technicalninja

If your trying to diagnose a rough idle issue the HVAC vac system is not going to be your culprit. You can isolate (disconnect) the complete underdash system at the intake manifold (1 single small vac line supplys the entire system) it goes directly into the plenum about 3/4 of man length from T. body. Some years are different for location. Disconnect line and plug fitting, probably will not make a difference in idle. What year is your car? All vacuum lines under dash can be replaced with out removing dash.

Will increase piston deck height 2.65mm (.100in). With out mods pistons will hit head. Start with a 280Z/ZX (75-81 dished pistons) and the E31 will produce 9 to 9.5 depending on surfacing head. This will be easy to work with for a street car. A flat top 280ZX block might also be used but it would take some chamber work to reduce comp.

You need three things for combustion; compression, ignition, and fuel supply. Test them seperately! Your compression is fine for a motor that has sat long term. The low cylinders will probably come back up after a couple of warm up/cool down cycles. Disconnect your dropping resistor pack (below clutch slave cylinder) this kills power to injectors to eliminate fuel system to test ignition. Start with clean- non fouled plugs. Spray Berryman's B12 into intake (don't need much just a couple of seconds spray I usually spray it into FPR vac hose at center of plenum). Crank engine. If your ignition is functioning and is reasonably close to correct timing it with run fine. I can slowly feed B12 into intake to allow continuos running. I have moved cars across parking lots(with a helper driving car) this way. If it runs you have proven your ignition. Always diag ignition first before FI problems. The B12 becomes your fuel supply system. If it runs on B12 then look to fuel system It takes very little bad gas to poison new gas; the old stuff left in system after draining (in bottom of tank,F pump,filter,feed + return line, injectors and fuel rails) is enough to poison 5+ gallons of new. How well did you drain system?. When fuel goes bad in injectors it "gums" up the tips and the pattern can be a straight stream into intake. Liquid fuel doesn't burn very well- especially if it is poisoned also. Correct injector pattern is a cone shaped spray of such fine particals that the spray atomizes (disappears into vapors) 4-5" from tip. You can listen for injector operation by placing the handle end of a screw driver against your ear and the tip on the metal body of the injector. You can hear the injector click when operating. You can test patterns by unbolting complete rail system from intake (leaving injectors attached to rails), jumpering FP relay, and applting a 9V battery across inject terminals one injector at a time. You can sometimes clean gummed injectors by removing them, applying voltage to open and spraying B12 both ways through injector. Blowing backwards with air can help too. In most of the cases of poisoned fuel cases that I have seen the fuel was hard to light with a match. Dip 2" of srewdriver in gas, shake off excess and try to light it with match. You might be suprised at results. Hope this give you some testing ideas Rick

Lots of vacuum controls in dash, Especially with the automatic temp control system found on GLLs and turbos. Removal of glove box may allow diagnosis. Possible culprits- vac feed line has connector in it right in that area, the vac control head is bad about leaking (just behind control panel), and multiple blend door actuators that are now 20+ years old. Does your A/C heater system work properly? IE vent selection works, you can hear the recirc door close when recirc is chosen. If 1 item doesn't work then look at it for vac leak. If nothing works properly look for a break in vac source (feed) line from engine or problems with the control head. Rick

Sorry- my mistake, thought you were doing the head yourself also. Same basic rules apply to intake also although it is not as critical about rough finish as the head ports as it shouldn't have any fuel running in it. Making it super smooth will not help flow and it MAY reduce it slightly. I wouldn't waste time on microfinishing it. Inside of exhaust manifold is the place to polish smooth; unluckly it is difficult to do so. The wrap will cook you manifold. It will turn gray due to the heat and become very brittle. Might last a year but I would not bet money on its life as any further mods you will do will only increase exhaust flow and heat. I've seen manifolds that were "crumbley" do to massive overheat. Sort of like a cross between cast iron and drywall board. Your talented, Make your own SS sheet metal cover leaving at least 1/4 inch between sheild and manifold and it and your manifold will last a long time. Use that wrap on down tube and first section of exh system back to below front of drivers seat. Your feet will thank you. Especially during summer. Your tubing looks really nice. Did you make it yourself? Rick

leave intake at 80-120 grit die grinder roll finish, any smoother and it affects laminar flow. Exhaust should be as smooth as possible to reduce carbon build up. I ceramic coat exhaust ports for smoothness and less heat transfer to cooling system. This process requires the port to be 80-120 grit for the ceramic coating to have a tooth to hold too. This trick makes final exhaust port finish much easier to accomplish. I bet I save 4 or 5 hours on a head porting job this way over mirror finishing. I haven't used coating in intake as I worry about it's ability to withstand long term exposure to fuel. My next build will include ceramic coating the inside of a midly ported turbo exh manifold. The more heat energy that you can provide to the turbo the better. Be careful with the exhaust wrap. It is easy to overheat the manifold and warp it; it bends up like a banana cutting the first and the last manifold bolts off in the head. A stand off heat sheild is a better choice for the manifold. The down pipe will benefit from the wrap but don't be suprised by short service life. SS will handle this problem better than mild steel but it can be affected as well. The wrap holds heat into the part. The ceramic coating (on the inside) helps keep heat out of the part in the first place. The wrap does really work well. I once reached down and held on to a wrapped header after a 1/4 mile pass. Hot but not searing hot. Cleaning-high pressure spray, saftey clean scrubbing, hot soap and water with different brushes, bead blasting, Berrymans B12 soaking, and air blow off. Repeat in any order as much as necessary. I'd start at 180 degree Nissan Factory- not aftermarket. Some aftermarket are good but I have never found a new Nissan one bad. Higher quality build than most aftermarket. Solinoid should be mounted as close as possible to wastegate but protected from heat. Front of shock tower possibly? Later Rick

Well I read 30 in bastaads525 post the first time I saw it not 300. Going to have to be a very un-informed person to purchase this. If I had no morals and could do a scam like this I think I would do it for 20-30 dollars. Many more potential buyers and people are less inclined to fight for 30 dollars that for 300. What I would like to see is their sales numbers. Might be surprising. Just think of what any of the major manufactors would pay you if your product could do what this one says. You would never need to work again. Rick

Yes these people are really on to something! Although their product has no technical merit they will make enough money on it to purchase a Ferrari or some other NICE toy and all it took was a slick website and some cheap stickers. They may have to deal with fraud charges but if their website is any indication of their skills I bet they have their legal issues covered. I got em beat in the ethical sense but I bet they got me beat in how much they make a year. I bet if a person ran an emission test then let their car sit a few minutes and retested the second test would show lower emissions as the heat soak would tend to make EFI run leaner. So their challenge may work regardless if a sticker was installed or not. Many of their customers will probably swear that the disc works as they feel good about spending money on their cars especially if it can also help the enviroment. I have seen the "placebo effect" many times in my automotive career. People are bad about not seeing their car as many separate systems- 3500 spent in engine comp can make them think their car is NEW and cause the technician problems down the road when other systems fail. I have gotten careful about not getting "married" to roach customer cars. In the case of this product many (non-enthusiast) people will chance 30 on a product that looks like it is well researched even if it breaks several laws of physics. Why do you think the National Enquirer sells? Why does Las Vegas exist? How do cult religions find worshipers? Humans HOPE, sometimes stupidly! Got to go- Need to run down and but some LOTTO tickets Later Rick

The wastegate will be venting all 8 cylinders as long as the cross over tube is not restrictive. You need to comput total flow expected and turbine discharge area to properly select a waste gate. I would expect you will need a fairly high flow unit. Rick

Your not changing ignition primary signal when you rotate the housing (primary signal being controlled by the CAS). You will not affect the timing. You may affect the rotor to cap post distance. A serious miss-alignment might cause some ignition power loss as the coil would have to strike an arc in both the cap and the plug. Imagine 30% of available ignition system power being used up in cap. Bad for performance and hard on ignition parts. This is why Nissan slotted. Adjusting housing so rotor points straight at post 20 degrees crankshaft advance will work fine. 1 time adjustment. Rick

Need to know what year tranny you have. If it has the long mount ears you can redrill pivot hole higher and lengthen shift lever below pivot same amount. Early trans with short ears use a shift kit from Motorsport (as long as they are still available).

I would guess either Broken 2nd rings or lands Or slight headgasket blow between 2 and 3. I would look closely at HG before taking bottom end apart. BTW- the 4-5% leakdown on your good cylinders is excellent for a motor that has been "applied properly".

Yes it is possible, unlikely but possible. Especially in a place that has a high cost of living as I believe San Diego has. My local community college is affiliated with the Local Chrysler/Dodge dealer network and have a specfic program for techs. The students worked during day at one of the dealerships and went to school at night. They usually could complete a Associates Degree in about 3 years. This training was totally focused on Chrysler/Jeep vehicals (to the point that Chrysler donated a Viper and a Prowler to the school for training). These guys at graduation were pretty well totally trained (at least for recent Chrysler stuff). A top dog out of this program would command $25/flat rate hour. I believe a recent graduate out of the normal (not Chrysler focused) associates path would command 15-19/FRH at graduation and increase rapidly (2 years of further work experience) to the 22-30/FRH range. This is considering that the grad has some kind of automotive work history at grad (almost all the students that I met were working somewhere wrenching while they were going to school). I taught an Engine Preformance 1 class for this college so I've met more than a few students. With no experience at all I do not believe any dealership would hire a grad. How much exp does this guy really have- is he a "Wunder Kid", is his dad Service Manager at the dealership? There may be more information needed to make the determination of value. He may just have gotten very lucky. Myself- I am an ASE dual master (automotive, machinist) with an L1 certification. Been recertified 3 times (20 years exp, got to recertify every 5 years) I have been a Mazda Senior Tech and a Fiat Factory Authorized Tech (we won't talk about this). I have 20+ years of Import Vehical work history. I was never the highest producing tech at a dealership but I had the highest CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index) most of the time. I command $30-35/FRH. Very few dealerships will pay this. My tool box weighs more that my Z. If I had to replace it today I think it would take 100K (tools have skyrocketed in last 10 years). 4 years ago I completed an Associates Degree in Computer Science(at the same college- was weird both going to school and teaching a class at same time- made for excellent parking privledges). I now work for a giant telecommunication company in a cube farm. I do not miss the automotive world much. The money is not stable. On FR you are only paid for work COMPLETED. If you have a parts problem your pay could come next week or later. If there was no work you got to stay for free. Dealerships used to allow you to work on you own stuff (often times your project car lived at the dealership) when work was slow but that is becomming a thing of the past. I have made 2500 in a week but more common was to make 600 and far to often was 200. 3 weeks before Christmas and April 15 were always dead...dead...dead. Here in Ft.Worth 2 weeks before our annual Stock Show was bad too (never could understand this but it happened every year). Winter is much slower that summer. How the dealership is run has a lot to do with your pay. The Mazda dealer in Texas I worked for would employ 20 mechanics when 10 or 12 was all that was needed.I quickly moved to aftermarket shops down here. The dealer I worked for in Denver was the only good dealer I ever found. They were well run. You never had to leave your bays unless test driving. the porters would get and remove your cars, the parts people would deliver the correct parts to your bay, the service writers would complete all paperwork for you. You always had 2 or 3 jobs going at any one time. The Service Manager distributed warrenty (70/30 CP/W rate) work evenly and "helped out" the techs when warrenty work was eating them up. This made excellent money for the techs and 60 hour weeks were average. It was like fixing cars in a war zone though, at the end of the day the last thing you wanted to do was work on your own stuff. I made 25,000 in 6 months I was there in 86. I was 22 and had my ASE auto master rating. Sadly both me and my wife prefered where we grew up and returned to Ft.Worth. The cost of living in Denver was a shock compared to Ft. Worth. Here you rented an apartment; there you leased a condo. Same size 60 precent more expensive. Pay in the automotive world will average 35-40K per year with a high of 80k. It is not regular and usually does not have good benefits. It requires a substantial investment in tools. It is possible to make a good living at wrenching but you will need to love what you do or you probably won't make it. I don't really like working in Dilbert Hell and if I won the Lottery I would never look back but I will always be a technican and I will never allow anyone else to work on my own stuff (point of pride and I've seen to much in this business). Ramblings of a long term wrench. Rick

Mikunis can be tuned every bit as closely as Webers, Mikunis tend to hold their settings and balance better than Webers. 95% of fuel curve is controled by the three same parts in both brands: fuel main jet, emulsion tube, and air correction jet. Narrow band O2 sensors are better that nothing but only slightly better. They may be able to show you if your rich, stoicometric (sp?), or lean. They cannot tell you how much lean or how much rich. A little bit lean shows same reading as disastrously lean and vice versus for richness. The range that they work over is solely designed for emissions- not fuel economy or power production. Their readings can vary dramatically with temp changes. This would not be a problem with a car that was always driven hard but could affect a street car that alllowed the sensor to cool during low cruise and idle phases. I use a heated O2 when installing a NB to solve this issue. Last NB I installed came to about $150 after all needed stuff was obtained (Bosch heated sensor, Auto Meter gauge, Bosch relay,O2 sensor pigtail, wiring, and connectors). I have seen WB stuff available in the $400 dollar range and the dif of $250 is worth it. I do not have one yet but it is on the to-buy list. As I tune other peoples cars as well as my own I will set mine up as a tool and not wire it in to any car. It can be used to tune any car with an O2 sensor bung. After tuning I will remove it and cap sensor bung (or install a NB sensor as a monitoring device- any change in readings from the NB stuff would then be checked with the WB). The $30 sensor and voltmeter will work just not as well as I would like. Depending on the volt gauge it may be hard to read at speed- I always had trouble seeing the DVOM hand held in my lap when I first started playing with A/F gauges. I like the round bar graph in the Autometer as it is self-lit and very easy to read. it also mounts nicely to the upper steering column cover as it is not very deep. A swept hand style gauge is far easier to read at a glance than a digital display. All of the NB stuff I have seen has a digital read out which is more accurate but may be an annoyance. Some of the NB stuff has datalogging capabilities which would be nice information to have. I see NB stuff as an oil pressure light and WB stuff as an oil pressure gauge. Quite a bit of info about the dif between NB and WB is to be had with the search function- do research before you buy anything. Grass Roots magazine recently had a eye opening write up about this and comparisons between some of the systems available. John Coffey tuning each cylinder sperately does not surpise me at all. It is to be expected at his level of competance. Rick

I should have asked more questions before my first post. The problem symptoms have changed my answer. The throwout bearing is not your problem. TOBs going bad exhibit noise and roughness during clutch application; some times the noise is so loud that you would think you had a cat entangled in your clutch. You might also feel vibrations in your clutch pedal (sort of like warped brake rotors but at a much faster rate). Your problem is something else. Here are my thoughts. What is happening is power is being applied to the input shaft when clutch is applied. First of all- Does your clutch pedal feel normal or does it have excess free play? The pedal would feel floppy at the top of its travel and not seem to do anything until it was applied quite a ways- possible problems are bad master/slave, improper selection of TOB collar (using short collar where long collar is needed). Air bubble in clutch hydralics, improper slection of clutch master accuation rod. Has your Z ever shifted properly? Are you a new owner of this car?. Has the clutch just been changed? What is recent history of work done which may affect clutch opperation? I noticed another thread which posted about modifing the 240Z clutch pedal stop (in pass comp) to facilitate the longer travel 280Z clutch throw. Your early 260 is best thought of as a late 240 and has the same body as a 73, late 260s had the 280Z body. It may benefit from this mod. In 20+ years of wrenching I have come across 2 PP that lost their ability to disengage. This is very rare but would cause the problem you descride. The clutch hydralics are easy to check and should be proven good before you pull tranny. As long as clutch hydralics are good and the car has shifted good at sometime in its recent past your problem is most likely a bad pilot bushing. It is binding slightly on the input shaft and applying a small amount of engine torque directly to the input shaft bypassing the clutch entirely. If this is the problem it is damaging the tranny NOW. Changing gear oil may be necessary as your tranny has been grinding syncro rings and gear syncro lugs but it will probably not help your symptoms. If pilot has been binding it will have damaged front tip of input shaft. Clean off embedded bushing material from input shaft with a fine file and sand paper. minor gouges in shaft are not a problem but any raised areas are. Test fit the new pilot to shaft before install. It will show you your problem areas. I have never seen a pilot bushing ever fail on its own. It has always been caused by something else. Not being lubed as in my above post, nicked on installation, or tranny/engine misalignment. If I didn't know how old clutch was I would just replace it as an entire set if I was going to pull tranny anyways. Clutch stuff is not very expensive and I am lazy-only want to do job once. For stock replacement I prefer Diaken (SP?). LUK and Valeo make pretty good stuff also. The Nachi bearing you purchased is what I would look for as a top choice. They were the original supplier for Nissan anyways. Please post what you find when you get it figured out. Rick

As triples are actually two single barrel units per casting you actually have 6 separate carbs. This is the beauty of the 3/2 set up. It allows accurate tuning per cylinder. To be truly (labortory grade) accurate you will need 6 WB 02 sensors located in each header runner before any collectors. This is both cost prohibitive and complex. Unnecessary for street cars. As long as your engine is in good shape (ie all cylinders running same compression/leak down rates) a single wb 02 sensor located aft of where the 6 tubes come together will provide good tuning info. I place the sensor in the collector flange (exhaust system side) pointed upwards along transmission and run the wiring harness throught the tranny tunnel near the HVAC system. This keeps wiring harnesses to a minimum. WB (wide band) is the only way to go. I am not aware of any A/F meters that sense the intake charge but they may well exist. I would expect a direct sensing system to be very expensive.

Throw out bearings are available with or without the collars. Cheapest without the collars. The bearing itself is the same part for 71-89 240Z through 300ZX. They also fit most other Nissan applications between those years. Nissan was very good at using 1 part for all applications in quiet a few instances (not just clutch stuff). This across the board parts coverage is more common in the earlier years and by 90 parts were becoming very specific for each different model. The collars are different and they match the clutch pressure plate not the engine or the transmission. If you put a 83 5 spd in a 72 and use the 72 clutch better use the 72 collar or it will not work. On the other hand if you put a 280Z pp in a 72 with a 72 4 spd use the 280z collar. Most of the pressure plates 240-300ZX will bolt to any of the flywheels. Only big difference is Coupe set up is smaller diameter that 2+2 or Turbo. Differences exist when using some of the turbo parts (ie I think the T5 set up uses a different bearing and collar than everything else but I may be wrong) and the very early 240Z 3 peice trannys (removable bell housings). I will not purchase or install a bearing which states "made in China" on the packaging. I have had failures with the cheap Chinese parts. I prefer "made in Japan" followed by Germany then America. The price difference between these different manufactors is minor compared to removing the tranny again. Buy a good quality part with out the collar and it should fit fine. I remove the old bearing from the collar by supporting the bearing on the back side using a open vise (two block of wood same height will work fine) being careful to not touch the collar with the vise then take a socket which fits just inside the recess in the collar (1/2 in dr 21 or 22 mm doesn't matter which size as long as it fits snugly in recess) and lightly tap the collar out of the bearing with a SMALL hammer (I use a plastic tap hammer). This should not take very much force at all. You do not want to nick inside of collar as this surface glides on the collar support mounted on trans. If you damage it clean it up with fine file and sandpaper. Usually I sand the roughness off of the tranny collar support as gouging is usually evident. After cleaning the collar I install it by holding new bearing in one hand, placing collar in it, and tapping it in with SMALL hammer. This should also take little force. I DO NOT back up new bearing on anything but my hand as it is easy to ding the bearing races if to much force is used. You could have the new bearing pressed onto collar but I worry about the person doing the pressing- They don't have to pull the tranny back out if something goes wrong. Tapping it back together in my hands has always worked fine and it costs nothing. Also I can "feel" when the bearing is fully installed when using my hands which a press cannot. DO NOT hammer directly on the new bearing. I then pack grease into the INNER recesses of the collar. I use Sta-Lube Boat wheel bearing grease (the blue stuff) as it is waterproof, is more slippery that Owlstuff, and has a half life of eons. It does not turn into a thick waxy mess like the original Nissan grease. I also use it at collar to throw out arm contact points and throw out arm pivot point. Wipe off any excess after putting bearing/collar assembly back on tranny snout as you don't want this super grease on your PP or disc. Changing the pilot bearing is a good idea when replacing any clutch part. This part is also an across the board part. Any 240z-280ZX part number will work fine. You have to remove clutch then remove it with a bearing removal tool. Many parts stores will lend or rent this tool. There are ways to get this out with out the tool but save your self the hassle and obtain the tool- it will save time and sanity. The new bearing has a lubrication process that many do not know. It is a sintered brass bushing (same stuff as those brass air blocks for aquariums but with a finer grain). Many will say it does not require lubrication but it does. Place new bearing on thumb with one of the open sides up. Fill bearing with engine oil until it forms a meniscus at top (almost overfilled forms a curved surface) carefully cover with other thumb and apply pressure slowly. You will see the sides of the bearing "sweat" oil when the oil is pushed though sides of bearing. I once cracked a pilot by applying pressure to fast. go slowly. Drain excess oil out of bearing and blow bearing out with air. The oil will be in the bearing matrix and the pilot will last much longer. Once again you don't want a bunch of excess loose oil as it can contaminate your clutch. I use a wooden dowel to drive new bearing into end of crank but a deep 3/8 socket which fits snuggley into crank hole can be used- just be carefull not to nick end of bearing as the material it is made out of is very soft. Drive it most of the way in with wood (2X4 block) and finish with socket. Aux- try the pilot trick even if you don't install it. Everyone I show it to is suprised. One bit of mis-information needs to be cleared up. The pilot bearing supports the input shaft at the engine side of things. A large solid pin at top and a dowel at the lower left bell housing bolt aligns the engine and trans. If either of these are missing catastrophic tranny failure WILL occur. Often I replace the lower dowel as it can be miss-shaped or loose in block which can allow it to move into bell housing mount hole recess defeating its purpose. it should be tight in block and fit snuggley in bell housing. I have never had to replace the large pin at top of bell housing. Sorry for the long post, It sounded like you had never done a Z clutch before and I didn't notice Aux was going to help until most of the typing was done. Good luck! Rick

First gen RX7 has hood that opens from rear like a Z. Made working on it much easier than 86 and up. This happened in either 83 or 84 when I was just a young punk. I have never forgotten to replace an oil filter since. Embarrasment is one of life's best instructors.

You guys will like this incident. Years ago I was changing the oil in a RX7 which has an oil filter which mounts upside down on the top of the motor. Well to drain oil out of filter before removal I punched 4 holes in it around the top (actually the bottom of filter and not in the center as you can waste a rotary that way- antidrain back valve can fall out of filer into engine). Well being in a hurry I negelected to change the filter. Filled the car with oil and started it. I knew I had a problem when one of the other techs yelled out "you've struck oil". I had 4 pencil thin brown lines extending from the open engine compartment to the cealing of the shop. Got it shut down in less that 10 seconds but had gone through about 3 quarts of oil. It dripped oil in my bay for days after!. I have not made this mistake again but everytime I work on a rotary I remember it.

Iv'e got one of those compressors! Works pretty good but broke a rod within first year. Easy to work on and parts were reasonable. I also have a Harbor Freight Blast Booth that is not for sale but was only $200 new. Watch their website or flyers. It is not as nice as a Snap-On or an industrial unit but it was a fifth of their price! It is large enough to put an L series head in it. The blast booth can out run the compressor but it does it slowly and has not been a problem as my smaller 30 gal 5 hp comp was.

20 + years as an import car technician opinions- Use standard oil for break in. first oil change at 600 miles (as long as you put together a "clean engine"). Second oil change at 3000 miles. At this change you can change to synthetic if you want. I fully believe that 90 percent of "break in" occurs in the first 15 min. I only use synthetic in turbos, cars that I think will have a long time between oil changes (playtoys, garage queens, show cars) and race engines. Synthetics have two very important qualities above mineral base. They can withstand much greater heat (use in turbo and race cars) and they are very stable over a long time frame. Your engine is what gets the oil dirty and it will dirty up synthics at the same rate as mineral base. Do not believe the claims of reduced oil change intervals. Change it at 3-4000 miles. I use Castrol or Valvoline mineral base and Mobil 1 synthetic. I have seen the horror that can happen when mixing syn+mineral. Seals swell and gaskets fail. I do not mix ever. These occurances were a long time ago and supposibly the compatibility issues have been corrected but synthetic+mineral mix is why I rebuilt my first engine (76 Honda Accord 25 years ago). Old habits die hard. Mixing weights should not cause a problem. I would not mix brands between oil changes. The multi weight oils are a marketing ploy. All oils are tested at 100 degrees centigrade with a standard viscosity gauge. They cannot be multigrade! They all have an additive package added to them to make them flow better at low temp. The additives can be different between brands and you might have a reaction between additive packages. This chance is very small. I do not like oils with a parrifin base to them (Pennzoil, Quaker State, ect) but they work fine as long as you change the oil regularly. They tend to leave a waxy residue (my wife coined the name Godzilla Skin) and although I don't like the resultant mess it might have lubricating qualities of its own. In the late 80s all manufacters jumped on the skinner bearings and rings band wagon. they used bearings of less width with tighter oil clearances to reduce friction thus increasing fuel economy. Increased OEM machine accuracyallowed this to happen. "Micro polished" internal parts used to be a selling by-line. Now almost all journals are micro polished from the factory. This design requires much thinner oils thus the almost universal change to 5W-30. This is a requirement on these engines. The use of too thick an oil can lead to engine failure from oil pump failure or bearings being "washed" out. Hydralic lifters designed to 5w-30 don't like thick oil either. I always use the best oilfilter I can find. Factory or Wix is my first choice. Seen to many cheap ones blow off. You cannot understand how fast an engine can pump it's entire oil capacity out until you see it happen yourself! Makes a mess in the shop too. Well that my 2 cents

MSA 6 to 1 square ports require grinding and welding to fit properly. Do not buy a coated one as my last customer did. You want to solve the fitment issues and then have it coated. His header required very careful mods to work. All (not just MSA) square ports I have messed with required some fitment work as none of them cleared the stock port exits. Most exhibited port infringment at the roof of the port which is the very worst spot for performance (port velocity and flow is greatest at roof of port). I have never worked with a Nisimo or Nissan Comp as their price was very high. I have heard that they are much better on fitting. Besides it's fitment short comings I like the MSA header. It does have thick flanges (makes welding easier) Its runners are close to the same length. The collector doesn't hang down (my customer had to send his first header back as its flange was welded at an incorrect angle/Motorsport did take care of him). They are reasonable as to price and available. One the other hand, All round port headers (even the old rusty ones I have retrieved from junkyards) have fit perfectly. They haven't needed any porting or grinding work at all. Sadly for me I prefer square port heads and have to deal with poor header fitment on most of my builds. The square ports also usually have trouble with sealing area at #4 and #6 cylinder. This is were the gasket will blow. I believe a square port just bolted on with out port matching will actually reduce power over the stock manifold (which fits pretty good). During full engine builds I take the bare head (no valves), bolt the header and intake manifold to it, and then inspect port match with a bend-a-light and a small mirror. The stock manifolds have much less port infringment that the square port headers. Usually they have none and if they do they have plenty of meat on them which allows port matching. For the original question- 6-2-1, 6-1 will not have a noticable difference between them. They probably won't make a noticable difference over a stock manifold (below 200hp) and will probably leak more. Both designs are available and although I have had to modify the headers to fit the head I have not had to modify the body to make any fit properly. I might suggest a stock manifold (if yours is still good-77/78 manifolds were thick and sturdy and didn't have the warping issues as the ZX manifolds). Get the MSA exhaust adaptor and their 2.5 inch exhaust kit. This set up will be fine for 200 maybe 225 hp and not leak. The exhaust kit can also be a pain but it is nice, has clean mandrel bends and is priced well. I usually get the aluminized version. This kit has always needed the slip fittings opened up a little to make it work. Harbor Freight Tube expander was like 10 dollars and works great. Hope this helps

There is a Ferrari GTO replica on E-Bay ending in approx 1 day. The car is located in Arlington Texas and I have looked at it. It is a 77 or 78 280Z automatic factory a/c chassis. The chassis is in pretty good shape and only has minor rust. It will not need floorboards or major metal repair. I don’t believe that it is a Alphabet kit as most of the glass looks to be chopper-gun laid (I could be wrong but the Alpha 1 kits I saw at Alphabet's shop in California were all hand-laid cloth). The basic condition of the glass parts is good as there seems to be no major cracks in any panel, but minor gel-coat cracks exist in all panels. For show car quality results all panels will need work. The car is basically gutted inside and is missing many needed parts in engine comp. More boxes of parts may exist but I didn't inquire about them. It appears to have the original N47 head drive-train and all suspension parts but did not appear to have any upgrade stuff (ie aftermarket spring, sway bar, bushings etc...). It is basically a pretty good stock 280z roller shell with drive-train. It doesn't look like it has run in a long time. It probably will require a doner 77/78 car to complete it. The work inside the wheel arches is well done and has 4 intact fender liners in it (the rear liners will need work where they fit into the rear vents-not finished out). The car has two main faults IMO. The rear hatch sails have been cut out of the car (previous owner was trying to make rear of car look more like a GTO.) The rear trunk lid and below window area appear to be of a different age than rest of kit. It is currently exposed to the elements but it appears this exposure is recent. It does not have bad rust in rear hatch area yet. I was told it was garaged before the British car shop got it and I believe it. I would put a roll cage in car to correct any rigidity problems that the cuts may have caused. This area will need to be properly fabricated and is not a job for a beginner. It will need a Plexiglas window built and framed in. The door window mechanisms and their mount points in the inner door structure have been removed. The last owner was modifying the windows to be Plexiglas sliders as most GTOs had. The 4 pieces of plexi have been cut but not fabbed in. The doors are re-skinned to get rid of the lower body line and replacing the doors with stock 280Z doors will look weird. A really good welder could put the stock stuff back in but it will be a chore. The sliders could be finished out but I bet they would leak both water and air and the car would be less secure against theft. The outer door handles have been changed to the more Ferrari like mechanisms but the linkages to connect them to the Z latch didn't appear to have been made. The old handle depressions have been poorly filled and will need body work. One more minor point is the rear taillight area, low quality body work has been performed where the lights mount. It almost looked like the entire rear panel was made out of self-expanding foam and bondo. This will require reworking as it looks like it might fall out on a big bump. The basic body install seems to have been done well with most of the bad problems created by the second owner. I was told first owner had basic kit installed, sold it to the shop who sold it to another customer, who then sold it back after he had gutted and cut the car. This could be a good starting point for a GTO project just be aware it is a major job and will require specialized welding and fabrication skills. It is ripe for a V8 conversion and custom interior. It has strange low back quasi-bucket seats that are not fully installed, no real interior to speak of, and only the metal frame of the dash. I consider most of what is left inside of the car as junk. The car was a factory AC car but most of it is gone also (compressor and mount still on engine could not find evaporator or control head.) This car has potential. If the sails and doors had not been cut I would be sweet talking my wife and not posting on this board. The shop that it is at is Sports car Warehouse (site http://www.sportrscarwarehouse.com) and I spoke with Byron and Tom. They are a British car specialist shop and were very friendly. They have not been involved with the work on the car and are just reselling it. I believe they will be easy to deal with if you end up buying from them. Their shop was nice in that "old sports car shop" kind of way. They had quite a few nice British cars for sale and appear to be very good at what they do. They are definitely "Car" people. I am not invloved with this car and only met Byron and Tom today. I thought interested forum members might apperciate a detailed report. Onward GTO warriors Rick [http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2489655164&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT][/url]

Be carefull how you weld them up. all available core tubes have to be open to the air charge to flow as well as in the 300ZX. If you just weld the cores together end to end you end up with a long 150-180 hp intercooler. All endcaps will have to be removed, The cores placed side by side, and new ends caps built (2) that have much larger hose ports (2 to 2.5 inches). The Z32 stock intercoolers appear to be able to flow 360-380 HP so their size should support you 2-300 hp goals. Another possible solution is tubing that splits charge and recombines charge after intercoolers. IMO sell the intercoolers and add extra cash as needed to get a properly sized aftermarket. The Isuzu NPR series is another possibility which seems to fit better than most other OE intercoolers, is available at a lower cost, and should support your goals

Multiple heater and intake coolant tubing and rubber hoses exist at rear of engine and below intake. Tube that travels under mainfold to thermostat housing has a flanged gasket that can leak. Will most likely require removal of upper and lower intake. I would suggest replacement of every rubber coolant hose at rear of engine while I had it exposed. Some of the hoses can be replaced with out removing intake (although it requires a contorsionist with small hands). Most important is to get a good diagnosis before ripping it apart. Do you own a coolant system pressure tester? If you don't have it pressure tested by a shop. The tester allows one to pressurize the cooling system to a high level regardless of temp. Top system up, pressurize and look where the coolant will be spraying from. Use real Nissan hoses- they last longer and fit better than any other brand. Some of your hoses will be original, 14 years is a looong time for any hose. Hope this helps Rick