RyanT67's 240Z

[madkaw]

Very nice!

[ryant67]

The local track had a test and tune event last night, so I took the opportunity to head to it and do a few drag runs and work on my carb tuning.  Had a blast, but I'm really not impressed with the times I was laying down.  My 60' times need some work, so that explains my slow ET a little, but the car *should* be capable of much better.  I'll be checking my timing this week to confirm it's where it says it is, and double checking some carb things.  My wideband was around low 11's to mid 12's during the run on the timeslip, which is a bit rich.  

The previous owner of this engine laid down 188whp on the dyno with SU carbs, stock distributor, and a 2" exhaust system.  Surely my Mikunis, Electromotive ignition, and 3" exhaust should support better numbers.  The answer is probably in the tuning somewhere, dyno time in Spring I guess...  

I'll also be thinking about refreshing my old E31 head and throwing an aggressive Isky cam in it.  Worst case scenario being if I am unhappy with the power, I can just swap heads and maybe wake things up a little.

But hey, the car *is* back on the road and I am enjoying driving it, so it ain't all bad   
 

[ryant67]

Well, the car has been out of Winter storage for a few weeks now and I've managed a little work on it, so here is an update.  

Decided to ditch the Mikuni intake manifold as I didn't like the bend it has in it, and there were some clearance issues with how it raised the carbs up higher in the engine bay.  I picked up a Harada manifold for about $400.  

harada by ryant67, on Flickr

The casting on the Harada is quite rough, and I didn't like the look of the intake runners as they were.  

haradarunner by ryant67, on Flickr

I cut a slot into a piece of 3/8 steel rod, folded some emery cloth into it, then set to work with the power drill.  

flapper by ryant67, on Flickr

A couple of hours of work later, and things were looking a little better.  

runner by ryant67, on Flickr

Off with the old manifold.  

IMG_20160507_161953 by ryant67, on Flickr

And on with the new one!  

bay3 by ryant67, on Flickr

Looks rather excellent, I think.  The car seems to pull a little harder too, but that could just be my imagination.  I did take a little extra care to make sure all of the ports lined up well though, and the new manifold runs a lot straighter and is about an inch longer.  

bay1 by ryant67, on Flickr

I also added a few little finishing touches to the engine bay while I was at it.  Picked up a pair of fresh air ducts off ebay, which will be nice to have when driving on the highway, and added the little black caps to the strut towers.  

bay2 by ryant67, on Flickr

 

[ryant67]

A few notes on the swap to the Harada manifold, as a FYI to anyone reading this and contemplating doing the same.  

I ran into a couple of minor headaches when fitting it:

1] There was a bolt in my thermostat housing that had clearance problems.  I swapped it out for a 1/4" allen plug, easy fix.  
IMG_20160507_174040 by ryant67, on Flickr

2] The studs in my head for the intake manifold weren't long enough for the Harada.  The Mikuni intake has something along the lines of a half inch flange, whereas the Harada is more like 3/4".  I went to the hardware shop and grabbed some M8x1.25 40mm bolts and that did the trick.  

3] The throttle rod that runs to the firewall was too long and made contact with the firewall.  I shortened it to work, easy.  

Other than that, it was all very straightforward.  Quite like the linkage the Harada came with too, and the insulators and great!  

Next up, I'm going to be swapping out the mild Crane camshaft that is in the engine right now for a more aggressive Isky one.  Should hopefully wake things up a little more.  I'm thinking something about the lines of 290-300 duration, and 490-535 lift.  I already have the Schneider retainers, valve springs, and viton valve seals ready.  The cam in my old head was about .520 lift or so, I'll need to check what lash caps it has on it.  

[ryant67]

A few finishing touches to the engine bay, just minor stuff though.  

Painted the starter and the brake booster, as they both had a little surface rust on them.  Just scrubbed them well with a scuff pad until the rust was off, then masked and sprayed with good old Rustoleum matte black.  Re-arranged the ignition leads due to some sloppy routing and contact points.  Ground down the bracket for my magnetic sensor so it better aligns to the trigger wheel, it was a touch too long before.

Painted by fire extinguisher matte black while I was at it, so it no longer sticks out like a sore thumb.  It's there, and I'm thankful, but it looked a little too "hardcore" for my taste when it was bright red.  

I've placed the order for the new camshaft now, so waiting for that to come in, then I'll go ahead and do the swap.  I already have schneider springs and retainers, as well as a clean set of used rockers sitting ready.  

[ryant67]

Had someone back into the car a few weeks ago and the front of the hood got damaged.  Thankfully I was in the car at the time, and the guy was very apologetic and things got settled easily.  Unfortunately my body shop of choice didn't do their best work though...  

Looked good at a glance:

IMG_20160805_193950~2 by ryant67, on Flickr

Mismatched paint and no blending:

IMG_20160801_064218 by ryant67, on Flickr

IMG_20160731_175515 by ryant67, on Flickr

Primer overspray on the cowl:

IMG_20160731_175929 by ryant67, on Flickr

I had them do some rust repair while they were doing the hood work.  I bought some tabco lower fender panels in an effort to make the job easier.  Here is what I wound up getting back from the shop...

IMG_20160808_144704 by ryant67, on Flickr

IMG_20160731_180026 by ryant67, on Flickr

IMG_20160731_181335 by ryant67, on Flickr

IMG_20160808_144650 by ryant67, on Flickr

IMG_20160808_144655 by ryant67, on Flickr

IMG_20160808_144700 by ryant67, on Flickr

Terrible alignment, and a real lack of attention to detail.  They guy also build up the lower part of the door in an effort to get the fender to align, so should I every install a different fender, the door will now not align with it.  What the hell?  I went back in and complained, and they are redoing the work right now.  Very anxious about this, and really hoping they get it right this time - I paid good money to improve the car here, and the sloppy work has effectively hurt the value of the car.  I wonder if the shop thinks these are still cheap little cars, so they aren't trying too hard?  I should get it back this week, so we will see.  Worst comes to worst?  I'll keep an eye out for some good condition used fenders and have another shop paint them, more money though, sigh...  

[ryant67]

Might as well add a pic of the damage too

[ryant67]

The body shop redid some of the work, and the car looks a lot better off for it.  I'm still not entirely happy with what they did to my car, but I am willing to cut my losses and walk away at this point.  Just an accumulation of little things, such as:
- Repainting the headlight buckets and cowl to match the incorrect paint code they used on the fenders and hood.  The paint is close to the original colour though, and it blends well enough through the doors that the difference isn't noticeable going back to the rear of the car.  So it's annoying, but not the end of the world...
- They clearcoated over some dirty areas of the inner fender by where the hood meets them.  So yeah, now I have a small area that's impossible to clean.  At least it only shows when the hood is open and it's a subtle thing - few will ever notice it I suspect, but f###ing sloppy on their part.  
- They got paint on a bunch of rubber pieces and they didn't remove the cowl for painting, something that would have required 2 minutes and the removal of 4 screws.  Those 4 screws, which were new fasteners, are now painted over.  
- There is a touch of primer overspray on the rocker on the drivers side.  How that passed their inspection is beyond me...  


But anyway, the panel alignment is better, and I did get a lot more paint work done than what I paid for, which is a good thing provided they did the paint work properly and it lasts.  I'll likely strip the entire car down for a proper full paint job in 10 years or so anyway, so this is very serviceable in the meantime.    


While they were doing all of this, I also bought some 6 louver inspection lids from ebay and had them paint them as well.  Quite pleased with them!

[ryant67]

Attended a local car show last week and one of the professional photographers snapped this pic, love it!  

No other Datsuns were at the show, lonely place to own these cars, but I guess it does make my car stand out a little more at least, haha...

[ryant67]

New toys for the car. Isky L6 grind cam, and an Electromotive Xdi, which popped up on ebay for a price I couldn't resist. Shouldn't be too much of a hassle to swap out the old HPV-1 system for it. It will be interesting to see if the new, updated system makes any difference over my very old looking one. Not sure if I'll swap the cam now, or wait until spring, we'll see.

[ryant67]

Got the Xdi installed on Sunday.  Took me about 3 hours, but the majority of that time was spent tidying wiring.  Very straightforward job and the car fired up on the first try, huzzah!

Not that noticeable a difference in performance, but it does look nice, new, and shiny.  No complaints.  I installed the Xdi box into the glove box, so as to avoid it being visible, yet still easily accessible.  I just made up a base for it to mount to with some spare aluminium sheet metal, which also screwed down onto where the glove box itself mounts.  Easy job, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  The coils went where the HPV was mounted.  

[Leon]

Looks tidy, nice job!

[grannyknot]

Very nice, looking pretty badass. When did you get those louvered lids, don't tell me you had those at ZCON and I didn't notice them.

[ryant67]

Cheers guys!  

Grannyknot, I put the louvered inspection lids on about a week after ZCON.  I had a shop do some body and paint work just before ZCON, but I wasn't happy with the standard.  After seeing some louvered lids at ZCON, I decided to quickly order some from ebay and get them painted as well while the shop was fixing their work.  Quite like them - a subtle touch, and it doesn't hurt having somewhere for all that hot underhood air to escape from either  

[ryant67]

The local track puts on what they call "Mix & Match" nights every couple of weeks - laps around a small part of the track and drags runs, pay $30 and do as many as you want between 6pm and 9pm.  I've just been doing drag runs the last few times, working on getting the carbs jetted somewhat properly, but I finally got myself over to the lapping part of it last night.  

This was my first time driving the car on the track, and it shows.  Great fun though, and I'm glad I had a camera to record it to watch again afterwards - really interesting.  The big takeaway for me is to not brake so early into corners, and to learn to apply throttle and drive through them.  This was the last night for this season, but I will be back in the Spring for more of these nights, and will be bugging friends to ride shotgun and give me advice.  Can't wait!  

[ryant67]

An air field reasonably nearby runs arm drop races 3 times a year, and I went to the autumn event yesterday.  Great fun, as it always is, lots of great cars and everyone just enjoying them.  I raced a friends NA Miata, which is supercharged.  He got me by a couple of feet, hell of a fun race!  

 

I'm pretty torn at this point about where to go with my Z.  I have a fair bit of money into it, and somehow I am still only running around 15 seconds in the quarter mile.  Part of it is my driving ability, no doubt, but the car really ought to be capable of better.  I have the Isky cam I bought waiting to go in, which might make a bit difference.  I am also considering contacting Slovers or someone to port up a head for me though.  The head I am running was ported by Whitehead Performance in Toronto, who specialises in these cars, but I don't have any flow figures to back it up.  Everything else is in place though, so presumably the head and camshaft are the final two pieces of the puzzle, carb tuning aside.  

Anyway, a recap of what I am running for parts:

- F54 block w/flat top pistons

- Ported N42 head (10:1 compression)

- 272 Crane cam, pretty mild and only .450 lift (switching to Isky 270 dur. .540 lift cam over the Winter)

- Electromotive XDi ignition set to 18 adv @ 1000rpm, and 36 adv (all in) at 3000rpm

- Triple Mikuni 44's on a cleaned up Harada intake manifold.  Carbs are jetted 55 pilot, 160 main, 210 air, 34 chokes, and 45 pump jets,

- MSA 6-1 header into mandrel bent 3" exhaust like with Magnaflow perf. core muffler

- 4.11 LSD

- Unknown (suspect 77-79) 5 speed transmission

- Tokico Illumina shocks with Tokico springs.  

- 15x6 Panasports with 205/55r15 Yokohama S.Drives (300 treadwear)

Edited September 25, 2016 by ryant67

[ryant67]

Another 'Mix & Match' day at the track, last one of the season.  Did a little better on the track this time, using a few pointers I was given.  Really need a buddy that knows his #### to ride along with me sometime.  I almost ran out of braking room on a few corners on a couple of laps, but thankfully managed to avoid going off.  Still figuring out the limits under hard driving.  

The car will be finding its way into storage pretty soon, or at least whenever the salt trucks come out.  I'm toying with a couple of project ideas for over the Winter, but I'm going to have to pick and choose which I go with:
1. Ditch the Mikunis and convert to EFI using those new Jenvey Heritage DCOEs.  No more buying brass, and no more dealing with the little idiosyncrasies of carburetors.  I worry that my lack of expertise in tuning them is holding the car back, and there doesn't appear to be any dyno shop in the area that knows Mikuni PHHs.  
2. Get a head fully worked over by Slover's, with whatever Isky cam suits the work done.  I have a head that was ported by Whitehead Performance, a reasonably reputable shop in Toronto, but I have no data on what was done with it and how well it flows.  It was work done for the engines previous owner, who had it done about 8 years or so ago, and no paperwork exists anymore.  Whitehead reckons that their porting likely increased flow 40% on the exhaust side, and 25% on the intake side.  Not sure what that translates to, or if it is indeed the case.  

Another option would be to find a shop that could flowbench some heads for me.  I have a bone stock N42 kicking around, as well as my old E31 from my old stroker engine, which has been ported, as well as the Whitehead N42 I am currently running.  Maybe one of them is flowing good enough already?  That said, Slover's would weld up the chamber and give me some squish, which is a big benefit.  

Decisions decisions....  


 

[Ryan Merrill]

This is Ryan with the black fox body mustang with the mod motor. I will be out next spring with my 71. You really need a set of drag radials. You car should easily run low 14's with it current hp level. I will be investing in a set and you can try them out. Basically you need to hate your car more. Sticky tires and a high rpm launch. Your clutch may be slipping a little. Did you go to the dyno day I put on last year on Toronto with the Ontario Z car guys?

 

Still love the car. Keep posting

[Rob L]

I'm surprised you were aloud to go around that track without a helmet. Nice videos.. i could not see, but did you kick the miatas ass? lol

[ryant67]

Ryan - good to hear from you! Can't wait to see you out with your Z, I think I've seen a few posts about your build, 5.3 turbo? Should be a beast!!

 

Agree about the tires, and my 60'times are telling, being 2.5s or higher. I didn't make it out to the dyno day, no. Spun a bearing before it. Looking into some dyno time for the spring though, be nice to get a proper state of tune.

 

Cheers Theatriks! No helmets required on the short course, surprised me too. Fun laps though, can't wait to head back next season. The Miata got me by 2-3 feet, although my launch was pretty terrible and I was shifting too early. He's supercharged though, so no shame. Fun race.