Tony D

BTW, there is the cost thing from the Phill Website: "The refueling appliance – marketed under the name “Phill” – is expected to cost about $3,500. Incentive funding offered by AQMD and the MSRC will total $2,000 per unit for a total of 400 units, lowering the cost of each unit to $1,500 for the consumer. Installation of a unit costs an additional $1,000 to $2,000. Driving a compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicle can cut fuel costs in half. On average, fueling a CNG passenger vehicle will cost about 4 cents per mile compared with 8 cents per mile for a similar gasoline vehicle. The refueling unit is a small, compact gas compressor capable of providing convenient overnight home refueling for CNG vehicles. The appliance is safe, lightweight, and can deliver 3,000 or 3,600 pounds per square inch gauge (psig) of natural gas. " Basically the cost of the fuel is half what you would use for Gasoline, and there are other decreased engine maintenance costs related to running CNG instead of Gasoline as well, reducing total operation costs more... I'm on a bandwagon! LOL I love CNG. No, I don't work there any more. Though I believe they went public a month or so ago...so much for my "Ground FLoor Apple Computer" opportunity...

Well being that I workde for the premier supplier of CNG in the Nation maybe I should chime in... http://www.cleanenergyfuels.com/main.html First the costs: 80% of gasoline? That is a marketing goal. Our company set the price for CNG at 80% of a gallon of gasoline, and it was dispensed in "gasoline gallon equivalent" meaning the gallon you read on the dispenser was energy equivalent to a gallon of gasoline. In reality CNG vehicles dedicated CNG vehicles actually outperform Gasolilne vehicles because they take advantage of the CNG's 120+ octane, but I digress. Back to pricing, while in the LA region the CNG was commercially available for 80% of the cost of gasoline, in Salt Lake City a competitor was selling CNG for just over 80 cents a gallon equivalent! (Read that as $2.23 a gallon in L.A. and 82 cents a gallon equivalent in SLC---each company has markup and operating profit in that sum, so guess who's going to buy who in a few years???) Currently according to the above website the cost is $1.89 a gallon in SoCal. What has changed in three weeks that makes it drop from $2.23 to 1.89? That is another story altogether. When it was over $3 a gallon in SoCal, the price was capped at $2.50. Outrageous profits notwithstanding to their credit and despite a marketing plan that says "80% of the cost" they said enough it enough and kept the price steady. At that point cabbies started realizing they were paying 33% less than a gasoline cost! Or more! Boone Pickens is one shrewd dude! (As you can tell, I'm a fan of his!) The ACTUAL cost of the fuel is around 40 cents per gallon. Amortization of the pumping unit is what will drive up the cost. The fuel is in reality only about 40 cents per gallon equivalent, and really that is up since the cost of NG went up this past year. For a commuter car, the CNG option is EMINENTLY practical. The 8-hour 'slow fill' is dependent on the size of the storage tank in the vehicle. My E350 Service Van took 30 gallons of fuel and could be refuled at a commercial fast-fill station in less time than a gasoline counterpart. Slow fill is the way to get the absolute most out of the vehicle. The key is to have a 3600psi compressor in there, and not the 3000psi units. Were someone to optimize their vehicle for CNG usage (using higher compression and spark curves) to take advantage of the fuels 120+ octane rating, fuel mileage in a Z-Car would be rather reasonable for commuting, and FAR more practical than any of the electric alternatives currently out there. Buying a surplus CNG vehicle would give you most of the bits required, cheaper than buying them new, outright from a conversion specialist liike AFV in Huntington Beach CA (on Gothard Street, between Warner and Ellis). Even the smallest CNG tanks would allow 5 GGE (gas gallons equivalent) in the vehicle, and I believe with the removal of the spare tire well on an S30, that you could fit two of those units in the vehicle. That's 10 gallons of fuel in an S30. About double the "projected" range of the article. Driving an dedicated CNG vehicle, after driving their gasoline counterparts is a STRIKING thing. The first thing you realize is the transmission doesn't downshift in top gear. The thing has TORQUE! I pulled Palomar grade in overdrive in my E350. The only other vehicle I had that did that was my F350 Turbodiesel. The E250 I had with the same Gasoline engine needed a drop out of overdrive to keep the 80mph speed going uphill without dropping out of cruise control. As for taxation, take a look out there for "Hurricane" compressors. They are converted Ford 460 blocks where half the engine is engine, and the other portion of the V is a four stage compressor! Portable CNG fueling, fueled off the gas main you hook it to! Currently in the USA (and Canada) the CNG is not taxed the same as other roadgoing fuels. This is due to heavy lobbying by the companies involved in trying to get an alternative CLEAN fuel source situated and the infrastructure in place. In Arizona there was a bill that PAID the TOTAL COST of any Alternative Fueled Vehicle bought within a specified timeframe! Man, they did NOT expect the response they got, and funds EVAPORATED while cities tried to go through ponderous bureaucratic sessions to retrofit their fleets of busses, private individuals ran fast to get a "Free Vehicle" and bought them like gangbusters. For once municipalities got screwed by their residents on a governmental program because their residents were quicker to realize a good thing than their elected officials! LOL Anyway, if you bump the compression (the stock Ford CNG engine in my E350 5.4 Triton had 13:1) and make for a big spark advance using EFI a CNG vehicle conversion will have MORE power than a conventionally produced gasoline only capable vehicle. The bad rap CNG and Propane vehicles get is from people converting GASOLINE engines to run on them---in which case they are not optimized for the fuel's characteristics and there is a power loss noticed. One other thing, you convert your car to CNG ONLY, and in California you get to run in the Car Pool Lanes alone. Oh man, the storie I can tell about CHP's that just got Sheepish at my best Cheech and Chong Voiced "Hey man, it's a CNG vehicle, man! Didn't you see the sticker, Dude?" Oh, priceless! Worth the cost of the conversion alone. BTW, I doubt I'd put the fueling unit at my house, there is a dedicated commercial CNG fueling station (one I formerly had to maintain) only 4 miles from my house. For the bother of installation and maintenance, I'll just fill up there. While I worked for the company my wife was eligible for free CNG for her vehicle...so that tells you how much markup there is if they are giving away "Free Gas"! I don't know of any Petro company doing that for their employees! LOL

BTWm if you want sleeper and turbo, then best to use the stock turbo pieces, a "blow though turbo" setup using two SU throttle bodies would add immeasurably to the complexity and make for a very difficult sealing situation, as well as limiting the injectors you can run to supply fuel. On a turbo you want precise fuel delivery into each cylinder, and with the stock N42 or any of the other EFI manifolds, you get it. The SU Throttle Body idea is only really practical for an N/A car. And I am confident that HP could be supported well into the high 200's with such a setup, as normal SU's can support 200+hp as they are...

Barking up the wrong tree fitting it inside the dome. E-Mail me. The injectors will fit on a machined boss cut at 45 degrees from a 1X1.25" block of aluminim, the injector will enter the carb body at a 45 degree angle impinging on the center of the throttle plate at idle, and with a 3/4" thick spacer for the bottom of the float bowl will fit inside the float bowl unseen. Injector wiring can be hidden within the massive emissions hoses on a 73/74 setup, and throttle position sensor can be linked hidden, using a Kinsler Mount and rod. My setup retains the fuel inlet on the SU as a fuel feed to the injector, so putting replacement High Pressure hose (under the stock asbestos insulation) keeps all well hidden. Fast idle is easily accomplished through stock choke lever actuation and removal of the choke plate in the mouth of the carb. Some boring and welding is required, the most difficult part is the manufacture of the fuel rail adapter that must fit within VERY close quarters. I have photos to share of the prototype if interested. It uses twin 55cc injectors, though 1100 cc units are available that would allow much more HP to be developed. Twin 550's would take the HP range of most N/A engines though... WTF factor is very high.

Nice Ducting Bob! I should do something like that to mine as well. I had considered a supplemental air intake in my front air dam to go to the intercooler, but then where would my RX7 Oil Cooler go??? Space is such a bugger with the G-Nose, it's almost worth it to brace the front end with tube, lay the radiator down and make it a "bottom breather" so you can segregate separate airflows for the I/C and the Radiator. I know when I cluttered my G-Nose intake up with (er...) Teeth, the temperature went up, so I removed every other (er...) Tooth and succeeded in lowering the temp the 15 degrees F it had risen...while at the same time changing the look of the vehicle from "Loose Ferengi" to "Land Shark", hence the name "Sharkie" which others hung on the car afterwards. LOL Funny how others get to name your car, huh? Keep us posted, looks great! Sharkie Languishes in the pasture rife with Black Widows waiting for me to have more time... :^(

If I knew, we wouldn't have had to pay Lance $5 each for the connector plugs! LOL I will look at the thing and see if I can get some sort of part number off them. I think JeffP has a set standing by also, maybe he will chime in... On an aside, if you guys are thinking far enough ahead when you get t he crank from that LD28, don't forget to snag their oil pump drive stubshaft. It fits right in place of the stock diztributor drive spindle, with a nice machined end and no long spindle to cut off when you are running crankfire or COP! So to add that mod to the list of advantages "no superflous dizzy drive spindle to flop around unsupported or supported in the top of the front cover"! LOL A Welsh (Freeze) Plug plugs that hole nicely, though I have also seen dummy dizzy "plugs" machined to fit there and be retained by the stock two bolts.

Late here also, but Randy is correct in his classification, there are COP coils that indeed have their own power transistor built into the base of the coil. We just replaced the Electromotive TEC2 setup on the Bonneville car, with the unit from Pantera Specialists. It went from the unified coils of the Electramotive setup (looked like Buick V6 Coil Pack) to Individual COP setup---these coils had three pins of them (Delphi GM Connector, so I'm assuming they were from a GM Product) one pin was "head ground", one pin was constant 12VDC power supply, and one pin was trigger voltage from the ECU. After doing the dyno run on friday, the car ultimately was down 7HP from what it previously was, but power under the curve was up substantially overall. More torque across the board. Wether this is the result of the new ECU/Coil setup, or from shortening the primary length of the header 4" remains to be determined, but the car is running much smoother now than before (hard to believe with the way the TEC2 ran the car compared to Webers!), and now pulls flawlessly above 9Krpm without reservation. So yeah, some of those coils for COP indeed do have ignitors built in to them!

er....yeah. naviathan, here is the perfect example of why not! To be pedantic for those who are so blind as not to see the obvious: Insufficient torque and lack of proper locking compounds on the crank snout during installation cause the pulley to work during periods of operation, resulting in a wallowed-out keyway. Ergo improper installation caused the malady. Simple Logic. If the bolt worked loose during operation: lack of locking compound and torque at installation, same conclusion. The difference between "root cause analysis" and "anecdotal garbage" is dispassionate apprasial of the actual causes of the failure. To say improper installation does not cause it (and to catagorically insist that in such a manner) is both irresponsible and in clear disregard for the facts of the metter from hundreds, perhaps, collectively thousands of crankshaft snout failures diagnosed by people here on this board. This is not ZCar.Com, people here are much better educated, and far less egocentric than there. In short (and not to overstep my bounds here, this is for the moderators)please take your Z-Car.Com baiting antics elsewhere, as well as grudges, hards-on, and anything else you wish to drag into topics here Bubbles... This site is fact-based and if the facts of a matter disturb you you can argue all you want but it still doesn't change the facts of the matter at hand.

The more storage capacity you have, the smaller horsepower compressor you can get by with... Linking tanks is a very good way of upping storage capacity, as long as you use a large enough hose, 3/4" is a good rule of thumb. It's what I do for a living...

Just a reminder, the Turbo Oil Pump has a hole in it, which when aligned with the dot on the splined shaft drive gear, will allow the proper orientation when installed in the engine's front cover. This, of course, has at it's basis a given that the drive gear has NOT spun on the shaft at anyn time in the past---if this is the case, you need to line it up as in the photo above.

Well, someone with a hybrid turbo did some exhaust pressure readings compared to intake pressure and he was running 23psi in the exhaust to 23psi in the intake.... that is as good as some old F1 Turbo setups! Same setup now with bigger exhaust turbine, anti-reversion step in the intake, and much less reversion than when he had equal exhaust and intake pressures! But I digress....

Again, take it for what it's worth, JeffP's engine was ported with an anti-reversion step by BCG, and it's a turbo motor like yours. The pre-eminent head porter of L-Engines during the heyday of Electromotive's Development of turbocharged headwork says it helps, and I take him at his word. I have seen Jeff's intake before and after the mod... Like I said in the beginning, it's for overlap at low speeds with big cams. If you think what is applicable to domestics is not applicable to imports, I'm not going to change your mind. If you can't see the advantages of a dynamic check-valve of sorts in either on or off-boost operation, again I am not going to change your mind. Someone may benefit from it, it's not B.S. I just am not going to take the time to search exhaustively to convince someone what works and what doesnt. Good luck with that intake. BTW, there was import stuff on there or maybe it was some stuff from the mitsu and bimmer sites that doesn't count... A Turbo usually has higher exhaust pressure than intake pressure, if you like exhaust gas reverting into the intake for the first three inches of the runner...

Unplugged it as in "introduced a massive vacuum leak to lean out the engine"? Methinks a bit more dillegence is in order, there is nothing to go bad in the thing internally, it's activated carbon that stores vapors from the tank. If you are driving to the emissions station, the thing it totally purged and inactive during the testing. Now, if your fuel curve is calibrated wrong and you are running high HC and CO (running rich) disconnecting one of the vacuum lines to the intake manifold will do what was mentioned above and lean it out. Better to check some more. The only thing that goes wrong on them is the check valve on top goes bad (rubber flapper disc) and it leans the engine out. Doesn't sound like that is the case in your situation, matter of fact sounds like the flapper is working just fine sealing it off. It's like cutting your foot off because you tripped on a stick in the road. It was the stick, not the foot causing the problem.

gawd no, please, not that. Lets keep it informative and fact based here, instead of "the alternative" thankyouverymuch. Improper dampner installation causes it, the other thread covers the repair possibilities. Good Luck!

check out velasco crankshafts. they have three treatments for crankshaft counterweights to increase revability. you can cut them down and lighten them more if the pistons and rods are lighter to begin with... But chamfering the leading edges of the crank counterweights is very common in any serious race engine...it would be considered a "mild" application of lightening, Velasco does much more on the top-speed car crank prep. They have photos on their website I think... or maybe it was a writeup in PRI. My mind is fooked recently remembering things in print versus online... Sorry.

The carb end is 40mm, but the port end is a closer match to the diameter of the L20A port size---slightly smaller than the L24 port size. As discussed on another thread, this taper will increase the velocity coming into the head, and the step at the head will have definate anti-reversionary benefits with a big-overlap cammed engine.

What do you know? Threads discussing "Anti Reversionary Headers". http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/archive/index.php/t-11713.html http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-449389.html http://www.riveraengineering.com/cat05/sect/Exhaust_Section.pdf (Page 8 mentions the AR Headers) https://www.headersbyed.com/stepped.htm http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/Volvo_Books/maint4.html (probably most directly related to the discussion) http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Anti-Reversion-Cones-Torque-Cones-For-Harley-Shovelhead_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ35573QQitemZ4598093594 (Bit extreme, but they call them "torque cones") Dealing with the Intake end of it: http://www.magnafuel.com/products/accessories/revPlates/index.htm http://productengr.com/shear_plates.htm (introduces me to the name "shear plate" which I was formerly unfamiliar with) A photo of what V-8 Guys install as "anti-reversion shear plate" under their carbs, same thing can be manufactured or machined into individual runner intakes, or done with the "step" I mentioned in the post above. From this website: http://www.rehermorrison.com/indexStart.htm Tech Article here: http://www.popularhotrodding.com/enginemasters/articles/pontiac/0606em_pontiac_racing_engine/pontiac_engine.html BANNED in some racing classes: http://www.elkospeedway.org/lmr.html My gawd, a thread involving (shudder) Corvettes with someone discussing the same anti-reversion technology specifically relating to port-matching and details their technique of a 'reversion wall' at the head-intake juncture of .202 to .030" (so about 1mm total diametrical difference): http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=1409861 This one shows the technique has been around for some time...Ford Flathead anti-reversion steps!!! http://www.flatheadv8.org/bishop/porting1.htm So the terminology of "Anti Reversion" is applicable in both Internal Combustion Exhaust and Intake design---though not gas pipelines! LOL Some of that should get you the understanding of the phenomenon I was referring to above.

I defer to Nathan at BCG in Sacramento on this one, they are (were) one of the premier head porters back in the day, and he clearly stated the anti-reversionary benefits of a small step at the manifold / head juncture. Normally it would be smooth, but having a small step there helps with reversion on high overlap cams, and in turbo applications. I will search myself, I just saw some photos of "anti reversion" bulges in headers, I will post the links as I find them. I had heard of them at the head in some production headers for a long time, but recent design practice is to use them along the length of the header primary pipe, whilst stepping up the diameter of the pipe at each juncture. This is latest header design philosophy, and "step headers" are being used more an more in N/A applications. But back to the intake, the step at the head performs the same function as the steps in the headers, no so much 'preventing' reversion, but hindering it without any penalty in flow down the pipe. Natural Gas pipelines are not travelling at supersonic (or near supersonic) speeds, so dynamic flow devices will not have an application there. Take a look in some turbomachinery design texts and you will see the "step" design on turbine discharge piping. Centrifugal compressors are a good place to find a 4" discharge pipe on the machine, but an engineering specification that calls for a 6" check valve and discharge piping into the main header... Some of this is to prevent surge, but it does that by decreasing the speed of the gas in the larger pipe, diffusing to pressure...I digress. This will get way obtuse if we go down that route. I'm going to look for the photos of the reversionary devices in the step headers I saw earlier... wish me luck!

some piston manufacturers are offering custom lightening for pistons now, reducing reciprocating mass adds to power down the driveline---or at least accelerating... Less weight on the bobweight end means less crankshaft counterweight required---less wounterweight required means quicker revving crank... If you have ever seen a Ferrari Crankshaft, it's a work of art: very little counterweight hanging out there, very thin, with weight added using Mallory Metal in dowel form to keep all rotating mass as close to crankshaft centerline as possible. No wonder they rev like they do! VW's are hard on crankshafts (Type 1 Air Cooled) when they have a light flywheel due to loading during clutch dumps. The solution was to add a 7# balancer on the opposite end (belt end) of the crank to keep torsionals under control. The engines seemed to rev just as fast with that Berg Equalizer on the end---because the diameter of the weight was close to the centerline of the crank. But that added weight on the other end was enough to keep the dowels from twisting out of the flywheel, or snapping the crankthrow at the fillets!

anti reversionary devices are like "flow check valves" they are present in some headers. Basically it is a device that inhibits flow in one direction, but does not affect it in another. In headers the tubes usually neck down slightly, and project into another larger tube. The increase in velocity through the neck-down makes it hard for gasses to backflow when it hits the larger area of the next tube, and the difference in tube sizes makes for a turbulence at the edges of the flow to prevent it from reversing as well. Basically a small tube dumping into a larger tube is an anti-reversionary device. Leaving a small step at the head/intake manifold juncture (intake manifold being smaller than head opening) causes it to flow in one direction easier than the other direction. I know Gerolamy mentioned that a small step in that area can help with engines that are turbocharged and have exhaust backpressure that is high, and in N/A engines with large overlaps it helps with reversion at lower engine speeds. I second the beeswax suggestion, it helps with loading immeasurably. For my port matching I found cartridge rolls (tapered) from Merit Abrasives in 36 grit to be very fast acting and easier to control than the carbides.

steering rack is the same RHD and LHD, it is inverted and the dots to line up the steering coupler is positioned at a different position between the two setups. But see, there's one listed for $750 as a complete car, and the puny L20A is being sold separately.

I would have to agree, port matching like that 1 or even 2" into the manifold is probably counter-productive. Opening the port as large as possible at the plenum end, tapering to the head end would be productive, and the resultant step at the head would act like an anti-reversionary device helping with that issue at lower flowrates.

The L20A manifolds just have smaller head-end holes. They are plenty thick to be opened up to match L24,26,28 head ports. I don't see why it would knock off any value. Personally I would rather have a manifold undersized than one that is "already clearanced" to a size bigger than the ports in my existing head. I just want him to be aware that most of the SK stuff was made specially for the JDM stuff, and they got dinky ports. For someone with an L20A (nobody here, right? LOL) that SK manifold would be a FAR better choice than anything else out there on the market! Though I already have one, so I ain't buyin' it...

Yeah, the guy who sold them to me was the guy who got to them first when they were for sale alone. He outbid me for them, and I messaged him then and there with a "if you EVER want to sell these, here is my contact information" e-mail. I had to buy them with his manifold and SDS system as a package deal... I ended up driving up to SFO and paying cash to have them handed over to my greedy, waiting little hands...LOL! I know the Japanese system for selling cams was a mystery to me. Everyone seemed to run a 74 Degree cam, and it was strong. I never did get anyone to tell me what the degrees referred to... 80 must be a screamer! That Type 2 was a long find after I decided that the Type 1 would not "be right" with the HKS TB's. The Redline setup is pretty nice, if I am correct their ECU is the one Lance Nist is brokering---big processor, 140MHz processor speed. Nice setup indeed! For what I have into my "Old Stuff" I probably could have bought "new" that looked shiny! LOL

oh, one very effective means of exhausting hot underhood air effectively is to cut some 3" diameter holes in the inner fender well under the battery and the clutch slave cylinder. This is a very low pressure area at speed, and really helps with the underhood air pressure buildup the S30 experiences. Many in Japan used pancake fans in these openings to exhaust air while sitting at a stoplight for extended periods.