wondersparrow

http://www.aerocatch.net/ Always wanted to put a set of those on my street car.

Hmm, no Mark Degrath there (or at least not one the receptionist know about). The Ross pistons seem to be a really good price. Now to get this thing torn down, machined up, and measured Thanks again for your help John!

I have been looking around, and can't seem to find high compression pistons on the "shelf" anywhere. I don't mind paying for custom pistons to make some decent reliable power, but this will be the first time form me. Can anyone recommend a brand that that won't break the bank? I have seen some as high as $900 per piston and thats just not going to happen as long as I am working for a charity, hehe. Maybe its time to get back into project management I am hoping to keep the rebuild under $3k. I will do most of the dirty work myself to keep the costs down. Once I get my garage cleaned up (from the sanding and painting); I'll tear into this engine and see what I have to work with. I am sure some of the parts are going to be reusable (ie, I am guessing there are likely 9mm rods in there already).

Hahaha, yeah, the octane boosters where if you read the fine print it increases the octane rating of 1 Liter by 1 point. And it can do it for only $15. Never tried mystery oils in the fuel. Never even heard of anyone doing it actually. Does it work?

I stumbled across this last night. I am sure if there is anyone in western Canada interested in racing this would be a pretty sweet start. http://www.motorsportmarshalling.on.ca/wcma/index.php?topic=282.0

I currently have a well ported E88 head. Would that play well with those pistons or is that too much compression? What kind of fuel would I need? I am assuming pump gas is out, would would VP111 be enough? I have been cutting the VP111 50/50 with some 94 octane ethanol blended pump gas with the current setup and it seemed to be working well. Then again, I turned cylinder #2 into a big oil pump, so maybe it wasn't enough.

I am certainly no expert, but personally I would try to make them all the same. Pricey little things from what I recall. Some people have suggested that running 3 short and 3 long would give you the "best of both worlds", but it just seems like a bad idea to have different cylinders having different power outputs. Longer horns from what I understand give you better low-end torque. Shorter ones give better top end power. I have not tested this theory, but it makes sense in my head That being said, I don't see it causing any major issues in the short term.

I already have the long-ish intake manifold. I think the easy way to get the intake air velocity up would be longer stacks. As it stands, my filter socks are already all but touching the strut tower. Could go with longer stacks and those little snap-on screen filters.

There, changed the title to be a little more clear. The engine was a hoot while it was running. It seemed a little low on power, but who knows how long I have been running it in L5 mode. As long as I can do something about those dang tweaked Miatas running away from me on the straights, I'll be happy. Yeah, Miatas. /me hangs head in shame. Every time, catch them in the corners, and watch their tail lights on the straights.

Well, as much as the car seemed to run great, I appear to have blown the L24 in my track car. Cylinder #2 has a lot of oil in it. I am guessing it is the piston rings as it got worse when I warmed up the engine, but its possible the valve seals are just that toast. I had't really done anything with the engine, so this was pretty much expected. As my project cashflow isn't as good as some, my attitude was to leave it as the PO had it setup and when it died, do something about it. That being said, I am faced with some choices. I like to do nutty things, and for some reason I think it would be fun to be the retard that keeps an L24 in his race car. There are 2 reasons for this. 1- it should be cheaper as long as the parts are in decent shape &; B- I can stay in GT3. There are some pretty big money GT2 players in the area (people that can afford multiple Rebello engines in a season), and I just don't think I can compete. My questions are, how strong can a well built n/a L24 be (I have trip Weber 45's already)? Would it even be worth it? I get the impression that a noob willing to invest the time and diligence can build a decent engine, would you guys agree? of course I would use a reputable machine shop to do any machining/balancing/etc, I am really just wondering about assembly.

Thanks John! you have been a big help as I go through this project. I'll have to mail you a case of fine canadian beer or something

I have done a lot of searching on this topic, but couldn't seem to find any racing specific info. I have 240z roadcourse car with the stock 4 speed trans and diff (r180?). I want to change the fluids before the next race and I am wondering what the racers out there recommend. Most brands are available in-town. I know many people are fond of the redline products. What weights would people suggest? Thanks in advance for the help

Awesome, thanks for your help. I'll be sure to post pictures when its done

Good day everyone. Well, after spending the last 3 weeks sanding, I think my track car is finally ready for paint. As I have never really done this, I have a few questions. Believe me, I have searched. Sometimes I find answers, but then they are contradicted by something else. 1- I think I am going to go for an enamel. From what I Understand they are fairly easy to spray, durable, and rather inexpensive. This is a track car, and I know the paint is likely going to be ruined by something I do long before things like UV have a chance to have any effect. How much do I need to paint a 240z? I have some HVLP guns someone is going to loan me for this if it makes a difference. 2- This is an odd one, I seriously couldn't find the answer to this.... Do you need a primer for an enamel? I have a mix of old paint, primer, body filler, and fiberglass showing. I am assuming its probably best, but I thought I would ask. I like the look of the 350z and Porsche silvers. I doubt you can get an enamel that looks anything close to that good, but I will try to find something close. Hopefully it all works out.

Funny, I did almost exactly the same thing on my track car. AZC 6 pot front and 4 pot rear kit. I had virtually no runout on mine though. I was fully expecting to have to machine them, but it wasn't needed. The Baer spacers did not fit my 240 hubs. They swore they would, but i needed to open up the center by nearly 6mm (dia). I just used a flapper on my drill press and did it myself. Much cheaper way to do things. I needed 1/2" spacers on the front to clear my 15" euro mesh wheels; and 1/8" spacers on the rear. The arp studs are awesome. I like that I can torque all the nuts before each event as opposed to using those bolt-on adapters that hide a set of nuts under the wheel.

wow, that engine sits so far back. I wonder if you could fit 2 of them in there

This past winter i replaced my entire braking system from pedal to rotor with performance stuff. It was quite the pain to get the fluid moving at all. Between the remote reservoirs, new lines and everything, the fluid just did not want to move. My solution was to find an extra reservoir cap, drill a hole in it, and stick the rubber tip of my blowgun in the hole. I turned my regulator down as far as it could go and gave 'er hell. I could tell it was working by the fluid slowly going down. I even had to re-bench-bleed it that way due to the remote reservoirs. I like Braap's pressure bleeder, thats sweet. If I wasn't such a cheap bastard, I might have have done something similar.

I am sure that I must be searching for the wrong things, because I am sure this has been asked before. I have spent about 4 hours total looking for this info.... Ok, first off, this is a track-only 240z and I am not looking for an award winning paint job. That being said, I am willing to invest plenty of time making it look as good as I can. I am something like the 7th owner of this car since it was race prepared in the mid 70's. It has many many generations of paint and patchwork done. I would like to straighten out and clean up the body as best I can. Unfortunately I have no welder (mostly because of limited electrical service in the garage), so use of fiberglass or filler would be preferred. Here come the questions. -For deep scratches and nicks (often in fiberglass pieces), from what I understand the best way to get rid of them is to sand them right out and then use filler to level out the surface. Is this correct? -Bondo, Bondo-Glass, or some other product? What do you racers suggest? -I want to fill in some of the standard lines of the car. Like where the marker lights go behind the rear tires, the hole in the rear pillar where the emblem used to be, and the door handles. Should I just lay the filler on thick, or use some of that patch mesh stuff to cover it, or fiberglass or.... yeah? -I have some sweet rear flares that are currently riveted on. Riveted on to lumpy, wrinkled bare metal. Lumpy wrinkled bare metal that is at least 1/32 lower than the surrounding areas that have loads of paint and filler on them. I would like to permanently fix these on and blend them in so the seams can't be seen. Suggestions? Again, thanks for your help, even if its just pointing me to other threads.

There are some washers under there, they could be bigger. I'll take care of that next time its off. Good call. As for the filters, I have socks for the horns. The way the strut tower support is welded in there, not much else fits. Unfortunately, those aren't weber air horns, so even the foam socks don't fit quite right. I ran it last night for a bit to cure the paint and the wrap. Though it never really got much over 180º (last time it was out, it got up to ~230º at idle, ~180º on the track) I feel the head gasket is suspect. I topped off the rad before starting it and after about 20 minutes it started to vent a little out the breather by the cap. I may have just overfilled it. I'll have to do a compression/leakdown asap to double check. The wrap and shield must have done the trick though, the carbs were cool to the touch the whole time. Update: I ran the compression test, and I kindof found what I expected. 1-6 : 160, 145, 140, 160, 140, 115. I added some oil to cylinder 6 and retested it. Got 130. I figured the engine was going to be a little tired as I am not the first person to put it on the track. The cooling system overpressure seems to have gone away, but its hard to test without really loading the engine. I am going to check on valve lash and see if there are improvements to be made there. Question, how much does the oil system breathe normally? As my engine warms up, I can see a small stream of smoke coming from my catch tank breather (no egr). Its not a lot, and I think it may be farily normal.

Well, got it all back together today. I used a couple of small (1-5/8") exhaust clamps to secure the shield. Its fairly thick stainless, so I don't think that flapping will be an issue this way. Also adjusted the timing so that its running ~34 deg advance total. Looks like it will do the trick, though i am sure it is a much bigger pain to install than the J-bolts. Thanks for your help guys Ugh, that engine bay needs a little work. Just a quick shot of one of the u-bolts coming through the shield.

Ah, so you just made some hooks and then tightened them on? I was thinking it was some sort of pipe hangar or something. I spent at least an hour last night staring at my heat shield trying to figure out the best way to fasten it on.

This is a great thread. I've referred to it a few times during my build. Last time I had my track car out, I kind of boiled the gas in my carbs and had a small fire Not fun. So, being on a budget, I cleaned up my headers, painted them, wrapped em, and painted them again with some thermotec stuff designed for wrap. I am also in the middle of trying to make a nice big stainless heatshield (which will have a thermo blanket riveted on). The problem is, I can'f figure out the best way to attach it. The picture below shows mark somehow bolting it to the header, but I cant tell how.... Any thoughts?

I had a look at those, but from the looks of things I can go distributorless with edis and megajolt for cheaper. As josh mentioned, it should be doable for under $200, a little more work though

After much research, Megajolt and edis seems to be the way to go. You seem to get some serious control over the spark for little investment. Now off to the junkyard to get my hands on some parts Given my cam and the carbs, I am pretty sure I should go the tps route. Josh, which version do you have for sale? v4?

Well the shank wheels are for my rain tires on my track car, the tapers are for my slicks. I wanted the lugs to be the same so that its one less thing to worry about at the track. I have a full set of spare open ended tapers I keep with me at the track. If they are quality inserts and you press them in properly, there should be no issue.