getZ

Well, so far so good. They seem to hold really tight, but the down side is everything else has to be fabricated and tacked in. I only used it on the very end of the tailpipe to allow for the exhaust to be able to rotated a little to account for engine movement. I think I will try using these to mount my electric fuel pump and see if it quiets the noise made by the thing. If it works well here I will have to find the other stuff making all the rattling noises common on a 35 year old car.

In all honesty, I've never checked to see what aluminum line is rated for. I've never had any problems and I've seen a lot of ricers use them, but that doesn't mean it is right either. I've heard of people using it for pressures over a 100psi, but I can't find a manufacturer stating a burst pressure rating or any rating for that matter.

I'm not so sure about simpler. First you have to deal with making it fit with the JTR mounts. I have enough trouble just getting the bottom bolts to go on the block off plate. Then you have cold start no pressure problem? My biggest hangup with electric fuel pumps is just that they're noisy. I like Cliftons internal tank pump idea and may go to that one of these days. The return line isn't that big a deal if you plan ahead when you build a car. The last two cars I built, I purposely installed two fuel lines in the car when everything was taken apart. Installing an extra solid aluminum line cost about an extra $30. If you don't use it you can just cap it off. It also makes life a little easier if you label them as well.

Scottie did a whole rear corvette swap with the control arms as well and yanked just about the whole rear suspension. It's a pretty big job, but it looks sweet!

My exhaust seems to rattle against the body and I don't really want to enlarge the body hole any bigger. I have about a quarter inch on each side so it has to be a pretty firm hold. These seemed like and easy solution, but I wondered if they held up okay and didn't transmit to much exhaust shake back to the body. http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=SUM%2D610105&N=700+%2D155042+115&autoview=sku

If you have to change longer wheel studs, you may think about changing thread sizes and go from 12 x 1.25 to 12 x 1.5. Sombody on this forum did this and I wish I had. It just gives you a much larger selection of stud lengths and lug nuts. I was disappointed with the quality of Gorrilla lugs. Summit brand looks to be the same, but cleaned up a bit. McGard stuff is much nicer. Heavy chrome plating and they chase the threads down before you get them. If you go to much longer studs you have to remove the stub axle on the back to get them in, kind of a pain. There needs to be a word/phrase invented for all the stuff you have to do to a car when you modify anything, "additional engineering fubar" or something like that.

72 - sbc 383, dart pro-1, 2004r trans, waiting for the heat to die down in the desert.

Intresting concept, although I have my doubts about the torque improvements he is guessing at. For me it would be more practical to just add more displacement to my engine to my engine and go from a 383 to 400 plus cubic inch engine. I cringe having to work around those headers and the running the exhaust so close to the firewall. The interior heat will be nice and toasty.

Where in Kuwait are you? I think your temp conversion is a little off. Kuwait city is calling 115 degrees for a high with blowing sand (I thought that blowing sand part was funny, but it is what I really read). This week you have a steady 116 degrees for a high. How come we never get blowing sand in our weather reports?

That is much further forward than my engine. Then again that doesn't look like a standard small block cheby with JTR mounts. I do have chevy small block and am wondering if that taurus two speed fan will keep my engine cool in the blistering heat of Phoenix, AZ (mine is a 93 taurus fan up against an arizona z car radiator, almost perfect fit). It is supposed to be 110 degrees tomorrow. I will let you know. By the way I have ac as well. We shall see if everything works the way it is supposed to. I always thought if I really had problems cooling my engine off I would go back to a mechanical fan since they pull so many cfms.

This is my friends take on DOT drag tires since I don't have the experience he has. He runs a supercharged mustang that has enough power to twist a stock axle (8.8) with a set of MT ET streets. For ultimate traction, Mickey Thomson ET streets bias ply. The downside is they don't mix well with radials up front. The car starts to wander on the top end. BFGoodrich and and Mickey Thompson radials were close but you will not get much mileage out of them either, about 2-5 thousand miles depending on how much you light 'em up. Nitto drag radials not as much traction as above, but he got almost 10 thousand miles off of them. His results didn't totaly suprise me. It always seems like you give up traction for mileage.

that's to bad you have to tear down the engine. Think of it this way. You can spend a few thousand bucks for credit hour at a university to learn how to sharpen your expertise. What's the difference in DIY hot rod garage? It was just an expensive credit hour

Drive it in reverse. Its a little hard on the neck, but it can be done...Just kidding. Is it shifting through all the forward gears? If you leave it in low does it stay in low?

band clamps are stronger than they appear. I have four of them on two cats and the exhaust pipes only have hangers in the back. There is no excessive shaking like the pipes are loose and the whole exhaust not including the headers can be removed in one piece. They also seal well. After you tighten them down the band will stretch and shape itself around the pipe. As a side note, I used pipes the fit inside the cats not an end to end connections. Those seem like they may be a bit weaker, but I have not tried doing it that way to confirm or deny any strength/sealing issues.

A stock pan will work with a 400 crank. If you need a little more ground clearance you may consider a corvette pan or if you want to spend a few more bucks on an after market pan. Somebody posted they liked a canton or B+B pans. Be real careful clearancing the oil pan rails on the block as to much grinding will cut into the water passages.

I forgot to mention if you want to remove the old ones and you dont care about the old lugs a sledge works fine in one or two whacks. There is enough space to get them out without removing the stub axle. If you want to save the old studs put an old lug nut on it. The old ones come out easy. Putting in a set of subaru studs requires pulling the stug axle out. With the old studs out you can just use a long bolts on two opposite side stud holes and use a nut on each bolt to push the axle out from the strut tower. To reinstall the stub axle, tap it in place and use the big nut in the back to pull it in. It helps if you have a manual to see an exploded diagram.

Welding is stronger, but there are also band clamps which wrap the pipe 360 degrees and conform to the metal. I put a set of those around a set of cats I added and they seal really well.

If you want the same datsun thread size 12 x 1.25 you can use subaru WRX studs from ARP or somebody else on this web site used a more common gm size 12 x 1.5. Both are available at Summit racing. The longer studs will probably require removing the stub axles. They can be pressed in, but take care to support around the hole you are pressing the stud in as it takes a lot of force to get them in. Just word of caution if you use the subaru studs. The only open acorn lugs I could find were made by Gorilla or Summit. In either case it pays to chase the threads. About one out of 4 lugs would bind up, sometimes badly with out chasing the threads. I ruined a couple studs and had to replace them. I would have gotten McGard lugs if Summit had them in that thread size, better quality and chrome plated instead of cadium plated.

I have used the ceramic heat insulator type lizard skin and it seems to work fairly well. It's also not as heavy as dynamat. Although, I cant say it was a complete test since I only used it on one spot where I cut out part of the spare tire well. The down side is it is expensive. You don't need the spray gun they sell with it if you don't mind it coming out coarse. I used a roller and it looks like undercoating, but much harder. I am planning on putting it in the doors, but I haven't gotten around to try it out yet. For the doors I was going to try out eastwoods undercoat sprayer and see how that worked.

I have a couple of moroso spiral flows and they aren't really quiet, a bit less than a glass pack. At idle they don't do much, but as the engine winds up it seems to do a better job. I landed up adding a set of magnaflows and a set of dynatech cats for emissions. Adding about 3 inches of pipe past the bottom panel really helps out as far as noise inside the cab. I get some kind of resonance inside the car with the end of the exhaust flush with the body.

sounds like an episode of the "Green Hornet" from the early 70's. How long ago was this movie?

How much the car is worth is partly dependent on what you can and/or willing to do. I hate body work and paint, so I picked up a stock 240z with a decent body. My car has a cheap paint job, but it looks reasonably good, not a show car but nothing to be embarassed to drive. Looking at your pics it has probably been repainted and not a great job. They didn't even bother masking off the door catches so the rust you may see may be a sign of even deeper rust. I noticed the hood catch is a JTR kit, so I would guess the rest of the conversion is JTR. It's really hard to tell what else the rest of the car has to offer without seeing it in person, driving it or at least starting it up. The rebuild may be total junk or it might be a gem. The best deals are usualy a project somebody didn't finish, but nobody can judge that but you. At just a glance, I would only buy something like that at a steal for $1000 or less, but that is just my opinion based off a few pics.

I've dealt with Rock Valley in the past for a tank they made for my camaro and I really like working with them. The mounting straps were to short and they had a set out to me later in the week. Nice folks! If my drag race style sump doesn't work out, I was thinking about asking Rock Valley if they would make a 240/280 tank. Once they get the basic layout you can custom order your options, number of inputs/return lines, AN line size, in tank pump, etc.

I'm working on building my own fuel injection as well, but it's not turning out to be such a low budget thing after all. I'm going to start with an existing 88 tpi and do what the guys did in this article: http://www.gmhightechperformance.com/tech/0307htp_hollley_stealthram_intake_third_gen_iroc/ I have most of the parts except for new injectors, without running an aftermarket ecu I think it can be done for under a grand. I just won't have all the tuning features with a stock ecu. Of course, this is only for a moderately prepped small block making around 400 horse at the crank.

There's a couple easy routes you can go. Sump it or add the pickup from a late model vehicle. There's a lot of old threads with pictures about which way you go in the archives providing the search function is working.