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Just something to think about on this situation is that people are charging way to much to do repairs there and making money of off misfortune. I helped out at the Dome and the convention center and it was just unbelieveable what was going on in there. Houston's support for the people was so great and so heart warming, they had basically everything you could imagine going on to help the people out and it felt great helping even as little help that each person could do including myself. There where some things that I just could not understand that just shocked me beyond belief. the rapes that occured in those shelters (including a gang rape of a teenage girl) no one was caught or looked into. I even had a guy follow me into the restroom while I was busy draining he was telling me (not asking me) to give him money because I had enough money in his words. This guy was a low down waste of skin and he was trying to take things when I know he just got one of those 500 dollar cards that day along with everyone else (first day of that). Three other fellows walked up to me in the middle of one of the busy walk ways and wanted me to get them drugs and I just said I catagorize people into groups of medical attention not hand out or even get close to any medical equipment or supplies (not completely true but I was not about to give them anykind of a drug). I realize that it seems very sad what happened but when you deal with some of the stuff I saw and many others saw that where the out come of this tragedy then you find out that there where many ungrateful and people that just tried to take advantage of the situation at the same time. I am speaking from what I have personnaly seen and dealt with when it comes to this mess and I know of many more things including the attributed increase in killings and crimes in Houston since that time, which just does not add up if everyone is trying to be helpful. Sorry but this subject tends to stir me up based on things that have happend because of it.

Did you have a strong backfire or several smaller ones before this happened. It sounds a lot like your power valve in your Holley might have a leak. To check this you remove the float bowl (place paper towels under the float bowl to absorb the gas that will leak out) unscrew the power valve from the metering block and this sounds bad but place the flatter side to your mouth and apply a suction to it. If it holds the suction then it is good, if it slowly lets go or lets go quickly your powervalve is done. another thing is that your distributor cap may need to be replaced since it might have two much electrode decay, but it sounds more like the power valve. hope this helps. Robert Hope that helps.

yes but it is not a Ford V-8 from what I can see and based on the distributor.

Actually there are two of these cars that look really similar. There is one in Southern California with a solid rear axle and a Ford engine supercharged (I am not sure on the stats but I believe that is what it had in it). I remember seeing it a few years ago there and I think he was selling it for around 35k. I knew there was one also on the opposite coast that seemed to look like a copy of it or maybe the first of the two I do not know, but they look great either way and they did a great job.

The automatic transmissions on the early Z's where just plain not a good transmission. They are not very strong, if it has a lot of miles on it, has never been rebuilt, and you decide to clean it out and change the fluid, well they tend to brake at that time. It just seems like the sludge and gum in the old worn out transmission is keeping it together. About the rareness of the Automatic in the Z well it really was not and the gas mileage was significantly worse than the manual transmission. The good thing about the manual transmission is that if you do a swap with a V-8 of some sort with an automatic transmission then it will be useful and appear as if you still have the same automatic in its place. If you try to sell the automatic I would say it might be worth 50 dollars and that is if someone needs it and it is in good condition. Most people tend to take the death of their Z automatics as the time to do the conversion to a V-8 or a manual transmission. Also generally the automatics came with the R180 rearend in the car which is not near as strong as the R200 so you might be wanting to change that out. All that being said, I actually have a 78 with an automatic in it but the reason is my wife does ont really want to drive a standard car and she loves driving this little Z so my V-8 conversion will be an automatic. Once the conversion is underway and you want to keep your car with the old Z automatic I would be more than happy to let you have my working automatic if you want it. That is if your desire is to simply restore or keep the car as orignal as possible. Wish you luck Robert

In Houston there are a few what I call electronic stores that sell just about everything like chips, DAC converters, diodes, even many mil spec chips so you should be able to find them fairly easy. I do not recall the names of the places since its been a couple of years since I went to them but I will see if I can dig them up somewhere and they should have what you need. If you called the Electrical Engineering Department and University of Houston they could probably tell you where to go or their EEE group could. Just to let you know if they don't have what you need they could probably order it. Sounds like you are trying to reduce the slow drain on your battery that Z's have a common issue with. There is also one other place that causes the drain is your ignition key swithc with time the workings along with the key wear down and the key can come out even with the car running, well it is easy to not turn the key as far as it should have been turned and pull it out which puts a slow drain on the battery that would drain it enough in 4 or 5 weeks so the car will not start. Just some thoughts and I will see if I can find the places I use to go to and email them to you once I do. Good luck. Robert

My suggestion on Turbo systems is read some of Corky Bell's books, he has done a lot with Z's and old RX7's in the past (also many other cars and planes). Based on my experience (many years of turbos and superchargers) the Z engines are better complimented with the use of Turbos then would be with the supercharger. Also to commenton someones statement that a screw supercharger adds heat, well based on the ones I have done it does not and I am currently running one on one of my vehicles for the past 6 or 7 years (turbos add a huge amount of heat compared to superchargers). If youwant some help figuring out what you need to do with the supercharger on a Z engine to get what you want, then you can always read some books, ask questions, and feel free to send me an email and I will help as I can. I only have like 20+ years of playing around with forced induction from 4 cylinders to some V10's. But really read some of Corky's books they are very good and he really knows his stuff.

Just a big hint for you guys planning the floor painting. Make sure you clean it so well you could eat off of it and allow much more time for it to cure, especially if it is humid or cool outside. I watched my brother drive his Viper in on what should have been cured and he lifted some wide tire marks right out of the painted floor. That was not the worst part the worst was the rework of the floor (stripping the old paint, re-cleaning, re-painting, wait 2 weeks to cure, then perfect). Good luck

Very very nice, looks like a viper gas door or something like that. It would be nice to buy a kit just like what you modified one into.

Joking right? So you pulled the oil pump out and now it no longer starts. Well the oil pump is mechanical driven from the shaft that ends up to the Distributor. Did you happen to puch very hard on the oil pump when you installed it? As in pushing the shaft up and causing it to break something in the distributor, or case the shaft pinion to disengage, or did you remove the shaft? Looks like you will need to remove the distributor and the oil pump again and make sure that the engine is set back to TDC and realign the shaft according to the owners manual (I don't remember the way it should look at this time). The easy way to keep the shaft in place is with a flat screw driver from the top to slightly wedge it. Once you have done that insert the oil pump carefully, slowly rotate it back and forth to make sure you have the oil pump seated all the way onto the shaft. Once you have tightened the bolts holding the oil pump in place you can put the distributor back in place. I am guessing you either removed the shaft or you let it drop so it would spin freely.

Looks like that one would clean the streets very nicely by sucking the dirt into the air filter. In Houston that would not last very long with the rain we get.

One thing that I notice is where is all the red clay earth that Georgia has all over the place. From all the places I have been there, that stuff is like everywhere, maybe he burried it at the beach because that looks like sand near a beach somewhere not Georgia mud. Just a thought from what I remember.

Maybe you are talking about some of the old cars that had a cable that was pushed with your foot peddle and moved some of the early brake drumb or strap brakes. Or are doing some kind of engine swap with a car that did not have one so you just want to get rid of it?

You might be thinking about the Preditor Carb which is kind of like a cross between a throttle body and a carburator. I have done a variety of turbo and supercharged cars with carburators and I can tell you that a suck through is easier than a blow through. With a blos through you will have to make sure that you do not pressurize the float bowls or you end up with a mess that could easily catch a spark. It seems that a Carter Carburator was better for blow through than a Holley and definitly not the Rochestercrap. The Preditor works well in either case but forget about fuel economy. The best setup I felt for a turbo L6 motor was a Holley 390 suck through with a primary metering block replacing the metering plate on the secondary side. This would allow you to have a power valve on the secondaries. Then comes the fun by inserting a brass tube through the carb body and behind the power valve so you can run boost to the back of the power valves to open them up and allow for more fuel at that time. If you want more information let me know and I can probably describe it in much more detail, but for the easiest setup these days it seems that you should probably go fuel injection since that appears to be the most stable. Good luck Robert

There was one similar to that for sale on here for around 35k but I believe that one was in Southern California. Either way those IMSA flares are what I have been looking for so if someone is selling a set send them to my direction and they are sold.

All the newer Cad packages are great out there. I am a firm believer in Pro/ENGINEER and not just because I worked for PTC as a consultant, but I have made an entire consulting business from Engineering and Pro/ENGINEER or whatever the customers want to use. Just pick it up get god at it and try contracting, once you have a good name you can make some really good money - probably 3 to 5 times as much as direct and I speak from experienc on that. Good luck and feel free to ask me questions if you want to try to get into business on your own.

There really are not any kits available for the Z at this time from what I have seen. Camden use to make one but they where all being shipped out of Austin Texas until they got into a legal battle with B&M and I believe that ended that for them. Jim Cook racing had the Camden stuff at one time and then I believe the changed to Weiand, but I am not sure if they sell that anymore or very limited. There was a person on this board that made there own that they where going to put into production but that was a while ago and they also had a video of it on an oval track. I am not sure if it ever made it to production or they determined the same as others did, which is that you could generate more power and a better weight distribution with a V8 in the Z car. If you wanted to build your own you can do what most do is buy a Weiand supercharger and have a manifold made for it. I looked at some of these from TRD and they seem like you could side mount the TRD supercharger (the older cream gray colored on) and use the plenum from the TRD and make some manifold that consists of pipes going from the TRD to the head along with some flanges. This could be a simple solution that would probably cost under 2K to do. The older TRD system comes with a belt tension pully that you could mount fairly easily by drilling a hole or two in the oversized mounting plate. Since these superchargers only put out about 7 to 8 pounds of boost to a 3.4 liter Toyota engine they should put out enough volume flow for the Z engine. That brings down the point that you would probably want to run more boost than 7 to 8 pounds. well what you can do is call TRD in California and let them know that you have one of their systems on your truck, 4 runner, o camery and say that it is detonating a lot under not so hard acceleration. They will send you a larger pulley which drops the boost down to about 4.5 to 5 pouunds of boost. With this go to your local machine shop and have this pulley turned down to about 2.375 inches in diameter which should yield about 15 to 17 pounds of boost from the TRD supercharger. Now for the fuel and throttle body. Pick up a 4-Runner or possibly a Supra throttle body along with the air box and plumbing which is much bigger than a 60 mm throttle body (I do not recall the size sorry about that). Try to find a Supra turbo in the junk yard and get the injectors from that and all should be fairly stright forward after that. Now where to find the Weiand Superchargers - well TRD is one place but the funny thing there are a lot of kits and some factory cars with superchargers that use a version of the Weiand. Next time you hear of a factory car with a supercharger in it, take a look and see if it has some gray cream (more and more black ones these days) colored supercharger on it and then see if it is marked with the Weiand name (chances are that it is). So you can find these in places like EBAY (make sure you check it out for play in every case), Craigs list, junk yards, etc. I just suggest the TRD version because it appeared to be a fairly easy install with only one serious fabrication which would be the manifold. It would fit side mounted since I actually kind of put it in place and the fabrication did not seem like it would be too out there for someone with some skill in welding or access to a machine shop. On a side note: Impeller types of superchargers work well and allow for easier starts then the Screw types while the Screw types allow for a cooler and bigger charge to placed into the chambers, which is the main reason why professional drag racers also prefer those types. I hope that helps and I still enjoyed the alternator driven supercharger.

Well now, I have some old toilet paper and paper towel rolls, both slightly used. Could even through in some aluminum foil for heat shielding. We could go into business and sell that to those other buiding idiots. hahhahaha

Without a doubt that is a supercharger system not a Turbo charger system. I have been doing forced induction for over 20 years and that one made me laugh my butt off. Can you imagine how fast the alternator is going to give out on that thing especially with the extra side loads on the bearings. Besides impeller drive superchargers are not near as efficient as screw type. This one must be for a small 4 cylinder since it can not do the volume do to the size of it and the pressure side. I will have to send that ebay url to some guys I know in the industry and they will love it. Good one.

That is so encouraging because I have been looking for an LS6 and a transmission all seperate and you guys seem to have found the best way. So try to find a 2002 LS1 (which has the LS6 block) car that has been wrecked and sell of the rest. I did not think you could get much for the rest of the car parts but it seems like you can. So how much did you spend on your wrecked cars? Also, thank you for posting this, which makes me think it is the right direction.

Very nice job, looks like the pain of doing all that work paid off several times over. You should post to let others know what compounds you used and sanding and in what order. It might help with others. I do really like that it appears you did not break though the paint, excellent.

I fit 235s on my 78 and only had to very slightly roll the rear lip. I bought the Eastwood fender roller and as long as you take your sweet time and apply heat from like a hair-blow dryer then you can roll it and not crack your paint off but be very very patient with that old paint because it cracks really easily. Most people with baseball bats have messed up the paint or have caused a wave in the sheetmetal even the slightest will show on a good paint job. Just take it slow slow slow and all will be good.

I would like love to know the same on your parting out experience. Was the Camaro in good shape and someones daily driver, was it wrecked, etc. It is starting to seem like it would be a good idea to buy a running car getting what you need and selling the rest to possibly a drag racer or something.

To bad your not closer to me or I might make an offer for the whole car. Either for parts for mine or to make it a good daily driver for someone else.

The engine might get you a few hundred if it runs okay, The automatic you will be lucky to 50 dollars for it if it is in really good condition. Those automatics are just so poor on mpg that once they go bad in a Z most tend to replace it with any thing else. That being said I have a Z right now with an automatic and when I pull it I am going to hope that the person that buys my engine will drag it off with the engine just so I can get rid of it at that time (still in the future at this time)