iaconsultants

That LS2 conversion is so fine. Just wondering if you are planning in the future to upgrade the engine to DOD (Displacement on Demand) which should be out near the end of next year?

Also, Don't forget that Phantom's car has a very heavy transmission the T56, while an automatic transmission would be lighter. I can say one thing though Phantom's car is incredible.

On the electrical inside the steering column plastic along the bottom side there is a rectangular connecter that I believe has like 16 wires going to it. (headlight electricity and so forth goes through there). On my Z it is the secound in on the right closer to the steering column of the two rows. It was a green wire. That is the power that does the side markers and the dash lights. Mine must have gotten to warm one day and discollored the shielding and no longer allowed current to flow through. I replaced the wire from the small soldered area to the connector and it worked fine from there on out. Before fixing it you should test it with a meter to make sure no power is going through and you will need a soldering iron.

olie05 has probably got your fix there. I have done the same thing with several Z's I have owned but it seemed to work better for me to put the key all the way in and try to rotate it as I slowly back out the key. The key then clears where it is catching and it goes fine. One of my old Z was so bad that I had to try to jerk the locked steering wheel back and forthwhile trying to turn the key. The final solution is go to a real key maker not Home Depot with your original key and they can make a new original from your old one by going in their books and figuring out the profile. You will then have to take that same key and ask them to clean off the edges extra well and your done.

RaysirX I like how you think, not far off my plans.

I'll say I have owned 14 of these early Z's and have never gotten any better than mid 20's on the highway and higher teens in the city. Automatics tend to get worse, but all this mileage is subject to driving style and I do have a heavy foot. Our current Z has an automatic and it gets about 14 city and 17 highway, but this will change this year. About diring it that far, well my wife and I drove our 78 automatic car from LA to the Grande Canyon and down to Houston. It made it fine but the ride is not comfortable at all in those stock Z's and not because of my height (6'8") and her height is 5'2" maybe 3" and it was equally uncomfortable. So the cars can handle it if you drive it regular already with regular repairs, but you might not be able to handle it.

Clean that oil spill very well with Varsol or some other grease or oil remover, when the car is cold of course. Usually oil dripped on something does not cause white smoke but a really strong fume that you will notice. You should fix that wiring really soon, just the thought of fuel and a stray spark is not a good thing. You will need to pull the number 4 plug and clean it or replace it since it is probably fuel rich dirty. One other color of smoke not mentioned above is brown smoke which is also too rich and can indicate raw fuel making it out of the tail pipe, but haukenes did a very good job describing what to look for. You can actually get white smoke from automatic transmission fluid getting into the fuel or your oil supply. The blue smoke is most likely the valve guides which have always been a weekness in these motors. Rings going bad would show lower compression and probbaly blow-by which you can see if you open up the oil refill cap and have the car running. If the car has no blow-by then you will see no blowing of air from this area, if it looks like a train stack then you broke some piston lands or have broken rings. If a little bit of puffing then you may have one bad ring set or just some worn rings. Good luck. My outlook on working on cars is always figure out what is wrong before you wrench than jump into wrenching to try to figure it out.

You should post some pictures of the fiberglass parts you have that you are going to use and then you will get a much better response than this. There were several different IMSA body kits and only a few were good. Without pictures this thread is almost a waste of time. Someone on here was or is selling this front pair http://classifieds.hybridz.org/showproduct.php?product=2263&cat=18&page=1 but he does not ship or I would have bought them which appear to be one of the better kits.

It almost looks like it would belong to a throttle linkage and how that would get into the oil pan would be interesting. Even through the oil passages it would appear not to fit, unless it fell through the timing chain area and you lossened up more than you needed to and it ended up in the pan. I am surprised I don't know what it is since I have had so many of these engines apart and put them back together. Maybe it is specific to a 260Z engine since that is the only one I have not worked on. I hope you post what it is when you find out.

I vote for a LS motor with twin turbo's and a Corvette transaxel. All wheel drive would be slick also.

one thing before you tear down your engine did you do a compression test across all 6 cylinders. First see if there is a problem with your number 4 that way. I believe in checking things out as much as possible, to find the problem then fix the problem, not just dive in and take the engine apart and try fixing something you are not sure what it is. Also yes you can pull your oil pan without removing your engine, any suspension, or any thing but the oil pan screws. You will need a 10mm small socket wrench and a 10mm open end/closed end wrench, 2 flat screwdrivers, and a straight razor blade. I have done this many times and never had a problem with it. Simply remove all the 10mm bolts and pan support steel, use the two flat screwdrivers to work the back of your pan loose (might need the razor here a little to get it started), and just work it loose, once the pan is loose you will need to slide it and twist the rear towards the drivers side and it should be out. After all that use the razor to clean all the surfaces very well.

Well it could be like some of the Hondas engines and a few others out there that require a lot of torque to break it away and to put it back on. You could try renting a 3/4" or larger drive impact wrench from one of those rental places and get the right size impact socket. This should do the trick.

That looks so good and I wish those flares where still available for sale.

Okay here is the head gasket scare, check, or what ever you want to call it. From all the Z motors I have had apart for water reason, the head gaskets that tended to get water leaks were near the water jacket in the back near number 6 cylinder. What happens you will see a drop in compression if you check that with a gauge from one cylinder to another. The other thing you will notice is that if someone is following you there will be some white smoke coming from your exhaust system which indicates water going into your cylinder chamber and getting blasted out of the exhaust. There has only been one case that I personally have seen that a more forward water jacket has a leak in the head gasket and that is with a warped head. You can check this with a compression gauge also. So with minimal amount of wrenching (pulling spark plugs) you can figure out if you have this issue. Also you would likely find some oil leakage into the coolant that will float up to the radiator cap opening. So hopefully you are not having any of what I just mentioned and if not here are a few things to check. When cold reach under with some paper towel and slip it between the water pump bell and the timing cover on the bottom side. Try to work it inside the bell toward the front of the car. Once you pull it out if you see fluid or a slightly oily coffee color, well then you have a slight leak from the bottom of the weap hole that lets you know when your water pump has gone out. You might have to try this again by starting the car and just letting it run for about a minute and turning it off (then try it a second time). This is a hard leak to detect and it starts out slow and one day when it gets a very good temperature spike it will be pouring out very rapidly. Okay some simpler checks. Look at your heater hoses and where those connections are. If you are running the original cloth wrapped hoses or substandard hoses then you might want to concider replacing them anyway. Usually rubbing a paper towel along those and the joints will reveal if they have a slight leak. You will probably have to do this when it is under pressure though (car hot). Do the same check for the radiator hoses especially theo lower one. If you have eliminated all the above then you should be down to a leak in the radiator somewhere. They can be small and last that way for years. Check your radiator drain plug and make sure that is tight and seals off properly. You could take it out clean it off (and out) and put straight water back in there to test. You can also try what others have tried which are Mothers, and egg (I do not like this one at all), and a few others. Almost forgot checking your radiator cap and over flow. If you have a spare or plan on changing the cap go for it, but if you want to check it to see if it is sealing then you can try this cheesy way. Make a bit thicker gasket ring to place between the cap gasket and the radiator. It is better if you have some kind of compressible rubber you can use but most do not have that laying around so a really cheesy way is some thicker paper or card board. You are not going to leave this there very long so you will not need to worry about it getting into your system. Check to see if your temperature spikes again if so you could probably say that will not be the issue. The over flow line can also be an issue of leaks especially when it gets hot enough to build up steam pockets. From what it seems you have a leak in the radiator (I am guessing based on what you have said) and I think it is either bihind some dirt plugged area in the radiator or near the seam of the headers (radiator end caps). Another thing try putting your fron wheels up (front of car on jack stands) and topping it off that way so you can get all the bubbles and air out of the system.

So do you keep toping off the fluid level on a regular basis. The thing that I noticed that you said is that it stays below half on the temperature side which in cars down here generally means you don't have enough coolant fluid in your radiator and the temperature sensor is not seeing water. If it then suddenly starts to rise in temperature quickly means you have started to biol the fluid and the steam is heating up the temperature sensor. It seems obvious but have you completely topped off your including turning on your heater as high as it can go so that everything is completely full. If you keep the fluid topped off and you keep noticing this heating spike, then you should find a fluid leak somewhere because if the air is out of the system then you should not have any heat spikes. If the thermostat is stuck open then your car should runn cooler than normal. You can check for a stuck open thermostat by starting with a cold car, opening the radiator cap and starting your engine. The fluid stays fairly calm and you don't see the flowing action until the thermostat opens up. So this would be a way you can check if the thermostat is functioning properly without taking it out. If you take it out and want to check it get a cooking pan that is at least twice as deep as your thermostat put water in it bring the water to a boil and drop in the thermostat it will open if it is working correctly. But so far based on what you said it seems you need to top off your radiator and if it keeps needing to be topped off check for water leaks, cracks in the radiator, slight drops of water under the car or wet moist areas along the fluid flow path should show you the problem. Good luck.

Big-phill that is totally excellent about your land and where you can spray. Have you sprayed much before? Just make sure you prep the car really well. I think I rember you from the one douth Dallas Meeting I attended. I liked what you started with and you mounted a very nice power seat in the driverside. I might be at this Thursdays meeting there so hopefully see you there.

You are sooooooo lucky, and I was in Plano at 75 and Spring creek and could have picked that up if I would have looked that time. Of all the times not to look at the ads. So where do you live anyway? Strre address? Don't worry about a U-Haul truck pulling up in your next door neighbors house in the middle of the night. Just kidding. I can only say you are one lucky son of a gun. Congradulations

Come on let it out. I am in Plano right now near Ft Worth and I am wondering if it is the incompleted conversion that was for sale down here.

I am fairly certain that it will be a 305 in that car amoung many other Chevy cars of that time frame. You could find some police cruisers that have a strong 350 with a good overdrive automatic transmission in them. I believe the safe years would be 80 though 86 for the setup you might be looking for and I am sure there are others out there too.

I would also be interested in that kit depending on the quality, the style shape, and its price. Not so interested in the big whale tail though. Also would you possibly also be interested in making some modifications to the body panels like ducts for brake cooling front and rear (at an additional charge of course)?

I have been seeing the same thing, but since you would be getting the whole rolling chassis wouldn't it be just as easy to just use the entire thing and placing the Z body on it. from what I have been seeing this would seem like a very good swap and eliminate some of the current weak spots on our Z's (frame rails, unibody consturction). I checked into some of it and it seems that if you use the transaxel you could make it fit with minor adjustments to the gas tank in the Z (just a quick measurement was used). I do think you are on the right path with the YZ flares and you do gain a better steering system for those wider tires. I say go for it and if it works for you I am sure others will follow quickly. The abs part will be interesting I am sure on the Z.

Looks good, but I wonder if it would be just too much if the entire car was that color. You might want to do some stripes, or paint some highlight areas like the hood hump or something. So how is spraying just south of Dallas anyway? Any of your neighbors caring? At least the humidity is much lower there than Houston and do you have some kind of a paint booth built to do this?

Well in Houston/Harris county and surrounding counties we already have the same smog checking that California does but it is only for cars that are 24 years or younger. The bad part about these checks are that they can simply say they will not pass the car if they see something that is not factory on the car and it is all up to them. Granted at this time there are very few inspection places that know what they are looking at so they generally pass it and if you don't pass, I believe you only have a month to make it pass in our area or the car can not be driven. My 4-Runner did not pass once just because it was not a stock engine in the bay. The guy had a 4-Runner himself and noticed there was a difference, he removed my sticker and stuck on a white piece of paper showing that it failed. I was pulled over twice in the next week just to have the white piece of paper date checked. That weekend I went to another inspection place, removed the paper before I went, said I had my windshield replaced, and it went through just fine including getting smog tested. I heard in California that it is really difficult if you do an engine swap on a car especially if you swap from a carb'd car to a fuel injection car or vise versa. I hope this does not pass through to everyone else or many of us may not be so lucky even if our cars are beyond the year date.

Boric acid works very well for ants and roaches. Put it in the weep holes around the house, any cracks and openings, put soome under sinks, dishwasher and washing machine and you probably will never see roaches and ants again. It has worked for years.

Actually it looks like there may have been some evasive driving training like they do in the company here.