baddriver

So, which car is the 'Real' GTO? I understand both sides of this argument, but the fact is that car companies lack the marketing skills to make some new letter popular, so they just fall back on the old worn out letters that have already been promoted. Or something. Hey, they do the same thing to cars. Compare a 70's Nova with the POS created in the 80's with the same name. Or the Malibu with a modern Malibu, and you'll wonder how they could ever use that name on a completely different car. But, if the cheVette guy's want to call their car's Z's well, that's up to them. I think the name is a little dated anyway. People give me funny looks when I say 'Datsun' anymore, and no one seems to know what a 'Z car' is. Check the archives for stories about how someone mistook so-and-so's Z for a ferrari/porshe/lotus/corvette/etc. It's all a matter of who you're talking to and what their background is.

Stupid trick to try in a Vette. I would've made it up the hill in my Nova, though.

I've seen a lot of people mention that the u-joints with grease fitings are weaker than those without, and you should never use these joints on the drivetrain of a Z. However, I have a question and I wondered if I could get some opinions on it. I recently got u-joints for my stock 6 cyl z, and they came with grease fittings. However, unlike older u-joints I had seen that have the fitting in between two bearing caps on the center of the joint itself, this one had the fitting in the bearing cap, and only the center of the U-joint was hollow to allow grease in. I looked at another u-joint without a fitting and found that this was hollow as well. I know that hollow tubes are stronger for their weight than solid tubes, so I was wondering if U joints with the fitting in the cap are really weaker than other u-joints, or if this was only true with the older style that put the fitting on the body of the joint? Personally I think it's nice to be able to grease the joint, but I thought I'd ask around a bit before I decide what to do. The brand I have is "Brute force."

I think Dan has the downside correct. Battery packs and the like add up to huge pounds, which don't make a huge difference on a bus, but on your car will add up to a lot of mass. That being said, I feel this sort of advancement is fantastic, and I hope to here more about it. Gotta love higher efficiency, everyone wins!

I understand the concern here, but there are a couple of points I'd like to bring up for discussion. First of all, there is far more junk in space left over from comets, meteors, and general space clutter than has been shot there from earth. Most of it is tiny dust sure, but there are a lot of larger pieces. Watch any of the annual meteor showers to get an idea of how much stuff is already there. Second, hey, space is big. Now, I don't mean to sound sarcastic about this, but imagine seven thousand sattelites piled up in a mound on earth. It'll probably be the size of your local scrap yard. Now look at that pile from orbit. See it? No? that's because the earth is some 7000 miles in diameter, and orbit is several miles larger than that. Now I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of space garbage, but I think maybe you guys are getting a little too excited a little too soon. I know that the speed at which these things travel makes them highly dangerous to astronauts, and they cover distance so quickly that the possibility of collision is pretty high, but I'm not sure that the danger exceeds the risks already inherent in space travel. And I could care less if someone's cable tv sattelite gets blown to bits. I think I would count that as a victory for the forces of good. Of course, everyone has thier pet environmental issues, like the fact that ocean fishing now catches about 1/10th the quantity of fish that were caught using the same size nets 50 years ago. That worries me a bit. But probably only becaue I like fish.

I think as long as you keep asking this guy to do work for you, and he is giving you a good price, then you owe it to him to pay him for the work he does, even if he leaves a mess. You know what kind of work he does, and you took it back to him anyway. I know you said that the other guy wasn't supposed to work on the car, but really, did you believe this wouldn't happen? people are people, and they don't change. I think the idea of working on the car along side your friend is a great one, if you can do it. Otherwise, you have to decide if the money you are saving by having an amature do your work is worth it. People complain about the prices of mechanical work, but you have to pay professional wages to get professional work. What you really need to do is fix your managers brakes for him cheap some time, so he'll leave you alone about working in the garage. Otherwise, finding a storage garage or meeting some new friends might be your best choice.

Save a paint chip, and every time you walk into work, hold it up against every grey/white car you see. When you find one that has your paint on the bumper, well....the rest is up to you.

Well, I think we already have a what's your favorite car post, but most of those are well out of my reach financially. However, I've recently test drivin an AWD turbo eclipse that was lots of fun, and going for less than $2k. That got me thinking, are there other super-fun, fast cars out there for this kind of money? The sort of thing you could pick up on a whim and play with, drive to work and not worry about someone smashing into it in the lot (Sorry Mike!) So here's the rules. Post a car you've actually seen for sale for less than 3K, thats fast, fun, and wasn't priced that low as a result of a fire, crash or divorce. Something modern and in good, drive it for a couple of years condition. Of course, I already mentioned the Eclipse/talon/laser, and the Z's go without saying. Have fun! Jeff E.

I think it is a mistake to try and express the loss as a percent of horsepower, especially for a modified car. The loss should be fairly constant even when a more powerful engine is installed. Transmitting more power might increase the losses a little, but I don't think it'll be a linear relationship. I'd find the gross Hp rating for a z, and try to locate the same years net hp. The difference will probably be around 30 hp. Assume that you loose the same 30 hp if you make 140 Hp or 300. It won't be exact, but should get you in the ballpark.

I too have just recently come across the megasquirt page, and I have some questions. I think I can put the thing together, wire it up to the car and get it working, but the site says you set up the system based on calculations customized for your car, and I assume you have to fill in your own fuel maps, enrichment, etc. My question is, is it possible to do all this tuning accurately without a dyno, and about how much time did it take before you were confident that you had your system running correctly? I'm familiar with electronics, and compters don't scare me a bit, but I've got no experience tuning, and I wonder if I'd be able to do it. Did the site give you enough guidance, or were there problems along the way? thanks! Jeff E.

I'm just guessing here, but it's probably no different from the element used in a hot water heater. If you can contact the manufacturer, or find the wattage on a little silver sticker somewhere, you can probably get a new one anywhere. Sounds like a good winter project to me. Much more fun than watching the snow pile up on the z.

You guys are crazy! Hilarious, but crazy. This is just the post to pick me up, I'd been having a dull day, and I really got a kick out of this discussion. Not jus the subject, but the fact that dozens of people logged in to talk it out, even gave some thought to the aerodynamics. And I thought fark.com was funny! This is definately my favorite site in the www. Later, Jeff

I have an early 260, and it has a huge horn pad. Maybe just the 240 got a smaller one. I don't mind the wheel much, but the horn pad is ugly with a capitol 'UG.' Can I replace the pad without buying a new wheel? Maybe from a 240? Thanks from one of the million Jeff's on this site.

Hey,..Hey,..Hey... Makes me want to go home and watch Mad Max. Click, bye!

This does look like a better system than the bilge-pump BS that was going around earlier, but for 2 grand, couldn't you get a full-time blower? What's the advantage of not having it driven off the motor? I suppose It might be nice to be able to bolt it onto a different car down the road. Of course you could always sell your supercharger and get one that fits another car. And the 2K doesn't include any fuel delivery solutions. Still need to solve that problem for each application. It's tempting though. I really think you should get one and tell us a little more about it.

1500 is a good price for a long block, but if that's too much, you'll have to go with a used engine. A reliable chevy 350 is about the easiest part to find in a junk yard, go shopping around, find a yard that has a 350 still in the car (the engine should start and run in the car, so you can hear it) and buy the whole car as a parts car. That way, you won't have to go back and pay more when you realize you didn't get everything you need. Even better, get a car you can drive around for a few weeks first, then you can locate all the leaks and fix them when the engine is out. I've seen running cars go for $800 or less. You won't find a 350 with a five speed in anything, but you can get the 5 speed from any TPI camaro. Oh, you won't have 350 HP, more like 230 unless you do build up the engine, but for the budget you stated, a mild cam in a stock engine will geve you great performance, and once you have all the bugs worked out, you can start adding some HP.

The coolant will expand and contract as the temperature changes, so in cars without overflow tanks, the radiator was left a few inches low so that the coolant had room to expand. People didn't seem to like this, though. When someone got their car back from the shop, and looked into the radiator, they would assume that the shop was cutting corners, and fill the radiator up. Then when it expanded, the radiator would loose coolant, and people would think it was leaking. Then they would take it backto the shop, where no one could find the problem. So, the overflow tank was devised. It comes with a line that says full cold and full hot so people would understand that the coolant really does expand. It also effectivly increases the capacity of the cooling system, because the radiator is always full. Not having one will not hurt your car, but as has been mentioned, they are required at the drag strip.

Newer cars are also designed without drip guards, with lights and windshield wipers recessed, and with flush door handles and aerodynamic mirrors. On the Z, these protrusions stir up the air flowing over the car, and create a lot of wind noise that simply isn't present in a modern car. The Z sounds noisier because it makes more noise. Another problem is that hatch seal just six inches from the back of your head. Even with the best weather stripping and sound deadning in the world, you will not be able to make your Z as quite as a car with better aerodynamics. This is presuming that you have already reduced the noise from the engine and tires. A lot of very popular mods make the car noisy. Headers, free-flowing exhaust, open-element filters, and wide tires all contribute.

You can tell the 2 bolt block from the 4 bolt by the number of freeze plugs, the 4 bolt block has three on each side, the 2 bolt has 2, just like the 350 block. The four bolt is more desirable, but rare, and really, unless you are building a very-high output motor, the 2 bolt block is a very good choice. Good Luck. Those 400's will surprise a lot of people, let everyone think it's a 350, and leave them wondering how your car can walk right away from them.

Why don't you just look up your favorite automotive engineer and kick him in the nads? Seems like a real waste of all the hard work and careful thought that went into the LS1, plus an aluminum manifold is going to weigh more than the plastic one they use.

If you don't know what's changed in the world of small block chevy, here's a rundown. As has already been stated, the aluminum block in the PAW book is modeled after the old chevy SB. It was never produced by the factory in aluminum (maybe never isn't quite correct, but never in a production car) So the one in the PAW catalog was designed to be an iron block. The LT1 came out in 93, it is very similar to the original small block, but several funtions were re-designed. The cooling system is completely different, and the distributor was also re-designed. However, this block mounts in exactly the same way as the original small block, making it a good choice for swaps into chevy-powered vehicles. (accessory mounting is a bit of a problem in the z's, well, AC anyway) The LT1 came with aluminum heads, but never an aluminum block. Like the original chevy small block, someone will probably make it available in alum soon, but the price will be sky high. Finally, sometime around 98, the LS1 was introduced. This engine has almost nothing in common with the original chevy engine. The mounting, the valve layout, basically everything was re-designed. This engine was designed to be an aluminum block engine, and so does not suffer from some of the problems inherent in the aluminum blocks based on the original small block. Because the LS1 is so different, nothing from the earlier line of chevys is compatable. Headers, engine mounts, and trannys all have to be designed specifically for the LS1. This makes the LS1 more expensive by far than the average chevy engine, and the swap is also more expensive by far than the average engine swap. If you are serious about the LS1 engine, it will cost some bucks. The folks who have done it posted a Minimum of $7000 to do the swap. Most people would agree that you can do a simple chevy smallblock engine for around $3000. Both of these figures assume you already have a good-running Z, and they include the price of the engine. They also assume that you do the minimum to make the swap work, and don't get distracted by adding on a million other projects.

Mack, I think what you are describing is the theory behind Rhodes' lifters, a bleed-down lifter that was advertised as making wild cams more streetable. The lifter bleeds down while lifting the valve, increasing the lash and effectively shutting the valve sooner at low RPM. At high RPM the lifter has less time to bleed down, and so acts more like a regular hydraulic lifter. I used a set of theses on a 400 sb that I built in my younger days. I used a huge 310', 510 lift cam, but I wouldn't say it was 'streetable'. The fact is that roller lifters do the job better by changing the limits of the cam grind. (but I couldn't afford roller lifters back in those days!) The Rhodes lifters never seem to have caught on, and I haven't seen them advertised in a long while.

That's funny.

Bob_H You have every right to be sceptical, as I clearly don't know what I am talking about. Well, sort of. As it turns out, the Kawasaki engines are 2-strokes, which, as I am sure you are aware, have completely different valve requirements than a four-stroke. The rotor valves replace the reed valves, and would certainly not work for a four stroke engine. I have just started learning a little more about these engines, as I recently aquired my first motorcycle. I'm getting close to 30 now, and I guess it's an early mid-life crisis thing. Anyway, you're right in that this is not really applicable to this discussion. That'll teach me to go around posting crap I really know nothing about. Good luck with your investigation of the rotory valves!

I followed the discussion of the LS1 swap pretty closely, and there were a number of other details that make it expensive. The exhaust system requires a good deal of customizing, out-of the box headers don't fit, and the factory manifolds don't work. The ECU expects O2 sensors behind the cats, and so the ECU must be edited, or mock sensors can be used. This adds to the cost as well. Seems like the heater hose routing also required moving the heater core, or soldering on bends. Other than that, I don't think there were too many differences. Seems like I remember a lot of discussion about accessory positions, but I don't know if this was a problem for everyone, or just for people doing AC. I'll have to go back to the post and re-read it. I know all this information is on one of the recent (last 6 months) LS 1 posts, cause that's where I picked it up. It takes a lot of time to go through them, but they're worth it. Parts for the LS1 are more expensive as well, so if you don't have a doner car complete, there is a good chance you could miss hundreds of dollars in parts when you pull the motor.