Tony D

Wow, that is a suprising bit of information! Sometimes KISS Rocks!

There once was a time you could order 'test pipes' by vehicle model... But I think that era ended by the late 1980's... Now, it's all custom fab stuff.

This depends on the phraseoogy. "3/4-Race" as one would take it means 75% of a full-race setup? Doubtful. Ever hear of a 1/2 Race Cam? 1/4 Race? 15/16th's? The most logical derivation is that once the duration exceeded 270 degrees, which is 3/4ths of the circle, you broke into the 'Race' designation. "3/4 Race" and "Full Race" are about the only two terms I ever heard, "Full Race" being something with a duration beyond 300 degrees. For big V8's that 270 degree duration is pretty radical, and 'in the beginning' V-8's dominated terminology. For a VW, 308 and 310 degree cams may or may not be a 'big cam' depending on displacement. Bigger you are, the less you are accustomed to seeing!

Irregardless... "Series 1" 240Z... ECT... Don't get me started!!!

This seems to be an issue that comes up many times when using stock injectors without the ballas packs. I still don't see why with stock injectors people have such a resistance to using the stock resistor package in the injector circuit. What is this fascination with PWM and it's fiddling capabilities. KISS was more than a rock band... The low-Z injectors work fine with resistor packages, and idle quality is good. Usually the big honking injectors people buy for high flow apps are high-impedance anyway, and idle quality suffers because they don't really have that crisp a response at shorter pulsewidths...which kind of says something about application selection more than what kind of current limiting you need to employ. Of the startups I've seen, far more people have fried things trying to set up a system without the resistors on low-z injectors. Since Datsun made a nice Resistor Pack for the L... I mean, is weight savings that critical? Of the problems I've had, injector driver issues has not been one of them...and I ran that stock Datsun from the get-go and haven't looked back.

I'm with Miles on the Longevity issue. This is not so much for power, it just makes things last so much longer. Until you weigh stuff accurately, you really can't tell how much difference you have. On large industrial engines I was aghast that the pistons were weight-matched within 10 POUNDS! (10" bore, 10.5" stroke with 900rpm operating speed...) I talked with one of their oldtimer technicians, and for some Naval Craft, they hand file the pistons on the balance pads to within 1# of each other, and it really helps with how the engine runs onboard ships...but for grouted stationary installations they figured WTF. Well, I did the first engine using a Bathroom Scale and did the pistons to within 1/2 a pound "more or less" just because I was curious. Took me a good 32 hours of work by hand. I really didn't tell anybody I did it, just did. When that engine started up the amount of vibration reduction was amazing! Where the handrails on the engine used to vibrate visibly, you could not even FEEL them moving afterwards. Now 32 man hours of work on something that takes a crew of 8 men a week to accomplish working around the clock is not a big investment in time IMO...and given the improvement in vibration reduction was well worth it. It was not required, but the time to do it was minimal. Since my time in VW's, half a gram was always the standard for just about any part. And even on stock engines I'd take the time to at least weight match everything that got torn down. Deburring Chevy pressed rocker arms, etc. It's all back to what I've said in the past...there is no real secret for speed or power, there are three basic elements: 1)Preparation 2)Preparation 3)Preparation The difference between the engine that makes 208HP and the one that makes 147 using the exact same components is found in one of the three steps mentioned above, plain and simple. The reason one engine will last 2X as long as another assembled with the exact same components will be found in one of the three steps mentioned above as well. As for compliments to Miles, it's partially my own sloth...welll in a big part my own sloth. It's going to be WAY easier for me to explain what I do to the top end when assembling something by linking this post if it's a sticky than if I have to bookmark it and find it again later! LOL But even for the raw information contained, it's stickyworthy IMO.

Someone wanted a link, so I finally got around to making a link to my you-tube video extraction. Shiftlight comes on at 9300 and 9500 rpms depending on gear selection. Another, with slightly lower shiftpoints, 9200 and 9300 if I recall correctly... This one was from last year, without the dual exhaust, but Dave Mis-Shifted and this tells you what happens when you go from 2nd to 5th and then take forever to figure out what you did... I mean, you can hear it come on the cam pretty clearly...

Another thing to consider is exactly where on the seat the head man set up your valves. A good L-Head Shop will set valves for CC of the heads, and this will usually dictate different lash pads unless they shorten each valve accordingly dependent on how deep they seated the valves. If they shallow seated your valves, up on the top of the valve seat...then they will be one height. If they deep sunk them, more towards the bowl then they will appear taller. The quickest thing to check is your lobe...you can caliper base adn lift do the math and know if the cam is worn. Same caliper will tell you your installed height on the springs more or less, and if you pop a valve or two will also measure the valve total length... Clear it all up in 15 minutes ifthe head is not on the engine. Probably have the horse tied to the cart here, but this is why I will measure and mockup everything myself before sending it off to a shop to be ´cleaned´and assembled. If you´re not sure on the assembly, and the assembler is not sure on the assembly...then it´s time to simply pull it all down and keep things organized...and simply put it back together with a proper build sheet so you know what is where, and what lengths are what. The shop should have done that for you when they assembled it. Even if it was chicken/scratches on the shop mans notepad...they should have something! You shouldn´t have to be grasping in the dark like this...they should be able to tell you what you started with after it left their shop.

Shipping will be under a grand. Proper rust repair on most cars I see back east will be FAR more than that! I have been selling rust free tubs-chassis to Europe now for two years. Stuff we THROW AWAY in SoCal was being compared to 3 year old BMW´s after being acid dipped to reveal any hidden rust. And this is from an FIA Certified Cage Installer! `Rust Free´, `Surface Rust´, and `Rusty´mean TOTALLY Different things on the east coast and the west coast. What someone would throw away as something not worth repairing on the West Coast would be a car that would be considered almost rust free on the East Coast! The southwest...no humidity, little rain, lots of sun. Your interior will be trashed, but the steel will have no tin worm larvae present! Local Classified Papers online in remote town make for interesting finds...though craigslist seems to be the realm of bottom feeders wanting to sell something without paying anything...that can be good and bad. I´ve only had one good response from a Craigslist Seller...every single other has flaked and not returned calls, etc etc etc. For the hassle, I´ve had betteer luck on e-bay. though the potential to get something really cheap exists on craigslist. If they call you back.

Beware of `Rebuilt`tripods. If there is any wear in the races, the only viable solution for rebuild is to grind them oversize and install a bigger ball bearing. Now, if the ball bearing was only 0.010´´ thicker, that may not be a problem. But from the pair I saw, they were the next standard metric oversize ball bearing. Which meant the oversized ground races they ride in had all the surface hardening ground out of them, and the balls were riding on the softer inner metal of the tripod carrier. They lasted half a pass, and hte ball bearings ate right through the carrier. Put in a set of junkyard pieces and they´re still running. Mosat driveline shops can dissassemble them, install new boots and pack them with grease for $50-75 a side. It´s NOT ´rebuild´but simply a repacking service. And really, this is all they usually need. If they are worn on the races, crapcan em...especially if you plan on putting power down with them...the reground races will not hold up! Engraving axles is not a good idea, the stress risers associated with the surface imprefections can cause problems with higher horsepower applications.

Hacksaw with the carbide Remington Rem/Grit Blade like you use to cut ceramic and glass tiles. But since when is a gas/axe a ´power tool´? Circlip will probably be a LOT easier than using a carbide saw to cut through it! Failing that, take the whole assembly and do it someplace you can get access with a proper set of tools.

What is your base stock. You are not considering the fuel costs and fuel used to produce your base stock. Don´t be fooled into thinking what an individual can do economically because of discarded base stocks is in any way sustainable in a larger mass/consumption environment. I would make 500 Gallons of Ethanol at a time, and the only way it was economically viable was the tax refunds I got by mixing it with gasoline to make my own gasahol. For a realistic economic model, you have to consider the fuel costs in the original base stock of the fuel...and when you do, the 1.25 gallons to one gallon produced comes into being. If your base stock was some naturally occurring substance that didn´t take electricity or other power input to refine to useable fuel, the cost of .37 cents would probably be a valid number. But if it comes from a commercial source and it´s reformulated waste, the oil cost of production is a lot higer that one would think...regardless of processing costs.

Realize the latest ploy for smogging all cars EVERY YEAR 8for vehicles older than 15 years old) was simply to RAISE MONEY so they can BUY AND CRUSH older cars! That was the STATED purpose of making people smog their cars EVERY YEAR. It´s been shot down with heavy SEMA Action this year, but I know it will be back like perennially elected greens who care more about control of the populace´s movements, than really cleaning up the air. Stricter Emissions Requirements for Personal Conveyances won´t cut it...they need population growth to stay within their charted projections (2.2 million illegals in 10 years skewed the BAR90 Predictions terribly, leading to the newest round of restrictions), and those vehicles that are registered must be kept within compliance. But Stationary Emissions, and large emmitters are more of a problem now...trucks, trash vehicles, trains, ships, and Airports along with Fast Food Fryers (believe it or not!). Till they go after those, there really is no reason to go back to POV´s. Some Fords withthe Englehardt Catalysts on their RADIATORS clean the air simply by driving through it...because until they clean up the air the engine is taking IN, they can´t lower the emissions coming OUT! The engine is actually putting out CLEANER air than what it´s taking in! Such is the state of emissions technology on CA cars these days! It´s not cars, but it´s an easy, disorganized target that politicians can use to satiate their green constitutients who would rather we all live in the city and ride bikes everywhere...and live - marry - die within a 15 mile radius of the same spot. Not for me, thankyouverymuch. And don´t think ýou don´t have emissions testing´ it´s coming. New 2008 and 2010 EPA regs will leave only seven or three states without some kind of emmissions testing program. Once they get that to ALL 50 states, they will move for a national emissions program for ´standardization and lower costs for all involved´ mark my words! It´s coming. Open your eyes, guys...it IS coming!

Chevron has it...they want you to pay taxes. When they legalized home use Ethanol for Farm vehicles, you had all sorts of paperwork you had to fill out regarding taxes. Unless there is a tax exemption, you can´t legally produce it for use on PUBLIC ROADS. Similarly, you can not grow tobacco for sale to others, nor Peanuts either.... All comes back to taxations and regulation. There was a gent in Berkley that got nailed by both thye Feds and the state of CA for tax evasion. Fine plus taxes due on fuel burned. And since this guy was a proud environmentalist, and had documented every mile he head driven, along with fuel mileage, they had a very nice Article Five Waiver of the Constitution for calculating their fines!!! He was nailed for almost $10K in fines, plus that much again in Fuel Taxes Evaded! It´s Federal 24 cents per gallon, and State of another 18-20 cents... for 1000 gallons burned a year in an older Mercedes, you taxes can easily add up to $500 annually. Biodiesel is a joke, it takes about 1.25 gallons of commerically produced diesel to produce one gallon of biodiesel. But everyone feels better about it for some reason. BTW, this guy in Berkely wasn´t brewing his biodiesel, he was doing the much more direct `put vegetable oil in the car and run it´approach. He was buuying from the local Costco in 5 gallon tins, and paying roughly 35% more than commercially available diesel!!! Curiously, Costco´s cooking oil revenues have gone up 22% in the past three years...

I run R4S on The Blue Turd, as well as my Fairlady Z 2/2...GREAT pads when used with a GOOD fluid. I brought four sets of R4 169 Shoes with me here to Amsterdam for Ad to put on his Shelby Mustang GT350´s in the Spa 6 Hour Endurance Race. They performed flawlessly...and others were eyeing the American with the `Southwest Airlines`totebag full of Shelby Shoes!!! LOL I have nothing but good things to say about Porterfield, their counter service is WELL beyond stellar. We mis-ordered the shoes we needed, got 239´s instead of the 169´s. Bought them back in April before MSA. They sat in my storage container and I brought them back for exchange the day before I flew out...no invoice, just a phone call asking if I could... They are a great outfit! Brought in three boxes of 239 Shoes, and Swapped across for the 169´s... Wonderful not to deal with the hassles like most other places. Some people may feel the R4S will ´squeal`during light braking on the street, but I live with it...or simply stab the brake harder to quiet them down.

The key in processor power is for the coil on plug drivers, guys. The batch fire really is all you need unless you are trying to comply with some stringent emissions requirements at idle, and lower speeds. But if you have the processor speeds to handle coil on plug firing, then you have the same power to do it with the fuel as well, so why not. But you will see minimal gains with it, really. It´s an ignition/driven change, more than Batch Fire being unsuitable for anything.

What you can do is simply buy thicker lash pads, and then take them to a machine shop to be ground down to proper thicknesses. If I were in a remote portion of the world, that is exactly how I would do it. Ingersoll/Rand Centrtifugal Compressors use a similar setup for setting up clearances in their machines, and I am constantly finding machines hops with magnetic/chucks and a surface grinder to make final clearance adjustments to our `bulk shim stock` which is supplied with each overhaul kit...in .375 thcknesses (even though normal finished thickness is around .120) Check to see if you have an industrial machine shop with a surface grinder. If you do, use the feeler gauges to measure the thicknesses you need, and then have them finish grind them all to the thicknesses you need. They can do it in a day easily. I get 9 shims cut to at least three different thicknesses in less than 2 hours usually, 4 hours at the outside in a Union Shop. It´s an alternative that is viable, especially if the pads you have now are ´too thick´ for what you need now.-..saves buying new pads.

If you are blowing them, do more than simply clamp it better---figure out what is causing the detonation and you will be better off! You can pull a lot of fuel past torque peak and make great power. We were really suprised by how much fuel we could pull out of JeffP´s engine after torque peak. We were in the high 12´s, and in some cases low 13´s with EGTs running cooler than we had previously. Then we satarted playing with timing and the EGTs wer coming down some more as we added advance. When the HP stopped coming, we backed off three degrees and called it good. Then, he removed the ECU/EFI system, and we are now going to start all over with something else...

1976 280Z 2+2 running JDM L20A inline six cylinder of 1998cc displacement in G/PRO: Bad Day, Missed Shift. Bad Shifts, but Best Speed. Sounds Best, but not the fastest. BTW, we were discussing "Slow" 2+2's right? Feel free to stuff these down the throats of the 2+2 haters out there...muahahahahaha!

A conical end is more important if you have a surge tank that is wider than it is tall. The smaller diameter and taller you can make it, with the fuel connections for filling and return at the top, the better. If you have a 4" diameter tube, I'd cone the bottom for a 1/2" (-8)pickup if the tank was not at least 8-12" tall (including the cone). A 3" diameter tube, I'd cone if it wasn't at least 6" tall. Usually 2X diameter of the tube will be enough to separate any air bubbles that may get in there and want to get sucked down into the intake for the main pump. As far as flow goes, 3/8" (-6) line will be more than enough for most pumps, and if you can't get a positive pressure number in the surge tank at idle (1-2psi maximum at full bypass, minimum fuel requirement, maximum pump output flow) then you can always insert a small orifice into the return line to boost your surgetank pressure. If you build the return line to the tank from the surgetank oversized, you can always orifice the line. You build it too small, and you're cutting and welding something that has had fuel in it... For a stock setup, on a stock L28ET, I used 8mm return lines, a 10mm feed line from the boost pump, and a 12mm line for the EFI pump pickup. And that was using one of the 6mm emissions vapor barbs on the top of the 240 tank as the return point. Sucking out of a stock 240 tank, even during hard cornering I never had a hiccup with that setup. As I recall, the boost pump I was using had an internal cutoff at 2.5psi for carburettors, and occasionally I could hear it shut off and turn back on at idle, so my maxumim surge tank/return line pressure was probably around 3psi. Tank was 75mm in diameter, and basically was slightly shorter than the length of the upright that goes from the floor to the rear lower control arm behind the differential on an S30.

And all this time I was led to believe the term '3/4 Race Cam' came from the duration being roughly 270 degrees... In Auto Tech class, the instructor was wont to say things like 'It doesn't mean sh*t, it's a term bred of ignorance!" but I'm not so critical as he. I also don't throw nuts and small bolts at people for asking stupid questions before 'thinking it out on your own'!(Like he was also wont to do!) Hehe heheh hehe! "Ahhh, the old days of technical education, what would today's kids do?" LOL

Great Article Miles! Stiky! Stiky! Stiky!

Yes, the 10mm line is enough to give your pump some place to pump... If the pump deadheads, it gets into a cyclic situation similar to turbocharger surge. If you ever put a water pressure gauge on the block you can see some interesting things develop when you rev the engine cold... for one, you realize when the thermostat will lift! LOL Anyway, a centrifugal pump likes to make flow at all times. The 'internal bypass' is there in case the external lines get corroded, therefore insuring the pump always has a bypass route. As long as you are reasonably responsible with your cooling system maintenance you won't have corrosion plugging issues. I get told I'm crazy when I tell people there is an 'internal bypass' in the block that will do the same thing as the external line! (Someone on this forum said that as well....hmmmmm I ain't sayin!) The damage comes when there is no place for the pump to push the water. Idle may allow that pump to bypass around the tips of the pump vanes. But you start upping the speed, and you basically have the same situation as a turbo at full tip speed and at peak efficiency coming up against a closed throttle valve. It bangs internally, and the reversal of flow causes a radical drop in pressure. The drop in pressure causes steam bubbles to immediately and explosively form...in some cases it can cause bits of metal to blow out of the impeller blades or the volute in the front cover. Cavitation damage. In large industrial engines I have seen this eat through CAST IRON housings!!! Steam formation in the cooling system---even the pump can cause errosion, pockets that look like 'corrosion' but in reality are cavitation signs, and impellers on the pump that wear away to uselessness. The cavitation can start at temperatures as low as 160 degrees if the thing is surging the correct amount and the antifreeze weak. If the pressure goes high enough, the thermostat spring will be forced to lift...but that's an extreme case. Usually if there is proper coolant mix to prevent boiling, the cavitation will not be much of an issue in the pump, but the cavitation and 'surging' can do some stuff to your seal as well. I would think with the higher volume of the Diesel Pump the bypass would be more important to prevent cavitation inside the pump. There were some TSB's in the old days about 'cavitation' in the L-Series engines, and this is aside from the joke one referring to timing of the alternator to the water pump vanes!

Good Numbers. I may go that route with my wife's car. I don't need an I/C for her to drive at 10psi, but when I flip the switch to go to 15+ methanol may make a more reasonable alternative than bothering with an I/C mounting...

Brain Trust at work there, that is why they are saying the LY is a DOHC... Absolute Brain Trust. What broke on the T-5? JeffP pumped 450 through his with it screaming in protest, but nothing outright broke. I would suspect latent or marginal tranny to begin with if it's a major failure.