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Regulators are dynamic devices. They are not able to compensate a static pressurized system. The fact is that the fuel pump limits the peak pressure in a dead-headed fuel system. The regulator is only able to regulate pressure when there is a significant amount of fuel being fed into the carby. The problems arise when the carby no longer draws enough fuel to allow the regulator to do it's job. Fuel pressure will tend to rise above the regulator set pressure when the car is idling or the pump is running with the engine off. This is not a problem unless the fuel is forced past the inlet needles in your carby. Under high load conditions the regulator is able to limit pressure to the set level. The whole idea of a bypass regulator is to eliminate the pressure rise when demand is low. This also allows the use of EFI pumps with much higher internal bypass pressures(50-60PSI). The pump is no longer the peak pressure limiting device. The regulator is able to bypass 100% of the fuel flow when demand is low to nil. Pressure creep is non-existant in a system with a large enough return line. The return line can(and probably should) be as large as the feed line in this case. The regulator will use this bypass only as needed to keep a constant feed pressure to the carbys under all circumstances. Some of these bypass regulators have a port on the reference side of the pressure valve. This port is normally vented to atmosphere but it can also be hooked up to intake vacuum to allow even more sophisticated pressure control. Whenever engine vac is high the difference between the feed pressure and reference pressure increases and lowers the fuel pressure to the carby. This allows a dynamic control of fuel pressure over a wide range of conditions. It will add a great deal of complexity to finding the "right" setting for the preload spring. The idea is to allow higher than normal feed pressure to the carb when demand is extremely high. The regulator will drop to a much lower pressure when the engine is idling. This allows compensation for smaller than ideal lines, or smaller inlet needle sizes. The peak pressure is set with the vacuum line removed and the reuglator sees atmospheric pressure. The peak pressure must still not be high enough to force fuel past the inlet needles. The low pressure setting is irrelevant due to the low fuel demands when the intake vac is high. In operation these systems will show very different characteristics on you fuel pressure guage... 1. The dead head system: Fuel pressure will tend to rise when the engine is idling or cruising. 2. The bypass system: Fuel pressure is rock steady under all circumstances. 2a. The vac referenced bypass system: Fuel pressure rises under high demand and drops under low demand. Just like it should!!!! The return line in the stock Datsun carby fuel rail is MUCH smaller than the feed line. There is also a tiny orifice in the return tube to limit the amount of flow to nearly nothing. This is NOT a regulated return line. It is a low-flowing, constant-bypass to eliminate vapor lock, or at least allow the vapors to clear the lines quickly without being forced through the carbys when starting the car HOT. This was a band-aid fix to a common problem among old cars with old technology and thinking.

I have finally buttoned up the cell permanently. The tank and hose system has held enough pressure to balloon it slightly for 2 days soo far. I am going to let it sit for weeks if it will hold it that long.. It should. The hoses are to spec. NO POLY just good old vinyl... or was it the other way around? In any case, The clear tubing is from a circle track supplier for that purpose. The rubber hose is just that... Rubber with lots of carbon. I still need to add the anti-static grounding for the entire fuel system. The original plastic S-30 filler neck has been reinforced with a piece of exact sized(on the lathe) 6061 aluminum tubing crammed inside it where the clear hose clamps around the outside. I also deburred and removed the flash from the outside of the original S-30 filler tube for a perfect fit. I had to TIG a pice of 2.5" 6061 aluminum tubing at a 45 degree angle to make this even come close to working. I realize that the main hose is nearly level for half the run. It will work just fine with the 1.25" fill-vent hose. It expells air right at the top of the neck. It also has a nice rise to keep splashes from shooting up the smaller hose. Overall there is about an 8" difference between the filler neck and the top of the tank. I had to add a fuel level sender in an already busy fill-plate. I managed to get it to fit and clear everything... WHEW!!! You know what they say... Measure a 2-dozen times then cut. There is not one damn millimeter to spare, I don't think I even have a half a millimeter of clearance on that. The $200 senders come in incremental lengths. You have to cut it to exact size for your installation. Not too bad but you cannot flex the sender tube too much or it will come loose. careful cutting and deburring. It was a multi step process but it came out just fine. I had to remove the foam and cut a hole for the sender tube. There is a baffle right where the sender goes to the bottom(DAMMIT!) It ends up with a little clearance on the sump side of the baffle(thank god). thats it for now... The Z-car will not debut in Oct. as I had wished. My BMW M3 blew it's headgasket and is currently sucking the money out of my wallet faster than any Z ever did. The M3 will be attending at CMP in Oct. in it's place.

Very nice! I would get a reverse threaded jam nut for the other end(Ace Hdwr and most Lowes). The threads will have some slop in them that the jam nut tightens up. That's just me though.

The front end of the ZX looks like it has "Mater's" buck-teeth.

Well... You have a lot of things to consider. The front clip lighting, Alternator, Vreg, main power, front-clip gorunds, and a few other handy things are in the engine bay harness. You need those lights if nothing else. You could trace all of the wires you need back to the connector under the dash and cut them all off there. Then you can combine the LS1 harness and the original main plug(and light connectors) into one new harness to keep it neat and NEW. What are you going to do about an alternator? Modern alternators like the CS-130/130D used in late model GM vehicles can do all sorts of fancy things to regulate power. They are not at all like an early SI- type alternator. The modern alternators were designed to give the ECM all sorts of feedback about the car's power management. The ECM can use this information to change idle speed to meet electrical demands when sitting still in traffic. The ECM can momentarily disable the alternator's field-coils to reduce the parasitic HP loss at high RPMs and Full Throttle. There is also a square-wave RPM output from a modern alternator's V-regulator.

Try hooking the big ground so that it's lug is actually in contact with the starter housing. In other words get the washer and bolt stack so that the cable lug is the first thing against the starter housing.

Very slow cranking gives it away. You have a poor block to chassis ground. Look for the big black wire that usually runs from the Battery NEG post to the bolt that holds the starter on the block. Clean it, replace it, or go find it in that box of parts and install it.

Hehehe... So I stand a good chance of seeing if the filter can withstand 100+PSI without blowing apart! Maybe I should get a billet filter housing. I will check it out when I pull it back apart to clean everything. The entire system can be easily disassembled. I would like a filter-boss bypass, but It is my understanding that a metered hole would actually bypass less oil than a bypass valve in some cases. I am considering finding a good place to drill a 0.250" hole to allow a constant metered bypass with no spring loaded valve at all. I could do that in the aluminum adaptor plate without touching the block at all.

Thanks DavyZ and Pete. It means a lot!!! Grumpy posted this on Chevytalk last month. I found this searching the interweb and look who posted the most detailed information. http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/192284/ This is the internal filter bypass I am talking about. This may just be a general idea that is misleading. I swear I read something... This picture is of a later model SBC with a spin on style filter. The later model bypass is shown in the closeup pic below. You can see the rolled/crimped edges of the spin-on filter and the typical bypass valve on the left. Maybe Im crazy and I don't have any desire to tear this 327 down and check it all out. I don't have access to another early block. It is all a wash anyway because one way or the other there is still a filter bypass in the filter-boss. ...

OK.. I just got off the phone with a tech at Canton RP. The EPC valve is a ONE-WAY valve that opens to allow discharge(2-way) only when the pressure drops below the set pressure on the switch. In operation the EPC valve will ALWAYS allow oil to flow INTO the Accusump. This means that the accusump air/precharge guage will register the highest oil pressure attained during normal operation of the engine. The EPC valve will only allow the oil to discharge into the engine when the oil pressure drops below the switch set pressure. Whe the oil pressure comes back above the switch set pressure the EPC valve closes and will only allow flow INTO the accusump. The idea behind this is that the Accusump will discharge MORE oil into the engine than a typical Manual or basic electric valve. The accusump will fill up to the highest attained oil pressure and hold that pressure until it is really needed. The manual valve will allow constant fluctuation in charge pressure instead of pumping up to the highest attained pressure and holding it until needed. The basic electric valve is more resitrictive than the EPC valve. They only intended the basic electric valve to be used as a PRE-OILER. For racing applications you must use either the EPC valve or the high-flowing Manual valve.

Thanks guys!!! Grumpy and crew... I really wanted to get a few things sorted out about the oil system pertaining to the early 1964 SBC blocks. This block had a canister filter and it has an internal bypass. First tech subject: It is my understanding that the internal bypass starts opening at 7-10 PSI. This effectively short-circuits the entire filter boss and sends oil from the pump directly to the cam gallery. Is this correct? Are all SBC engines internally bypassed this way? Does the oil pump have a bypass for overpressure as well? Technically this means that there are 3 bypasses in a typical SBC set up: 1 inside the oil pump to relieve pressure 1 inside the newer spin on filters(was this inside the canister as well?) 1 inside the block above the filter boss/mounting pad. Do I have this right???? The other item on the list for discussion is the actual pressure in the external oil cooler lines. If I have this right then the entire system will see at least as much pressure as the gauge reads. The only difference being the pumping loss and pressure drop across the filter, hoses, and cooler. This means that the external components will see MORE pressure than the gauge reads. This is limited by the internal block bypass that opens when the differential pressure across the filter boss exceeds 7-10 PSI. To sum up: The gauge is actually reading the pressure at the end of the entire system, minus the pumping losses in the external components and hoses. There is no way to actually see if the internal bypass is opening. We just have to use the largest, highest flowing external components possible to minimize pumping losses through the external components.

That is one goofy looking rear end. It looks like something from the animated movie "Robots"... LOL!!!! God those are ugly cars.

It should be operable for the CMP event. I hope. The Fram filter is for mockup. I will run a WIX or Purolator or Mobile1 with 3 gallons of HD Rotella oil. The Electric EPC valve and switch combo has some hysteresis built in. there is a 30PSI activation pressure and a higher closure pressure.

Next, Gauges and senders. I have a few pics of the various senders I used. Temperature sender in the oil pan. Oil pressure sender and low pressure warning switch. I used a steel short nipple(for strength) with a brass tee, and a 1/8" NPT hose. The sender-can is held in a conduit clamp. I lined the clamp with rubber and used a jam nut to hold proper tension and angle. The sender seems to find ground through the high pressure hose braid. If I have any trouble with ground I will simply remove the rubber on the clamp. This is the water temp sender on the intake. The thermostat housing contains the SPAL fan-controller sender. The dash gauge should read actual engine temps and the SPAL fan controller will get open thermostat temps. ...

Now for the Oil cooler and associated parts. The oil cooler I decided to use is the B+M Hi-Tech cooler with a 9.5" fan http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=BMM%2D70297&N=700+4294924500+400004+4294854215+115&autoview=sku The cooler has 1/2" NPT ports and is a stacked plate design with 14 rows. I decided the fan was needed because of the stalled air-flow in the front clip of the car. Otherwise I would need more ducting for the oil cooler. The Fan must be mounted behind the cooler(non reversable), and the cooler must be mounted so that it will purge air. In addition, the cooler has a thermal switch mounted in the inlet header. The switch must be on the inlet side to get hot enough to activate at the preset 175 degrees. I also insulated the switch and the entire inlet header to make sure that the switch will activate when it is supposed to. Here is a pic of the cooler mount. It is rubber isolated and it is spaced away from the radiator. The oil system begins with the Block adaptor. This is the engine block, spin-on adaptor I used with 1/2" NPT ports. http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productselection.asp?Product=1230 I needed to use a street elbow from the hardware store so the oil hoses would not interfere with each other. The brass street elbow has a nice radiused passage that I cleaned up with some porting tools and a die grinder. It is clocked just enough to allow the adaptor to be removed without changing the angle on the elbow. The engine oulet hose runs forward and up to the inlet side of the remote oil filter. This is mounted at an angle to allow easy removal of the spin on filter. It is very close to the frame rail. The filter outlet hose runs forward through the front clip to the "hot" side of the thermal bypass housing. This is a Mocal unit with Male AN-10 ports and a very high flow capacity. http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productselection.asp?Product=1226 It is located next to the Oil cooler in the front clip of the car. It is mounted at a slight angle to allow the hoses to relax to the minimum bend radius with the short runs. The mount is also somewhat flexible and allows the housing to rotate freely a few degrees. The oil is returned to the engine via a long hose that runs to the firewall, though a check valve, and to a Tee. The Tee allows oil to flow to the engine or to/from the Accusump. You might have noticed a fair amount of insulation on the various hoses and wires. I have also covered the braided steel hoses with Nylon braid to prevent them from sawing everything in the car to pieces. ...

I figured some people might like to see what I came up with for my oil system. I was just going to leave it alone, screw a filter on the block, and be done with it. I tend to jump in the deep end with most things, this got a little crazy for a Time-Trials track car. This is still in mock up stage. I still need to remove everything and flush out every hose and seal many of the NPT fittings. I have applied most of the thermal insulation but there are still some short end covers waiting for final assembly. The hoses and fittings are all AN-10 stainless braid from Summit Racing. I have not actually measured the amount of oil the system will hold, but here are some guesses. The engine has a 6 quart pan The full-size filter holds 1 quart The Accusump holds 3 quarts The oil cooler might hold 1/2 quart The thermal bypass housing holds 1/3 quart The hoses, tee and fittings might hold another 1 quart. maybe more though... I figure there are at least 12 quarts of oil in this system. That is 3 GALLONS!!!! I very seriously doubt I will be able to change more than 8-10 quarts by discharging the accusump, draining the pan, and changing the filter. I decided to use an Accusump from Canton Racing Products. They offer several sizes. I used the 3 quart model. I used the Canton band-clamp mounts and bolted them to the passenger side rocker rail. Since I remotely mounted the Accusump cylinder on the passenger floor, I decided to move the Air/Precharge pressure gauge to a visible location near the center cluster. Manual valves are typical for racing applications but I wanted something a little more high tech. I chose their electric EPC valve with the 30 PSI switch. I have a dash mounted toggle switch to disable the unit, otherwise it operates without driver control. There are several warning indicator lights for the accusump as well as 2 different beepers. The Electric EPC system works like this... The Ignition circuit feeds power to the dash mounted switch. There is a multi-color LED above the dash switch. This is routed to the EPC valve mounted on the Accusump end cap. 1. The light is green when the unit is enabled and full. 2. The light turns bright blue and a LOW-tone beeper sounds whenever the unit operates. ie. pressure drops below 30 PSI. 3. The light turns red and a louder HIGH-tone beeper sounds when the oil pressure in the engine block drops below 7 PSI. There is also a very bright light in the Tachometer housing for the LOW pressure warning below 7 PSI. The Accusump is plumbed into the oil inlet port to the block, close to the engine oil inlet. There is also a check valve to force flow towards the engine inlet. The hose on the left runs to the Accusump. The hose on the right is from the cooler/filter returning oil to the block. The bottom hose runs directly to the engine block adaptor. That covers the Accusump hookups... next the cooler and remote filter.

I am planning on doing less tin-work in front of the radiator. I chose to carefully seal each item to the front clip. The radiator and fan are mounted and sealed. You can see the top sealing lip to the hood(seal not installed yet). The side holes will have 2.5" brake ducts. The oil hoses and wiring holes will also be sealed with foam. I will have the upper "splitter" to the top of the airdam to seal the rest of the front clip. All of the foam used is UV and chemical rated and it will not soak up moisture. The foam is from skylight installations and intended to be exposed to the elements for decades. The rubber seals are used wherever possible and they are typical rear-hatch sealing lips that I cannibalized for the front end. The oil cooler in front of the radiator has it's own rear-mounted cooling fan with a thermal switch in the cooler header tube. I insulated the bottom header to keep the fan switch as hot as the fluid entering the cooler. There is also a high flow capacity, bypass thermostat for the oil system. The upper fan mounts are completely independent of the radiator mounts. Both items can move in relation to each other and the chassis. The upper fan mounts only hold the fan the correct distance from the radiator core. The lower fan mounts support the fan's weight. Radiator mount ears with rubber isolators in the factory S-30 holes. Lower radiator sealing lip. This was the best approach to allow airflow through the lower protruding potion of the radiator core. This still seals the airflow through the front of the radiator opening. My front lower crossmember is chock full of holes and will allow free flow to the bottom rows of the core.

Brake ducts or cooler ducts on the FFR coupe.

I went through this on one of my S-30s. Removing the tube and placing a "pop" filter on top may make a mess of your engine. I had quite a bit of blowby that misted everything on top of the engine with oil during track duty. A turbo may make this even worse. I had quite a lot of vacuum flow with the crankcase being evacuated from both the top and bottom. It kept my aircleaner housing clean and my engine external clean. Most of the flow went into the exhaust system. The exhaust evac tubes can be found as weld-in kits by Mr. Gasket and Moroso. They have high flow with limited vacuum pressure. They work well with the PCV system in all conditions. The PCV works most effectively at high manifold vacuum. When the throttle is wide open the exhaust evac tubes work the best. This was a VERY effective system on my car. It was clean enough to eat off of after an entire season of track duty. I ended up running the PCV system and the tank vent system entirely. In addition I installed an exhaust evac tube in the collector and plumbed the top valve-cover-vent to the exhaust tube.

The more air going over the car the better. It is only countered by the fact that the area of highest velocity is the area of lowest pressure. You dont want to create any more lift. The idea behind the extended-width windshield is the get the air past the open window that is required for most track duty. A wider lip pushes the air further out and extendeds the distance rearward that it comes back into the window's plane. Flushing the quarter glass and moving the front edge of the quarter glass forward would improve the airflow along the sides of the car. The existence of the drip rail may actually improve performance in this area on this car. Most cars spill the air from the top to the sides. The form-over-function design of the S-30 body allows uncontrolled spillover from the sides and top surfaces. Hell, there is even spillover between the bottom and sides. The spillover changes from the front to the rear of the body. It diverges at the windshield in front and then converges back over the rear deck. The vortex generators at the rear edge of the roof seemed to reduce spillover on the rear hatch. They also made the various spoilers slightly more effective. Perhaps some VGs could be applied to the hood to produce similar results. The problem to overcome is the stalled mass of air in front of the windshield. That might disrupt any effect the vortexes might have. The stalled air has the benefit of acting like an extended/raked windshield. There is always a tradeoff without a completely new design.

The drip rails are an important part of the upper structure of the car. I would seriously reconsider "shaving" them unless you plan on a full cage for your car. I was seriously considering an Aero windshield that sat on top of the original mounting position and allowed the windshield to extend past the drip rails.

Man that sucks. Your girl did the right thing, you should be proud of her. It also sounds like the fire department was careful with your investment. The race track fire brigades will blast it with Soda and really ruin everything in there. Thank god they used water on your car. There are a great many un-fused connections in the Datsun harness. I have brought up some issues that can arise when doing something as simple as bypassing the coil resistor. There are still plenty of things that can go wrong even without changing anything from stock. My approach has been to cover and protect every single wire no matter how insignificant it may seem. The smaller the wire the more likely it is to catch fire if it is shorted.

That looks great. Very nice mod. It was unclear if a slightly taller lip really helped all that much. We went right to the Whale-Tail which added a great deal more area and height. I am all for the more is better approach. But the best by far with the lowest drag penalty was the Wing Type spoiler. We had to set the rear edge of the wing as low as it would go. This was due to the airflow moving DOWN the hatch instead of level with the ground. If you really wanted to try something that might payoff with lower drag than the lip spoilers. Extend the upper rear lip of the car. Imagine something more like the California wing that MSA sells. look at the rear spoilers on Land Speed Record Camaros. They extend them rearward more than upward. The rear lip of the hatch is curved in every dimension. It is very hard to get aluminum bent to properly fit the rear-edge of the hatch. It might be easier to try this with a Land-Speed-Record style extension.

The main complaint people have pertaining to their new track suspension set ups is that the car is squirrely/trammels/darts under braking. These are all trade-offs when setting a street car up for high-grip track-duty. The next compaint comes when they wear their tires funny on the street.