NewZed

Reads a bit like Beat generation.

On the other hand, you could just do it and if it don't work well, go ahead to Megasquirt or similar. As far as basic power gainers, most say a better exhaust system and head work are the two biggies. There are many threads out there that started with your same question. There's probably even a thread in the FAQ's. Check the L Series forum at the top. http://forums.hybridz.org/forum/90-l-series/

The factory EFI system is pretty crude. Read the Engine Fuel chapter. It's designed to give driveability and emissions at mid-throttle, mid-range RPM, then adds a bunch of fuel at the high end. You can add more fuel for the high end to take advantage of your modifications, and run rich and dirty on the low end, or you can leave fuel as-is to run clean on the low end but run lean at the high end. That's the basic problem. You can add or remove fuel everywhere, but no adjustability in between. Your 77 doesn't even have an O2 sensor. Besides that $1000 won't get you far. The small stuff will eat it up. Make a detailed list of everything you'll need, including gaskets, sealant, new studs, etc,. just for the head work and the actual installation and see if you can even do that for under $1000.

Here's a picture I took of a working clutch, at rest. On your leak-down problem - there are two seals in the MC; one to build pressure and one to keep fluid in the reservoir (check a later FSM, like 1978, to see a better diagram). I don't think that the MC is meant to hold pressure like a brake MC. It's meant for short time frames. Could be though that you have a leaky one. Quality is poor these days. Did you disassemble and clean it before installing? Did you check the slave dust boot for fluid? Leaks will be contained in the boot.

Did the cover only rub in one spot, not all three? Seems like you're saying that something was off with the cover. A measurement at the rubbing point might help future people, with reference to Xnke's post about different covers. L series flywheels seem to be getting hard to find in general (the 225 mm is essentially NA from normal sources) so swaps like this will be the only way eventually..

Good luck. That picture was from BE-10.

Curious, how long is the old bolt compared to new? You could compare while in the slave cylinder, to the new one. I'd guess it's longer and somebody had a short collar problem. I wrote a bunch about checking parts then went back and saw this - "So I just installed a new stock LuK clutch kit in my Z, new slave, master, T.O. bearing and springs, and pivot ball.". Are you sure that pivot ball is correct? That would cause problems if it wasn't. That 0.4 inches of travel though, is still key. If something was bottoming out mechanically, that might stop slave piston travel. But if there's nothing stopping it you need to get it to spec.

Just remembered something that I did on the very first clutch I ever worked on - put the disc in backwards. It rubbed on the flywheel bolts and wouldn't disengage.

Interesting. My thought process just opens up the spec. for that measurement down to 82 mm. Thanks for sharing. I think that your mechanical parts are fine. 92 mm has worked for many people and it's probably no coincidence that your new pressure plate gives that number. I'd go back to that 0.4 inch of travel from your hydraulics. You can probably explore that further with the slave cylinder hanging. You were getting less than 1/3 of the stroke you should have been getting.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, re the poor punctuation.

Seriously, you're just spinning your wheels and wasting money if you don't at least take some sort of measurement before buying parts. You can even make a test light with a battery, a light bulb, and a piece of wire if you're poor. Or go to Harbor Freight and get a $4 meter.

Buy this app and learn how to use it - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imultimeter/id420797671?mt=8 Since you're on a phone.

Your method gives the distance from the end of the crankshaft to the top of the ears then. Not the same as what I showed but it does imply that your old setup was shorter than what I recommended since the method measures a longer distance. I'd just flip, stack, and measure. Here's another picture for future reference. Should have mentioned it sooner but I forgot. It shows where the end of the clutch fork is, indirectly showing what you have inside, on a properly working clutch. I came up with as a way to check the collar and pressure plate stack height from the outside. It's been a while since anyone had a problem though.

You haven't shown that it's charging at all. The only number you've shown is battery voltage. Are you saying that the problem is that it doesn't charge until 1500 RPM? How big is the pulley? You want a small one to get low RPM charging. Are they different size between your old one and the one you have now?

Not sure what you're measuring there. I don't see the pressure plate. Here's an old picture showing the distance to measure. Same ear you were on but measure down to the pressure plate flange. At the flywheel surface. The caliper isn't quite on the straight edge in the picture but it's close. You get the idea. Hard to hold a camera and caliper and push the button.

Actually, Wagner's description fits. "Unfueled" air is drawn in to the intake manifold. Seems very crude. And this was 1981. Apparently the PCV and carburetion system are tuned as a complete system. Here's a pciture from the 1981 truck service manual.. They even call out the "dirty" air, apparently it's not even pulled from the filter side, Funny story - I helped a friend get his car running after he filled it way over with oil, soaked his air filter through the PCV hose, and the engine wouldn't start. I threw the filter away to fix it.. He didn't know anything about engines (hence the overfill) and had beat the piss out of it which caused much of the oil vapor to get pushed through the hose. I told him to take it easy, the motor was on its last legs. He beat the piss out it again that night ( a bunch of us met later that night and he was complaining about the smoke) because it ran so much better, parked it in front of the house with the room he was renting, and woke up to a muffled boom as the oil on the super-hot exhaust manifolds caught on fire. Burned to the ground. I think it was a Yugo.

Sorry about that, forgot about 77 and 78. By the way, if you want to look knowledgeable when stating that someone is wrong, you demonstrate why. Like I just did. Edit - more knowledge. 1975 and 76 don't have hood vents. That's where I got the idea.

Here's some interesting reading - http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37104&start=0 http://mewagner.com/ Here's a fair summary of the basics. They still seem a bit confused about where "fresh air" comes from - http://mewagner.com/?page_id=434

280Z's don't have hood vents.

Derek, your avatar still shows that old dinosaur head.

He built his own head. How'd you miss it? I think he's running ITB's also. I posted in front of you. A good catch can would probably keep your carb clean. Cleaner for longer anyway. More hoses though.

You'll pull "unfueled" air in to the intake manifold that way. It will not have passed through the carburetor. It will lean out your mixture. That's why the systems that use intake manifold vacuum are "sealed" systems, and the open systems empty before the carburetor. The hot rod V8 guys have this same problem. You might search around those sites. I think that one reason for using a PCV valve on whatever you use to pull through the crankcase is that it controls flow. If flow gets very high the spring will compress and the valve will close. The PCV valve is essentially a two-way check valve. You don't want huge volumes of air passing through pulling all of your oil out in vapor form. That's why people use catch cans. Fix on top of fix. It can get complicated. Before PCV they just left the crankcase open with a breather type filler cap. Probably got messy with old engines.

The bleeder should be at the highest point of the internal passages of the caliper. That's the basic principle. Some people tilt the caliper, I imagine you could tilt the car to get the same effect. Whatever it takes. Bubbles rise. Be the bubble.

Use a meter and measure voltage at various places along the path to making the bulb filaments glow. Or measure resistance to find which components or wire paths aren't allowing current.

Is it possible to get the bleeder on the bottom with the Wilwoods? I notice in your pictures that the "d" is up on end (front or back), and the "w" on the other. If he plumbed the front and rears differently and you got the calipers swapped, you'd have a bleeder position problem. On the stock system, the calipers will swap side to side and cause that problem.