic (don't they all)... He complained that the 'specialists' in the area don't necessarily know what they're doing, but will take your money and B.S. you all day long on what a great job they are doing. He despised Rice as well, and apologized for the decals on his car as 'being there from the idiot I bought the car from' adding that his prime motivation was that he'd helped install the coil-over kit on the car, and knew it was on correctly so buying it wasn't going to present a problem later in something that was knackered up and improvised. His lamentation was JDM import engines costing so much, and opined that he was better off getting a complete JDM Hi-Performance STOCK motor, than letting 'any of these local butchers crack it open and mess it up'... I'm thinking, "I thought I understood what he meant, but these photos are giving me a new appreciation of Carlo's Predicament!" LOL

Man, I could post some photos from an incident here about 150 m from my operational area this past week, that would bring home 'the smell of death' in a big way... But I would get SO banned. AK47, Canoe full of Interlopers, Military Response... 9 Dead, on the beach in the tropical heat of Nigerian River Delta... You would think 150m of separation would snub it a bit...but nope. They waited overnight before cleaning up the mess. And by then, walking out to the A.O. was not a pleasant smelling walk. >:^( And a piece of advice: Never, NEVER think using a Forklift or Bobcat to move a dead cow (or Pig, for that matter, but they usually fit in the bucket completely so it's not as big a deal) once the legs have drooped after the initial bloating phase has subsided. If you think the smell was bad driving up to move it...wait till it splits open and everything spills out everywhere. Cleaning the implement of movement is not a fun task, either... Speaking of livestock, anybody ever make "Cow Candles" after dark? I'm not sure I should go any further... LOL

Those are somewhat incorrect/misleading statements. The roots style blower is an air compressor. This is not open to debate, it's a fact. Semantically if you want to differentiate it as a 'blower' or 'air pump' because it's a single stage application below 15psi discharge pressure that still does not relieve it of conforming to the physical laws regarding compression of gasses (Boyle's Law amongst the primary one coming readily to mind). But 'air pump' is the same thing as 'Air Compressor'. To think otherwise begs questioning who is misunderstanding the application. The reason heat is generated (even through your example) is that the pressure ratio or the 'air pump' or 'air compressor' (pick whatever term you like) goes sky high in a non-bypassed blower. Bearing friction adds nothing to the heat generated to the air stream. Heat added to the airstream is purely a function of the pressure ratio being experienced and the stage compression efficiency at the time of compression. I'm not sure what you are getting at, as most everything you said mirrors exactly what I have discussed. You speak of pushing air through a supercharger as opposed to bypassing around it during some modes of operation...what's the point again? I'm just confused at what you are getting at, or how it differs in any way from what has already been discussed. That the Roots Blower is a variable compression air compressor dependent on inlet and outlet pressures? Goes without saying, but at some point in the design stage you have to pick your ideal tip-speed, and compression ratio, and move outward from those points. Ideally any Roots Style blower is inefficient at a given pressure ratio. You don't see them in 55psi(g) applications much, do you? No, you will see Lysholm Screws, or two-stage centrifugals. Roots Blowers simply don't like 3:1 PR. 1.5:1 and at most 2:1 is their effective, practical limit. With a 7psi turbo pressure into the blower, and shooting for no more than a 1.5 pressure ratio (and designing your drive speeds to be accordingly set to achieve this tip speed/flow number) you would get 17.75 psi(g) out of the blower at the same temperature as you would in standard atmospheric service discharging at 7.25psi through the blower alone. How is that any different than the example you gave? I think I have a pretty good handle on the physics and engineering involved in the prototype design Frank was proposing. I have a little background in this area. If you can get in touch with on of the Ballas up in Buffalo NY, they used to run a shop that rebuilt blowers for the NHRA guys running in the N.E. circuits up and down the east coast, lots of rebuild stuff from BDS and the like. They closed down shop and moved on to other things just because of strain on the families doing all the travelling and long hours associated with the racing season and being in a critical support role. I'm sure he could tell you on any give big blower what is possible. His shop pulled in commercially avaialble blowers and totally reworked the rotors, gave a proprietary coating because the available commercial stuff (even though the casing said one thing) wouldn't hold up to the pressures used in competitive NHRA events. Rotor Flex became an issue as well...

Yeah, Sparky had the same thought I had: remove everything you installed and confirm that what you thought was a coincidence, really is...apparently it's not, so you sound like you're on the track now. Good Luck!

Dude, when was the last time you heard of me taking anything out of the stash of parts and putting it to use? I had stuff in storage for five years, and realized then that the rust was starting to 'eat' my 'investments'...so since that time I've cosmolined everything under the thought that I never know WHEN I'm going to get around to using it. 15 years later....I'm finding that cosmoline, in my case, was probably a good idea! LOL

Stock 3.36 R180 is fine for at least 173.325mph.... That I know of so far. Maybe next season I will be able to post a better 'confirmed' differential terminal speed number...

Don't dis the grooves in the head... Research US Patent # 6,237,579 (29May2001) Function trumps form...

Xenon's site is listed and works. It's free. Beats paying what I did for my 83 manual. Functionally for the mechanical items, the 82 and 83 are identical. If you want to see the blots and nuts relating to your task, there is a page with the turbo engine exploded just like I said in either 82 or 83 manual.

I think Hughdog has described the system I was referring to well. Drop throttle like Grumpy mentions is usually something vacuum related, mine did the same thing a JGK's did, drop throttle, then after accelerating away mosquito abated for a second, but only after travelling a short distance. Kind of like a delayed reaction. Oil control is difficult. Make sure the turbo oil return line is free and clear to prevent it from backing up...if you get high-G oil slosh in a corner making the return back up, it can puke oil into the exhaust past the seals. VW's have pretty large volume oil separation cans to let any puke over settle out. I would make sure there is adequate negative pressure in the crankcase when the PCV is operating, and that none is building up under acceleration. If you build crankcase pressure to a high enough level, it can force oil past the valve seals, and up against the oil control ring and then when you drop throttle it looks as though you have bad seals or rings, when in reality you either needed better breather capacity, or some more volume in the system to cope with the pressurization. There is a reason the valve cover is vented before the turbo, and the PCV to the manifold---it insures that the lowest pressure (highest vacuum) point available is available to evacuate the pressures in the crankcase at all times. Putting a K&N into the housing gives horsepower by lessening the restriction...but can also reduce on-boost scavenging efficiency of the PCV system at the same time. Under boost, the source for 'make up air' is piston ring blowby. Under drop throttle and coast, the fresh air for the PCV is made up through the intake tract connection. Putting volume in either place to allow for separation of oil mists and pukeover will help keep it from getting to the combusion chamber. Really, with as little consumption as you are getting, it tends to point to more the restricted turbo return or something forcing the oil to back up and push past the turbine oil seals. And full circle, high enough crankcase pressure through excess blowby or inadequate venting of the crankcase can cause the turbo to start leaking oil past the seals, same as a physical obstruction of the drainback line. Good Luck!

Dead Bird Story: I worked up in Oregon at a Pulp Mill on a 1000 hp compressor. The ONLY time it's shut down is this annual maintenance. I recall it was raining when we did the work one year... Next year I return, and there are inlet restrictions that weren't there before. Obviously something is plugging the inlet. I get on a ladder and see pulpy paper covering most of the inlet screen. So I start peeling it off. What was underneath was particularly sad. Apparently when we started the compressor the previous year, the birds sitting on the ledge of the inlet air opening flew off. But it started raining so they went back to sitting on the ledge, content in knowing the large whining noise was doing nobody any harm. But at that moment, I must have loaded the machine, and half a dozen pigeons were sucked fast to the screen! There they were, alive, 'spread pigeon' as it were, against the inlet screen unable to free themselves against the suction. The unit operated 8000 hours till next maintenance interval and by then they had been paiper-meche covered into an anonomyous blob of 'pulp fibers'. They obviously died of starvation from the looks of them, and then the constant flow of air over them desiccated them without any chance of decomposition. Pigeon Jerky as I remarked at the time. Second Dead Bird Incident: ILM in L.A., titanium foundry. Another 1000HP compressor. Myself and a senoir technican were complete on the overhaul ready to have the sound enclosure installed for a test run. Big Suits from back east were at the plant, and 'wanted to see the machine run before their flight departed'. We advised that it would be the afternoon as the filter/sound enclosure was not in place. The Biggest Suit said 'it's a foundry, we don't care about the noise, just run the damn thing!' We went on to explain the filter function, and they would have nothing of it, 'nothing's going to get sucked in, the inlet is 3m off the cround!' O.K. Mr. VP of Operations, you just sign this liability waiver and we'll fire it off under the recognition that any dammage is your company's responsibility. Hey, it was only maybe $163K for the overhaul anyway... We fire the thing off, and it's LOUD. First time it unloads a superhot jet (say just under 270C) of air of fairly large quantity blows back through the inlet as a function of the unloading process. This warms the fannies of about two dozen pigeons sitting on a rafter well above the machine. They start flying around inside the building... Myself and the senior guy watch, while I'm thinking 'don't fly in the inlet, don't fly in the inlet...' Well, nothing gets closer than 2m from the top of the machine...there is this one straggler, coming in on a slow glide-path...all relaxed and showing off for all his Pigeon Buddies who have relanded on the same rafter ('bird brain' was clear to me then...) and as he's floating aloft, the inlet of the machine starts to open as it reloads... Like something out of a Warner Brothers Cartoon, that pigeon, 2m above the inlet had his wings pinned back, lost some feathers, and was SUCKED into the whirring Lysholm Screws turning at 14,400 rpms with a hot operational clearance of 0.0015". The whine was WeeeeeeEEeeeee and the compressor went on a-runnin'! I looked at Big Suit, VP of Operations, and said: "Well, you just added two days of cleanout to your bill! Hope you are satisfied with the test run, can we shut it down now?" Had to pull the discharge elbow off and use a hose to remove the remnants of Pigeon Gore from the intercooler bundles. They are SO lucky that the thing 'compressed' and passed through. Had it been a smaller unit, like a 350 or 500HP model, chances are good they would have slipped time on their rotors and eaten them up to a tune of $45K! And while we're on dead things smelling, when I lived in the tropics...

"Because it has an unusually high current-carrying capacity, a film made from buckypaper could be applied to the exteriors of airplanes. Lightning strikes then would flow around the plane and dissipate without causing damage. " I would welcome that advance. When a 737 I was in got hit coming into ORD, it blew a hold in the nose section...When I saw it, my first thought was 'They still use plywood in commercial aircraft?' The second was 'so that was what the bright flash and bumpy ride was about'... Interesting nobody in the press release has made commentary on 'BuckyBalls'...I await Leno tonight... LOL

Hey, Marketing and Sales are two different specializations. You never hear someone in the Maintenance department ask 'Is that another damn Marketing Guy?' No, they universally despise the salesmen! LOL Maichor makes three great points as well, my son while little got 'hand me down toys'...Seriously! He got my father's erector set to play with (circa 1938), as well as my father's "American Logs" (apparently times were tough that year and Grandpa cheaped out on name brands...or they hadn't been sued by the Lincoln Log People yet), and my father's Deluxe Tinker Toy Set---again circa '39 or '40 at the latest. We have Kodachrome movie reels of my dad playing with these things at their original christmas unveiling. Now....My dad? Mechanically inept as my brother. Which explains the SUPREME CONDITION of the Erector, Tinkertoy, and American Log sets. They didn't get a lot of use. I mean, we are talking about an erector set with an OPEN FRAME 110VAC squirrel-cage induction motor to power it. I'm talking the real good set something that a product liability lawyer in a corporate environment would NEVER let get to market today (lets blame this all on Lawyers, shall we? LOL) But when the other kids in the neighborhood came over to 'play' with him, the first thing they did was turn on the T.V. and ask where the Nintendo was...My kid was hauling out a large wooden crate filled with these hands-on toys. In many cases he had to show the kids how to use them! I had a game when I was a kid that I absolutely LOVED called 'feely meely' (SHADDAP!) It was basically a large cardboard box, with innertube stretched over hand-sized holes on each side of the box. You had small plastic toys, like a farmer, a pig, a cube, a marble...two of each. The idea was you picked out one, then stuck your hand back in after putting it on the top of the box, and went back in (blind, only by feel) and grabbed the same matching piece. Some of them were really tricky, like the four prospectors. They had the shovel across their body (relatively flat) but one went diagonally left to right, the other right to left. Standing up straight, it was really difficult to tell them apart unless you could feel their nose or which hip their pistol was handing off of! I made one for my kid and he loved it as well. His friends hated it and thought it was dumb and refused to play it because he was so good at nailing the pieces in the first grab. LOL (For Markham) "Some are destined to make things, others are destined to market them, and finally some are just going to make a buck any way they can selling an amalgam of items to whomever crosses their path!" BWAHAHAHAHAHA. The gunfire on Wednesday was revealed to be an attack on the LNG loading jetty, about 300m from our offices here. 9 Militants dead. Happened just after the last personnel bus left for the day. Woo Hoo, having fun here!

If nobody has said it yet: Joe Pesci's Character, "Leathal Weapon", Rant about Drive-Throughs and 'What they do to you at the drive-through'... Am I a clown, do I amuse you? Do I make you laugh? LOL:biggrin:

BTW, they DO have a 63mm Custom SU available. It took me coaxing my son through my other laptop 7000 miles away (over the phone) to get the linkup, it's pretty cool, and was made for supercharged or turbo applications. www.hi-flow.com/HPSU1.htm Take a look, the dual float bowls would be a nice feature. I was looking into this setup for the 240 with the Crown Kit for a 'where'd ye git that carb, Maynard?' appeal during shows.

Yep, resynch the carbs so they flow the same. I can do it using hte back of my fingers and judging the 'suction'... You CAN NOT adjust the mixture on the carbs BEFORE making sure the synchronisation is correct. Lifting the plunger is one of the last things you do to check the final mix setting. What you revealed inadvertently is that you have no flow through the front carb. This, as Uncle Argyle said the William Wallace 'is something we shall have to remedy'...

Neat injector filter removal idea...I'd not thought of that method! Thanx fer photos!

I have THE definitive answer in my case: "It is fast enough to go 0.001mph faster than it's previous run every meet for an entire year, and that the first time out it goes 0.001mph faster than the previous record." Simple enough...

All of the above! During the extremely rough sections, and even to this day with many of the Baja cars, Carbs simply have to get a lot of modifications to keep fuel aeration and sloshing under control. Left or right hand turns can present different situations. Power/Reliability in the EFI Off Road cars is a relative thing. They also used Mechanical FI (lucas slide valves) as well---mainly to combat the aeration and sloshing issues. Being nostaligic is one thing, but truly knowing what was out there in the day is another thing altogether. I know the comment wasn't an attack, but it was totally dismissive of the systems that were out there at that time. It's just presenting a woefully limited scope of the picture, and mischaracterized what was really going on... For some hobby streeters, carbs will be fine. But in most cases where class rules are restrictive (SCCA Mandated use of the 44PHH...) and a series popular, that 'look' may get overplayed and skew perception of the general tone. To the casual observer, it will look like that was the only option available at the time...and that is FAR from the truth! Sure, in the USA many people slapped mikuinis on the car. In Japan, it was deriguer... In the UK slidevalve MFI was used, and even here in the USA Hilborn and Kinsler componentry was used on MFI systems (of which I posess an example as well...) It most decidedly was not just all carbs carbs carbs carbs... No matter where you were and you started getting into rarified atmospheres of top-tier tuners even as far back (that I personally know of) as 1984, there were analog standalone fuel computers (EFI) in Japan, Haltec was availabe at that time I believe, and ITBs were all over the industry. From Japan I've a catalog from Snagyo Kiki (SK) with their EFI system that was given to me in 84 or 85, and it was the new 82 or 83 eidtion catalog! I've catalogs from the USA in the 80's from Tull Fuel Injection... Kinsler's Catalog was on mimeographed sheets in Pica 12 point with halftone B&W Photographs! If that's not "Old School" I don't know WHAT is! Eggers and Vickers out of WISCONSIN was making L-Engine Hilborn and Kinsler compatible induction sets---and those are oin a CARBURETTED STUD PATTERN! That means pre 1975!!! Even the "Wangan Midnight" movie using the SSS car shows blowthrough carbs on the car at the beginning of the show, but by the 3/4 point in the production if you are looking closely you will see the exact same set of HKS ITBs on that car as I have on mine! And that was a car with 600 HP in the early-mid 80s' on carbs and when the movie was filmed (87 perhaps) during the filming the car's setup changed. EFI is "Old School", Mechanical FI is even "Older School"... But make no mistake, sentimentality aside, this site and forum is about performance. If you want to make a period correct setup that's one thing, you realize the sacrifices and tradeoffs you will have to make. But technology evolves, and gets better, and we shouldn't stand on sentimentality when performance is the goal. To Lost Fairlady's comment about people saying 'eh, carbs are crap, they haven't given it a chance'---leave me out of that comment if you will. I tried, for over 10+ years. I successfully ran a 350 HP Blowthrough system from 85 to the late 90's. But there was a point when EFI technology (The actual ECU portion) came to a price point where it was simply foolish to remain sentimental or deny the obvious performance advantages inherent in the systems coming available, and tolerating the buggy nature of carburettors in that situation just became a 'why bother with this B.S. any more?' situation. I can say 'meh, carbs are crap' because in a blowthrough system they pretty much are compared to a similar setup using ITB's (of whatever vintage) and any number of different modern standalone EFI computers, up to and including the ubiquitious Megasquirt. It will make more reliable power, it will get STUPENDOUS fuel economy (my triple blowthrough 44s averaged 17mpg in daily driving, so I think I have 'proper tuning of carbs' down correctly...the EFI ITB setup effortlessly gets a minimum of 5-8mpg more in mixed driving...), and be dead-nuts reliable after a long high speed blast down the freeway at 110F, and then pulling off to sit in city gridlock trying to get to the Petersen Museum in Downtown L.A. Been there, done that. As for '40's being too small'---I've got milk crates full of em and tell ya what, taking the venturis out gives me a 40mm straight bore, FAR better than any 44 PHH setup flow-wise. Some epoxy or heliarc for injector bungs at the front of the barrels, or in the manifold itself, and there you have it: low cost, period correct looking EFI-ITB's with all the look of original Mikuinis. There's a reason I didn't chuck them, and there's a reason I harvested as many as I did while living in Japan (out side the fact they were dirt cheap at the time...) The last reason to go EFI, is that unless you are committed to buying specially formulated racing gasoline made to run in Carburettors, the pump gas you get today is now ALL formulated to run in EFI systems. Many of the issues people are having with their SU's in the midwest are directly related to the reformulated gas cooking off like it did in the south and southwest years ago. Poor atomization, stumbling when cold, hard to start when hot, vapor locking...all from improperly formulated fuels being used in a carburetted car. Go down and buy some real carburettor formulated gas from ERC or VP and WATCH how much better your old-school car will run! It's a startling change. Last year for MSA I bought a 55 gallon drum to run the weekend and didn't skip a beat all the weekend long. I'm stretching the response to other realms a bit, but fact of the matter is if you want to DRIVe your car, it's best to have a fuel system that is compatible with your fuel that is available. And that's EFI or possibly even MFI, but if you're willing to buy the right gas for it (and I'd HIGHLY recommend you do) then carbs can be made to run O.K., just don't delude yourself into thinking you are getting a performance advantage. It's pure sentimentality that will have to drive the decision, not logic or practicality. Call a spade a spade and we'll all get along fine! ;^) EFI was there since 71 or so on a Datsun. So don't count it out just because you didn't know about it, it's as Old School as Mikuinis and Datsun Competition Stickers.

Actually Weber has had 55's out there for years, and the top horsepower guys use them. It was to that point on our Bonneville car, either Weber 55's, or for roughly the same cost, TWM ITB's... Why not a single sidedraft into a common runner to the turbo? They used 45 Webers on Corvairs for years...they sucked because they can only flow so much fuel...but it was no different than mounting a 2" SU on there. Easier to tune as well. With the availability of Four Barrel Downdraft adapters for turbos, for a drawthrough that is the simplest answer. And the Availability of sidedraft adapters for DCOE Pattern Carbs makes the single throat setup kind ofa red-herring IMO. In any case, outside of the four barrel, you will limit your horsepower capability to the level supported through fuel flow of the carburettor chosen. Now, an EFI Throttle Body and three injectors in each barrel...that may be something different...then you may run into airflow limitations instead of fuel flow limitations.