JMortensen

Must be that the early 240's really are a bunch lighter. My 5/70 with Autopower roll bar, full carpet kit over the original diamond vinyl with extra insulation, heavy Recaros, R200, rear sway bar, 5 speed and L28, full interior, full glass and ME IN IT weighed 2550. At the time it was weighed I was ~175. So the car was 2375 or so. No battery location or anything, and just to match '74, here's my corner weights: LF= 640 RF=620 LR=650 RR=640 Given that the aluminum head 302 is supposed to be ~40 lbs lighter, I think it would be pretty easy to get an early chassis like mine to 2350 with a motor swap.

Not the response I expected. I've known so many people who have done this to their race car, and it's such a PITA. I have painstakingly picked out a bunch of seam sealer out of several joints, and there was no primer or paint in the joints below the sealer, and in a couple of places there are large gaps with no spot welds whatsoever that I can see (this is on the seam around the bottom of the rear strut tower inside the hatch in particular). It seems to me that you're saying the welds really ought to be in the middle of the flange. I can do that right now very easily. I guess the real question is "Is it worth it?"

Yes, it did. You just never knew what you were missing. It's not as though the lack of advance is going to make the car stumble or miss. It just won't accelerate quite as well off the line and won't have as strong throttle response as it would have if it could have run all the advance that the engine wanted. We're talking a noticeable improvement here, but it is only going to be slower and more boggy from idle until the mech advance comes in, so above 3000-3500 it's still going to run great.

Sounds like steam to me Mike. Is it all wispy looking and white? One more test you can do at school. If you think you're burning coolant then you can take off the rad cap and put a smog machine sniffer in the top of the radiator (not down in the antifreeze, just in where the cap goes on) and see if it smells any hydrocarbons. When the headgasket blows the coolant gets sucked into the chamber and burns, but it also blows a/f mix into the cooling system on the compression stroke. You might also be able to use an A/C leak detector too, but I've never tried that one.

If there is water in the oil STEAM will come out of the PCV, and yes, it can look like bad blowby. Look closely at what is coming out of the PCV or the breather on the valve cover and see how it acts. If it looks like SMOKE, then you're probably looking at rings like Tim said. If it looks like STEAM then you've probably got some water in your oil.

Apparently your vacuum advance is working. That's kind of surprising. Vacuum advance will give you better mileage and better throttle response at low rpm in a stock setup. If you run the car hard you should disconnect it, reason being at the end of a high speed run in 4th gear at 5000 rpm for example you'll actually start to get some vacuum again, and it can advance your timing at the worst possible time and cause pinging. If you disconnect it then you are going to use just the mech advance. On the 240 dizzys I want to say that they had something like 24 degrees of mechanical advace, so if you disconnected the vacuum you would need the timing set at about 10* total. I don't know this for sure, which is why I suggested you look it up for yourself. 10* advance at idle runs kinda crappy compared to 20* at idle (which you've already learned is what the vacuum advance does for you). So there are ways to limit the total mechanical advance so that you can run closer to 20* at idle and still get to the mid 30's total. You can close up the slots inside the dizzy so that the timing can't advance so far, or you can use a different dizzy that has a smaller amount of mechanical advance (280ZX has only 17* and is electronic, best of both worlds). If you don't want to get into all that right now, then you can either set the timing at the stock factory setting and listen for ping at high rpms, or you can disconnect the vacuum advance and set the idle so that you get into the mid 30's total advance. The latter is safer for racing or really high rpm driving, the former is going to give you better around town driving and gas mileage.

The two black plastic knobs on the top are dipsticks. You unscrew them and pull them out, and about 2" or so up the little stick (above the big thingy on the end) there is a high and a low line for oil. THEY ONLY TAKE A LITTLE TINY BIT OF OIL. I used to fill the cap for my Marvel Mystery oil can and put it in from there, and they would only take 2-3 little capfuls. If you overfill it is not the end of the world but it will smoke a bit until it burns off as it will just get shoved out the top of the tube when you floor it the first time, then it goes into the engine and burns away. As Bastaad said, most people get the best results with 20 weight oil. I've had friends who used 20-50 or 15-40. I used to use ATF, then Marvel Mystery oil, which is much thinner. You can play around with it and see what works best. I put ATF in my friend's SU's and it would cough and sputter pretty bad at low rpms. I think a lot of it has to do with how worn the pistons and domes are. The more worn the thicker the oil needed. I still think something else might be wrong though. I always thought the oil was done doing its bit at 2500 or 3000 rpm. Maybe I'm wrong. If you don't have a timing light that can read your total advance, I suggest you look at your distributor and get the number off of it. Then cross reference it here http://home.att.net/~jason510/dizzy_specs.htm and find out how much mechanical advance your dizzy has. The measurements on that webpage are in cam degrees, so DOUBLE them for crank degrees, and aim for about 35 total advance. Also, I would suggest you disconnect the vacuum advance if it isn't working or if you drive the car hard. Plugs a potential vacuum leak and those diaphragms in the dizzy are almost always dead anyway.

I didn't take pictures of my spacers. They are literally TUBE. Think like roll bar tubing, but a lot smaller. No threads at all. Just tubing. The carrier has no threads in it, so there is nothing for the spacer to thread into. The tube just takes up space, that's it. The bolt goes through the carrier and threads into the ring gear. I think that's why you weren't getting it right there. The bolts tighten into the ring gear. Theoretically the spacers aren't technically necessary, but they help to align the bolts so that they aren't cocked to one side when you put them in, and they might help if the ring gear decided to try and move on the carrier. I would always use them, I'm just saying that they are more of a place holder than anything else.

All you need to do is buy the 12mm carrier, make some ring gear bolt spacers, remove the open carrier and swap the ring gear from the old carrier to the new LSD carrier. Use the ring gear bolt spacers, and put it back together with the shims and everything put back in the way it came out. This is really not a big deal. If you can't handle getting the 12mm OD 10mm ID tube and cutting it, buy the carrier and go to a machine shop and have them buy the tube for you and cut it and put it in. If you want a different gear ratio, then the easiest thing to do is to find the ratio you want, then figure out what Nissan car came with it, buy a diff from that car and put the LSD in that diff. For instance, I wanted 4.11's. I had a 300ZXT diff which has the 12mm bolts that had 3.70's. I bought a 4.11 diff that came out of a 200SXT. It had 10mm bolts. I used bolt spacers. No big deal. What you don't want to do is switch the GEARS from one diff to another. Mat is right. Search and you can easily find info on which ratios came in which cars, pictures of the insides of the LSD, posts on the bolt spacers, etc, etc.

cam timing?

The MSA or AZC 6-1 fit with no mods to the floor on my 70. However I did have to weld on the flange because there simply wasn't enough metal around #6 port to seal (that made me very angry), and I hate the way the tubes are crimped on it. I actually "ported" the header a little bit before I stuck it on it was so bad. The 6-2-1 that MSA sells is also pretty dang crappy as I recall. Nissan Comp header is very good, but then you have to bash the floor in IIRC.

Yeah, I would definitely use that method if I were just trying to attach the subframe to the bottom of the car. Stitch welding increases the rigidity of the chassis and is done by welding 1 inch of the frame, then skipping an inch, then welding, then skipping, etc. John Coffey actually has a couple of pictures on his website here (under chassis and suspension): http://www.betamotorsports.com/services/index.html I guess I'm just trying to be lazy, but if it works, then lazy is good!

Thanks Tim. That idea had occurred to me, but I don't think I want to do that just because I've had much better results welding this thin stuff after I started to close the gap completely before welding. If I made a gap with a cutoff wheel, my welds would no doubt get more bird poopy looking again... EDIT--Oh wait, you meant cut down to the frame rail, then weld back up. Maybe...maybe... Thanks again!

Please forgive me if this is a totally stupid idea. Wouldn't be the first time. I keep looking at the totally clean and stripped deck inside the hatch and I can easily see where the frame rails are spot welded to the bottom side. It would be VERY EASY to "connect the dots" on those spot welds up on top of the deck. I could turn my welder up just a hair and get very good penetration through to the underside, then I wouldn't have to be under the car struggling to see and reach what I'm trying to weld, and having hot metal popping on the ground right next to my face. Is this a dumb idea? I know that the stitch welding is done on the edge of the frame flange and the spot welds are in the middle of the flange, but it still seems like it would work and would be a lot easier. What do you guys think?

I don't know Mike, I watch the news, read news online all day long, and I hadn't seen a single bit of John Kerry that did anything other than infuriate me. The worst was the Democratic debates where he told Lieberman that he couldn't have an opinion on the war because he had never been to war. I started yelling at the TV at that point, which is something I don't usually do. But I thought Kerry was good in the debate, and wasn't so much of a creep. Also, I think the reason that I thought the debate was a tie was because I was looking at what they were saying, not just who had the better stage presence. I mean Bush is not an actor, period, and he did repeat himself a lot. "It's a tough job..." Kerry obviously has a better stage presence. But when he says (very powerfully) that he's gonna get Europe to commit troops to Iraq, I'm not giving him a point for that because I still realize that it's BS. I can honestly say watching the debate was worth it to me, and I'll watch the next 2 as well, even though I really don't think it's gonna change my vote.

Richard I think you might be a little disappointed. I decided just to stitch weld that panel. Datsunlover, thank you man!!! I went to weld the top section of that panel today and there were some pretty big gaps. I used the air hammer again with a flat tip to beat the edge down, and welded it up. MUCH BETTER! I think the tiny gaps I was dealing with were what was screwing me up before. Still this job is going to end up taking 4 or 5 times as long as I expected.

Sorry about that Heavy. I forgot to let someone else decide for me what I thought. I'll try harder next time...

I'm surprised no one has posted anything on this yet, seeing as how many politically interested people we've got here. Anyway, I thought it was actually pretty good. I expected less direct confrontation between the two. I thought it was going to be one of those ignore the question and make your little speech deals, and it was to some extent, but a lot less than I expected. Bush scored when he said asked Kerry how he planned to get Europe to commit troops to our "failed diversion." I thought Kerry scored some points when he actually said that he would hunt down the terrorists wherever they are. Bush's biggest mistake was in saying "I know OBL attacked us... I know that!" It's real nice that you know that W, but saying it like that makes it sound like you're proud of the fact. Kerry's biggest mistake IME was what Bush nailed him on, his nebulous I'll deal with Iraq better and I'll get Europe to come along with us. As if his presence in the White House would lead France and Germany to do a complete 180 and send troops. Pretty much a draw in my estimation as far as a debate, but Kerry scored some big points for not coming off like a blueblood prick which is kind of what I expected... Bush held his own, but didn't really take it to Kerry. What did YOU think?

There is some debate as to which bearings to use. NTN are OK, Nissan are OK, and Timken are OK for racing use. I guess there are some cheapies that wear out quickly and should be avoided, but I don't know the brand names of those... In doing some shopping for bearings, I called VB and they absolutely refused to tell me what kind of bearings they had, so I ended up buying them from a local bearing supply place. The bearings I got were in Federal Mogul boxes and the bearings themselves were NTN and Koyo, and both of these are used by Nissan so they are good quality. They were about $95 per side. On the fronts I ordered Timken and got some no name Spanish bearing and returned them for Timken, and they ran ~$45 per wheel. So thats more like $300 in bearings, with no grease the way I did it.

Word to the wise bearings and seals are $$$, especially in the back.

Wow Pyro that sounds familiar. Except for very slight differences in the rear gears, clutch, and cam you basically had the same setup I used to have.

Well that makes sense, and like I said before certainly won't hurt anything. For some reason I thought you were saying "things I'm going to do" not "things I've already done". I've been doing a lot of that recently...

[devil's advocate] So maybe they should give the imperialist countried a big "F you" and get some nukes. Then those imperialist countries would be FORCED to show Iran some respect...[/devil's advocate]

Drax do you need to deburr the block on a turbo engine? I suppose it depends what your plans are, but I was under the impression that deburring was more for the more extreme vibrations that accompany extremely high revving engines. Seems to me turbo L's usually don't fit those qualifications. Certainly can't hurt anything, but lemme tell you that job is quite tedious.