Mudge

Absolutely not a 305, and not practical for ANYTHING nowdays. The LS1 with good heads (aka the LS6) can make the same power with less PITA factor, and no $25,000 cost for engine aquirement either, although I have seen maybe one for 15k. If you have the dough get an LS1 and hop it up further if you really want that kind of power, or more, they will make great power with a small cam, same power as an LT1 with about a 10º smaller cam in a ported heads LS1 versus LT1, which means more driveability.

Well, the 5 speed started in 77, so there is a good chance it is a 5 speed but dont know if that was an option versus the 4 speed, or if it was the sole option other than the Autoshmatic. I'd ask him to row for you

I am well experienced in avoiding potholes Not only do they scare the bejeebus out of you, but I feel guilty for putting the car through something like that. I don't think I've seen Koni Doubles for the 240Z yet? Maybe I am not looking in all the right places... Shox.com doesn't say if the 240Z Konis listed are yellow or reds or what, guess I have to call. Thanks for the info all! Of course open to more

Thanks Tim!

Huh? I kind of said "huh" too, because a spring rate changes incrementally per inch but a longer spring doesn't neccessarily mean a higher spring rate. Spring rate is determined by thickness of the wire, number of coils, and the median of the spring diameter. Take off a coil and the spring rate goes up, add a coil (longer spring) and no other changes to the spring and you have a weaker rate. Now I think I see what you mean, compress the spring to the starting position of the older spring and you have a higher starting rate, so throughout the rest of the springs travel it would also be a higher rate, although this also means that you could be giving up suspension travel if the spring coils will bottom out on themselves but that again is going to depend on wire diameter and number of coils along with the length that the spring travels. If you felt the car handled neutrally before though, and you increased rate in the rear, then you no longer have a neutral car

I have heard more bad than good on the AGXs unfortunately, and on KYBs in general, even though some people are happy with plain old KYBs with lowering springs (good god...), I am a bit more snooty and want something that actually absorbs the energy of the spring. I will try to find out whats on there now, its raining today... simptoms are what feels like bottoming out every now and again, and a definite bit of bounce around town, telling me the struts aren't soaking up the spring fully. I am also unsure if the strut housing is shortened, and wondered if it was just bottoming out on the body or something, which would be no good either. Prices look about as such: Struts/shocks: Koni's $520.80 (240Z & 260Z ONLY) Tokico's $249.00 Tokico Illumina's (externally adjustable) $459.00 Sets of 4

I can take off in second with the stock 3.36(?) and 240Z engine (early 5 speed), so I'm not at all supprised. In the Camaro I could take off in 3rd with 3.42s if I draged the clutch a bit. Congrats, VIDEO TIME!

I've seen them for under $300 on eBay when I looked very recently.

Richening it up 1/4 turn helped definately, but idle RPM is still not consitent from one stop to the next, and it occasionally wants to die still. I'll check Napa for a color-tune.

Looking at the Tokico stuff right now, but open to ideas. I have lowering springs on the car now, but am unsure of the rates (I will try to find out soon), they are about 1.5" lowering springs, on a 73 car. I don't yet know the struts either, but do not feel like they are fully up to the job as I get a little bounce here and there, very unlike my Koni Doubles on my other car.

Here is something interesting, I am going to assume its maybe vacuum leak related, but here goes. Basically either the car will idle so low it wants to die (especially when coming to a stop), or if just a minor twich of the choke and it goes from ~500RPM idle to nearly 1200-1500 RPM idle. If I give it a small tap on the gas at the light when its idling low, it will hang around the 1500 RPM mark once again, and if/when it drops its usually pretty slow. Power is pretty good on the street, but I am still suspicious of vacuum leak or maybe incorrect jetting. These are dual Weber downdrafts (32/36), and am assuming the jets are unchanged from the donor setup but am not positive. Now, here is further mystery for me, a non carb person and new to Z land (Haynes manual on the way), the air filters have a barbed plastic connector at the bottom, as if a line goes to them for some purpose, wether EGR or what I am not sure, but they are unhooked at the moment so basically letting in a small amount of unfiltered air. I can snap a pic if this helps, but would you assume this is for EGR and should be plugged up? Or is this for something else that I'm not finding in the harness? 73 240Z, P30 engine (verified on block), idle screws are backed out about 2 1/4 turns

I hate to say, but I would take a guess that the engine balancing is probably poor, good enough to rev to 5000 RPM or so, but 6000? I just would feel guilty doing it probably. Buy a junkyard V8 that fits your desire, balance the internals, install new bearings and glaze break the walls and install new rings.

If yours was a cheap under $200 unit, its probably a narrow band O2, those are HIGHLY innacurate outside of 14.7:1 since they were created that way to keep catalytic converters happy (stoich), they can switch quickly within only a very narrow band. A cheap wideband O2 by itself costs about $175 last I checked, not including eletronics.

Is anyone hacking up a stock pan to "fix it up", using a windage tray and or a crank scraper on the stock pan? For those of us with budgets less than $700 for a simple pan!?!

I ran shorty headers, if you are going to be able to run long tubes, that might help Horsepower is fun

http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=2274&papass=&sort=1 Nice to see some results, rich in the midrange causing power loss though, and lean up top a tad. I aimed for a generic 13.0:1 for my WOT AFR, although I'm sure its not as easy to achieve across the board on a carb car

Iron heads flow barely any better, and are lower compression, and of course weigh more, a pocket port job will get them flowing like Impy heads easily. It doesn't take alot of work to get the intake side in the 250 range, the difference between 265 and 278-280 intake though is on the order of an additional 8 hours. $1,000 is about right for a complete engine (eBay, yards want more), you get a better deal if you buy it with a T56, once in a great while they go for $1,500ish, I saw one on eBay for about $1,600 I think in early November for the combo, $2,000 for both is more frequent and thats private seller - yards usually want $2,500 or more. If however you do find one with iron heads though, sometimes they go for $600-$700, but with more weight comes more shipping costs, if your shipping it.

I want to build a high compression setup as well, but it does sound like a PITA to some extent, cam towers/timing chain issues. If you stay NA though to retain your low end driveability you'll need the compression to make up for bleed off with a higher overlap cam. Unless you go wild with the timing or compression (which you wont) you will not need race gas at all.

I considered a 225/234 Isky cam, the next step up from Isky is a 234/246 (110 LSA, you could request otherwise) which will idle OK in my experience, I daily drove one with stock 3.42 rear gears but I was about at the limit for acceptability without going to another gear. Programming was not too tough, I used someone elses program as a baseline and didn't make many changes to the timing map, mostly AF tuning. Timing down low was most of where I concentrated, and was a bit limited by Crapifornian gas, but it was overall ok. You will want to run open loop idle with a cam in this area, the overlap will cause BLMs to go a bit haywire in closed loop, it idled fine at 800 RPM but 900-1000 RPM was nicer as far as take off without putting your foot down noticeably. I also ran a MAF car instead of speed density, supposedly MAF is easier to tune for general driveability but mostly due to weather changes(?). There is also a CC306 that is popular, but is considered by some an outdated grind, as far as some others being slightly better through the powerband, its a 230/244, by default on a 112 LSA. For not making too much a step further I'd probably go with the 225/234, but the expense may not honestly be worth it, the HOTCAM kit at $459 can't be beaten for the value. When you want just a liiiiiittle bit more than that, you start paying alot more unfortunately, if you sell the kit and keep only the rockers you will do ok, but I am not sure how those rockers are to be trusted at 6500+ RPMs, since I was anal about my valvetrain setup I went with non SA rockers, guideplates, chrome molly pushrods and the like, a bit more cost and definately more PITA since the setup will not fit natively under the rocker covers. If this is going into a Z car and you are on a timeline and budget, I might just stick with the HOTCAM kit for now, is another 30-50 HP worth the extra hundreds for a different setup? Oh, I hate to add more $ to your project cost so you may or may want to convert, but I'd suggest going to a 1995 Optispark/timing cover setup, if the Opti is in good shape and you'll seal up the front end well enough you could leave it alone I suppose. Opti, vacuum harness, Opti wiring harness (short cabling), timing cover, poke a hole in the intake ducting or $50ish for a new 95/1LE TB duct. Minus headers/cold air/Tunercat I believe I spent $2260 total, it adds up doesn't it...

Looks like they can maybe do custom, but they dont have any 114.3mm to other bolt patern listed other than (as I found) a 5 lug in 114.3, being a 4x110mm to 5x114.3 which does about zero good. Is anyone running old 4 lugger Mustang wheels with spacers? Mustang 4 luggers are 4.25"

If thats true 28 pounds is terrible, 23.5ish is what I'm used to for 17x9.5" wheels!

From what I have heard, this is correct - just avoid rain like the PLAUGE. If you hit rain drive slooooooooooooooooooow and stay off the freeway, or else park it.

400-500 extra pounds, heck why not just buy another car and race it, ya know? Wait and watch for 70-73 cars if you like, I'm waiting/watching for a 72-73 specifically. Heavier by a tad than 70-71 but they have a rear end placement issue.

Yep, not even old school Pontiac mounts are the same as Chevy, so certainly not Ford gear.

Hotcam (aka WARMCAM) with heads make about 370 RWHP, or about 420 HP crank from what I've seen. You can easily find a good baseline tune on the net, just dont go WOT without verifying AFR, and tuning said AFR yourself on the dyno!