cygnusx1

Welcome. How far South in Jersey are you? This site ranges from the po'-boy jackstand street racer, to weekend cruisers, to the road course and drag professional. You will find everything in between. If you can think of it, someone here has already done something similar or at least thought about it. Take a look at members, jnjdragracing, zgad, and 1 quick z. They stand out among the, admittedly, fastest Z's on the board. Not to say there aren't others as fast or less creative. There is a meet coming up at just over the NY NJ border soon and I believe the NJZCC is having some events coming up as well. Scope around the site and use the search features. There is A TON of history on the site. -Dave

Definitely install a backstop along the rear of the bench. I have old kitchen cabinets underneath my bench for storage. It's about 10 foot long by about 20" deep built of heavy wood top and steel legs with a heavy duty light gray paint on it for easy clean up. Vice on one end and grinder on the other.

I re-torqued for peace of mind. It's just me. A little bit obsessive Pete, I will PM you about the hydraulic posts. Thanks again.

I multiplied my advance table by 0.9 and then multiplied my VE table by 1.05. And adjusted my AFR targets to be richer. I went for a drive and datalogged it. It seems to pull just as hard if not harder. So I must have been "overtuned", or past the point of diminishing returns on the timing. The timing map is close to what Pete listed up above and it seems to work. Thanks Pete. I may try Datmans map if I decide to exceed 15psi boost later on. The car is driving just great. I retorqued the ARP studs (moly lube) backing them off and setting them back to 55 ft-lb's one at a time. I may do this one more time in a week or so. One of my hydraulic posts is a little loud again...It's always the same one that bleeds down, so I am trying to track down a single good hydraulic post.

You would think. Another potential problem...Are all the parts from the same year L28ET? There were differences between the three turbo years. In particular, the distributor electronics were different. Not sure exactly how different, but they were.

I kind of had a hunch that it was not the ECU because typical failure of an ECU results in a cold black box. They either work or don't. Hang onto it until you feel like you have a resolution. The next step would be the guts of the distributor. Although, TonyD does not think it's the distributor...we now know that the ECU is OK and what else is there in the timing circuit besides wires and distributor guts? It's a very strange problem and the timing could be locked at full advance or idle advance we just have no idea. Maybe you should also try a different coil while you are at it. BTW do you know if the timing advance ever did work for sure? Another thing, my car ran well with or without the TPS connected, and with or without the knock sensor so I doubt timing is effected by the TPS and knock sensor (unless there is knock). There might be ONE signal that the ECU is looking for in order to advance timing. Trouble is, what is that signal and why isn't your ECU getting it. When you checked all your ECU sensors and inputs, did you read the values through the harness at the ECU connector? You should. This will include all wiring in the diagnosis. Is there any way to know if the injectors firing frequency is increasing with revs? This would indicate that the ECU knows that you are reving the motor. Listen to the injectors with a screwdriver tip against one of them and the handle pressed against your ear while you rev.

It is possible in Australia. Gravity works with you down there. Doesn't it?

My car needs to idle at 12.8 or richer. L28ET stock long block '83. It runs in it's happy range in the 13 - 13.5 range.

Pete, yes, my timing numbers are verified with a light. I will triple check again anyhow. No wonder she feels so fast. I have the timing so far advanced. BTW the idle spec on my '83 motor from the factory is more advanced than any other year L28ET. I think it's 23 or 25btdc in the manual. TONYD, you have spoken my philosophy. Fiddle with the stock motor while learning to tune. Then build it, and tune it with knowledge and experience. I don't care if I damage this motor a little while I learn to tune. The rest of the car will be there sorted and ready, debugged, waiting for the monster motor.

This is less aggressive than the map that popped the gasket. I guess it can go even more conservative. AFR hangs around 12.5 - 13.5. I suppose I should tune a bit richer in the high boost areas. I used to run 15psi but I have now cut back to about 10psi because it pulls almost as hard, and is safer. After I build up the motor, I will have it tuned correctly on your dyno.

I don't want to open up a contest but I just want to say that when I pulled the head off of my turbo motor, I was surprised at how light it was. I realized then that the center of gravity of the L28 motor is actually pretty low. Even though it is a tall motor most of the mass is down, near, or below the wheel hubs.

I fall corrected.

Also check your voltage/opening time compensation for the injectors. That could effect your idle. Your AFR would tell you what's going on if the actual injector PW is changing with voltage.

For what its worth, I finally received my 10amp 12volt noise filter. I got it on ebay. It's about 1"x 1" x 1.5" made by Pioneer. I put it inline with the power feed to the MSII per Pete's suggestion. It's too soon to say for sure but so far, so good. I haven't had any strange boot issues with the MSII like I was having before... http://cgi.ebay.com/9-NEW-OEM-PIONEER-POWER-NOISE-FILTERs-10a-FUSE-INLINE_W0QQitemZ190149722791QQihZ009QQcategoryZ58036QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

...Trouble is that the auctions are closing "reserve not met" all over the place with these cars at much lower than 30K. To compete, the car would need to be differentiated from the rest somehow.

Keep in mind that the C-word is now very beat-able in many cases. One of the most amazing advancements in human history that never fails to amaze me is the medical technology field. Having said that, I will do my best to send the best wishes. Fingers crossed for the good news.

O-ringing is fine and there is lots of info about that here. I street tuned it myself without the aid of a dyno or knock sensor. I really expected to find the limit. This motor is going to be totally worked next year anyhow. The factory head gasket was quickly replaced with another factory head gasket. It does it's job fine when the tune is proper. O-ringing the head without building the rest of the motor is like repairing a rock climbing rope with a single strand shoe lace. As far as I am concerned, the L28ET motor is one tough muttha...the head gasket is a "fuse" for those that want to find the limit of the stock long block, like me. I have added fuel to get a fatter mixture and pulled some timing at boost. It feels faster now at 10psi than it did with the previous tunes at 15psi.

I am thinking heavily about the demand also. Especially now with the housing market the way it's going. I am beginning to see foreclosures as well. In general, there is less expendable cash around. On the other hand, there is a car show locally to me that sees 800-1200 cars every Wednesday night. I also live within a one hour radius of NYC and the money out here is unimaginable. House after house, in the 2-5 million dollar range peppering the landscape. There are people with money to spend and I just need a way to connect.

Forming an LLC, building them right, and getting all the paperwork correct for proper registration and inspection should take care of major legal worries.

Does anyone think that building one, two,or three replica Cobra's or GT40's per year would be a lucrative full time business as a second income to my spouses income? What would be some of the pitfalls of doing this full time instead of a 9-5 cubicle job? I have some "free time" coming up and might be able to scrounge up enough dough to invest in a full kit to build for sale as a test run. I feel I certainly have the skills, the resources, and persistence to get the cars done right. They say love what you do, and I certainly love turning wrenches to make pretty metal move. I just can't stand cubicle life anymore and frankly, with my wife's income/benefits, and our current state in life, I can afford to try this out for a year or two. Anyone else here do this sort of work? Recommended or not? I already founded, ran, and sold a small business, so I have an inkling of what it takes. Thanks, Dave

You want less advance at boost. If you have 40deg advance max at no boost, you want between 20 and 25deg at 10psi. Just an example.

What about the roof for those that might not want a skylight anymore?

I believe it's related to the cooling issues on the last two cylinders. They are the first two to detonate.

I got the whole thing back together today and learned a few more tricks. I learned that you can install the intake manifold bolts into the head and then slide the intake into place from the top with the bolts loosely theaded into the head. This saves you from fishing blindly for the holes in the head with the bolts taped into a socket. I don't know why I never did this before. MUCH easier. After torquing the head down and installing everything , I turned the key and she fired right up strong. The only problem was that one of my pesky hydraulic rocker posts must have bled down while the head was on the bench. It would not refill so I had to take off the valve cover, the rocker and manually fill the hydraulic post. After I did that and got it idling nicely and quietly, I noticed that the motor was making a ton of whitish smoke on and off. It was like a smoke bomb. I was worried I had screwed something up. It got really bad so I started to tune the idle mixtures to see if I could cut back the smoke. After about 15 minutes of idling, the smoke cleared up and it's back to normal. I guess there was alot of oil in the intake tract that had to burn off. The motor runs strong and smooth, and even sounds better with the new head gasket. I am limiting to about 10 psi until I heat cycle and retorque the head studs. All is well for now! I even fabricated a nice stainless heat shield for the turbine. I'll get photos.

The copper silicone goop worked well for me for at least three weeks on both the intake and exhaust manifolds with NO gasket. I have removed it for now as I am replacing the head gasket. I am going to use a gasket on the manifolds this time because I have one.