bjhines

Yarn is the way to fly... It is pretty simple... 4" lightweight string/yarn, tape to hold yarn, if yarn flys out of hole then air is flowing out.. if yarn dives into hole the air is going IN, if yarn lays across hole then the hole might as well not be there. covered holes will not act like the openings... you will only get a general idea of pressure differential where the tape puckers.

The A-pillars need to be wider in the front. This will help keep airflow from diving into the open windows. This will generally clean up airflow across the sides of the car. Replace the windshield with Lexan.... but instead of mounting it where the original windshield went... Make it wider... wide enough to widen the A-pillars past the drip rail edges. You could heat-form the lexan to make it bend near the A-pillars and act as a fairing across the A-pillars.The original windshield gasket could be used as an O-ring to seal the interior of the car(instead of the conventional mounting method)...

I must bring up the point about weight. I have Tokico blues and MSA blue springs on one of my 240Zs. It has been lightened by typical bumper and accessory removal(2499lbs with 8 gal. of gas and me in it). My car has plenty of travel even in the worst case situations(like the exit from the downhill esses at road atlanta or flat out on NC Motor Speedway banked-ovals). I can jump the curbing and I have had some offs through the traps. I have seen at least 2 other Z cars with the same spring+shock combination that were riding on their bumpstops. These cars were show shine cruisers with all kinds of extra stuff weighing them down. One of them was a 260Z and I think the other was a 1973 240Z. Air-conditioning, big stereo, big battery, full bumper-overriders, extra sound damping(made the doors feel like they had lead in them), full carpet and floormats on top of that, heat/sound pad on the underside of the hood, etc... You have to keep in mind the weight of your car as well.

I had another complete unit to guide me. I really have not taken very many reference pics during this entire project. I have several 1972-73 240Zs for reference.

It is interesting that Nissan would design new parts that were nearly always backwards compatable with the older parts. The 1972 240Z is a totally different car from the 1978 280Z. but nearly every part can be swapped from one to the other. Things like the control arms are neat designs. The corner marker lights and many interior bits fit on many other Nissan cars spanning a decade period. The brake bracketry and harware can be BOLTED on nearly any Nissan spanning nearly 40 years. Subaru still uses the Fuji Heavy Industries R-series differentials that were used in the 1970s 240Zs. We have found that many other differentials in many other Japanese cars will fit in the Z cars. I have owned many important Japanese cars including the heavyweight mid 1990s Toyota Landcruiser and the mid1980s Toyota MR2. These too are amazing vehicles to own. I have been so spoiled by these wonderful cars that I cuss my American Chevy Z-71 pickup truck evey day I drive it. I have owned VERY FEW American cars... I have been disgusted by every aspect of the American designs. My Chevy truck(soon to be replaced by a Titan) is only a few years old with less than 70,000 miles and it has suffered a laundry list of failures that did not occurr in 15 years and 300,000 miles on ANY of my Japanese cars. The G.D. truck has suffered MAJOR FAILURES of nearly every single system. The interior bits have burned out or broken off on a monthly basis since the week I brought it home from the dealer. I will never buy another vehicle made anywhere but JAPAN for the rest of my life. EVER...

I got several steel splinters in my fingers when I first handled the inner rotors. the edges on the top and bottom are galling and sending little pieces of the pump it's self into the rotors. I think every bit of this is from the rotors themselves.

Damn... 3 years... a few dozen track events... <5K miles on the street. This is a 280ZXT pump that has gradually lost pressure to the point I finally replaced it today. This was not a sudden failure, just a gradual loss of pressure over the past 3 years. I took it to a buddy who races a 240Z ITS car and he said that the oil pumps were a yearly replacement for his car and that my wear was "typical" of what he had seen.

That is NICE!

Venting the sides of the hood to simulate the patially open hood without actually opening it might look something like this. The green is the engine air inlet. This would be the same as the louvered hoods from MSA. This might help more than anyone ever thought. I think it warrants testing a louvered hood in the future.

That thing looks and sounds pretty mean... And the roads you have to drive it on... ohhhhh....

Very NICE!!! I ouwld love to see pics and details of the install.

Nice... I ran mine to the muffler shop like that... It has a long duration cam and it has a more melodic sound with the open header. It sounded like a triplet of Big twin motorcycles at idle. It sounded more like a trombone on steriods at midrange part throttle. It was distorting my eardrums WOT @ 6K....

My thinking is that it transitions the hood into the winshield. This is similar to modern cars with steep hoods and laid-back windshields. cutting the hood and raising it up further forward might just make things worse. How about popping the hood and creating a fillet to transition the winshield over the wiper tray grill. ...

I have been playing with the front end treatment and underhood ideas. I have completely sealed the front opening to the radiator. I have ventilated the sides of the engine compartment(battery and clutch master areas). I plan on ventilating the inspection lids. I have the stock front radiator support to hood sealing frame the came on the 1973 model 240Zs(and the sealing rubber strip). I also copied this shape for my early 240Z. I plan on placing "gill-vents" in the fenders. The area I am puttiing some thought into is the hood it's self. 1. Nissan put a sealing lip on the rear edge of the hood opening. 2. We saw a surprising benefit to aerodynamics when the hood popped up during the tests. My questions are... 1. How is the stock rear sealing lip of any benefit? 2. Is the airflow significantly different when the hood is up 1/2", 1", or 4"?... much higher than 4" will get into the view(with a race seat position). 3. Is the benefit to the hood popping up only present when it can come wayyyy up? 4. Would pinning the hood at the first opening stop get any real effect or would it actually prove detrimental unless it was opened too much to see out past? 5. If this is effective and drivers can still see out the windshield at it's effective height... would there be any need for 280Z hood vents?... or inspection lid vents? or gill vents? or any kind of vent ather than the hood sitting open at the back. 6. How shoud the sides of the hood be treated? 7 If this is tested in the tunnel... We might try entirely different hood shapes. I would like to see the effects of at least 2 different types of wiper-cowl fairings. A. Concave(like a fillet) B. another that is more of a hood-bulge that widens and transitions into the windshield in a more convex manner. I remember seeing people setting the hoods to stay open at the safety stop point at auto-Xs 15 years ago. I remember someone stating that they had problems with radiator cooling with a cowl induction hood that was open to the engine compartment.

It is sort of black right out of the box. It would need painting for a good finish though. The one in my pic is not painted. But it does not look very good in real life.

http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/7AD2/50-1412 looks similar to this one for an earlier 240Z. .

That Macau race car inlet is so Speed Racer/ Mach I... I loved that show....

UMMMM.... you must hold the pinion still while turning one side shaft. An easier way to appoach this may be to simply TRY to turn the side shafts in opposite directions... A clutch type LSD will take considerable effort to overcome the preload on the clutch disks and allow the side shafts to turn opposite each other. This is regardless of pinion rotation. If you can turn the wheels(side shafts) in the opposite directions with little effort then it is an open diff. There is always some internal drag in ANY differential. The difference is that a CLSD will require a lot(>50 ft/lbs) of muscle to turn the side shafts in the opposite directions.

I think I have found R-200 CLSD internal replacement parts!!! Tell me if this is wrong! http://www.mynismo.com/products/?id=3102

If the shake is typical of wheel or tire issues... then have the tires "Road Force" tested to see if they are the problem. Driveline vibrations tend to be a hum as much as a shake.. tire issues are usually lower frequency...

man... They are really dumb people. They are breaking the law(for what it's worth) and being assholes about it. They are completely ignorant of reality. You hold all the cards in this case. You can easily screw up their lives by simply mentioning the circumstances to any number of authorities. Here is what you do. Be nice... or at least tolerant of their actions. do not change the way you act towards them in any way. Give them a few days/weeks to straighten up. If they do not... then report their drug use to the authorities. Just remember that they will face a huge upset in their lives once this goes down. The police will search their home when they arrest them. This could uncover more serious problems that can snowball. You do not want to be associated with any part of this situation... Keep your thoughts about you in the meantime. These people are living in a cloud.. keep that in mind. They do not have the mental capacity to act this way for very long. A smart person does not smoke pot openly and they certainly don't allow it's use to become a nusance to their neighbors. These people just don't think about what they are doing. MORONS!!!!!! On another note. I would not really consider pot smoke a nusance, there are certainly worse things to overcome. Even nicer neighborhoods can have really annoying issues. Like the nosey grandmother who enforces the HOA lawncare codes to the letter. Hell, you have a car hobby. Some folks can get really pesky about too many cars in the driveway, or even leaving your garage door open most of the day. They can force you to comply with pretty much whatever regulations they had set up when you moved in.

dry or broken universal joints will make squeking noises. Check all of the U-joints... Try oiling them one at a time. You may have to really blast them with penetrating oil to get it under the seals..If the squeak stops then you have found the culprit. please do not assume that the oil will fix the problem. The joints have gone bad if they are squeaking.. oil will stop the noise but it may rapidly accelerate the failure of the joint. It washes bits of broken metal back into the moving parts and then acts like cutting fluid. The joints will fail rapidly even if the oil stops the squeaks.

I would just like to comment that sealing the inlet area to the radiator is first priority. Blocking off the inlet area comes after the inner sealing is perfected. If you block off a significant portion of the frontal area without sealing the inlet. You might significantly reduce flow through the radiator. I only say this because I know that some people will jump in and block off the frontal area without addressing the inlet sealing. That will likely lead to overheating.

late S-30 door bar... 240Z door bar... or lack of... Some of the 280Z doors with the reinforcement will fit on the early 240Z latches. I have seen the late model door strikers on the last models of the 280Zs but they seem to be rare. Most 280Z doors are interchangable with the earlier models.

Tom, Is the end cover on that motor vented with a cooling fan inside? Is the motor housing sealed from the elements? If it is.. What brand did you buy?