Tony D
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Posts posted by Tony D
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I'm going to forward this thread to JeffP so he can check it out---he's on the dwell thing with Nisstune right now, and his mallory coil is giving him fits...
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Bummer,
"Wrong Coast"
Currently there is a person in Ventura CA selling out of his Z-Business, and liquidating many vehicles. Though he's not returned any of my calls, so does me no good, and by July, I suspect all the 'good stuff' will be gone.
You may want to coordinate through Frank Poll in the Netherlands (Frank280ZX) he and his bud Ad currently have three (four...) cars in my yard, and I will be packing a smaller sea container for them sometime in the near future once some other Homogolated parts are located and shipped to my address.
There should be plenty of space in even a 20 footer with three cars in it, but you will have to coordinate through Frank for payment of pieces to pick up on this end. I will be going to MSA this week to pick up some of Frank's Backorders as a matter of fact. MSA has all the parts you were thinking of...too bad you weren't here last month for the MSA show...
Matter of fact, you may be able to source your parts in Europe through Frank/Ad there in the Netherlands. 40 footer last year, 20 footer this year. Lots of different parts........
Good Luck. My buddy "El Dupa Griggs" (LOL) may be in Buffalo by the time you are there...we all call him Drewski. But alas, the wrong end of the state for you to hook up with him. That all depends on if his job offer in Buffalo comes through.
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I just got around to this post... lots of conventional thinking, and some unconventional as well recently. But what of one of the most powerful L28ET's at the time: The Electramotive #83 Car?
It's manifold was a plenum simple log-style, no taper, with large diameter tubes that were flanged to a Cannon Intake Manifold that was bolted to the head. The plenum and initial runner sections were connected to stubflanges on the Cannon via some Rubber Tubes and Clamps (maybe for vibration, mabe for practicality in installation----who knows?)
But one of the intersting variations was that on some permutations they pressurized the plenum section on a T/B mounted facing the head, between cylinders 3 & 4. I know the dynamics of a diffuser being placed so close to flowing air results in a much improved pressurization of the vessel the air is flowing into, and may solve some of the issues you guys are seeing with the tapered conventional front-entry plenums.
Eventually, I believe Electramotive used the two-piece plenum design, with conventional front entry, while BSR stayed with the mid-plenum entry.
Absolutely no dimensions as requested, but I thought since nobody has mantioned that possibility (AZ Z-Car once offered a manifold like this as well I believe) that it may be worth investigating as well.
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Dale Earnhart's car had a cage. He's dead because he didn't use his seatbelts correctly (or that is the supposition)...
You can not design for every eventuality, you can only design for the most reasonable forseeable eventuality. If you want a safer car, buy a new one.
As for the rockers, I have seen a 'hidden cage' installed in a 280Z by someone in Holland. The guy cut open the rockers, and installed some largish CrMo tubing that tied into a full hidden cage system within the whole framework of the car. There was over 400 hours of preparation in the modifications to the unit body to accomplish this---all under the watchful eye of former a F1 Engineer and FIA Certified Cage Installer/Engineer.
If you have that level of expertise, go for it, cut those rockers open!
And yeah, on an S30. 400+ hours of chassis prep.
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I have been through Phelan 8X in as many days (actually 16X...coming and going on the 138 and Sheep's Creek Road....)
A Federal Car will pass to Federal Specs if all is working correctly. Don't think the MS will solve a problem you have with a bad sensor or bad connections.
You are either rich or lean, and doing a tune-up is a good place to start. Get the EFI bible and go step-by step through the EFI system cleaning and checking as you go. The stock Federal EFI system spins the Dynojet on my 75 2+2 to 147hp, and passes smog easily. The only reason I considered MS for it was to get an O2 Feedback Loop and leaner for Cruise.
But to reiterate, NO, it's not CARB Legal to install a MS. And to do it and conceal it, you usually have to hack the stock harness (easy enough to do) but if your STOCK HARNESS is ALREADY giving you problems, then fix those FIRST otherwise you will only compound your issues.
BTW, what Texas Car do you have? a 76? That would be the last year of "Federal" with no EGR. It should say in the stickers on the car "NON CATALYST" and etc. relating to the Federal Status of the vehicle.
I don't plan on being in Phelan again now till the first or second weekend in June when I will be running the Land Speed Car up at El Mirage...
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I, too, would be interested in 'The Book' encapsulating Alan's hoarde of information. The tidbits I see never cease to amaze me.
Alan, the 'oval' opening seems to be an interesting permutation---what are the chances that the 'Datsun Macau' car had one of these front ends...from the photos the owner had at the time (halftone xeroxes of xeroxes of news clippings) this may be a possible, perhaps? Though I think the Macau car seemingly had more of a "GTO Ferrari" FRP complete nose...it was hard to tell from the photos on the display.
I really need to find those negatives, and have them reprinted---I can't find my prints anywhere from when I saw the car in 95...
Hopefully, I will be at Spa to see one of those such Group 4 Efforts materialize this year. I will take photos there, rest assured! LOL
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Same reason the Whaletail lifts at the front. Remember what I've been stressing? Total package. Doing something at one end of the car and NOT doing something of equal value at the other end really causes the aero to do screwy things... The Gnose w/ headlight covers and a front spoiler, along with the whaletail would be a nice combo in my estimate.
Mike
Hmmmmm, you mean like my street car is set up....mowhahahahahaha!
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280zforce: Imagine how far ahead you would be if you started with that...
There were...
The timeframe of the Original Wangan Midnight Series, the late 80's (my time in Japan) you could pick up those engines in Mainland Japan complete out of the junkyard for between 50 and 100,000 yen (Ju-Man).
That was the cost of the surge box ALONE, new.
Thankfully, Japanese didn't put much of a priority on 'secondhand' parts, and if you found one that was impounded for racing, and sent DIRECTLY to a scrap yard, the entire engine would set you back maybe 5,000 Yen.
I had a scrapyard where impounds went on a regular basis, and I bought countless headers (Greddy/Trust) for $7 (700 Yen), Completely worked Heads for 3,000 Yen ($30) and on one occasion I bought a complete, NEW set of SK Tripples (40mm) on the manifold for 1,000 yen ($10...actually at that time it was closer to $4.50). The owner had put them on his Skyline, tuned it at Goya Tuning, and maybe had 250Km on them when he wrecked streetracing and the J.P.'s impounded his car. And I was there for the scavenging. New OS Header was a whopping 700 yen .... it was all sold by weight and metal content.
Man, I took some good stuff out of that yard over the years.
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yes, it can work with the triple carbs, but also with ITBs as well.
The 1 you picture is different than the other 1. The 1 pictured is setup differently. The 1 pictured 1st is most likely to bolt into ITBs, as the 1 you show seems it was setup for carbs, the was modified for a turbo setup.
Because if you do notice... the top 1 says HKS TURBO and the 1 you picture says HKS SURGE TANK.
First, the Yahoo Japan Auction unit is an HKS Type 1 Surge Tank, and is designed to work with blowthrough CARBURETTORS.
The second posted photo (HKS Surge Tank cast onto it) is designed to work with blowthrough CARBURETTORS.
BOTH are modified by plugging the float bowl pressurization holes to work with ITB's.
As for the SSS Devil Z shown in "Wangan Midnight" as someone who has seen the car in person I feel I can comment on the series and the car itself:
Originally the car ran Blowthorugh Carbs. In the series you can see that if you watch closely. Over the time the series was being shot, SSS (Speed Shop Sinohara, owners of the car and builders of same) went to some cutting edge Analog EFI Standalone system---so during later episodes (after the wreck and resurrection) you will see there are Injectors and ITBs on the Devil Z.
Both HKS and SK had primitive EFI systems available in the late 80's for ITB's.
I have two of those Type 1 tanks, as well as a Type 2 on the way (minus the inlet piece which was sourced separately)... Why so many? Because I have Mikuinis, Turbo Equipped Dellortos, and a set of Period Correct HKS ITB's... The question is which car will get which. And one day I will vend off my SK Plenums... For the individual that PM'd me about the SK plenum...I can't find the Separator Baffle for inside it, otherwise I would have replied to you. It's not much use to a Carburetted Setup without the separator baffle...now if you have ITB's maybe I misread your PM... then maybe we can do business.
But I digress...
In short, neither of those plenums was ever designed for ITB's as it's primary usage...when these came out, Carbs were king...
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Word to all: Mechanical Cams and Followers Make Noise.
If they're quiet, they're tight, and if they're tight, they'll burn...
Learned that from VW's a looooong time ago.
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Pop-n-Wood said:
"Race cars need fire extinquishers cause it is high risk driving. The risk on a street car should be SO LOW that they should not need fire extinquishers."
Should not NEED extinguishers is one way to look at it. I guess the TUV required triangles and seatbelt cutter/window breaker in Mercedes is foo foo stuff as well.
Being prepared with a competent emergency response kit is the responsible thing to do. I don't go anywhere without a fire extinguisher, and on half a dozen occasions I have USED it, and NEVER once on my 35+ year old car.
But the new BMW that started smoking on the corner of Crenshaw and Torrance Blvd? That owner was glad I had a Halon unit---too bad the FD didn't listen, and used an AXE to try and open the hood of her Bimmer. As I walked up with my 5# Halon unit, they admonished me 'stand back sir, we're professionals' as they hacked at the FRONT of the hood trying to cut out the 'hood release'... I reached into the open driver's window, pulled the hood release and sprayed the whole thing as the hood opened to the front and pivoted up....
Or the VW Bug owner who stopped at a light with me behind him as smoke and flames started to be visible in his rear vents.
Fact of the matter is the VAST majority of the motoring public is grossly underinformed and just plain ignorant of their vehicles and basic maintenance. The last thing I need is a Car-B-Que holding up L.A. Traffic. Smother it, leave a card, and move on. Then smouldering remains attract far less attention than something fully ablaze.
Take what you want when you drive. Chances are someone out there, like me, will be able to save your ride with OUR extinguisher if something happens.
At least you hope someone will stop and render aid.
As for the Austin-Referred to Incident, it's somewhat of an Urban Legend:
"I've also heard of people dying from a 10mph collision, and even an incident here in Austin where a Semi's wheel came off and bounced across to the other side of the highway, over a median, and happend to come down right on a woman's windshield, killing her instantly."
It didn't happen in Austin, it happened in Garden Grove, on the 22 Freeway as a Westbound Container Vehicle lost it's rear axle. The assembly went on-end, hopped over the hood of a 1980 Toyota 1-Ton Pickup driven by H4-Lights, and unfortunately went into the EB SR22 Fast Lane right into the lap of someone. This was several years ago. The fire extinguisher in John's Truck didn't do too much for the occupants of the Eastbound Vehicle. Dead on the scene. We thought we were dead as well.
Man, that was....199....7, 8? Maybe. Man, like 10 years ago.
On an interesting note, I got a discount on both my homeowners policies after the underwriter did home walkthroughs. He was impressed that I had properly functioning fire detectors in both homes, but that was a 'requirement' for the policy. What I got the discount for, was having 1, 5, and 10# fire extinguishers positioned next to the furnace, in the bathroom, and near the stove in the kitchen. "Mitigation of Damage" is what he mentioned. IF a fire does start, having an extinguisher will most likely than not LIMIT the damage done. This mitigation could be the difference between a REPAIRED vehicle under your insurance policy, and one that is a total loss. Standing back and 'letting the professionals handle it' has (literally) burned me or people I have seen more than once. Taking a cue from your own statements, Pop, it's bad enough we have to settle for what we get these days, if people were more responsible for their own the world would be better off.
A fire extinguisher is me being responsible. It's a mitigation, not a prevention. Once it lets loose, better to mitigate, than immolate.
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That was a front impact at over 80 mph into a dirt berm at LVMS. The roof of the car and the roll bar did crush down about 3" and his helmet was damaged, but he walked away. The roll bar took at least 3 impacts as the car flipped end over end and there was a race seat and a 5 point racing harness installed.
And someone insisted they
1) Never took their hands off the wheel (non-deformed wheel, and broken finger---my presumption is from the helmet crushing siad finger aginst the roll cage, speaking frorm personal experience in a similar incident that happened to me in 1981)
2) He had the perfect line, and then "it just went away"
That's all I'm saying about that incident.
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I have no idea where the cooling airflow comes from when it's all plugged and panned. Even without a pan, with the radiator blocked, it doesn't seem to really affect it. The temperature we saw at Bonneville can probably be directly related to holding the car at 8000+ rpms for five miles straight....
I mean, I never took a static pressure reading in ALT configuration, but now you guys got me wondering if we indeed have some sort of 'negative' under there, and the radiator is basically 'ground breathing' for circulation. Our Bonneville car is pretty low, without anybody in it, I can't fit my wrist sideways under the T/C section of the frame at the firewall---I have to use a can picker-upper to stuff the plugs in the header collectors. Though now since we didn't see any loss by running the twin 3" exhausts, we can plug them at the rear of the car instead of trying to plug them from underneath.
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All I can add, is make sure whatever fuel lines you use, that in the area of the flywheel it is behind at least a 6" wide strap of 1/4" thick steel.
The last thing you need is the clutch, flywheel, or pressure plate to frag out something and cut a fuel line as it passes through unimpeded. On the Bonneville car, we passed our brake lines (fuel lines and cell are all up front) through a section of Sch 80 Piping that we secured to the frame rail with some padded Adel Clamps. Second to last thing you want, is after it frags, cuts the lines, and starts a fire...is to find you have no brakes to stop quickly...
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Try driving an 0.060 overbored, cammed Corvair in So Cal on 87 octane in the Summer... You quickly realize the advantages of the old Spearco "Dual Stage" Vacuum-Boost activated Water Injection Unit.
If your car is pinging on 'normal' advance settings, and you don't want to shell out $4 a gallon for Premium, then distilled water is a CHEAP alternative that will work long term (been on the Vair now since I upgraded to the "Dual Stage" from the P.O.'s installed outdated "Single Stage" Spearco unit in 1990)
Running on 87 sure beats running on 91 any day. At 20 cents a gallon more, I can get by with a lot of distilled Sparkletts (or hork it from work for free....)
One tank every other fillup in normal driving.
On a Z, I'd probably use Methanol or Windshield Washer Fluid that is Alcohol-Based. I don't like the effects of water on the Nissan Head's Alloy.
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Properly stated, the K24 (sic) or the z24 (sic) head look like the LY head, as it predates them by about a decade or more!
Not vice-versa!
Looking forward to more Blake Machine Photos for sure...
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From subjective viewpoint at El Mirage and Bonneville, when we run in ALT class instead of PRO, the car seems to be FAR better planted up front. The basic difference between the PRO class and ALT is that we totally block the radiator inlet on the G-Nose with sheetmetal, flush to the sides and bumper. no air whatsoever is allowed into the radiator during the run. Yeah, it gets hot, but something is cooling it....
GCC class has us running a full underbelly pan, and it doesn't seem to make mumch difference between the ALT configuration at all. You can see in the Record Books that the difference between PRO and ALT configurations is about 10mph (163 in PRO, 173 in ALT) at Bonneville. GCC was in the same area as ALT, so that kind of lends credence to what the Aerodyn operator was seeing.
The test data also reveals why we had less wheelspin when adding 200# of ballast in the spare tire well...and went faster.
I do know from a video we recently did, that in ALT configuration--even with all the radiator opening blocked off, the safety latch on the hood will keep the hood latched if the idiot strapping in the driver forgets to 'beat it' for good luck just before making the pass---so there is STILL pressure under that hood in a stock 280Z, even with the radiator opening of the G-Nose blocked off---anyone care to venture a guess how THAT is happening? We run no splash pan, either BTW, as it makes for a difficult installation of the bellypan. The only time the splash pan area is covered is when we run the GCC class, full belly pan, and covered radiator inlet on the G-Nose.
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Don't vent the carbon cannister line to the manifold! Vent it to the air cleaner, or stick one of those small K&N Keychain filters on the end. If you attach the vapor line to the manifold, it will SUCK the tank in---there is enough vacuum during deceleration that if all your other hoses are properly sealed, you will crush the gas tank like a tin can!
Just vent it to atmosphere with a small filter to let air out when you fill it, and air back into the tank when you are dsriving and sucking gas out.
the Benefit of the carbon cannister is that it's filled with about a milloin square feet of activated carbon surface area to adsprb fuel vapors, and then liberates them during startup and run of the engine without you smelling all that raw gas around the car after a hot shutdown. As above, don't vent it to the manfiold. simply vent it to the air cleaner.
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Don't misinterpret what I said, now! ANY movement before impact with any thing increases the incidence of injury. The Volvo Engineer used the example of a corrugated cardboard tube used to take up the 'couple of inches' between a knee and the door panel. Simply by placing a slowly deformable object directly against the leg, instead of letting it accelerate for 'a couple of inches' before hitting a soft and deformable door panel GREATLY reduced the traumatic injury. This is why even though cars are getting 'bigger' they are getting 'smaller' on the inside. They WANT everything close to the body, and deformable so it spreads the impact out immediately and over the longest possible period of time without ANY chance for unchecked bodily acceleration.
A good way to make the door panels in a Z safe, and actually look good is to use that dense, polyurethane spray foam on top of the cardboard panel. You spray it on and sculpt it and stick your speaker in there. You cover over it with door covering, and make it very close to your knees or elbows. That dense foam will collapse if you start flopping around and spread out the impact---and by using it to hold your speaker in a free-formed enclosure is also performs another function instead of having 'blobby' door panels without any function. The worst thing I can think of doing would be fiberglassing over the top of it and making a HARD door panel on the interior. That would be an example of 'bad' interior design.
If you want fire extinguishers, look for the newer style AFFF style (Aqueous Fire Fighting Foam) for the footwell on a pushbotton actuator, along with the standard ABC style mini extingusiher on the floorboard. The AFFF is water based, you can recharge it yourself, and if you use some of the nozzle kits, can make it spray under the hood. Nice touch if you want to flood the engine compartment with extinguishant before opening the hood. Open a hood ONE time to a flash fire that takes off your eyebrows and you will say "oh, that is a good idea!" LOL (well, maybe not eyebrows, but singes the beard and takes all the hair off your extinguisher-arm...)
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Gotta love that HKS Type 2 Surge Tank! Period Correct, for sure.
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That's really too bad. 1766 and 2176 just got bought as complete rolling chassis from a shop here in SoCal for under $1000 for the pair.
I hear #305 is up for sale as well. I will probably see it within the next two days.
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Stiffening the car too much can be bad too. Think about crush-zones that are built into modern cars. The car can survive relatively in tact while injuring the occupants from shock acceleration.
Think Dale Earnhardt. Stiff chassis, LOOSE BELTS.
If you have every safety feature in the world, and let your belts loose so you can internally accelerate BEFORE being stopped by either the belts or another piece of the car, you are almost better off with nothing.
This may sound strange, but put cardboard rolls in the door. (Extreme Example) I had a chance to dissect some Volvo Doors once, and found the surface under the door panel was basically made of some corrugated carbboard rolls. I asked about it, and what was said made sense---and you can see this in today's cars more and more:
The further you are from an internal component before you hit it, the faster you go, and the more injury results. By adding a relatively rigid, yet deformable substance (cardboard) the occupant's extremities never accelerate more than a couple of inches before contacting and deforming the panel. This spreads the forces of impact out over a longer period, resulting in less traumatic injury, bruising, etc.
I note in rentals a lot that in vehicles FAR larger than my Z, I am continually rubbing my knees on door panels, elbow room is less.... I mean I have more room to move around in my Z than I do in a new Crown Vic when I'm in a comfortable driving position.
It's that space that hurts you!
A Stiff car is not necessarily a safe car---a compliant car is much safer.
When you are on a track, and belted in with your HANS device, a stiff car will keep structural integrity, and the HANS will keep your head from flopping around and 'doing a Dale', the limb restraints will keep your hands inside from being caught outside and crushed. But on the street, lacking all that restraint if you have a stiff car and are hit hard---while your car may have structural integrity, that shock is going to be transmitted somewhere and it almost always is evidenced by flailing limbs and traumatic injuries.
Having been in some rollovers, as well as a concrete wall impact, from what I remember I was flopping around like a rag doll. Make the interior soft, limit your limb movements with thickly padded, semi-dense foam door panels, and padding wherever you can put it, keep a good seat and good belts in the car, and don't do stupid things.
Given enough momentum (as John C said earlier) any idiot can break anything---that includes YOURSELF!
I watched a slow rollover and impact on Cal Rte 60 some years back. A Toyota Tacoma Parts runner passed me while I was doing 80. Weaving, jigging, really 'making time'... Until it tried to pass a car coming up an onramp (passed on the RIGHT Unpaved Shoulder) and lost total control. it was like slow motion---I watched the parts boxes go to the roof, as the driver put their hand up unsuccessfully as they followed to the roof. Then they repeated this one more time, before the truck landed on it's wheels, and went in a "T-Bone" direction into the RIGHT side of a small Nissan Stanza travelling in the fast lane. I estimate the speed of side impact was somewhere in the 30-40mph range by that time. I watched the passenger's head AND SHOULDER come out through the right side window doorglass when they got hit. This person was belted in with standard lap belts. The amount you can flop around should never be underestimated. I was shocked to physically see someone's body almost come completely out of the car from a side impact! They never saw it coming either.
And of course, the Parts Truck Driver blamed the guy 1/4 mile up the road for 'pulling off the shoulder into traffic' when she was coming. Me? My statement started to the CHP "Well, I was Westbound in the #2 lane at 80mph"... Cop couldn't believe I said that. Never underestimate the stupidity of the driver's around you---many times it is they who will be your undoing!
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What JeffP found when he scoped his setup was due to the longer dwell times, once you hit a particular rpm, depending on the coils loading of the ignitor, it (the ignitor) will not be able to handle the gating of the coil properly, and you get a sawtooth pattern on the ignitor signal to the coil. So it doesn't fully saturate.
Another problem he noticed is that around 6K, the scoped pattern looked almost like pure DC, and the transistor could not handle the input---instead treating it like a single DC pulse...or constant power to the thing.
He was very suprised to find the Non-OEM coil he was using was loading up the stock ignitor he had so badly. Really overloading it. So that is something to keep in mind as well---if you have an aftermarket coil, it can kill your ignitor due to over working it's internal bits.
As a curious side note, anybody ever take a look at what coil Nissan used on the NPTI car that made gobs of horsepower? A SINGLE small, delicate Bosch coil (part number is around someplace, but I can't reference it right now). JeffP burned that coil up with the dwell setting he was using for the Mallory coil he had, but the very fine windings and fast response of that Bosch would allow megaspark with minimal dwell times. This would work well with the stock ECU (which they used for a while) whose gating pulses seem to be consistent, but stay well within the stock ignitor's range of operation even at very high rpms and boost loadings. I mean, it was running enduros at over 750hp, and made 1100hp terminally, so if that itty bitty Bosch Coil can handle that load it kind of makes you think about all these big honking coils everybody thinks they 'need' to fire off turbo cars (or N/A's for that matter).
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Is a hard castable urethane virtually a solid mount? Much the same as nylon or even a soft metal?
If you are casting hard urethane, probably yes. But you can pour any number of durometers, and with a captive mount like the above shown, making a pourable mould and experimenting with a mix of different durometers for different damping characteristics would be possible.
Using that mount, it would even be feasible to replace the mounts with aluminum for a solid mount as well.
This setup gives many possibilities, not the least of which is the ready availability of pre-cast hard urethane parts for initial fabrication and replacement. You can always make up a mold and pour your own of a softer durometer and then do a road test to see if you want the lesser damping force of the softer Urethane. The real question is: How is the Trans mounted in that beast? Because as stated earlier, you really should use all three mounts of similar material---though it is not a stretch to see the same/similar mounts retrofitted and used on the ends of the tranny crossmember with a solid connection to the tranny from the X-Member. Then you are using one 'universal' mounting bushing for basically the whole drivetrain. Engine, Tranny, and Differential. Probably overkill in some of the places, but that's not necessarily a concern when you are not producing millions of vehicles a year.
California Smog
in MegaSquirt
Posted
You should come out to the El Mirage Land Speed Event second Weekend in June, we will be running there again, after we install the BadDog Frame Rails to satiate the tech inspectors... Otherwise I'll probably drive by, I know the area...