pparaska

Looking great! Nice work and photo/documentation! It looks like at this point you'll have that 327 running before I have the 400 in my Z! Yes, that balancer to steering rack clearance looks fine. No worries.

"There are no stupid questions, just informed, uniformed, lazy, or frequently asked ones." Some of the best responses with really good technical thinking and investigation have come from seemingly "stupid" questions. As long as it's not a Frequently Asked Question that the answers are found for easily by searching here or on other quality automotive forums, books, etc., and it has to do with performance or non-stock styling, etc., and it's related to Z's, I think it's fine to ask. Doing homework before you ask, and showing how you've done it when you ask is the first step to getting quality help or input. The best thing to do is find a thread that is very highly related to what you want to know, maybe the same question that really didn't get answered well, or maybe you think it's a stale answer. Then make a post in that thread that shows you read it, bring up the salient points, and try to focus the question towards a direction you need enlightenment or opinions on. If everyone did that, there would be so many fewer repeat posts, and the searching would be so much faster for the next person.

Oh, man, ditto that! If only all newbies had this attitude and didn't think we owed it to them to spoon feed them everything! Welcome aboard! The Turbo L6 is a fine engine and quite capable. You might be interested that Scottie-GNZ started with the turbo L6 and an old SBC (don't know which was first), then a Buick GN (Grand National) engine trans, then moved to a 3rd gen RX-7 with 2JZ power. I think he'd tell you they are all fun! There's enough info on here and other related sites to get a ton of info on the pros/cons of all the engine swaps - it just comes down to a matter of preference as they are ALL VALID and most are capable of taxing the chassis, driver, tires, etc. to the point of near insanity anyway. We're about being open minded here, and most of us could care less about the brand name of the engine we use. The fuel and air and tires don't care so why should we? LOL. Again, Welcome!

Well, I still have my L6, sitting on a dolly. I'd not mind someone coming by to take it away. But I don't feel the need to disparage it either. It's just an old straight 6 I wasn't interested in playing with. Someone else wanting to play with it doesn't bother me.

Good points, Michael. BTW, I had to look ineluctable up: "Impossible to avoid or evade; inevitable." LOL

Corbeau A4's worked well for me, I even put the 240Z slides on them (easy, just a bit of fabrication with flat stock).

Ernie, it is a sad day to see you leave. I hope that it's more to concentrate fully on the new venture than because of people bashing you off line. Please, accept my thanks for the kind words in threads and PMs about things other than to do with cars. I found those messages, just like the ones here about paint and body, to be humble, insightful, and from the heart. I will really miss your posts and PMs. I don't hang in this forum much, since I just couldn't bring my humble skill set in body/paint to my Z, and just did the checkbook thing when that part of my project car came up. But I learned from you just the same. And to those bottom-feeders that sent the negativity Ernie's way, go pound sand! I'll never understand ego-driven people that can't accept that maybe someone else understands their area of expertise but has their own ways of doing things and then lowers the ego-boom on them. Since we are moderated, we don't see that nasty stuff here too often - we REQUIRE tact, fact, and no bashing for just that reason - to keep it a fun and useful place on the 'net, not a place for egos to be pumped up like so many other sites out there. Ernie, please reconsider staying one of the family. Let the little minds have their ego-fits and check back in every once and a while, o.k.? Sincerely,

Hey, Rick, sorry to hear about your pen... I mean V8 envy! LOL j/k! Seriously, though, how about moving the L6 back to make room for the fan - I'm only about half kidding. John Coffey and a few others have done it for handling purposes, but I think If I did another L6 Z, I'd put it rearward for all of those reasons and to fit a good sized puller fan. I'm interested to hear about turning the curved blade fan around and pushing with it - my bit of experience working around submarine propeller weenies (I mean the people that design the propeller blades LOL) showed me how critical blade design was and that the blade shape of a curved blade propeller was highly specialized. I just have a hard time thinking that you can turn it around and spin it the other direction and have it be anywhere as nearly efficient as it was designed to be. I won't go into the details. Anyway, I'd love to hear and hear about the progress on this.

My battery tray area didn't look that bad, but I had holes into the firewall as well. I think the bigger issue is the inner and outer rocker rust. If it's that bad, the entire inner rocker at the back and probably the front of the rocker box will need to be replaced. I don't know if anyone makes those parts, but it'd be a great thing if they did. A new inner rock box half for each side would be a great part for someone to come up with. It has multiple beads, etc. for stiffnerss, and there's a plate that runs through the box at the back and front to tie it into the body and to stiffen the connection. I spent many hours fashioning those pieces with a hammer and hand tools to get thick (14 gage) pieces of steel to go in there and be as strong and stiff as original if not more. It can be done.

Yeah, my complete tear down and rebuild started in a very similar way. Sorry to hear it.

I've had people give me a hard time about wanting to hook up a clutch or neutral safety switch on manual swaps. Your experience is not singular by any stretch of the imagination. I KNOW I'm stupid enough to at some point hit the key when it's not in neutral. Did you ever get it to fire?

Pyro, that all sounds good to me. I'm thinking about playing with the phasing of the cams in my 91 Glalant VR-4 for jsut this reason - lazy low end.

You can get circle track small bellhousings that are pretty small, take a special small flywheel and multi-disc clutch. But if you are running a typical 7-1/2" deep oil pan, it will make no difference for ground clearance. I have that Sonic one you listed. I don't think it's a Chinese copy, it's actually smaller, a 153 tooth version that can only use the 10.5" diameter flywheel. It gives a bit more clearance below than the Lakewood one Grumpyvette talks about. But it's not SFI rated either.

Just a recap on how a points ignition works, etc. Sorry if you knew this: What LeeMS is saying is that the case of the coil is actually insulated from the winding, and it is connected to one end of the secondary winding (the winding that gets routed through the distributor rotor to the plug wires and plugs). The points, when closed, complete the primary winding coil circuit by connecting the (-) negative side of the coil primary winding to ground through the point contacts, the points body, the plate the points are bolted to, the distributor body, the intake manifold and/or engine block, and then the ground strap to the chassis and then to the negative side of the battery. The other side of the coil (+) primary winding is connected to switched positive battery voltage. When the points open, the back emf in the primary winding induces a high voltage in the secondary winding of the coil. The coil body is connected to one side of this winding (which gets grounded to the engine and ultimately connects to the battery and alternator (-) negative connections. The other side of the secondary winding is connected to the center tower receptical on the coil, that has the "rotor" wire connected to it and the center of the distributor cap. From there the rotor takes the spark voltage to another post on the cap and the spark plug wire takes it to the plug center electrode. The casing of the sparkplug is obviously grounded to the cylinder head, which connects electrically to the block and the chassis to be connected ultimately to the battery and alternator (-) terminals. Hope that helps. Anyway, the single wire from the distributor bottom connects to the coil (-) terminal, a switched battery (+) voltage wire connects to the (+) terminal. Don't run a ground wire to anything but the case of the coil and the distributor body, but those things are usually well grounded if an engine-to-chassis ground strap is in place.

Well, a lot of the energy that spins up the turbine has to do with the heat in the exhaust, from my readings, and less on flow velocity. So if that's true, then the less exhaust duration thing doesn't hold up. Not saying I'm sure, but wondering if I am correct.

Mike, though I feel for your bad luck here, I can see you will probably just buy a shed to keep that thing in and get your garage space back . Oh, as a lady friend of mine once said, "A half inch can make all the difference in the world."

Where is it connected to? An points type distributor would have that going to the negative side of the ignition coil. An HEI only needs + battery voltage. So knowing what kind of distributor is important.

Probably not. Electric motors of that type usually don't have a preferred direction. However, if there is a diode in the wiring internally (I don't think there is on the Taurus fan motor, but not sure), then wiring it backwards will be a problem for the diode.

What I've read is that a supercharged (crank driven pump) engine has the pump pushing the mixture into the engine, so less duration is needed on the intake. But with a Turbo, you are feeding the turbine with the exhaust, so more duration can help drive it.

Probably not. The newer fans have a blade design that is optimized for one direction of flow. I doubt it would work as well in the opposite rotation. But it might not be too bad. BTW, what mounts for the engine did you use? Is it a set-back, JTR mounting, or something more like the old Scarab or John's Cars mounting?

A cruise-in I frequent has an old 40s Ford that is in primer (I think it's been that way for a decade) and the following painted on the back of it: "It's not yours if you didn't build it." Until you build your own car or do a major modification like an engine swap to another type engine, it's hard to understand the depth of that saying. Hell, I feel bad for not being able to say I did the body and paint on my car - but I did everything else, including building the engine(s). The satisfaction you get is incredible. The other point about the cost to have it done is very real. And the issue of not being able to find someone that will fix it later is a big one. Read, read, read, and volunteer/network. We ALL had to learn this stuff somewhere the first time. Good Luck and have fun!

The Victor Junior with a Holley carb and 14" Moroso drop base air cleaner will just fit under the stock hood.

The $40 Arkansas special looks like the catch can I saw talked about on a DSM forum, which pointed to the Z06Vette.com forum: (See post #90 below) http://www.dsmtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177223&page=4 http://www.z06vette.com/forums/printthread.php?t=73303 I'm about to put two of these on my Galant VR-4. It's just an air compressor oil/air separator/filter. For boost applications, "oldman" on the DSM forum suggests a check valve that follows the PCV valve.

I think we know how you feel about Optima's now, Bartman.

The higher temperature capable coatings are usually not silver but black, blue or grey: http://techlinecoatings.com/BulkExhaust.htm http://www.jet-hot.com/Pages/coatings.html (see the 2000 coating)