ZR8ED

Oshawa!!?? WTF I must be slacking, because I did not know this car was for sale. At the very least Bill must have looked at it. hehehe. I would have picked it up for that price! Anyways rant over. Good luck. Keep us posted. There are lots of us locals (Toronto area), so speak up if you need some help/advice/parts etc. Our next club meet is Feb 4th. I like the rear flares! Scott.

You mentioned you had 14" rims, so I will assume that your tires are less than 225's (section width) This doesn't apply directly to you, but it is another thing to consider when troubleshooting wandering steering. Wide wheels. Our cars are pretty narrow, and driving on the highway with truck grooves (lanes are slightly rutted from heavy trucks) our cars will "hunt" back and forth, as we drive with one wheel in a groove, or up on the "hump". This is even more pronounced with wider wheels. I have a full body kit, belly pan, lowered with upgraded suspension, and wide wheels, and mine will wander in the lanes. When the road is grooved, my car wants to wander and follow the grooving (when they prepare the road surface to be repaved) On the track, zero issues. I just have to live with it. Scott.

Jerry. That is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. It even matches your car! Maybe I can get one in black. Scott

I have 4 two ton stands, two floor jacks, a scissor jack, and two ramps. I used to have a pair of huge ramps made from pressure treated 4x4's and 2x12's. Ramps were 10ft long, and hooked on to a 2ft by 2ft by 14" high base where the wheels would rest. Plenty sturdy, and plenty heavy and bulky. I dismantled them and used the wood for other projects since then, but were very handy when needed. I see a type of metal ramp system (talked about on this forum) in my future.

This may not be helpful to you, but it is an option that maybe others reading this thread could use. I used to tow my z using a tow bar attached the bumper mounting plates on the front end (my 78 280), and simply put the car in neutral with the steering unlocked. I towed it with my Saab 900, and with a lincoln towncar with zero issues. Sure I had to be careful, and my Saab was a 2litre n/a 5spd, but it worked just fine, and only a minor expense to fab a bar, hitch, etc. Ok it was not the greatest for backing up. I had to have a co-pilot in the z to steer it, but driving forward and turning corners,was like it was not even there. It worked great for the 1-2 times a year I needed it. Caution * may not be legal in your area *

I agree that the striping is due most likely to poor coverage likely from not enough overlap. At least the shop is working with you. Though I do know (based on your description) that those lines will not go away, and the shop likely knows this. He could remove the hood, fix and spray it right away, and save face and tell you that it fixed itself after sitting for a few days. As long as everything is being fixed, and he is being civilized, cut him some slack and be grateful he doesn't just walk away from his responsibility. Do you know if it was sprayed with waterbased technologies? As I write this, I don't recall what part of the country you are in, but I do know that some states have already, or are about to ban solventbourne refinish paint, and legislating the use of waterbourne technologies. Canada is supposed to convert by 2010 all automotive refinishers. OEM plants are exempt, except where they use refinish paints for repairs. I ask this because the techniques used to spray waterbourne paints is quite different, and a shop that may have years of experience, may struggle for a while with waterbourne paints until they unlearn their old techniques. Good luck, and BTW the car looks pretty good other than that defect! Scott.

Well the coolant level was fine, I suspect the controller in the dash is acting up. I managed to solve the problem though. I ditched the car and bought a new Sentra. Cheaper ins, new car and only 20$ per month more than what I was paying. I did some calcs on what was owing, and added up the needed and soon to be required repairs, and it just didn't make sense to pay that kind of money to drive an old highmileage car. I got an very good deal on it. I have lots of Nissan friends hehe Thanks all for the ideas!

Help! My daily driver (honda civic) has just starting doing this. The car is fully warmed up, and my heater is putting out full heat, then for no reason, the heat turns cooler, and I can't get any heat. If I leave it alone, eventually heat comes blasting back. The blower keeps running as normal, it is just the temp that drops and then comes back. It just started doing this this week? I'm tempted to trade the car in due to mileage, and it is due for a lot of other maintenance. ie timing belt, bushings, windshield, 1 caliper is starting to sieze up, I need two new tires, a 4wheel alignment (hence the two new tires needed) and I need all the fluids changed due to age/mileage. Car is a 2002 with 224,000 km's It has lots of life left, but I drive 1000k per week, and I need absolute reliablity for my job. Any ideas? I may need to act on this in the next few days. Thanks, Scott.

Well there is enough doom and gloom about the auto industry, so I won't comment anymore about it. I am a tier 1 supplier to the auto industry, so when they are not producing cars, I am not suppling them. Well the plant I support is down for the next 5 weeks. I have been slowly gathering up supplies to fuel some project time that is now available to me. I'll post more as I go, but I am ready to build a new storage area for my compressor and welder to free up some floor space. My heater works very well. I tested it out for the first time in my new garage when I slapped on the "ol" winter tires, and the garage holds the heat very well so far, so It should be comfortable to work in. I bought a decent floor jack so I can comfortably and safely lift my Z up on to my new stands. Wow what a difference with a shop quality jack! Anyways I am going to get caught in the "while I'm at it" syndrome, so I may as well enjoy myself. The plan is to remove my signature front airdam lip, and I will begin the mockup for my redesigned bellpan, that will be more substantial than the one I have had for the last 10 years. I think I have had that lip on the car for more than 15 years. Don't worry though I'll make it look good. I also plan to work a bit more on the front end aero, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I'm really looking forward to working on the car again. I'm trying to make the best of the situation, and this looks like a pretty good way to keep busy. My updates will be posted in the aero section, and yes I will take pictures of the new jack! hehehe Scott.

Not until 1 am so much anymore, but here I sit since 06:30 when I came into ...ahem.. work.

In short, there are no performance heads avail in any reasonable sense of the word. Port and Polish, modify the quench, cc match the chambers, relieve the valves.. That's about it. In the VG30ET turbo world, I don't think very many people are even bothering with headwork. I do have a set of heads that have seen some modest work done to them, but I will likely never get a chance to use them. Maybe one day. Scott.

Forget potholes...NAILS..you could puncture the tire AND the rim. Not for me, my 35 series is low profile enough for me, and causes me to avoid certain roads/driveways/parking lots as it is. Yikes.

I have a very nice diagram in one of my manuals that illustrate the accel pump jet, and it specifically notes that fuel is pulled through at full throttle. I don't have hard numbers to say how much it affects your fuel ratio, but it definately needs to be considered when selecting your air correctors. As for differences in carbs, there are 10 known variations of of the 45DCOE9. There is no guide for which carb designation means what, as it appears it was random, and depended on the application for the carb. As long each of your carbs have the same codes on them, consider yourself lucky and leave it at that. I have never seen a comprehensive list of what model carb goes with what application, and details of all of the differences. I don't think anyone knows. The same goes for Emulsion tubes. That is why most people do not bother with testing with them. too many variables that would take lots of time and $ to test with. As for the F16 tube, it causes the main circuit to start earlier than the F4-F15 etubes. The angled holes help rather than retard fuel flow unlike some of the older e tube designs. Emulsion tubes do not make a mixture rich or lean. They only change the rpm range, and the rate (speed for lack of a better word) in which it affects the main circuit. Dropping in an emulsion tube is not going to simply "fix' your tune. You will likely need to make other jetting changes. For floats, I would not recommend using float settings to adjust your mixtures. If so, you are really on your own for tuning information. I agree with bjhines that there are many other aspects not talked about much around the mechanical state/tune of your carbs. I'm not sure I could explain in an understandable way details on how/what to check, and how to adjust them. I'm not trying to scare people away from webers ( or any multiple carb setup) It just makes troubleshooting much more precise, and it is what is required to get more than just a "good' tune. It took me a lot of time and serious money to get my carbs setup. I read every word in my manuals a half dozen times before I even took my carbs out of the box. I spent hours examining and mechanically setting up the carbs before I installed them on the car. I talked with alot of weber owners in my Z club, I offered my time for free to work in my mechanics shop and learn all his tips and tricks with building, installing, and tuning webers. This really got me interested, and I spent waayyy toooo much buying any weber stuff I could find at swaps and auctions to build a collection of everything I could ever need for my carbs. All my tuning experience grew from a hobby to an obsession.

zredbaron. Actually the pump jet continues to deliver fuel throughout the RPM range when at WOT. It gives that initial shot of raw fuel, but fuel is still pulled through that jet during WOT. As for the float settings, it depends on the type of float you have. I have measurements that I use with 40 and 45 dcoe's that use the brass floats. If I recall it should be set at 7 and 15mm (closed and open). It is kind of difficult to put in words, but you measure with the carb lid gasket in place, and measure from the gasket to the smooth part of the float, not the soldered seam, and you measure from the point at which it starts to touch the needle valve, and point at which the float is at full "droop" for lack of a better word. Scott.

ZREDBARON: I have tuned mostly street Z's and a handful of dedicated race Z's I learned what I know from two tuners with 20+ Z experience. One with street only, and the other with mainly race only applications. I did most of my work in the early to mid 90's, and I basically have been out of the weber scene since about 2003, so it's been awhile. I don't have my notes handy right now, but with this thread seeing action, I'll have to dig them up and share some of what I have. As far as "just worked out", I mean it was the most successful at tuning out the dreaded mid range dead spots. The f16's bring on the effects of the air corrector earlier on in the RPM range. In general terms, you would end up with a slightly smaller main jet, a slightly larger air corrector, and would allow a larger pump jet. Look. In the end, there is more than one way to skin a cat so to speak. All of the jets work in unisyn with eachother, and it is just a matter finding the combo that works for you. What i'm trying to say is that you can get a similar tune on the same engine with totally different combo's of jetting. A smaller air corrector will richen the top end, but can cause you to require a smaller accel pump jet. If you need a larger pump jet to help with sudden WOT response, then you will end up needing a larger air corrector to lean out the top end a bit. Its a kind of give an take, as some of the jets overlap eachothers rpm ranges. I have also seen very little mention of people checking their float settings. This too can have a dramatic effect on main jet selection. Improper float settings usually result in unpredictable fueling of the engine, especially when the fuel pump cuts in and out to fill the bowls. I have found that mechanical adjustment of the carbs to be as important if not more important than jetting when initially tuning the carbs to your engine demands. I have been searching through some of my old post on zcar.com where many different discussion went on in the mid 90's and there were a pile of "weber warriors" I have found lots of jetting combos for various states of tuned cars. I'm compiling some of it (my old notes were pre/early internet) and all hand written. I'm also looking at some of my tuning howto's, and am bringing it all back into my computer so i can have an electronic record. I have not yet searched the hybridz site, as it was created much later on, and I was getting out of webers a while after I joined up here. Sorry I don't have all of my answers off the top of my head, but I'll get back into it and post some of my results. It will take some time. Geez. I may have to buy another z and tune up a set of webers again..I miss that sound.. Scott.

BJHines. I mostly agree with your statements. Where I live, most of us Weber users, actually most z owners only drive our cars for approx 4 months, and thus we can get away with a near optimum tune, and just leave it. I personally used 2 sets, as I lived in an area of high elevation and raced at a lower elevation, so I had two sets of jets, that I could run that would take into account high temps and/or high altitudes. Yes I did take a tremendous amount of time, and I had a jet collection that could rival just about anyones personal collection. I have taken detailed notes and compared very slight changes and tested their effects both on the track and the street. (I have tuned street Z's that are mainly weekend warriors) I was forced into many of the tuning stages on my own car, as it progressed from a near stock L28 through various stages of mods over 2 completely different drivelines, from 4spds to 5spds, and various R200 configurations wheel sizes and suspension configurations which all had effects on jetting. With no changes to the rest of the car, only nessessary jetting changes, I swapped on a set of 45mmDCOE's with 38mm chokes, and lost almost 1/2 second in my zero to 60 times from my 40DCOE's with 36mm chokes. I was not able to to tune it any better than that, and I was not able to noticeably benefit from the 38's in the top end, so I swapped the 40's back on, and I learned the lesson of bigger is not ALWAYS better, but pretty big worked well. I have jetted dozens of Z's, up in my neck of the woods, as well as a dozen or so more via the net/email. I also used to buy/rebuild and sell them as a hobby. (I am not a mechanic, and I only tinker with Z's) This flat spot that most people talk about does not have to be present, It can be tuned out. My main purpose when helping people tune their webers was mostly centered around getting rid of major stumbles, misses, and flatspots in the power band. I don't think it is worth all of the hassle and expense if you are going to run webers on a stock engine, or for someone looking for absolute driveability at the sacrifice of hp. Just as many have already stated, Mikunis are better suited for a street driven Z, as they do not have the same degree of compromises for tuning hp vs driveability. Even the Weber books make it clear that they are a "No-Holds-Barred" type performance carb. That is why I generally stay away from the smaller chokes on all but the most stock of engines. The weber books are mainly guides, and if you follow the stock jetting list for a stock l24, I have found that to be a less than ideal tune, and is best suited as a starting point to at least get it running. ZREDBARON: I have done a little testing with F2's, but mostly with F11's and F16's. It has just worked out over the many engines I have tuned, or witnessed the final results of tuning, the F16 has ended up by far the most succesfull in a broader range of engines. Experimenting with emulsion tubes is generally not recommended, as you can't just put in a new set of emulsion tubes and think that it will fix your problem. Changing "E" tubes usually requires rejetting the mains/airs/and accel pump jets. It is and always will be my opinion to begin with F16 E tubes, and tune from there, but then E tubes are not cheap, and sometimes you need to just work with what you have. It really is nice to see this thread kept alive, it really quieted down for while. Scott.

Aero work on our cars is not new, but has been mainly conducted by the racers/drag/Bonneville racers. The wind tunnel testing was done last year, with some interesting results. Some of the issues with the results are that not everyone is interested in Aero ONLY mods. Most of our Z's are street driven, and heck doing all this custom stuff takes time, money, trial and error testing etc, so I think it could take some time for some of these aero mods/experiments to happen. Some people experimenting with track only aero mods to race cars have had some scary results, and the average joe is not looking to get killed testing some wild mod. Now that aside, there are a few guys here going ahead and trying to use the information here to mod their cars, but it will take some time. I am planning a much larger belly pan on my z than I already have, but even for me, it will take some time to figure everything out, and actually find the time and money to do this. I expect by next season I will begin fabricating a trial unit. I say this, because my currently front belly pan is almost 10 years old, and is now due for a redesign, as I am going to remove my signature front airdam lip, so "while I'm at it" I will expand on my original design.

It has been a bit since I last looked at a 240 bumper, but I recall a spacer between the bumper and the bodywork, that the mounting bolt passes through. A 240 bumper doesn't actually make contact, except through the mounts.

Ouch is right. We got about 5 inches out on my side of the city, and it was murder driving around. The first thing i did when I got home was bring the Honda in the garage and take of the 17" summers and put on my winter tires. It made all the difference this morning on the highway with all the jokers still doing 130 on the roads. 400 accidents in 12 hours! yeeshh. Hope you get it sorted out.

In my not too humble opinion, I don't agree with the small chokes in a Z. I ran 34's and then 36's (40 dcoe) and I briefly ran 38's with 45mm dcoe's. I did not like the 38's, as it flattened out the low end too much. The 34's ran out of steam above 7k, and the 36's were perfect. I ran 5.7 sec 0-60's with the 36's. I also don’t agree with larger than 40mm dcoe’s on a street car. Running 34mm chokes with 45mm carbs are just a waste of money. This is in a beefy 280. Motor was a L28 bored 40 over, flat tops, 240 rods, polished everything, N42 head from hell with a Shnieder 495 lift 290 dur cam, Nismo exhaust, 10.5:1 compression, blah blah blah. A pretty cool motor good for 8k. Search some of my old posts about that engine. After 5 years, I sold that motor to a guy in LA who dropped it as is into a stock 240, and ran a 13.0 second ¼ mile first time out. A street Z should run between a 30 and 36mm choke depending on if it is a stocko used l24 to a wild overbored L29 or L31 (diesel crank) 40DCOE are plenty of carb on a street driven Z. Even 45's choked down do not have enough flow for street rpm's, and are a compromise for street Z's. A note about Emulsion tubes, F16 is in my personal experience one of the best jets for our cars. Remember that emulsion tubes adjust the RPM in which idle jets transition to mains. A lot of you guys seem to be running very large mains, which can kill your bottom end, where your air correctors and accel pump jets have a larger affect for top end WOT mixtures. Accel pump jets have the biggest effect on sudden WOT response, and to a lesser degree WOT. Sorry for the kinda choppy post, but I gotta get back to work. I’ll post again some links to some of my Z specific jetting/tuning how to’s. Scott.

Hey Jerry. That works to $3.21 Canadian dollars for 1 US gal of 87 octane. I've already topped up the Z ! hehehe cheap cheap cheap...hehehe

Lazeum. Could you tell me your jetting/ chokes(venturis) and carb size 40's-45's etc. Could you also tell me a bit about your engine specs? compression ratio, cyl pressures..are they even? cam, etc.. You mention that your webers are not tuned correctly, and that you are playing with timing to combat pinging (detonation) Are you experienced with webers? or do you have someone helping you? You are only about 4 hours drive from me, and I may be able to help you out. Webers on our z's work very well with approx 20 degrees initial and between 34-38 degrees full advance at WOT. If you can't hit those numbers without ping, then I would be looking first at the carbs (assuming the rest of the engine is in a decent state of tune) There is a lot more information required to help you out, but this is a good start. PM me if you want to talk about more details, but I can go through some of the basics here on the forum. Scott.