wheelman

The article you refered to gives you all the correct parts. Obviously you can disregard the mention of the pedal assembly and the console as the Z will be different. The 85 305 should be internally balanced, but do your own checking to make sure. Once you've determined whether it is or not you'll be able to get the correct flywheel. As for ease of install for the manual vs the auto, it's a bit of a toss-up. With the manual you'll have to get the correct clutch master cylinder, mount it to the firewall and install plumbing to the slave. None of the Datsun parts are going to work for this. You also need to make sure the shifter will come up through the shifter hole that's already in the tunnel unless you don't mind cutting the tunnel and possibly the console to make it fit. An auto would make the current clutch pedal irrelevant so you can remove it. You'll have to run tranny cooler lines and will probably have to clearence the tunnel. The shifter can mount in the console although you'll probably have to do some mods to get it to fit right. These items to consider are just the tip of the iceberg when considering an engine swap so do some planning and think hard about what you want to do with the car. Autos are better for drag racing as they can shift faster but a manual is preferable for road or Auto-X, at least in my opinion. Wheelman

Do you have a manual or automatic? If the tranny is not a 4L60E, T56 or T5 with a VSS, did you wire up a vehicle speed sensor (VSS)? If the VSS is not connected to the PCM then the computer always thinks the car is going 0 MPH and tries to keep the car at idle by adjusting the IAC. When you are opening the throttle the IAC is not controlling anything but the PCM closes it down in an attempt to bring the engine to idle. When you suddenly let off the gas the IAC is closed and the engine gets no air and dies. One way to fix this is to disable the IAC and use the idle screw to set the idle. Another is to adjust how you drive to compensate. The correct way to fix it is to hook up a VSS so the PCM knows how fast the car is moving. This also helps with control of the cooling fan(s). I ran into this same problem with the T5 I've got, it has a mechanical speedo output and no VSS. I hooked one up inline with the cable going to the speedometer. Wheelman

Yeah, that is way forward of where the JTR setup places the engine, looks like a Scarb mount except seems to be lower. Woluld you take some close up shots of the mounts and position of the oil pan in relation to the crossmember so we can see how low it sits in the engine bay. Have you decided which radiator/fan setup you will run yet? Where did the T56 shifter come up? If I'd tried to place my engine that far forward the shifter would be right against the heater controls. Wheelman

Bartman, I made the Mike Chaney mod to the KS circuit and it works great. Before the mod I would see several thousand added to the knock count everytime I really got on it, but since it has been rock solid and I don't hear any pinging. I don't remember which value resistor I used but I measured the overall resistance of the circuit and then adjusted accordingly. That240guy, I've heard it's possible to desensitize the KS with programming but I've been through all the available parameters in TunerCat and haven't found one that does it. If you know which variable(s) to adjust and how then please let us know. Wheelman

Where do you work?? This woman works with me as well. The one at my company is actually pretty nice and does a good job but her ideas about medicine and health are very strange. The douche bag I work with is the ultimate passive agressive. She'll sit there looking you in the face while you explain why something has to be done a certain way and then go do it how she wants anyway. She's also a sales/marketing type so she finds it impossible to tell the truth about anything, I have no idea how she ended up in our engineering department but I'll be very glad when she's gone. Wheelman

I bought my combination of springs and Tokico blues from the same seller. The package was complete and shipped quickly but he will offer no support if you have a problem. Be aware that the front springs are progressive and the rears linear. I found this out after installing them and then tried to get either Tokico or the seller to take them back with no luck so I still have them installed. Some day I'll replace them with coilovers and get the spring rates I really want. My car also ended up much lower than the 1" drop advertised but I also have the V8 and an R200 in the rear so maybe thats partly why. Do a search on this topic and you're sure to come across the thread discussing my issue with this kit, I know the spring rates are mentioned in that thread but I can't remember them right now. Wheelman

I agree with POP, stick with your current motor and add aluminum heads if you're looking for weight savings. Getting an LT1 and then converting it to carbs would be a total waste of money as you'd be throwing away most of the improvements the LT1 had, the fuel injection. The reverse cooling and relatively high compression are nice but can be done with your current motor and you'd spend a lot less money. Wheelman

I had a 74 Vega GT for a while when I was in high school. I bought it planning to drop a Buick V6 into it but never got around to it. Ended up trading it for my first Z car, a 74 260. That Z was my baby for several years, then I got married and had a kid so the sports car had to go. I got the idea for the Vega after riding in one a friend's dad had built that had a 350 with a powerglide. It felt like it was going to rip the seats off the floor when he'd get on it. Wheelman

I swapped in one of those iron head LT1s and love it. The iron heads actually flow better than the aluminum ones. Mine came from a 1995 Caprice cop car. If you can, get a 95 or later. They have the vented opti and can be flash programmed without removing a chip. I mated it to a World Class T5 and used a light flywheel from a late model 305 that has the correct external balancing. The motor revs in a heart beat and has tons of torque. I put an LT4 hot cam with high rev springs in it and it pulls hard to 6000 rpm, although it gets there so fast it's really hard to tell where the power starts to drop off. One of these days I'll put it on a dyno to finish tuning and see what it really can do. The biggest thing I ran into with the swap was figuring out how to run the alternator and get rid of the PS pump and AC. I modified my own harness, yes it takes a while but I know every wire in it and can trouble shoot it myself. Fuel pressure required for the LT1 is 43 PSI. I welded a sump to my stock 240 tank to add baffles but will replace the tank with one from an LS1 camaro very soon. To much rust and the fuel lines coming out the back of the tank bother me. Longtube headers are very hard to find that will fit correctly and not present ground clearance problems. I'm running Headman TightTubes and like them OK. I've burned a couple plug wires though as the headers are very close to the block so it's hard to keep the wires from touching them. As for MSnS, I've seen message threads on MSEFI.COM from a couple guys who have LT1s running with custom code. They were even able to decode the optispark timing wheel which then gives crank and cam position. I've thought about trying it myself but it's running now so I'll use my MS on a different car. Wheelman

I won't comment on the bad 91 octane. Running the E85 would not be a good idea, unless the ECU is adjusted the engine would run very lean on it. It's also very hard on rubber components that aren't designed to be compatible it, such as fuel lines, gaskets, diaphrams, etc.. I ran a very low percentage mix of gasohol back in the mid 90s in a Ford pickup I'd hotrodded. The engine loved it, higher octane and better AFR than regular gas as I hadn't tuned the carb and it ran rich, but it eventually destroyed the fuel and accelerator pumps so I stopped using it. If you really want to run E85 you could look into converting to a megasquirt setup and use a fuel/oxygen sensor to trigger the correct fuel maps. Code already exists in megasquirt to handle it and the sensors are available from GM. Wheelman

Another 25 that get caught in the "While I'm at it" trap and re-wire the entire car. Post about how it took them 3 extra months to change the "lamp" and complain they never get to drive their car. Wheelman

I guess I just assumed embedded was the ultimate goal, the thought of running a standard laptop in an automotive environment leaves me cold. Wheelman

What happened to cause the u-joint to fail? Maybe the same event caused some damage to the engine? Wheelman

So what computer are you using? Why C#? C/C++ is not much more difficult to use and will give tons more performance and not require using Embedded Windows XP or CE. Of course I'm thinking of the final product, interim use of a laptop with XP is fine but if you ever want to sell any of the final systems the Embedded XP/CE licenses will add significant overhead without any real benefit, unless you consider the occasional requirement to reboot a plus. I do embedded programming on micro-controllers, PDAs and PCs for a small company that builds handheld XRF (X-Ray Flourescence) equipment. I've built a V3 Megasquirt but haven't installed it into a car yet and have been kicking ideas around for a much more powerful system. Anyway, sounds like you have an interesting project and am curious to know more about it. Wheelman

I just dealt with this issue on my 240 last night. Turned out to be one of the fuse holders had the contacts mashed down so the fuse wasn't making contact. All the current for the dim light was coming from the bright headlight backwards through the ground. Once I fixed the fuse both lights are much brighter. Wheelman

That happened during practice for the recent ALMS race at Mid-Ohio. The footage was shown during the race to fill time while a yellow flag had slowed the field. They had the rear brake bias set to high, locked up the rears going into a corner, spun and ended up flying into one of the sand traps. The smoke seen in the pictures is from the rear tires. It is real and the car went on to race last weekend and I believe came in 3rd behind the 2 Corvettes racing in the same class. Workinprogress, You're thinking of the Ferrari that was pushed off the track by the P1 class car. It was the same corner but the Ferrari didn't catch any air. Wheelman

I used a couple of real thin paint scrapers as wedges to slip the hub housing in between the ends of the control arm. I also used a tie-down strap with the ratcheting tensioner to give more leverage when trying to force the hub assembly into place. You just need to get creative. Wheelman

If you use the grease included in the kit it's not noisy at all. I installed the Tokico spring and strut kit as well and the rear springs are loose when the suspension is at full droop, the fronts are snug but I was able to install them without using a spring compressor. I used tie-wraps on the rears to keep them in place when I jack up the car. As for installing part of the kit and leaving the rest, I wouldn't. Skipping the spindle pin bushings might be OK but if you do any of the LCA bushings I'd do them all. Would make for some very strange suspension dynamics to have some urethane and some rubber bushings. Seems to me if there is that much rust in those suspension parts it might be time to just pull it all apart and replace most of the pieces and all the bolts. No matter what you decide to do the spindle pins are a major pain to get out, mine were in decent shape, very little rust and I destroyed them in the removal process. Fortunately they're available from several parts suppilers and only cost about $25.00 each. Once the pins are removed getting the strut reattached to the hub assembly when the ES bushings are installed is no picnic either. Wheelman

What Mark is talking about is that the LT1 is externally balanced just like the SBC 400 was and most of the post 85 SBCs. This means you have to use a flex-plate or flywheel with a counter weight on it unless you have the rotating assembly balanced by the machine shop. If I were you I'd have the assembly balanced but make sure to get a neutrally balanced flex-plate or flywheel and a harmonic balancer with a keyway in it. The LT1 harmonic balancer is not indexed to the crank so it has no slot for a key. Get a good aftermarket harmonic balancer that is made for a neutrally balanced engine. Most for older small blocks will work fine. Another thing you need to keep in mind with the flex-plate/flywheel is that the newer cranks (LT1 included) are set up for a 1 piece rear main seal and have a different bolt pattern so an older flex-plate/flywheel will not work. Wheelman

The odometer of the donor I got mine from showed 102,000. It was a retired Montana state highway patrol car so probably had decent maintenance and sat around idling a lot. I pulled the mains and rod bearings before installing the cam, they were in very good shape so I left everything in place. It compression tested at 190 PSI in every cylinder. Sounds to me like yours may have seen some boost or nitrous and blew a head gasket. Did it have oil in it when you received it? What did it look like if it did? What about the coolent? Wheelman

I can definitely agree with grumpy, I seem to catch my self with a sharp corner or knife just about everytime I work on a car. It's become a joke in my house that I'm not allowed to have knives in the garage. I also tell people I need to sacrifice a little blood to the car gods in order to ensure a successful build. Anyway, I hope the surgery goes well and you fully recover. I had to have hand surgery many years ago after cutting through 98% of the main tendon in the middle finger on my right hand. I was removing a sign from a building and it got away from me and pinched my finger against the mounting bracket. I watched the doctor sew it up, but before it had been numbed an intern decided to poke around in the wound with the wooden end of a big q-tip. I almost passed out it hurt so much. I haven't had any problem with it except for a slight ache when it gets really cold. Wheelman

My stock cam looked similar to yours minus the rust and pitted lobe surface. My LT1 is also from a Caprice so I planned to replace the cam anyway. I put in an LT4 HotCam and high rev springs, all the lifters were good. Now it has a bit of a lope and pulls hard to 6000 rpm. The donor car had the 4L60E but I replaced it with a T5. Thought about the T56 but didn't want the expense or the additional weight, plus the T5 had a mechanical speedo output which made driving the Datsun speedometer much easier. Sounds like your engine may have had an oiling problem at some point. Good thing you decided to go through it completely instead of just replacing the cam. Wheelman

The floor pans, frame rails and rocker panels are key areas to look at. Use a screw driver or ice pick to see how soft the metal is but obviously don't poke holes in someone elses car. The battery tray is actually one of the first places to rot out due to the battery acid and fumes that are trapped there. I had the replace the tray, the passenger footwell and repair part of the frame rail in that area. Wheelman

There is also a strip of foam insulation that attaches the fender to a bulkhead toward the rear of the fender. Mine was stuck pretty good at this point. If it's been stitch welded that is not normal. Wheelman

I blocked mine as well and removed the parameters from the programming in the PCM so no codes would be generated. No problems yet but I haven't driven it much either. Wheelman