A to Z

what a beautiful little puppy!

Leo, what are you doing?

7-10-2025. Well, Summer is in full swing, and that has helped cause a heat issue for my Z car. I had to solve a few issues that showed up yesterday......when under those high temps, my main jet, which comes into play at 3/4 throttle to floored wasn't pushing enough fuel. So I took another jet I had and drilled it out, and it came out a bit larger than my largest jet ,a 240 Main Jet. It also just so happens no one makes a jet larger than a 240, so I drilled it out, similar what I earlier had to do in modding my needle for that mid range throttle use. In the pics below, the one on the right is my new main jet, larger than the largest one made. I also raised my hood pins about an inch, and drilled a second hole where I have clips that the hood rests on, and the normal hood pin clips on top, now I have an inch of venting for the engine. Below are several pics to show how it looks. Lastly my temp gauge. This is driving around with the hood up today. When I got home I ordered some more insulation to put around the internal wastegate area on the hot side of my turbo.....last night she registered a temp of 700 degrees +, so that is what I think caused all the issues. in a couple of days, it will arrive and God willing I can get this wrapped back up and get the car to acting right again. When it gets that hot, the mixture for the carb is all out of wack.

quick vid of my Z on the street. not a very good video, but the best I can do Video below. Click to watch: a.MOV

OK, just wondered if anyone had done it.

has anyone played with turbocharging this head setup?

07-06-2025 polish day. Did some waxing. wipe down with a wet towel to get the dust off, and then a coat of pure caranauba wax from Mcquires (the Gold Class Caranauba Plus paste wax). My pallnet fuel rail has always been raw aluminum, but with some mothers mag wheel polish, a rag and elbow grease it turned out pretty good! I took a couple pics where you can see without and with polishing

odds and ends pics from today:

07-05-2025. Installed my Skillard brake master cylinder heat shield. I had to modify it quite extensively for my use.

Cool Z car. And you have had it for so long....a lot of memories. I hope you are able to eventually get her back on the road.

agreed, touching the header is a bad deal. If the header were at least wrapped and you put a loose fitting aluminum sheath over the hose that might save the hose. That drain hose in the pic looks VERY small. What happens if oil backs up is it will force oil into the turbo and you will get smoke as the pressurized oil is pushed past the seals, and if you have a catalytic converter, it could plug the converter and start a fire. It can also damage the turbo, as it is trying to spin with the friction of the oil hampering it. You can do a google search on all of this, but it can't be stated how important that drain hose is. I am getting by with a 5/8 drain hose and fittings. like I mentioned 3/4 is better. Ideal is no restriction at all .......the oil hits the drain and is gone.

yes, IF.....IF the diameter of the hose is large. 5/8 is acceptable, 3/4 is even better. The idea is to ensure that the oil can drain fast enough to not "back up".

no exhaust, straight off the down pipe, now back on full exhaust. crappy video, but you can hear a bit of it. click this below: V3.MOV

07-02-2025. Well my Z car is finally done......again. it was finished a year ago. But then I decided to turbocharge the engine and that involved redoing the braking. it's done. lightly turbocharged. It now has the one thing I felt it was missing. took 8 months and enormous amounts of patience and going back and forth jetting, etc. Powerwise? Who knows....at the rear wheel.....probably 200-210 max. that would be about 250 or so at the flywheel. it's just a cruiser and a real 10 footer. DONE. whew!

07-01-2025. I had a crack in the fuel line, so I took the time to change it up and use a bit of 1/8" pipe and fittings to make it so it is supported versus kind of floppy before. I deleted the cheap fuel psi gauge I got from Amazon which was spotty at best. Click on "V1MOV" below for a short video V1.MOV

06-28-2025. Putting the new turbo on. With the new turbo to manifold piece, I had to actually remove the intake manifold, put it all together, and then slide the manifold back on. It WORKED! Look at those HUGE ports! I haven't seen them in awhile! That's my Russ Racing prepped and shaved E31 head! I have it almost all assembled, I had to "slip" the top hose clamp up a bit to get a really good seal clamped down. Looks "different" but it is SNUG. I vacuum tested the new wastegate actuator......WAY too high (boost crack at 15 psi !!!) , so I put the older one on, and it boost cracks at only 2.5 psi.,....but I didn't port the turbine housing this time, so keeping that in mind, I think very little boost will be bleed off....enough to protect the engine, but it's going to pump quite a bit of air and fuel! (boost creep expected). The Skillard brake master cylinder heat shield I ordered came in, and is waiting me to custom mod as needed and install. Also went ahead and started clamping down the vacuum hoses to avoid any more hoses blowing off under boost. I have also added on a few pics of my intake ports if interested. Almost done! It is now HOT, have to keep stopping and wiping my face off. I think it was over 86! cheers! pics attached.

GREAT! I haven't seen those....I got mine from Z car depot.

06-26-2025. I finished the manual brake conversion. I had to remove the master again, from the firewall screw in the rod all the way and then take measurements....how far the rod goes into the master cylinder, and then figure out how much rod needed to stick out of the firewall to be just right....and then because it was screwed all the way in, take a bit more off from that and it should be good......but when you change pedal hole height, sometimes you have to shave down the rod to fit in the master without binding from being on a slight angle, etc. So, using the die grinder I got it smaller and decent looking and then re-assembled. Works, pretty good. when I push on the brakes, I can feel it come on within 1-2 inches and by 3 inches the floor it stops, and if I push HARD it completely stops 1.5 to 2 inches from the floor. I set it with about 1/4" of play at the pedal when released. So, we will see how it works on the road. Here are some pics:

What we are witnessing is technology making this page semi-obsolete in a way, and I hate it. I spend a good deal of time on facebook, and when necessary I always provide a link to an answer on here. As far as information, chatGPT has been a big help recently.....I decided to try it and it helped with the carb tuning! I grew up with Sears, JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, etc. going to he mall was THE thing to do on the weekend......now all gone. I am old. I know. Darn shame. If I can be of any assistance and you can't find anything, drop me a note. I'll try to help.

make sure you reinforce the sway bar mounts in the front.

clutch master. the rod that goes into it isn't going in far enough. the clevis needs to have a nut welded on to the end, with the thread aligned, and then the rod screws in only to the end of the nut. That little bit....3/8 of an inch, is what is keeping your slave from pushing far enough to work correctly. I had this problem and after asking and asking, I finally figured it out. Put a nut on the rod that you can run down and tighten against the welded on nut (screw the rod through the nut AND clevis THEN weld nut, so threads are aligned, then remove the bolt)

6-21-2025. I went ahead and tackled the inlet to the engine from the turbo. I had just an offset hose between them, about 3 inch gap....and then I learned that turbos can pull hoses in. So I had put a clamp around it so that the hose could only be collapsed so far.....but with the work I am doing, it was time to fix this. With a 3 inch space and needing an offset, and being ar etired electrician it was simple. Use a 2" diameter offset nipple! It has 3/4 inch of offset in a 3 inch long configuration. Of course the need to clean it up and make it look good versus a cheapo home depot looking fix, I ground it up in spots, and then ground the threads down flush on both sides. then it was a case of measuring it against the hose, and getting the right length of hose for both ends. from the pics you can see there was some porting I had to do and one small spot a ported too much and had to patch it with some JB weld, no big deal. once assembled a good coat of gloss black using the 2K paint from Rustoleum with paint and primer together really works nice. then I worked on engine bay cleanup a tad where the turbo sits and can't be done once it is back on, and then lastly the push rod for the brakes. I got it down to where I have the exact right size, but it won't it in, unless I take the brake master back off, put the rod in, and then bolt it back down.....that is next time. Pics follow. Cheers!

The Rebello/BHD damper single groove pulley was made to tame the V07 Diesel stroker crank. I have one. works well. Make sure you blow out the holes before putting the bolts back in, it almost looks like the threads are galled from foreign matter being in the holes when you assembled it. The cam should be able to be heated and straightened by a machine shop.

the work will outweigh the benefit.