JMortensen

The Japanese stainless built stainless NISMO header is different than the Nissan Motorsports header in the USA if I remember correctly. Don't hold me to this, because it's been 17 years now, but I thought it was a totally different design with different length larger primaries, but my friend who had one wouldn't shut up about how cool it was and how nobody has one, etc. His main goal with his Z was to be different, just like everyone else.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=120668

I'm going to take a SWAG and say it's there for NVH reduction and has nothing at all to do with trying to locate the strut towers, since it obviously wouldn't...

You'd have to find someone who really wanted a NISMO knockoff piece. There are other very good alternatives here in the US that sell for considerably less money (Stahl for instance). A friend of mine had the real NISMO header in stainless. It didn't look like $1000 worth of header to me. I think I offered $250 for it and was refused. I did buy his Mikuni carbs though.

As a guy who takes trips to mountains, I can say that I've noticed that the available gas there usually has a lower octane rating. I assumed that was the barometric pressure is lower at altitude. Googled, found this: http://www.cartalk.com/content/columns/Archive/1997/June/09.html So yes, if you wanted to increase the compression ratio it should be fine until you go to lower elevations. Likewise I think we've had threads here about turning up the boost at higher elevations too and how 15 lbs of boost at xxxx altitude feels like 8 lbs of boost at sea level, etc.

Try classiczcars.com. I can tell you that my 70 with L28, 5 speed, R200 with LSD, Autopower roll bar and full interior with extra sound deadening weighed in at 2350 which is what the later car's curb weight is supposed to be. I'd guess 2150.

Agreed. It had to be really rigged just to get the parts in the head in the first place, which is why there was talk of suing the guy who did it. On a .460 cam though I'm not so sure there is an issue. Might be a little closer than ideal to coil bind, but you've got at least one other guy in this thread saying that it works.

He might mean the transverse link that holds the inner rear control arm bushings and is bent backwards to allow for the diff to be moved back like they did in mid 71 and later cars.

That shock is dead.

I KNOW, not guess, not think, but KNOW that they were stock valve springs. I had to replace them because they were coil bound when installed on new valves. The second machinist I used offered to testify if I decided to sue the first guy because the work he did was so bad (I didn't sue, BTW). The second machinist also verified the cam specs via a dial indicator just to make sure the cam that I had bought was indeed installed in the head, and made mention of how most cams that are spec'd at .490 don't actually come out right at .490 on the dial indicator but mine did. The 7500 rpm story: I had removed my MSD and thus the rev limiter once when I was starting to tune the Mikunis because I thought that the multiple sparks were making it impossible to read the plugs (turned out I just suck at reading plugs). Coming up the front straight at Streets of Willow I put a pass on my friend in his 510, looked down and was turning 7500 rpms (Autometer tach too, not stock innaccurate tach rpm "suggestion"). Experience > theory, and you can't possibly convince me that I didn't have this experience. They weren't new stock springs, they were 5/70 mfr date stock valve springs on the original E31 head, so about as old as they could possibly be too.

Oh, wait a minute, this an L24E... do those have the same valve springs? Can't remember, thinking they don't...

I got a myth for you. My first head was completely screwed by the machine shop I used. When I installed a .490 lift cam, they ran into coil bind. The machinist and my friend who built the engine got in a fight over how long it was taking, so the machinist took it out on my head. He CUT THE VALVES until they had no margin at all in order to get about .010" or .015" clearance from coil bind, and slapped the motor together. I ran it like that for a couple YEARS until the valves tuliped and started to leak, and then when I went to rebuild the head a new machinist found all the BS work that was done. With stock valve springs and .490 lift, that engine turned 7500+ rpm at one point on the track and only floated the valves maybe once or twice with it set up wrong like that. The problem is coil bind, not float in my experience. You need the aftermarket valve springs to allow more lift, not more rpms.

Pull the spring on one side, put the suspension back together and jack up the control arm. If the tire hits the fender, then you need to cut it. Looks to me (judging from the pictures, which might not be the most accurate) like you have about 2" of travel before the tire hits the fender lip. In other words, your tire/fender lip contact point is now the bumpstop in the suspension. Not good.

I've got a lot of crap on my plate right now and the idea of tearing that rifle down and doing an epoxy pad at the end of the barrel just isn't motivating me. Anyone know of another way to get that done. I'm thinking plastic or rubber sheet inserted in there. Or should I just do it the right way???

Not quite following here Bob. Are you saying that you have 1/2" bedded at the end of the stock (basically like I'm going to do?). Barrel whip is what I'm trying to avoid of course, since at the crown this is a .5" diameter barrel. Thanks.

It's a temporary thing: http://gawker.com/5288769/the-year-without-a-summer

We did that here in 2006. It was something like 27 days consecutive. At least we did it in the winter though... sucks to have that going on in the summer time. Supposed to be 80 and sunny here today...

That's how I took mine off. Is that confirmation enough?

You might still be able to take that spacer piece out. I don't see why you wouldn't be able to, looking at the pictures. The other option is swapping the ends on the CVs, which isn't terribly hard either. Just pull the boot back and knock the joint off the end of the shaft with a dead blow hammer, it's just held on with a circlip.

A locker? Like a Detroit Locker? Do you have pictures? Are the stub axles from the 280Z the same length as the Z31 CV ends?

Comparing turning an 8" tire to a 12" tire might be a bit misleading. Last time I checked these things were pretty expensive. What I'd be asking myself if I were thinking of buying these is how much money are you going to spend on them, and is there anything else that you could buy that might give you a better bang for your buck?

I checked the 4 or 5 sites that I referred to most, and wasn't able to find the bit about the recoil lug bouncing off of the bottom. I did a LOT of reading online because I didn't want to screw it up, sorry I couldn't find the one site for you.

If you look around the common method to do the recoil lug is to tape the sides and front so that it is only tight on the back. The reasoning that I've read for this is that the barrel will supposedly bounce off of the bottom and sides if it is tight, and you want it to be firmly against the back. Whether that is true or not is for someone else to test I suppose. I saw it in so many different places that I didn't question it. I have the barrel free floated now, and it definitely shot better with some pressure on the end. I don't know of a way to prevent the wood from warping, but I suppose if I glassed that area and had a problem with accuracy later on it would be pretty easy to dremel it out again and re-glass it.

Bedding seems to have done the trick. I tried again today and shot another box and a half of ammo. I didn't realize the scope would be off, so I wasted a couple wondering why I wasn't hitting the paper then had it boresighted and started shooting some in the 1.5 to 2" range. Then I put 3 business cards between the stock and barrel to give some pressure on the fore end. In doing so I found out you need to boresight again after you add pressure and shot a couple rounds into the dirt. After a quick boresight I shot a run of 3 groups within 1.5" with a best group was 1.125" using Hornady 100 gr BTSP ammo. I think any improvement over that is going to have to come from handloading. I'm pretty pleased with the increase in accuracy, but more importantly in the consistency of the gun. It seemed like it was hard to even get sighted in before because one shot would be an inch low, then next an inch high and off to the right, and the next right on and left. After adding the pressure to the fore end it really seemed to settle in on a point of aim. Now I just have to glass the pressure point onto the end of the stock. I also met a guy at the range who had a 10/22 all done up and he let me shoot it a bit. I shot a 5 group about 1.25" at 100 yards with it. Pretty impressive for a .22.

I suppose you can then. I assumed there would be a U joint somewhere in the system and that damper was just a damper, not the whole attachment of the shaft to the yoke.