pparaska

Man, you're not kidding. I was at Summit Point (East Coast US Road Race Track) a few years ago (spectating) for the York Z Convention track day. Hearing those triple weber cammed L6s at full song is beautiful music!

Hey Ron, How about trailering that bad boy BB Z of yours down to the Southeast Z Shootout ? Only half kidding! JapTin, you're welcome too, but coming from Ca is asking alot!

Ross, I don't recall. I'll investigate the Vizard head porting book - it's in there somewhere. Racing bikes! That's cool. Nice to get respect from a quick bike rider!

Swapping the diff alone into the car is easy. The mustache bar from a 280Z with an R200 is needed, and if it's a pre-72 Z, then a rear transverse brace is needed as well. I think you can turn around the R180 diff mount, but it's better to probably replace it with an R200 front mount or do some of the custom front mounts as seen in this forum (search the forum) if you have alot of torque. The 280Z (u-joint) halfshafts will bolt right into the Z with this diff. I think the stock 240Z (R180) ones will as well. CV shafts from the 280ZX Turbo and 2+2 can swap in easily. I have a page on how to do that HERE

Guys, Mardi at http://raxles.com is very accomodating and likes these kinds of projects. He might be a source for new CVs and can get custom "sticks" (shafts) as well. Just another resource.

225's will fit with stock springs with the correct offset even on 14 inch wheels, in the stock fender.

(I don't know your capabilities or knowledge in this area, so I hope it doesn't sound like I'm talking down to you. I'm just trying to help and provide some advice, below. Sorry if you know all this stuff. I'm also anxious to hear any more diagnosis theories and methods so I can learn too.) O.k. Compression is good (but a bit low - I'd want to see more like 180-220 psi of cranking pressure for a hot motor). First would be to make sure the fuel mixture is not excessively rich or lean. A tailpipe exhaust gas analyzer or O2 sensor (preferably wide band) at a performance shop should be able to help here. I've heard that lead substitute addtives can allow spark plug reading like in the days of leaded fuel. If the timing is jumping around, I'd check the advance weights and springs for sticking, etc., wiggle the shaft to check for excessive play, and possibly just swap in a known good distributor from a buddy, instead of buying one. After this, run the engine through it's rpm band while watching the timing. If this checks out and you have plenty of spark, you can feel confident that you have good ignition throughout the rpm range. Now to getting air/fuel into the combustion chambers. Instead of pulling the motor, yank the accessories off the front of the motor, the water pump and timing cover, and degree in the cam, while redoing the TDC mark with a piston stop. This will show you if the timing jumped and you'll be able to assess the timing chain/gears wear and slackness. I'd also check the lift on each valve to see if any are wiped. Also, do a close inspection of the valvetrain to determine if the valves are sticking or if there's any interference in the valvetrain. If all that check out, you can be assured that the valve events are happening as they are supposed to. Now you should have confidence that you have good mixture, compression, good ignition throughout the rpm band, and that the engine is breathing correctly. After that, you know everything you need to be able to find what's wrong. There's a ton of stuff that can be done to diagnose the motor before resorting to pulling it. Some of it obviously must be done with the motor either in the car or on a dyno. Dyno time isn't cheap, but it's easier and more lucrative for the shop. Hope that helps.

Someone makes a tool for doing this. It bolts to the hub where the wheel bolts. It has an arm that sticks out toward the fender lip, with a hard roller on it. You adjust the preload on the arm and rotate the arm with the hub to neatly roll the fender lip. Supposedly Tire Rack rents this. It's possibly available elsewhere.

I agree - find out what's wrong with the one you have. The parts list spells a fairly powerful small block to me. Jt1 gave a great checklist of the three things to make sure are right: compression pressure, correct vavle timing, a good spark at the right time, and fuel. Make sure it's not too rich or lean at WOT. I have a buddy that had a GT500 Shelby Mustang with the 428CJ. We always thought it was powerful. After a few too many speeding tickets, he sold it to his dad that lived several states away to make the judge happy. His dad took it to a Shelby specialist in Florida that found that he was missing a 1/2 inch of throttle linkage opening at WOT with the pedal to the floor. I never got a ride in it after that, but that must have made some difference!

Actually, I've read Vizard's book on porting SBC heads, and his latest article in Grass Roots Motorsports magazine where he says a bit of a step at the BOTTOM of the exhaust port into the header pipe actually can help keep some reversion at bay.

Do you mean for the SBC? PAW http://www.pawinc.com/ , Jegs, Summit, many others. Just go to the local parts store that the shops use and they can get you one.

I like it! Makes me think about changing mine from gloss black!

Just an FYI, NHRA rules say no more that 12" of rubber fuel hose in the entire system.

Thank you again, gentlemen for widening my musical spectrum. I'm listening to the jukebox on www.thevines.com right now and liking it. Jimi Hendrix. Yeah, anything from him. If the guy had only lived longer - I can't imagine what else we'd be listening to now. Try to imagine what the 70s and 80s would have been if he'd stayed with us. I can only imagine a TOTALLY different music scene - one I can really enjoy imagining. To say he's my guitar hero is putting it lightly. I totally agree with "All along the watch tower". Damn, I need to get tunes in the Z! Sorry to ramble. Great thread!

Man that guy does some nice work! And you STOLE that system for that price! If I charged myself what I make at work for my exhaust, I'd have MANY times more into my system, BEFORE it was coated. Heck of a deal and a really sweet setup. Let us know what you think of the X-pipe effect (smoothing, evening of the exhaust - really noticable at WOT and mid to high rpm).

Yeah, alot of people are going with the Edelbrocks. But look at the application. It's probably a heavy muscle car. Look at the thread "mechanical or vacuum secondary" or something like that. It's a few weeks old. Anyway, I did the vac sec thing, then double pumper Holley. Quick answer: for a light car like a V8 Z, do the double pumper. That's my opinion anyway. Funny, I always thought the Holley was pretty easy to understand. Anyway, is kind of like a small block chevy V8 - everybody makes parts and mods for them.

All you need to know for that swap is here: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pparaska/240ZCVHalfshaftConversion.htm Kudos to Terry Oxandale and Jim Biondo for showing me how to do that!

Pretty neat trick! What's cool about that is that you could drive the car on the street, with the wheelie bar off, and with some sticky tires, it might not be too bad. Well, turn down the boost a bunch!

The mufflers I used are a 20" case, with 25.5" overall length. I had to cut off the nipple right near the body on the input and use a section of a 7" OD 2.5" pipe donut (see my web site) to get the pipe to turn into the muffler and fit behind the rear control arm. That said, I'd think you could fit a 21" overall muffler in there with not alot of trouble. You may have to cut some or all of the nipple off the muffler, but that's easy. Mock it up, and figure out the space need to turn about a 90 on the 3" pipe, looking at the specs in a Summit catalog, etc. for the mandrel J tubes.

...which is why RELAYS are such an important upgrade for anything that pulls more than a couple of amps in the Z. I have MANY relays in my Z, even to the HEI distributor, with a nice fat wire coming from the battery cable on the Ford Solenoid/Switch.

Well, I saw a nice one in a shop that makes hydraulic lines, etc. It was over $100, but it indexes the tool and tubing so that the flare is always symmetric, which the cheap ones don't do. You can just buy lines made to a specific length, with the flare nuts installed with machine made flares. That's what I did with Classic Tube. Then I found out about the "nose" on the nut, so some ones I bought later to fix a design change in my system were ordered with the nose cut off the fitting. They said they (Classic Tube) can't source 10mmx1mm flare nuts without the nose, so they have to turn them off in a lathe - which they charge you for.

If anybody near MD is interested, I have a set just like in Mike's second picture in my basement. I bought them at a yard years ago, but they sat too high in the car for me. If anybody wants them, make me an offer.

I think it was Mike Kelly that said that it's hard to tell just when the 260Z went to the larger 280Z stubs. If you have connections, and can get them cheaper than what Ross does them for, go for it. But he also can set you up with the adapters welded very nicely to the 280Z companion flanges.

Search on headlight and relay. Probably in the Misc Forum. I know I've laid out the circuit (maybe in words only) here before. But the grounds run back to the hi/lo beam switch, on the 240Z, anyway. It's the screwiest (new word!) circuit you could imagine. Truly a stupid design.

O.K. So it's not hydraulic, but it's still preloading. Is that not still illegal in the NHRA, etc. I be alot of tracks are going to start to ban it as well, as it's unsafe and tear s up the track.