pparaska

I agree with Drew, the rocker box is the main connection in the lower part of the passenger compartment in most unibody cars. That's why the rust in the ends of these is so bad, alot of it is from the flexing/rusting/flexing more routine. Very important area. I rebuilt the front and rear of the inner rockers once I cut the outers off. I also added subframe connectors to add stiffness. ------------------ Pete Paraska - 73 540Z - Marathon Z Project pparaska@home.com Pete's V8 Datsun 240Z Pages

Maybe not so good... Drew, sorry, I just had to take all your pictures down (they were the largest of the ones I was hosting for others) as I ran out of space and needed more (for work stuff, no less!) I've put the ones back up that pertain to your exhaust and TBI. They're at: http://members.home.net/pparaska/DrewZ.htm The others I don't have room any longer. You can send pics to SuperDan (dporter1@home.com) so he can add your car to the Member's Rides page, that way everybody could find them easier, plus he has a bit more space than the 10MB I have. Cheers, ------------------ Pete Paraska - 73 540Z - Marathon Z Project pparaska@home.com Pete's V8 Datsun 240Z Pages

The problem with the front frame rails is that they rust from the inside, which makes it hard to tell how bad they are. A screwdriver pressed against it should be the first test, especially above the sway bar mount. Same goes for the rockers. I'll tell you fixing all that (and the other places it would have if these are bad) is a long, depressing process. Let's just say I lived it and never wish to again! [This message has been edited by pparaska (edited January 27, 2001).]

It's 4 lug. I believe the lug holes in the rotors in the rear are 1/2" though. My 280Z stubs have 1/2" ARPs in them though.

quote As many places as possible . No, seriously, you should try to support it in several places ahead of and behind the area. Try to get even weight on all the points with shims. If you're looking for ideas on what/how it's been done, check my site Structural Mods G'luck!

Thanks! I thought about SuperTraps, but I didn't want the noise/backpressure trade off, since I was going for low noise, I'd have lots of back pressure to get it. [This message has been edited by pparaska (edited January 27, 2001).]

Glad to hear you're getting to the bottom of it. The Holley carb-type FPRs are hokey as hell as well. I hate gage manufacturers. I don't know where you got yours, but I know the Autometer stuff can be WAY out of calibration. There kind of pedestrian, so I'm not too surprised, but hell, $65 for an electric temp gage and its off (high at least) by 20F? I bought Mike Kelly's old Street-Comp water temp gage as part of a package deal. I checked it by getting a clean powersupply, my trusty Fluke VOM, a pot of water on the stove (the wife loves this) a laboratory thermometer and a bunch of clip leads. Well, from 180-210, the thing read 20F too high. I figured, hey, it was used, maybe that's it. So I bought a new Pro-Comp electric water temp gage to match the oil filled mechanical Pro-Comp oil pressure gage I got from Mike. Did the same test, and IT'S about 20 degrees too high. I know what your thinking - Pete's laboratory thremometer is off. Nope, I tried another, and then tested against Mother Nature herself. The thermometers read 212F with the water at a full boil! (I'm pretty close to sea level, so water DOES boil in my kitchen very close to 212F) The freaking gage/sender is the problem. I tried varying the supply voltage from 12-14 volts, and it made little difference. Anyway, I broke out the pencil, paper, and Ohm's Law and came up with a pair of resistors to put in series and then parallel to the gage to get it to read dead on from 180 to 210. It's way high below that, but I don't care. Past 212, the math says it should be fine. Basicaly, I had to change the sensitivity and offset of the gage/resistor network to get it to work in the 180-210 range. Not perfect, but workable. Mike's new Autometer gages for his car are on my bench now waiting for me to "calibrate" them. Too bad there's no easy way to adjust them. You have to uncrimp the bezels to make any kind of adjustment, so I'm sticking with putting them in a resistor network. Next time, I'm going to use a mechanical temp gage, as those are supposedly more accurate. BTW, I also bought a 10-70 ohm Ford type Pro-Comp Fuel level gage, and worked out a way to get it to read full and empty when the tank is such. The Older FOrd fuel level senders are pretty close to the same range of resistance as the 240Z/260Z/280Z ones. Waiting to get a full tank of gas before I can finalize it. [This message has been edited by pparaska (edited January 27, 2001).] [This message has been edited by pparaska (edited January 27, 2001).]

This sounds much like the conversion I once had on my car, but never used. It uses a flat bracket, early (79-81) ZX calipers, and late (82-83) discs. It has wheel/caliper interference problems with some wheels, but I took care of that (as shown on that page) by removing some material from the caliper yoke, which is huge. FWIW, here's the link: Hybrid Early/Late 280ZX Rear Disc Brake Swap for 240-280Z

My Exhaust System

I've heard good things about how the Dart Pro 1 aluminum heads work. Check out Edelbrock's site. They have a new head out called the E-tec that supposedly have great chambers and kick the Vortec (for the E-tec 170) and the Fast Burn (for the E-tec 200) heads for flow, mostly on the exhaust. I'm keeping my eye out for tests. New for 2001 ------------------ Pete Paraska - 73 540Z - Marathon Z Project pparaska@home.com Pete's V8 Datsun 240Z Pages

With a bit of polishing, that would be a good magazine article. Great Stuff! SuperDan, I think we might have a tech article here.

...Or you could do this: ...so you can do this:

BLKMGK, damn good point on the solid lifters and knock sensors. My Eclipse retards the timing as soon as a hydraulic lifter starts making noise! PITA! Anyway, I'll be doing a head swap before I'd lay out the money to go to computerized EFI/ignition, as I have ALOT to gain from moving from even double hump heads.

You can run the LEDs at different voltages to get different brightnesses (within specs). This is how the tail lights on some of the new Caddy's work. Looks really sweet with very quick response of the LED to low/high/low when the brakes are tapped or the turn signals are on. Like I said, some place I've seen lately (I think it was one of the hotrod places on line that sell lots of LED lights have a circuit to hook you OE running/turn/brake light wires to in order to drive a single LED array to do this.

I'd be interested, but my situation with the Euro lenses would make mine a custom setup compared to the non-Euro lenses. This looks like a pretty cheap mod with a nice effect. One thing I've always disliked about the Z is that the tail and brake lights are dim on alot of the cars. Probably a combination of sooty lenses and bad ground wiring. Anyway, one thing this mod will do is allow us to fix that problem.

Scottie - no doubt that's a great power mover (the GN motor). Has anybody come up with a way to put manual trans behind one? I know the auto is great for drag racing, but I (and others) prefer a stick on the street/road course.

Sundance, that last bit about getting rid of the strut rod - AZ Z car's front control arm does just that and uses a pivot that mounts in the T/C bracket bracket for the aft leg of the A-arm.

That's the all-white SE? White wheels too? Pretty rare these days I think. If so, that's a Viscous R200, like James Thagard has cobbled into an early Z and put different CV shaft parts (AMC?) together to work instead of the clutch R200 and 280ZXT CV shafts.

Awesome, Lone. I'd seen those kinds of pics before, but having it here on line is great!

Some of Wilwood's hats are "undrilled" - Doesn't Coleman have that option? Drilling for lug holes ought to be easy for just about any machine shop, although I'd prefer one with a rotary table.

Let me help hit the 100 mark... AWD, yeah you have losses, but it's not only the Soob kids that have AWD. The Talon/Eclipse/(early-90s)Laser have an AWD option. Some are running in the low 9's (1/4 mile) DSM time slips - nothing to sneeze at! Anyway, I agree, start with a boosted configuration if you can - ask John Scott what it means when you stretch a NA bottom end with lots of boost! [This message has been edited by pparaska (edited January 26, 2001).]

Hi UncleEd 1) Wrapping headers is viewed by many as a great way to keep the heat in the pipes, but also a great way to make them brittle piles of scrap metal in short order. Metallic/Ceramic coating is used by many to reduce under hood heat, but it's not as effective, but better than nothing. 2) Try checking the search engine here for "aerodynamic" in the subject line. There was a thread a while ago talking about under hood heat venting, etc. Never mind, here's the URL to the thread: Aerodynamic data for 240Z needed & cooling idea 3) I have A/C using a custom A/C compressor mount off of the JTR left engine mount. But anything can be made to work. There is the issue of the fenders getting in the way of some A/C condensor setups if the wrong brackets are used. You're not dreaming, A/C will fit in the Z with the V8. Check my site (below) for pictures in the "Various Pictures" area for my setup. ------------------ Pete Paraska - 73 540Z - Marathon Z Project pparaska@home.com Pete's V8 Datsun 240Z Pages

260 and 280 struts are different in several ways. Tube diameter and gland nut is one difference, height of tube may be another.

I agree - have it professionally welded in. Another issue is the Autopower location of attaching a roll bar - it sucks. The inner fender is a lousy choice. The roll bar main hoop should be landed either at the juncture of the rear of the inner rocker and floor, or the inner wheel well and raised area of the floor just above the hat stiffener below the floor that the front diff crossmember bolts to. Of course, use large plates to spread the load out. And tie the rearward supports off the top of the main hoop back to the tops of the strut towers. This picks up the vertical suspension loads that come through the strut isolator. The inner fender is too compliant to transfer those loads through. Sure, it'd probably work for a roll over (maybe not), but having it tied down to the strut tower is much better.

I've been looking around at Jameco and http://www.alliedelec.com . LEDs brightness is measured in mcd, or milli-candela = 0.001*candela Incandesent bulbs are rated in mean spherical candela (MSCD). Note that MSCD here = 1000 mcd. I checked the output of the 1157 tail light bulb (I think the 240Z specs a different one, but this is a common replacement) at: Sylvania 1157 specs and as you can see the running light filament is 3 candela (3000 mcd) and the brake/turn filament is 23 candela (23000) So it'd take 2 2000 mcd Ultra Bright Red LEDs (Jameco PN 152805) to do the running light filament intensity, and 11 or so of them to do the turn signal filament intensity. That says nothing about the viewing angle dependence of the LEDs, but that's probably not important. Anyway, the 152805 is $.29 a piece for 10 to 100, so it's a pretty cheap deal. Do like Morgan said and get some perforated electronics board and solder them up on a strip. Then you'd need to figure out how to drive the different modes (running versus brake/turn). I kind of like the way the Caddy's lights just get brighter going from running to brake light. It'd be cool to have a circuit to vary the driver voltage to the LEDs based on the mode of operation. I think I've seen something like that on one of the sites for harleys or street rod use of LEDs. White emitting LEDs are stinking expensive. Yellow is about the same as red, for my Euro tail light lenses.