theghosttanker

I just cut out and replaced doglegs on my shell a few months ago. When I cut them out, there was a couple inches of mud/sand/dirt/leaf debris packed tight inside. After replacing them, I used an undercoater's spray wand, which you can sneak all the way down into the bottom of the dogleg if you take out the interior trim and uncover some big access holes. I thoroughly and completely sprayed inside that whole area with Rust Bullet. Should be better, but I intend to clean out the dogleg area periodically just to make sure. IMHO, the fact that dirt can get in there and pack that whole area full IS a design flaw.

Well there's good news, and there's good news. The good news is that your previous owner has already converted your car to the earlier SU style cars. And the good news is that with these carbs you can completely eliminate the electric fuel pump in your car. This is good news. The electric pump is mounted on a bracket under the car on the right side back by the fuel tank. Remove it altogether and just run a single piece of fuel tubing in its place. While you are under the car messing with fuel lines, disconnect the fuel lines from the fuel filter also and blow carb cleaner through the entire fuel line. Put it all back together, making sure that fuel can now freely flow from the tank to the engine compartment. Now disconnect the the fuel line that runs from the mechanical pump to the carbs. Put a piece of clear tubing on the fuel pump, or if you're a real man, use regular fuel tubing. Now suck on the tube. You are going to suck gas all the way from the gas tank and through the fuel pump, thus confirming that you have good fuel flow and that the pump is primed. Now stick the end of this tube in a jar and crank the motor. It should pump gas into the jar. If so, reconnect the fuel line to the carbs and start the car. If not, make sure it's primed and try again. If you can't get the pump to pump gas after you have made sure that you have sucked gas all the way from the tank, through the filter, and through the pump, THEN replace the pump.

Well you have a lot of issues here. First of all, the distributor. The electronic dizzy that didn't work for you should indeed work and perform much better than the stock 240 dizzy, but it needs to be installed in conjunction with an ignition module (either from the 280, or using a GM hei module, which costs about 15 bucks everywhere)and a 280 ignition coil and 280 spark plugs. Here is a link to a very good description of the procedure. http://dimequarterly.tierranet.com/articles/tech_hei.html I suggest you complete this task correctly, so that you will never have to worry about your spark again. Now for your fuel supply. Pull the fuel line off a carb, put the end in a jar, and crank the motor. It should be squirting fuel.If not, it's time for the bug hunt. The 73 and 74 cars had a unique set of carbs (smog control)along with a very complex emissions control system, which included that charcoal canister you talked about. These carbs gave all kinds of trouble and through the years they were often replaced with the SU carbs from earlier 240z's. If you have the original carbs on your car, they have a flat top, but the older SU's have a rounded top. I mention this because you say you have SU carbs, and the flat tops are usually not referred to as SU's. (Neither carb is a genuine SU, which was a British carb. But the older carbs were an almost exact copy of SU's while the flat tops have their own uniquely evil pedigree) Anyhow, the 73 and 74 cars had a unique fuel supply system to go with those nasty smogger carbs. Early cars used a mechanical fuel pump only, and this was a very simple and reliable system. In 73 they added an electric fuel pump back near the gas tank because they were having vapor lock problems with the new carbs. The electrical supply to this pump was cobbed into the electrical system in a pretty sloppy way and it can give lots of trouble too. before I spend any time giving unneeded advice, please go back to your car and take some good detailed pictures of your carburetors and of the area around the right front of your motor, where the fuel lines pass around on their way to the carbs. I can't tell from the pictures you took whether the mechanical fuel pump is still there.Post them and I'll check back later.

Oddman, I have been looking for a barb-rail style fuel rail for my car....sounds like you are going to have a JSK one sitting around in a little while! Let me know if you want to sell it!

Sounds like you didn't search too hard! There are lots of ways to put carbs on your car...you can use the stock carbs from a 240Z, a four barrel conversion, a triple sidedraft setup, or a double Weber DGV downdraft conversion. People sell all these setups here and on e-bay all the time, and none of them will cost anywhere near 2 grand, unless you decide on a brand-new triple sidedraft setup. The easiest conversion is to put 240 carbs on.The only other mod you need is to use a low pressure fuel pump instead of the EFI fuel pump currently on the car.

I haven't seen it before, but i have a non-leaking sending unit around here somewhere that I'll sell ya if i can find it.

When you buy a totaled car, in most states you need to take it to the DMV and have it inspected before you can register it, and you will then be issued a salvage title. At the inspection, you will be required to show receipts and proof of origin of every part necessary to return the car to running condition.The inspector will be very thorough checking the vehicle and your records, to protect against unsafe cars and illegal chop shop work. It can be a huge hassle. Insurance companies will cover the car. 280Z's did not come from the factory with sunroofs; yours must be aftermarket, and it decreases the value of the car to have it. I suggest you go online and check the DMV website for your state to see what you have to do to get your car titled. And I suggest you check extremely thoroughly for rust. And don't pay a lot of money for this car!

rockauto.com sells them too and they look a little more authentic than those others.

You just start taking it apart; the crank is about the last thing you'll get out. You have to take off the front cover, the rear main is held in with two bolts, and of course all the bearing caps and rod bolts. I can pick up and carry a bare block by myself, but to get it a long way I put it in a wheelbarrow.

Buyers need to know that, unless you buy a part through E-Bay, PayPal mediation and fund recovery services WILL NOT APPLY. I found this out the hard way when a punk named Sirk ripped me off here and PayPal refused to help.if you do buy through PayPal, make sure that you pay with your credit card, not with your bank funds or with an existing PayPal balance. Then you can go through your credit card company instead of PayPal to get your money back.

You can send your rockers to delta cams to have them resurfaced.(it's cheap, something like $4 per rocker) or you can do it yourself using emery paper on a flat surface or a diamond whetstone.No need to buy new ones. I have been resurfacing, lightening and balancing mine for decades and never had any problems at all.basically all you do is hold the rocker flat on the paper and rock it as you pull it across, concentrating on the ridges that form at the edge of the wear pattern, until you have it nice and uniform from end to end and the ridge is gone.

I have used a jack and also just lifted it by hand, but I'm a little larger than average. Remember to support the back of your motor before you pull the tranny. If you don't, it will drop down as you remove the tranny, sometimes enough to damage the throttle linkage.

The 73 has two fuel pumps, the electric by the tank and the mechanical on the motor. The electric fuel pump was added to help clear vapor lock problems and is not needed at all, and if it not working properly it can give the problems you describe. The system of relays and wires that control the electric pump is a PITA, and if you are working on the car you may not have it running consistently. Webers are indeed very sensitive to fuel pressure although the sticking float problem is one I've never encountered. I suggest you try running the car exclusively on the mechanical pump. Remove the electric one and just pipe fuel straight to the underhood filter and then to the underhood pump.Webers run great on the mechanical pump alone.

Your existing alternator and distributor will bolt right on to your new motor. There's no problem with using your stock alternator but if I were you I would use a more modern electronic distributor rather than a stock 260 dizzy which has points.There are several different ways to easily accomplish this. Pertronix makes an upgrade kit that replaces the points with solid-state parts.Or,you can use an electronic distributor from any later l-6 motor (from 76 on). These dizzies are used with a high voltage coil and produce a much more powerful spark than the stock 260, even if you use a pertronix. Early electronic dizzies had the ignition module separate from the dizzy (mounted on the firewall) while later models had the module attached directly to the side of the dizzy.The easiest upgrade is to use one of these later dizzies; you also need to use a matching coil, and matching plugs and gaps.If you can find a good condition dizzy (no slop or side play in the shaft, and the advance mechanism is working smoothly) then use it. The modules are getting hard to find and if your dizzy doesn't have one you can substitute a GM module; this is a substitute, not an upgrade.It will work with either the early or late electronic dizzies.Note that most people using triple carbs do not use the vacuum advance mechanism, although the mechanical advance is still used. Read this article. It is written for the l-4-Datsun 510 but it works exactly the same with l-6 motors. http://dimequarterly.tierranet.com/articles/tech_hei.html

It sounds like you have all the bases covered. Pressure testing the block would probably be a waste of time/money unless you suspect that it's really been traumatized in the past. As long as you are using the same pistons, rods, and crank, you shouldn't need to rebalance anything.I run a lightened turbo flywheel with a stock Exedy clutch and I don't see any reason for you to run anything more expensive than that with your setup. Have fun!

you need to shim 015? The rule of thumb is that you don't need to shim your cam at all if you have taken less than 020 off the head, and a lot of people here claim to have taken even more off without shimming. If you are thinking you need to shim 015 because you took 015 off, just skip it.

I have two or three extra sets from 70-73 cars. All usable. What parts do you need exactly?

yeah 160 mains with 175 air is gonna be way too rich; as a rule of thumb, the main should be about 40 less than the airs.

your book also gives the wrong torque for cam tower bolts.

Running an electric fuel pump so that it turns on and off with the ignition key is a stupidly dangerous thing! If you look at how electric fuel pumps are controlled by ANY modern car, you will see that they ALL have a system that insures that the power to the pump is cut off in the event of an accident, even if the ignition key is left in the "on" position. Z-cars had a couple different ways of doing this...early cars had a relay controlled directly from the alternator, which prevented the pump from running if the alternator was not moving. Later cars had a relay run off the oil pressure sending unit. Other cars simply have the fuel pump controlled by the ECU. At a bare minimum, you should at least install a relay designed to shut off the fuel supply when it senses the shock of an accident. These are cheap and readily available at NAPA or Rockauto.com. That being said....having run an l-28 on triple webers that made over 225 HP to the rear wheels, I know that the stock mechanical pump is completely capable of providing all the fuel your car will ever need. The reason you are having tuning problems at WOT with your 600CFM carb is that, with all four barrels wide open, your air velocity through the carb is too low for the carb to properly draw and atomize the fuel. It's too large a carb for the airflow demands of an l-24.Changing the size or type of a carb does not effect the fuel flow requirements to the engine.Fuel flow requirement is directly proportional to the horsepower output, and the stock mechanical pumps are capable of supporting WAY more horsepower than your setup is going to make.If I were you I would quit worrying about the pump and put on a properly sized carb.

you are right, none of the 240's or 260's came with five speeds. Your car has had all its guts switched around.No big deal, the most important thing to look out for on these cars is rust.

Yes, in this hobby, wife management is very important.I consider myself as something as an expert, since I've been married twice. If your wife says you have too much junk, you need to get some really large rubbermaid bins, and put your stuff in them. A wife will complain endlessly about a garage half full of stuff but not utter a peep about a garage completely full of large rubbermaid bins, especially if the bins are blue.

I made replacements for mine using lawn mower throttle cables.

I built my rotisserie from scratch using scrap from a reclamation yard. I bought all the materials, including castors, for about 50 bucks. It looks similar to the engine stand setup you have there except my heads slide up and down the uprights so you can adjust the height of the car. It looks like you are on the right track but you will find that when you put the weight of the car on it, the stands will want to tip inwards at both ends, putting all the weight on the inner wheels and lifting the outer wheels off the ground. This can also bend the mounting areas. You need to tie the two stands together with a long section of square tubing connecting the bottom of the stands. I would weld a piece of square tubing (about a foot long)on top of each stand, and then thread a long piece through them and bolt it up so it can take a very considerable amount of tension.

You can mount two stock 280Z throttle bodies onto an SU carb manifold with very little modifications. (ovalized mounting holes) You could then buy six injector bungs from Summit racing and have them installed (welded)into the runners on the manifold. You would have to rig up throttle linkages and then use megasquirt to manage it. You would then have a dual throttle body custom manifold, and it would be pretty cool I think.