Tony D

Xander, Nice Shed! Megasquirt is a proven driver for most of the GM EFI setups, TBI or TPI, and they fit on the SBC with plenty of cheap aftermarkt parts availability... My bud is putting an LT1 into his 74 Camaro and tells me there is a program that allows standalone-like reprogramming of the GM ECU via laptop, which seems intriguing as well. He got a deal where a new (18 miles) GM Targetmaster Replacement LT1, and new (18 miles) Goodwrench Trans along with all harnesses and computers out of a Z28 Convertible for $1800. For that price, I'd be interested in SBC as well. Seems the Camaro owner got new engine/trans work done, took it out for it's maiden voyage, and promptly sideswiped a tree 18 miles from the dealer. Had it flatbedded back, and insurance totaled it out. Terrible (he he he). Like Xander said, you can use almost any carb as your air-door initially, and some newer Edlebrock Manifolds come 'pre cast' to drill for injectors in the ports. E-Bay is your friend. Back to my buddy with the 74 Camaro. He ended up picking up the LT1 because it was cheaper than the 383 Chevy buildup he had in progress, and since the 383 was probably going to be too hot for daily driving activities (more for Atco) he started thinking 'man, this car would be nice to drive around daily for stuff, and I want it to act like every other car I own.' Hence jumping on the LT. He would not take my bait and do the LT1 383 like in my Father-in-Law's 92 Camaro. My devilspeak had no effect on him...

1962 VW Deluxe Microbus. In daily driving of 26,000 miles per year between Corona and Brea in 91 HELLISH daily traffic, and then every-other-day blasts up to Duarte at 75+, as well as weekend chores, it costs me $345 a year in annual maintenance costs, amortized over the lifetime of the Van as I've owned it. That includes Purchase price of the van, as well as a brandy-new engine from "Strictly Foreign" (who is now up in Oregon). If it stays at 55-60mph I get 27mpg on a 1641CC DUAL CARB (Baby Dells) setup with Engle 110 Cam and 1/25 Ratio Rockers. I can bury the speedo easily (not a feat on something that stops at 80), and driving on the freeway at 75mph just cruising along with traffic I will get 25. I have had the same sparkplugs in it as when the engine was rebuilt....over 65K miles and counting now! And people say unleaded gas is trash... I often get people asking why I don't get something more recent. For $14K+ I will get something with A/C.........and that's about it. Some wouldsay 'safety is greater' but with your legs in front of the axle, you learn to leave driving space and not do stupid things. But the costs for one major service on a recent ANYTHING is more than I will spend on Tires and Engine Overhauls amortized over three to five years. I put a set of tires on it annually due to the mileage, I buy cheap Ohtsus that are rated at 30K miles, and cost $30 a tire (used later wheels that are 14", so the old Ohtsu Skins I take off can be used as "Storage and Roller Tires" on the Z's... 185/70-14.) The thing on an Air Cooled VW is to do things RIGHT the first time, knuckle under and pay the $3500 (or whatever) for the good rebuild and not some econo builder operating out of his garage this week. My Hotted-Up Strictly Foreign engine at $1750 longblock was a FAR better deal than the $725 stocker I got back home, built for 'cheap'... I prefer the 6V models that have been properly converted to 12V, simply because the wires are huge and they carry all sorts of current. Nice Bright Lights with an Alternator Upgrade (ditch the generator). I ramble.... Problem is a 62 Microbus is not cheap. Truthfully the 68-72 models that have the Type-1 Engine can still be had relatively cheap and they do have some advantages over the earlier Split-Windows. You may get waves, but driving the split is like therapy. Everybody waves, gives you thumbs up, honks and waves...they all want to be the 'Fat Bearded Dude in the VW Bus'...LOL "The Dude Abides!" on an aside, the later models were available overseas with diesel engines, so a lot of parts exist for a conversion to water-cooled Baywindow vans. I missed an opportunity for a 'gimmie' 78 Stationwagon (VW Bus) without an engine. I was ready to put in a wrecked Jetta TDI engine and be ready for 30+ mpg and PLENTY of power. Handling? You need to do a serious life priority evaluation. If you are buying a bus for surfing, it's not for Mullohlland Drive. They will get you to seriously gnarly beaches, and up and down grades you thought mountian goats fell off. They just don't do it particularly fast. You need to realize something, if you buy a bus, you are not in a hurry. If you're in a hurry, sell the surfboard. Like I said, driving the van is like therapy for me. I MAKES me slow down. I WANT to slow down. I ENJOY driving it. It's not an experience I want to be over. It is the ONLY car I've owned that my wife REFUSES to let me sell (not that I ever would)...and it was the only one last year that she did't get upset over showing up 'double' overnight...(got a deal on a 66, and picked it up) her only comment was: is that one mine? Also, Turbo Subie conversions are VERY popular if you are pulling loads. Look for vehicles on-sale here: http://www.thesamba.com

Would be nice if it was actually a "Fairlady Z"....which it is not! "Fairlady"? Sure, but definately not a "Fairlady Z"!

Check to see that your drive tang is at that funky 11:25 position. If it's not, you either skipped a tooth going in, or your gear has spun on the shaft, in which case all bets are off, and you have to 'align it without the marks'... JeffP pins his gears with a 3mm hardened roll pin after we witnessed his distributor drive spindle gear spin almost a full 180 degrees while on the dyno!

That's round tubing they do that to...and unless you are VERY good at sizing, those kind of bends almost always flow poorly due to a reduction in cross section somewhere (usually multiple places) along the "bend". It's a function of the culture as well. You got straight tubing, and a chop saw, you can make a bend. If you have access to mandrel bends for anything, you are better off cutting them and piecing it together as you will have a better 'bend' than making a bend out of angle and wedge-cut straight tubing. I dropped 1psi of restriction going from my 'JDM' IC Piping to a mandrel-bent set. And that was on tubing that was properly deburred on each weld before going to the next piewedge...

Loss of signal is a 'failsafe' mode for the DEVAS system, and the engine shuts down. The processors are two 140mhz CPUs and one 'abnormal' waveform would not do it. It would have to be a sensor that came loose or slipped position. It checks and crosschecks the relative positions of each sensor so quickly that any abnormality will cause a 'safe mode' operation, or valve shutdown. Remember that these valves are not MECHANICALLY opened, so an impact of a piston to valve would likely 'bounce' the valve off the head, as oppose to 'squash' it between two immovable, mechanical items. The dominant paradigm will get you in trouble when you apply your thinking to how the system operates. The hydraulic system only needs enough pressure in it to open the valve, a simply relief valve will allow this 'bounce' by immediately bleeding off hydraulic pressure should impact occur.... This is not your typical 100+ year old "Cam and Tappet" arrangement. If F1 can use Desmodromic Valves (same technology, different actuation motive force) without incident, I'm thinking DEVAS is not as susceptible to 'abnormal waveforms' as you may think...

Solve the problem and do what I did: Next time the float chargers go on sale at Harbor Freight, BUY SEVERAL. They are not 'chargers' per-se but keep the battery electrically 'topped off' from the normal discharge through the plates over months of sitting. I put one on my forklift almost a year ago. WONDERFUL RESULTS. I recently bought half a dozen more to permanently install under the batteries of the Z-Cars and the Bus so I can leave them plugged in so they fire up right away...even after sitting for months unattended. My red-top is now dead, after letting it go flat (before I bought the battery maintainers) I tried jumping and slow charging it, to no avail. For a battery that is only 2 years old pretty sad. If I'd paid money for it, I'd be more annoyed. But as a freebie, I can't complain. It still looks nice in the Red Car (LOL) But those Harbor Freight Float Chargers are really da shizz for stuff that sits for long periods between startups. I think I average anywhere between 4 to 6 months before startups on the forklift, and it's always gone stone dead in that period before. Unless I run it every week, the battery goes dead in about two months. For the price, saving a battery that costs 10X the cost, it's worth it!

If you do a 'straight chop' on the roof, all you need to do is alter the side channel and leave the glass partially rolled down anyway. I have always made polycarbonate side windows as screwing with trying to cut glass (by whatever means) can be more trouble than it's worth. Maybe the 'little cubes' guy has it, but errosion of the glass done with a sandblaster is particularly gentle in the way it 'cuts', and I have never done it from only one side. I have always cut front and back with double masks. I have broken more windows turning them over and dropping them than shattering them during the sandblasting process. Leaving vicegrips on the masks is not a particularly good idea, either. Think 'spotblaster with rubber nozzle' for the 'cutting' implement.

My Roll Hoop was an over-the-counter JDM bolt-in item, and is not NHRA legal by any stretch of the imagination. I'm getting closer to pulling it out of the rafters guys...really I am! The last three months have been unbelievably busy for me with work. Dammit. The big thing about my roll hoop is it makes a nice template. Bryan, if you want John to make up some prebent stuff, I might be able to tow my 2/2 over to his shop and let him notch and pre-assemble something, and then just ups the parts to you for final assembly. The Hoop is the pain to bend, after that, straight tubing and notching is usually all that is required. I agree, read the rule book, it answers a lot of questions. And "normalizing" is not due to the welding process (TIG) it's due to the metals being used. Cr.Moly is specific in the way it likes it's structure aligned for maximum strength and impact resistance. Normalizing is kind of like 'heat treating'---it usually means heating the joint to relieve stresses and then letting it air cool. Annealling is 'the same but different' and usually occurs at a lower temperature. If you don't normalize a Cr Moly weld, the chances of it failing at the HAZ or in the weld itself is significantly higher than after normalizing. Mild steel does not usually require normalizing, due to it's structure, but following the normalizing procedure would not cause any harm. That's why most home cages are best built from heavier mild steel tubing, no special procedures are required. Make a clean weld with proper fitup and move to the next joint. Anybody remember Oxy-Acetylene Welding the "Three Sticks" in Cr.Moly tubing? Anybody have one of their's mounted as a trophy? LOL

A big question you want to ask is do you want the foam in there after the glasswork is done? If you don't, then using standard styrofoam is preferable, you can get it close, cover it with several layers of latex house paint, then lay your glass over it. Then pour in a solvent and dissolve out the foam afterwards. There are places where having the foam in there may be advantageous, like a nose extension or lower spoiler. And if your flares are as big as mine, flotation in a water incident may come into play! LOL But yeah, moulding in bolts is not that difficult, tacking them to a thin strip of sheetmetal and glassing over them is relatively easy, as is stuffing them through a balsawood stringer (which will add stiffness as well). The Original G-Noses have mounting hardware in the nacelles (as did the early 240Z's) so blots in the glass is not a hard thing to do. Just make sure you stiffen/strengthen the area you will be using as a 'clamping area' and beware when you bnmp against things as you will usually have a strongly adhered section, and the rest off somewhere else... I ran my RR Flare onto a curb one day, and realized a pegleg car sucked... I had em made strong (and heavy!)

More likely the FRP hood is flexing due to built up pressure at-speed. I have documented this on the Paul Neuman G-Nose. Took photos coming out of the last turn before the pit straight at Watkins Glen, and the hood was down securely (at 80mph perhaps). By the grandstands, at a speed over 100mph, the hood was bowed up noticably. Pressure gotta go somewhere, bowing a flimsy FRP hood is the easiest route out! They could have set the hood pins 'loose' to let it exhaust at the back as well. But you would have to see the cars sitting still to see how they set up the pins. Many times the FRP pieces have a slight bow to them and spring up when fixed hard at the front end. Even my steel hood does that!

What is the specific issue? I know when I was 'Chevheaded' I had to grind out bolt holes and stuff to get them to fit. Especially if some shop had milled the heads and not matched the manifold mating surfaces...doublegaskets anyone? And how much of a loss is 'sell it at a loss'? Being I have crates of old 40PHH's sitting in the back just itching to be resurrected as ITB's, this manifold would give me a good excuse to do something with a SBC in that S130 sitting out back... Inglese Manifold with 44IDF's or 48IDA's is nice, but the price isn't so...er...'Attractive'...for a little sweat equity or perhaps some angle milling on the flanges, no sweat off my brow. Specifics?

Most common method for cutting the laminated safety glass is to mask the window save for the 'cut line' with sheetmetal and heavy tape, then use a sandblaster to 'errode' it out with multiple passes. Masking both sides you alternate side to side and work to the plastic in the middle which should give way fairly easily. If you have a good, precise nozzle, cutting will be fairly straightforward, with a slight hump in the middle, you then 'stone down' the end with a water flooded whetstone. If you alter the sideglass so the upper profile remains unchanged, you can simply cut the bottom of the glass, and once your're through your done, as it's all hidden. Just reattach it to the guide and go from there. For side glass, though, it's almost as easy to make your own polycarbonate windows and be done with it. Windshields use the same procedure, but you won't have to finish it as it's all inside the rubber moulding anyway. The finishing only comes if the part you cut will be on a roll-down portion, and like I said, though the templating is more complex, if you can do your chop without altering the door glass profile up top do that cutting where it won't be seen and your done without any finishing. BTW, if you can get a pnuematic belt sander set up with some black emery strips you can do that finishing pretty quickly. Why pneumatic? Because your flooding it with water while polishing! Hope that made it clearer. Good Luck! with the sandblaster and mask you 'can' cut it off all at once. You don't have to nibble away from the edge. For a 4" chop that would take forever! Even with agressive media!

And this is why I ALWAYS advocate using the external bypass line from the lower thermostat housing back to the lower radiator hose inlet fitting, and not relying on only the internal bypass in the head/block to recirculate the coolant---the thermostat housing is a deadspot if it's not vented. There are people who argue that 'they have done it for years with no problems' but when you realize why it's there, you start having serious reservations about removing it for any reason. Tim hit it straight on the head!

Very good point, I should have said "Class" he is correct on the terminology for sure! The points on type of fastener and corrosion are also well taken. I remember both the Bowman and Lawson Hardware Reps trying to sell me on their 'Ultra-Grade' Hardware which was 'better than Grade 8'---and they always trotted out tensile strength. Which is fine if you need that. It can also mean they are brittle, as rejr alludes to in his post. As you can see the "No Marking" can have a drastically lower strength rating. And that is why I was cautioning about misinterpretation of the bolt head marking---being a manufacturer's mark, as if it was 'Class 8.9' it would not simply say '8', it would be '8.9'. Beware. Aluminum fasteners. Love that timesert example! I have a story about aluminum fasteners, and how someone thought they were 'too heavy', but that's for another time...LOL

Please, when your clutch burns up, don't coast in the racing line. Especially after a blind rise on the track, after dark, with dim tail lights. "Stay out of everyone's way" is my general rule. At least I try to. A track day is NOT a race, it's a learning experience. Use it as such and you will be far better off. There is plenty of time to be competitive later. Concentrate on the lines and technique. Ifyoustart trying to compete, you loose everything you've gained in the classroom session. Have fun!

I guess 'far' is all in the perspective. Four hours drive is not 'far' by my reckoning. Then again, I joined the service and that makes you grow up pretty fast. Basic Training was 1800 miles from 'home', Technical Training was 600 miles from 'home', and First Duty Station was almost 7000 miles from home. If you are an independent person and can function on your own, move. If you're still living at home and haven't really been out on your own then this may be a bigger step than you are ready for at this point in your life. Eventually you will find the stones to move away and be your own man,it usually happens. I missed my 25th High School Reunion, but got the skinny from those who went, there are still the same guys hanging around downtown that did so when they were in highschool. Nothing wrong with that if you can make a living that satisfies what you want out of life. If you can't, then you have to make some adult decisions that may seem daunting, but if you never confront them, you will never grow. You don't grow staying comfortable, you grow doing things that make you uncomfortable. New job, new things to learn, new location. Like the saying goes 'the green water never leaves the pond, it just sits there, and nothing lives in it'... Good Luck. BTW, I work in Vegas all the time, and I could almost say 'There's Gambling there?' If I didn't do work AT the Wynn Casino, I wouldn't know it...save maybe for the slots in the gas station. It's something that you don't need to expose yourself to, and there are plenty of places where it's not prevalent. It's not Gomorrah...

I guess I will never be posting photos of my 69 Corvair Fuel Economy Rally Car from the 70's here then.... That 'ecomodder' site will prove to consume more of my time than is healthy methinks...I will be spending some serious time there now that I see it. Who cares what it looks like, it works. Was that a Megaview Megasquirt Controller on the dashboard????

There was an 'IMSA' kit in the old competition parts catalog, with the typical 99996/ Nissan Part Number for externally produced parts the Competition Department was reselling. If you can find those in the FAST program, they may show up. I thought I had a scan of that page of the catalog, but I can't find it right now. Damn, I got to sort my files!

Nice "Patina". 00305 is in much beter condition chassiswise. Only six different off the line, but such a difference in overall condition. I guess the Northeast is harder on a car than SoCal...

KTM is correct, which is why I'm pointing out that '8' on the bolt head means nothing, and may well mean SUBGRADE fasteners. Was it John Coffee that used the 'batch built in china crap' to desribe the bolts? Pretty apt. if it doesn't say '8.8' then it's not grade 8.8 and it's a dangerous assumption to think so! The only headbolts I would consider would be as KTM points out, 10.9 or 12.9. 8.8 is at least a GRADE of fastener. When you deal with a lot of hardware like I do, you realize ANY GRADE of fastener is better than an UNGRADED fastener. Which it sounds like the local ACE is stocking, and ungraded fastener, which likely is SUB GRADE 5 in American Parlance (Grade 3 Hardware or worse).... I am very leery of using hardware that do not meet some objective grading criterion.

I'm no good with drawing diagrams online.... But if the engine to chassis ground exists, it ONLY allows a loop if it's also concurrently linked to the negative post of the battery. That is what I mean, you loose voltage sensing if you disconnect the negative cable, and you simultaneously loose the return path for the field excitation, collapsing the field in the alternator killing everything. All my grounds which normally would come from the battery negative post (To Chassis @ Firewall, Starter Bolt) are all on one side of the switch, and the other side goes to the negative post. If 'chassis' is not connected to the negative post on the battery, there is no 'loop' that is completed, and the electrons can't flow. On the Lemons Car, the "Star Ground Point" on the switch went to the dash ground bar, the head, the intake manifold, the block, the starter mounting bolt, and the chassis ground point on the firewall. Many of my sensors are of the two-wire type (GM) and therefore go back to a common ground bar that is grounded at the same place as the ECU (the dash ground bar)---from experience keeping the grounds on one point when possible keeps sensor error at a minimum. Especially with a Megasquirt. Some sensors for the dash gauges are grounded through the engine head/block, but they are brought back to the same 'star point' on the disconnect switch to the battery negative. The other side of the switch went to the negative post on the battery. "Electricians" wouldn't like how fuel injector circuitry works: every control scenario I know of switches ground on them... I was under the impression this was some sort of 'Emergency Stop' scenario Disconnect and not a routine shutdown circuit. Emergency Shutdown is a particular situation, you shouldn't be killing the car switching off your 'positive disconnect' either. I think that is a moot point.

One big reason is that 40mm Solex/Mikuinis were STOCK OEM PARTS on so many cars there they are CHEAP. A used set of 40mm's was rarely more than $10,000 yen. Why try to charge more when any mook could go to the wreecking yard and yoink the 40's off any number of Toyota 2TG or 18RG engines for Carbs? Sure, used 44PHHs were slightly more, maybe 45K yen as opposed to the ubiquitous 40's. But to not run 40's when they were that cheap (and EVERYONE new how to tune them) why not? As for ITB's....I have a nice set of Vintage HKS units from the early-mid 80's. The Japanese have had Analog Fuel Injection Triple ITB's for over 20 years...almost 30 now. Triples are there because they're cheap. ITB's are out there, but due to costs they are less visible. Many people think the "Wangan Midnight" S30 has blowthrough carbs, but only at the beginning, by the end of the filming SSS had swapped over to Triple ITB's, and most people didn't know the difference because visually they are very similar.

I'm in the "Negative Terminal" camp as well, I just posted above to BJ Hines request about similar issue. I don't see why the sanctioning bodies insist on a positive disconnect, without a ground circuit nothing will function. If the positive battery cable starts grounding to chassis and arc welding, it only does it because you have a negative cable going to the chassis, removing the ground path will stop it as positively as cutting off positive power. And doing it on the negative post kills alternators if you run your chassis ground through the same switch. The alternator still requires a complete positive-to-negative path to make power. If you pull the positive cable, the alternator will still run the engine. You pull the chassis ground/negative post off, and it kills it.

It cost us $15.99 for a master disconnect switch...same one everybody else used. Ran ALL grounds to the switch, and then to the negative post of the battery. If there is no ground, postive has no place to supply electrons to the backside of the battery. A $2 6A Capacity Diode (rectifier) on the "L" terminal on the alternator (if I recall correctly, it's the one that comes from the ignition hot, not the sensing line.) to prevent reverse-feeding the circuits in the car so the dedicated ignition cutoffswitch didn't keep the car running after it was switched off. All power fed in to the car's electrical circuits went through a master cutoff 'push to open' 75 Amp switch closest to the driver that cost $7.99. If you pushed it, it killed the car, period. If you opened the key switch on the negative terminal of the battery you killed the car, period. I have heard you 'need' to have those dual-circuit disconnects to work with alternators, but nobody can tell me what kind of 'damage' will occur using the ground-depriving scenario I employed. Even an alternator can not make power if it's not grounded. Even if you think 'island mode' if the battery is disonnected at the negative terminal, and all your grounds go there (even if through the chassis, as long as the chassis grounds all are isolated from the battery ground terminal) it will not keep excitation as the field circuit opens. On the Lemons Car, 'cheap' was a prime consideration, and it wasn't until after I built the damn panel did I find out they did not require an external power kill switch (like everybody else on the face of the planet who sanctions races does!) Oh well, it was a learning experience.