JMortensen

FWIW--I've used all of these except methanol and ethanol in my fuel, and it didn't kill my O2. MTBE, tolulene, and alcohol are all in the gas you get from the pump. Not sure about Xylene from the pump, but it hasn't hurt my O2 sensor thus far either. Jon

There used to be a joke virus that went around Linux circles that said "Hi, this is the dumb@ss virus for Linux users. Please login as root user and delete the following files..." Now for all practical purposes, a lot of us don't have the expertise to use a Linux system. I've tried Redhat 6.0, 6.2, and 7.0, and I've had bugs in all 3 all related to the hardware in my system. I built this system myself after looking at RedHat's site for appropriate hardware that WOULDN'T have bugs, but it still did. One of my best friends is a hardcore Linux user and has been using Linux since RedHat 3.0 or something like that, I'd say for probably 7 or 8 years. He has the knowledge required to fix all of the bugs that I've encountered, but when he tries to explain it to me over the phone or by email, it feels like a root canal to a non-geek like me. I REALLY want a Linux system, but I think I'm going to have to wait until they make it more idiot proof, since the current builds don't cover my high level of idiocy. BTW--When I was a kid I'd go to this friend's house (this is 15 years ago now) and ask him to go ride bikes or play basketball or something, and he was already on BBS's downloading games at 200 baud for his Apple II, so he was pretty much born a geek. Jon

Mine was stated at .490 and when my machinist checked it he said that that was accurate to a few thou. I think it was actually .488 IIRC. If you're reusing your old valves you may not have the interference problem, because they will sit higher in the head. Jon

Pull the neg cable off. Connect your red or black lead (doesn't matter)from your voltmeter to the cable and the other lead to the battery terminal. If you want to be safe, do like Olphart said and start with amps and see if there is any reading. The reading shows the draw on the battery. If it is .001 or something switch down until you get a nice big number. I seem to remember that under 100 milliamps is OK, but I could be wrong on that, since it's been years since I've had to trace a draw. If your amp gauge is constantly giving a reading even with the key off, that is at least part of your problem. I don't know how much amperage the gauge takes, but it is likely to be more than enough to drain a battery overnight. Jon

OK, you've found ONE example. Don't want to delve too deep into the triples thing, but there are other factors too, runner length, air filters, air horns, carb size, etc. As to your "out of tune carbs" thing, people say the SAME EXACT THING about SU's. Why did I get 40 hp out of Mikunis??? Obviously because I didn't have the SU's tuned to perfection. I've heard that before and I'm sure I'll hear it again. Bottom line for me is they make buttloads more power, and I am a weekend warrior. We all got sidetracked from the original thread here, which mentioned triple throttle bodies. Would I recommend TB's for a daily driver? YES, if they were willing to pay for the initial setup and tuning. Would I recommend Mikunis for a guy who is driving to the store or to work? NO. Would I recommend ANY carbed Z car to a guy who doesn't know anything about cars? NO. Would I recommend triples for the weekend warrior who knows how to work on his car and wants more power? YES. DEFINITELY. Would I have recommended triples for you on your NA motor? Not sure. Honestly, if you can't tune them yourself, they are a big PITA. But I can say with some level of confidence that you would have hit 200 whp. I still think you give WAAAAY too much credit to the headwork, and not enough to the rest of the induction system. EDIT--Would I suggest that I have the ONLY or BEST answers for Z related questions? NO. That's why I'm here. Just thinking this post may have come off a little arrogant, which I am not trying to be... Jon

Chap, no one said it wasn't STUPID. Some of us argued that people should have the right to be stupid, which is entirely different. This comes from a guy who has actually USED his helmet on bicycles, motorcyles, and in cars... Jon

personhole covers... Jon

I know what you're saying Norm, and I appreciate the fact that you have made BIG hp with SU's. But people prop you up as an example and say that triples are a waste of time and $$$, and hell, I used to be one of them! I respect your accomplishments with them, but I've learned that Mikunis are faster. Oh, and get your own damn triples! Jon

If you're going really high compression I would think that the .550/305 would work. IIRC Dan drives to events, so that means that it is at least marginally streetable. JohnC has a trailer queen with a flex plate and multi pack clutches, so that certainly wouldn't be streetable even if he had 10:1 compression and 180hp. What I really want, and haven't found, is something like .525 lift and 300 duration. I think that would suit my engine well, and I'd probably be able to run pump gas. If you don't want to change or fly cut the pistons, I know that my .490/280 cam works with no internal mods, but you'd still need the springs and retainers, and if you're unlucky like me, might need the retainers cut to make it all work together. If the compression is 11:1 though, you'll need to mix the gas... Jon

Come on, Drax! You gotta push him up in the line so you can prove our point!!! Except do me a favor and get that guy some 44's... Jon

OK, I'm giving up. SU's are GREAT. That's why all the people who aren't limited by class use nothing but SU's, right? You guys want to waste time and $$$ trying to draw blood from a stone with SU's, fine. As someone who has run the EXACT same motor with SU's and triples and had I would guess 40 hp gain from the triples (it was REALLY surprising), I am now and will forever remain unconvinced. And I wasn't a moron with the SU's either. Just for reference the SU manifold was port matched and the carbs were rebuilt and tuned well. I played around with oils and wound up using ATF and Marvel Mystery oil. I get tired of this persistant denial with SU's. The problem for me is that for YEARS the SU contingent had me totally fooled. I would run around telling OTHER people not to switch to Mikunis. Finally I broke down and switched after years of badgering by my 510 racing roommate plus I got the opportunity to buy the whole setup for $300, and he was right and I will not go back. Until you all try running the SAME engine with SU's and Mikunis you won't truly understand the difference. It is a BIG difference. Jon

TEP's stuff is obviously TWM, so why the wait until Sept??? They already have the manifold and the throttle bodies and air horns. All you would need are injectors and SDS or Tec III or MSS or something and you'd be done, which is what TEP has. Ask them what you'd be waiting for that you would get in Sept that you couldn't buy now... Jon

I just realized that my 200 hp estimates for SU's is based on ITS motors which can't up compression and do port jobs. My bad. This added to the fact that Doug Piner (don't know him personally but it sounds like he has a lot of $$$ in the engine) can't get over 240hp with 12.5:1 compression and lots of headwork leads me to believe that the SU's are still a serious handicap in comparison to triples or TB's. Jon

Very few would use Mikunis if your results were the norm, Norm. I'm not aware of ANYONE who has come even close to your results with them. I like the idea of those carbs, but after switching to triples I would not go back. I have friends who autox and roadrace in Z's and 510's who feel the same way, and none who have gone to Mikunis and then decided to switch back to SU's. Jon

OK, but I wasn't arguing that they were cheap, or that they were easy to tune, but I still gotta take issue with 40 whp increase to the wheels from port work and 15 whp from Mikunis. Someone else with triples back me up here. I'm thinking more the other way around. Your standard port job probably nets 15 hp on a good day, while switching to Mikunis from stock SU's is EASILY worth 30 whp, properly tuned. I think it was probably worth MORE than 30 on my car and maybe that was partially due to the already ported head that I couldn't make use of with the SU's, but I have no way to prove the #'s. Dan, do you have dyno figures from the SU days you can use to back me up? If not numbers, a gut instinct? Anyone else? Jon

I think throttle response will be better with FI because of the method of spraying the fuel. Anyone who has ever played with the accelerator pumps on triples (at least Mikunis) off the car can tell you that if you open the carbs you get 6 nice long pee streams of gas out of them. When port velocity is low there isn't enough turbulence to mix the air and fuel fully. FI doesn't have this problem, so you get much better atomization at low rpms, and better throttle response at low rpms. Jon

Bastaad, I can say from personal experience that I think triples WOULD have gotten you to 200 hp, properly tuned. I think you overestimate the benefit of headwork and underestimate the restriction caused by the SU's. Example: with my 1st engine and SU's, I could barely get to the 6800 rpm rev limiter, despite the cam and ported head. Same engine build with Mikunis would hit the rev limiter HARD. When I originally got the Mikunis on the old motor, I took my wife out for a ride. She had autox'd on the old motor maybe 5 or 6 times. The carbs made such a HUGE difference that she was SCARED of the car. Took her several autox's before she'd really wind it up again. I agree with Dan and Drax that a shaved head would net 200 hp on the original build this guy was talking about. I'm sorry that you spent so much time and $$$ on a failed NA project, but the project itself is not without merit, and I really think that carbs would have made all the difference for you. Maybe not if you want a low rpm engine, but if you're willing to wind it up there is a lot of performance to be had in an NA buildup. Side note--Bastaad, I like your song Crash a lot. Sent chills down my spine (I think that's the best compliment I can give any music). EDIT--Norm's SU's are NOT STOCK!!! Jon

I've got the Schneider springs and retainers, but my cam is an American Cams regrind, so that's why my specs are different from yours. Did you reuse the old valves when you installed the Schneider stuff? If so that probably explains why you didn't have to cut the retainers and I did. A new valve sits substantially lower in the head than a valve that's been cut once or twice. Thanks for the info. Jon

What Pop said... Jon

Couple of problems you might encounter: The stock coils will bind with a "true" .490 lift cam. If you get aftermarket springs, you may run into a situation that I encountered with Schneider springs and retainers. The retainer just barely hit the valve stem seal at full lift. The retainers were turned down in a lathe to fix, my machinist said that he didn't feel comfortable with anything less than .050" space between the bottom of the retainer and the stem seal so they were cut down to allow .075 IIRC. Neither Schneider nor MSA says anything about this. Not sure if they are simply not aware, or if they are choosing to ignore the problem When I originally built my first engine with this cam, I went to a sh!tbag crook of a machinist who "made" the stock springs and retainers work by cutting the valves a LOT. This led to having 0 margin on the valves, and they warped due to the heat of combustion. This had another negative effect, because when I cc'd the chambers during the 2nd build there was a 4cc difference between the same chamber with the new valve vs the old valve. So the original farkwad also cost me some compression with his crappy work as well. Did I mention that I paid this crook for new valve springs and retainers??? On the second build I had to purchase new valves and springs and retainers to fix, and since the valves sat much lower in the head, new lash pads were also necessary. Not that tough to figure out, but unless you have a big supply of lash pads you pretty much just have to experiment until you get it right. My advice is find a "good" machinist to do the work, preferably someone who has dealt with the L series engines in the past. My situation was the exception rather than the rule (I don't think most machinists are crooks) but I thought I'd throw that out there for your benefit. EDIT--All of the above happened with an E31 head with 280 valves, so I think that everything above correlates to your P90. Jon

Anyone else see this show? It was about a 12 hr endurance race at the Point. Very cool. They talked briefly with a Z racer, can't remember his name, but he had qualified 4th overall! Lots of on track shots of the Z, but they focused on a 944T, which qualified 3rd and ended up 12th overall after having some brake issues (the turbo was boiling the fluid in the master cylinder!) and the intake boot pop off during the race. Anyhow, I enjoyed watching it and wanted to let everyone know, because no doubt it will be in re-runs for the next year and a half, like everything else on Speed. Jon

Yep. I think you're right Drax. The one thing I'll point out is that Norm's SU's are not stock. I don't think much over 200hp at the crank is possible with stock SU's. Jon

$$$

Triple TB's are awesome. You can run a 50mm and still get decent low end. Seen 2 Z's with triple TWM's, both REALLY haul @ss. Sound is exactly the same as triple carbs, because you have the same open hole from the air horn to the valve, so you get the same noise. Easier to tune or have tuned too, seems like there are more programmable FI experts than triple carb experts these days... Jon

Anyone know the answer regarding the Schneider retainers? Jon