Tony D

I agree, I saw a setup like the photographed Lokar on a 240 this weekend that had a NEO RB25 in it. That guy bought his cable from Kragen Auto Parts, and got the small piece on the end from a local place in Anaheim called McKinney Motorsports---the thing that got me was it clipped on the STOCK bellcrank ball! And since it was a 'double allen screw clamp' onto the throttle cable he had, you could basically use that piece all by itself to convert ANY throttle cable from a junkyard to your Z without ANY modifications whatsoever to your bellcranks, throttle pedal, etc. I will be going in to McKenzies tomorrow to see what I missed when there in April with Frank280ZX (was picking up a Fuel Cel Rollover Valve) I want some of those endpieces, I need to convert my son's 510 to cable, and that 'not modifying anything else' appeals to me! BTW, the "Universal Throttle Cable Kit" at my local A-Z is $24, but grabbing the throttle cable from whatever you grab your T/B from would work with the little chingaderis on the end, there!

If you guys really want to run lean, put a big heavy flywheel on it! That dampens out the surging quite a bit. The only reason I say this is because I would run mileage marathons in the late 70's and early 80's and we would jet so lean it wasn't funny! One of the things we would do is clearance the bellhousing and bolt on almost a double inertia ring to smooth out the engine from 'lean surge'... At that time, if you have EGT, and a vacuum gauge, you were right up with the OEM's in terms of sophisticated instrumentation! LOL I mean, we had a daily driven Karmann Ghia running a 1641cc engine that would turn in 35+mpg in the city, 45+ on the freeway, and during the competitions we would break 50mpg! Obsession with maximum mileage is nothing new, we thought 68 cents per gallon going to $1.41 in a three month period was obnoxious as well. To remember that, and look at the prices today...well I can't get excited, it took a year plus to 'double'... But I digress. More on topic, I agree that the "Failure mode" of the OEM's is rich, as it's safe. The O2 on an OEM will rarely compensate more than 10% of total fuel. With the new MAF setups it's more biased on mass-flow through the engine than the older AFM style setups, so O2 can be set up for a wider correction to fuel---but it's almost always (matter of fact I don't know any OEM that is otherwise) Rich to Lean. The O2 sensor will correct to stoich and that is PURELY a function of proper catalyst function! There has to be enough unburned HC to keep the catalyst bed hot enough to scrub the exhaust stream. You can easily lean out the mixture far more (if you aren't running catalyst) and make plenty clean emissions if you incorporate good old fashioned A.I.R. in the exhaust manifold! I piped my 73 with SU's clean to 83 Catalyzed standards with Lean-Misfire adjusted carbs half a turn out, and utilizing AIR injection... From what most ECU Manufacturer's reps say for cruise portions of the map---if you are catalyzed tune for Stoich, and for anywhere else outside the EGO parameters tune for peak torque (peak HP) which is usually 11-13:1 AFR. For fuel mileage and best power, this seems to work VERY well. If you are not catalyzed, tuning to the point just on the verge of lean-surge would be counterproductive as the O2 will correct to stoich. Really for fuel mileage you would not want the O2 to correct to stoich---you would use one of the WBO2's and shoot for a targeted switching point (unless you have target af-maps...) and then simply program for target AFR's in the incipient lean-surge area during most cruise conditions, and peak torque outside that... say anything below 40% throttle opening, and MAP from 0 to 50Kpa, rpms bins between 1700 and 3600 (or wherever you are at highway cruise depending on tire height and gearing). My wife's Frontier gets 20mpg when she drives on the interstate, I get 16... She is running along at 75mph, and is totally in closed loop at 3000 to 3200 rpms. When I'm driving, I'm right on that switchover point where Nissan goes open-loop at 3500. Frustrating as hell because the truck pulls just fine, and even if it IS coming on to the cam at 3500, putting the O2 correction to 3700 would probably make my extra 5-10mph just as thrifty as my wife's feather foot!

Ever notice the LD28 Crank has a dowel hole in the end? If anybody is really slamming the clutch hard, I'd recommend dowelling the flywheel to crankshaft BEFORE balancing, and using an 'offset' dowel pattern, that way the flywheel only goes on one way: the way it was balanced! Three .250" or .375" Dowels in a 120 degree offset pattern between bolts should pin it just fine. You could use 6 .250" Offset one dowel half a diameter off from the geometric index (Similar to the SPG Dowel Pattern used on VW Engines). The dowels take a lot of the shear worries out of the bolts, and stop a lot of the shear that causes the loctite to fracture, or loosen the bolts. Just a thought...

Well, since it's back up, I'll add my .02 and say I never liked a single fan for anything. I put dual 10" units on... Chances of two fans failing when controlled through separate relays is pretty remote. Though the 3.8L Taurus Fan is a nice unit, looks stock, is cheap at the JY, and can be replaced at any Ford Dealership... Beware, though, it MOVES air, and will draw 30 Amps when running. There is no free lunch, you want a good fan, you will draw amps. And I figure the Ford OEM unit is at least 'OEM Torture Tested' so figure it will be 100K reliable...

Actually, that is what many engineering studies say as well. Some papers from Ford discussed a tangental injection impinging on the wall of the port somewhere around a 5 degree angle. After reading that, I realized my original 'SU Conversion' idea of making a stalk and injecting from the air cleaner at an angle down the throat may have been a heluva lot easier than what I ended up doing in the first prototypes....

The wall thickness on the LD Runners will allow Extrude-Honing to a consistent 36mm diameter from plenum to head flange surface---no taper to speak of, but you can get them Extrude-Bored to a consistent 36mm diameter. My measurements were similar to Older-than-Me's dimensions.

I got my plasma cutter from a secure worksite when I bet the Project Engineer his security sucked so bad, I could load up anything I wanted and drive right out with it. He bet me whatever I could load that I couldn't. Went to my truck, wheeled over a Century Plasma Cutter to the back, and asked a couple of guys to come over an help me load it in the truck (I could see the lead engineer agog in disbelief!) Drove right out the front gate and the guard waved to me! I DID bring it back the next day...but the guy refused to accept it back! He said he was going to write it off as a 'Security Consultants Fee' against the project...then went out and reamed everyone about site security pointing to my truck saying "Anybody remember that truck from yesterday?" Thing is, I don't have wiring for the damn thing, so it's sit since I unloaded it at the house. But for the price...I'm not complaining! When I use them at worksites, I get all worked up to wire the circuit...but honeydews usually divert me...

Steel is what they call the most recycled metal... it's lack of prevention techniques, coupled with thin metal which speeds perforation, plain and simple. GM stopped buying USX product in the 80's because Roger Smith found the studies showed the Japanese Steel was in every way comparable, but at close to 60% of the cost. There was a well-publicized meeting where Roger told the head of USX at the time "GM wants to use American Steel, but for the cost, and the quality, we will have to make some hard decisions to keep our shareholders happy in regards to supplier costs!" In other words: Make better steel, or make it cheaper, but one way or the other we aren't buying it just because we've always bought from you! American cars to the mid 70's used Cross-Sectional Thickness as the primary corrosion 'prevention' method. Just make the sheetmetal thicker, and it takes longer to rust perforate. Some MBA and Accountant conspired a Cost-Benefit-Analysis and foudn it was cheaper to use steel than to make it thinner (with those costs of tearing in complex dies, etc) and corrosion treat it. As galvanic treatments decreased in cost, and deposition technology advanced---as well as CAFE got stricter and vehicles were pressed to be lighter to meet CAFE, the metals got thinner. in the 50's, hell you just put thick sheetmetal on and it took 5 years to rust through. Itwasn't until the 80's that US MAnufacturer's changed that philosophy. The Z's Philosophy was of lightest possible weight, hence the thin sheetmetal. It was rumored eraly protptypes had issues with metal buckling because it was SO thin, and as a result the gauge thickness was INCREASED! Different Engineering Goals, and Philosophies.

Yeah, it looked like there was a lot of clearance... I know a 3" is REAL tight through there---it's considerably easier with smaller piping. I figured it was a long day making an exhaust from mandrel bends, so that confirms it for me---thanks for the update! For guys saying 'oh, you can make one under $450...when you start figuring parts sure...maybe. But add in honest labor time, and you start seeing 'no such thing as a free lunch!' LOL I see you thought about the time at least once...he he he!

Generally connecting rod bearing wear is on the top bearing, letting the clearance increase as the engine wears. That is why things go boom when rod bolts start stretching....

What size pipe is that-2.5 or 3"? How long did it take to fab it up...really? Kind of curious haveing spent some time under there on other people's cars. The clearance over the rear subframe makes me think it's 2.5"---am I right?

Yes, welding the ports to allow them to be raised was a common modification. To look at the FIA L6 head, you find the ports are almost touching the valve cover gasket area---and that was a stock from Nissan casting...of course it also had water jackets that came out between the cylinders in the same area as well to prevent low-flow spots... But yeah, raising that port will help. Filling the bottom of the port with aluminum devcon (intake only, please!) will do nice things for velocity and entrance as well...

In the VW world, assembling the engine in the case (block) to be used and physically measuring the piston deck height is how the cut on the pistons is determined. if you know compressed gasket thickness, I would assemble the whole thing with UNCUT pistons, do a physical measurement of the deck height of the pistons, and go from there. You can specify the end-to-end blueprint dimension when you have your rods rechecked and honed. Whatever dimension you specify is the number you should use for your calculations. But I wouldn't cut the pistons until I trial-assembled the bottom end and physically measured the deck height.

Wrong assumption here: "The fact that the L24 made more horsepower than the L26 or L28 also had me a little swayed." That is t he basis of you arguemnt or logic behind the reasoning, then you need to know that statement is false from the get-go! Using the latest rating methodology, the L24 produced about 115-120hp, the L26 120-125, and the L28 130-135hp. Current day rear-wheel dynos will confirm this is the real case. The Ratings systems changed along the way. At each step, the Z-Car needed more and more HP to cope with it's growing corpulence, and each successive engine had more HP that it's predecessor, mainly through more low-end torque for drivability. I have a stock L28 that honestly rear-wheel dynos to 147HP, gets 22mph towing an 800# trailer behind it at 80mph and with three people in the thing with 3.90 rear gearing, and runs consistent 15.30-50's in the 1/4 mile in 110 degree heat. Most L24's in stock form are lucky to spin the dyno wheels to 120hp. If you are basing your logic for staying away from an L28 Transplant because you think it has less HP than an L24, you may want to rethink it. An L24 can make horsepower, but for economy you want torque and gearing. It's how GM 3.8L V6's pull 38mpg in a boat whereas our little featherweight cars run and are lucky to get close to half that (or at least 66% of it during steady state cruise...) I see you already have come to the conclusion that hte L28 may be a better course, but I'd caution against doing work for the sake of doing it. The L28 should bolt right in and give you near the numbers you want right out of the box without any work whatsoever. Take the money, save for as long as it's running troublefree, and do your headwork to hop it up after you have run it for a while. Better get used to the different driving technique of the L28 and maybe spend that money on a five speed transmission rather than adding expense to a head that may work well right out of the box! My example engine above is still in the factory guise at 225+K miles. I put it in with 186K on the clock, and it's still running strong. You could save a lot of money in that timeframe---allowing you to do some more substantial renovations along the lines of your goals, rather than adding expense off the bat with something you may not even need to do! Horsepower comes in detail, not bolt on parts or trick machining. That same car above...when I got it, it had Triple Webers, Headers, and didn't run. A quick distributor and transistor igniton swap got it fired and running reliably. A trip to the dyno had a dissapointing 86 HP to the rear wheels. Make no mistake though, it felt fast but it only produced 86HP. Some ignition wires got that to 90 rather easily. Long story short, I wasn't willing to spend the time to rejet the Webers---I sold them to someone for $650. Recouped the purchase price of the car, and put me $350 into profit as it stood! Sold the header for $25, so that got me to $375 in the black for the purchase of the car. Stuck on a complete EFI system from a 76 that I had laying around (take off from the Bonneville Car) paid $45 for a K&N Air Filter Element for the stock housing, and did a 60mm T/B modification (call it 'bought from MSA' but I'm still the cost of Polyurethane Bushings ahead at this point). That engine, the same engine, spun the same dyno to 147 to the rear wheels!!! The cold air system I had on there, got taken off for noise issues, but there was no noticable result in the Dyno. The same 2.5" crush-bent exhaust from the headers was still on the car, better than stock I guess. Point being I took off all the 'bolt on speed parts' and ended up almost doubling the available horsepower to the rear wheels. It didn't feel as fast, it didn't sound fast at all---it was very very quiet. Quieter than a stock 280Z to be honest. But it flies, and the numbers didn't lie! So think long and hard about 'changing things' when the real power comes from details, and not gimmicks! And yes, mine runs fine on 87 octane, and true to my form, found that it digested Sunoco 84 Octane "Sub-Regular" available during a trip through Michigan several years ago! Stock works, when you start performance tuning, you have to be ready for the trade-offs and compromises that will result.

Even the stock tank will starve given good corners with stock SU's! I found that out at LVMS when the stock 240 I was driving started cutting out...1/2 tank and extended period of G's combined with a slight banking the way they had the track set up and it would start cutting out and stumbling about 80mph on the "sweeper"... Surge Tanks are good!

Yeah... Plenum. Like "irregardless" it sticks sometimes... Even I upgraded after seeing that tip on how to enable the in-scree spell checker for the text-entry window here at the Forum. Now I look edemukated... Nice Plenum, someone is happy with their CNC Machine! LOL

Unless this car has a two or three digit serial number, I'd use it as a parts donor for a more solid car. Usually the Battery Box Area is the only area requiring repair, what, specifically, makes it so bad that you would change the entire assembly, firewall forward?

Actually, Nissan Competition manual suggested surge tanks for the triple Mikuinis as well... Any time ges is being sucked down quickly, any interruption in flow can be disasterous, turbo or N/A!

You don't have the 12" Sch10 Stainless Steel Fabbed BBQ Grille on the right rear---you're not set untill you can grille at the jobsite! (Arco Pipefitters/Welders at the Wilmington Refinery have a standing 'hot work permit' for their little grille on their welding trucks for 'lunchtime'!"

Have a propane torch on hand. When it 'floods' pull your plugs, and heat the ends till the ground strap is glowing red hot, and you don't see any orange flames coming off the end of the plug signifying wet fuel on the tip burning off. Do all six plugs, and I usually give a shot down the open hole to light off any excess fuel in the cylinders as well---it can go 'poof' with some force doing it like that...but the cylinders need to be dry. Usually with the "hot plugs" it aids in starting when really rich. Remember if you are WOT, you are flood clear till it fires and goes above cranking rpm---then you get FULL FUEL for the bin in question because likely you have 9X+ MAP signal.

If you do it out back, I would run the hose up to the vapor recovery tank, make a 'double loop' and then do the venting outside the passenger area, don in the area by the filler neck, behind that plate you can remove in the Right Rear Wheel Well. The tall rise and double loop will prevent the expansion of gasoline on a hot day and full tank from rising to the point where it can puke out the end of a hose simply vented overboard from the vent fitting on the tank, and lifted minimally to clear the top of said tank. Some of the Non-US cars were vented in that area simply by a vent tube off the filler neck---though it's a straight hose in that application, and moulded into the filler neck. I have one of those setups on my 73, and no vapor recovery line.

"The Four Seasons", Stumbling Distance from China Petes out gate two in the opposite direction of B.C. Street... B.C. Street got renamed "Chuo Park Avenue" before I left... And the Four Seasons went out of business, so Kyoto was just down the street, and cheaper too! We took noobs out to B.C. Street first, got 'em liquored up, and fed them a tale of going to get Kobe Beef at a place where "I knew the owner, and we get to pick the piece of the cow we want to eat. They will kill it right there in front of us, it's a great honor!" Ahhhh, old times... LOL Oh, and the aside, there is a nice Fairlady 280ZX 2+2 moving from Fort Walton Beach this very weekend! One of my Kadena Mates is relocating BACK to Buffalo NY area (was a Plattsburgh Guy as well) with our companyn, and taking both his RHD Vehicles back north for a second time. the Fairlady ZX, and a 72 RHD Toyota Celica GTV.

Okuma Recreation area Okinawa Japan: Millions of yards of Aussie White Sand dredged up and moved to make for nice GI R&R Anderson AFB Guam...beaches are great, but when you read about the first UDT Teams in WW2 they didn't seem to like them much! Then....maybe...just maybe...if there is ONE good thing about...(yeeeeeech) Johnston Atoll was the nice breeze (kept the Agent Orange Stockpile blowing in the right direction) all year round, and those nice little beaches....just don't slice off the mini-golfcourse or you will loose your ball for sure! LOL

If your tank is sealed properly with all the vapor lines intact, you will need that line to have a filter on the end so the tank can 'breathe' when the fuel is siphoned out driving down the road. I saw a clubmembers' 73 die on the side of the road with 'no fuel pressure' after 20 minutes of highway driving. Opened the gas tank thinking his 'fuel gauge was bad' and got the 'giant sucking sound'... Car ran fine for another 25-30 minutes till it started stumbling again---then we realized the filler neck was sucked right down FLAT! We were confounded by how it happened, he had just had "all the hoses replaced out back here" and figured 'waitaminit'---went up front and there was a cap on the vapor line in the engine bay. "It was capped like that years ago---I've never had a problem before!" Shore nuff, with the cap off, he drove from Palm Springs all the way back to LA without even a stumble...he ended up sticking a K&N filter from a promotional keychain on there so it looks good. LOL

Oxy Welds in Aluminum are far more flexible and is the reason they are recomended for bodywork and fuel tanks made of aluminum. I found that TIG and Oxy welding was very similar. I am a big torch fan, it's very versatile. I end up making work pay for my cylinder refills, since I own the tanks...my BIGGEST mistake was downsizing my O2 tank so it would fit within my service van. Damn, now it has to be replaced 2X before the Acetylene is run out. Get big tanks! I ended up getting a Victor Portable Kit for the van later on, and it works great. Even when going on club outings as a sweeper, having that torch available makes for nice roadside repairs. They dubbed me 'the rolling machine shop'! LOL