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What do you guys think would be the most reliable upgrade?


Guest ON3GO

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Guest ON3GO

Car: 1974 260Z (early)

Its 100% stock right now.

Carbs need a rebuild, but besides that its fine.

Has the 4-speed in it.

 

Goal: Daily Driver status, with some what good performance.

Dont want to have to tinker with it when i dont want to.

 

It doesnt have to be a super fast car, i have my other Z's for that.

 

Ideas:

 

Stay L26 but put on some triple webers, header, exhaust.

 

Stay L26 but rebuild the crappy carbs on it now and just do header, exhaust.

 

Put in my F54 block, L28 Crank, L24 Rods, Turbo Pistons, and my HKS headgasket, should bring compression to around 9.8:1. should be peppy with my alum flywheel and other parts like header, exhaust and those rebuild carbs.

or i can do flat tops and bring it to over 12 compression.

 

OR i can just drop in my Turbo motor with MSnS.

 

Now i have a 2 turbo motors i can use, one complete right now that puts out over 300rwhp, i have spare heads from E88 to N42 to P90's.

I have MSD units and also maybe 2 (gotta see if i can use one) Megasquirt ECU's..

i can get my hands on a set of webers for a good price, and i wouldnt mind having a carbed car as long as it stays reliable.

 

i just want a reliable daily driver, and as of now those carbs wont cut it.

also im not a carb'ed guy, never really messed with them much, but i am willing to learn.

 

Mike

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if you really really really want a reliable daily driver, Throw in an L28, get a set of nice rebuilt SUs and run the ZX electronic dizzy conversion. My 240Z was a daily driver running the above combo before I went turbo and it was by far my most reliable car ever. too many trips to keep track of, Mexico, Port A, South Padre, Houston, Dallas, hill country romps, rallies and cruises. she was quick enough to be fun and zip around traffic, but not fast enough to win any races against modified cars.

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Most reliable setup is a fuel injected l28. N/A of course. Lets see, how many times has my car been down for engine problems in the last 2-1/2 years? (once and that was cus the headgasket blew... and i'm running too high compression for my combo) but yes, l28 fuel injected N/A, ultimate reliability.

 

carbs will give you hard starting every once in a while, and you can already hang with fuel injection, so go that route.

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i like the idea of a high comp. FI l28...should be very driveable and u don't have to deal with boost; but then again u could always throw in a turbo motor, megasquirt it, run closed loop with a wideband and run a conservative tune with stock boost, but everyone knows how quickly that stock boost will turn into 15psi.

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Guest ON3GO

rather not go turbo, all my other Z's are turbo already and it turns into a big big project very soon and very fast.

i would love to go ITB's and EFI...

looking into it now.

 

mike

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Stay L26 but put on some triple webers, header, exhaust.

Awfully low compression for triples. It would work, but not as well as higher compression with a bigger cam. I've done triples with 8.5:1 compression. Good at top end, but boggy at low rpms.

 

Stay L26 but rebuild the crappy carbs on it now and just do header, exhaust.

This is by far the easiest, obviously. L26 isn't terribly awe inspiring though.

 

Put in my F54 block' date=' L28 Crank, L24 Rods, Turbo Pistons, and my HKS headgasket, should bring compression to around 9.8:1. should be peppy with my alum flywheel and other parts like header, exhaust and those rebuild carbs. or i can do flat tops and bring it to over 12 compression.

[/quote']

This don't make no sense. :wink:

 

L24 rods, L28 crank, turbo pistons has the piston sticking out of the bore 3mm. Mill the piston down then you basically have a flat top, so compression would be in the 8.5:1 range. Methinks you forgot about piston pin height.

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Mike,

 

I vote for the NA FI L28. My '78 daily beater has a dished piston L28, 1mm HKS headgasket, E31 head modified with injector notches,280Z valves, and 480/280 cam.

It has a stock flywheel lightened to about 14lb, Centerforce II clutch, 3.9 gears, early 280Z 5-speed. Injection is handled with a Haltech F9 and 370 cc injectors. Ignition is a Mallory distributor and MSD 6AL. It has a cheap MSA header and a ported N42 intake with 60mm TWM throttle body.

 

This combo runs cool with AC blasting, will run a 14.0 quarter mile, and is reliable as a hammer. It does need at least 89 octane gas to prevent detonation. I could run it on 87 if I backed off timing.

 

I have decided to keep the beater in its very pleasant present form instead of putting the 3 liter turbo stroker in there when I go hybrid with the '77 Porker.

 

Simplicity and reliability, that's where it's at for a daily driver. You are so right about the "while I'm at it" spiral for turbo cars.

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guess im the lone dog on this one but im used to it =).. since you've gone aftermarket FI and turbos on your other projects.. i would go the triple webber route =)

 

IMHO other than a big honking turbo nothing looks as good under the hood as a cleaned up engine bay and a set of chromed triple webbers sitting there.. once tuned they start in just about any weather because you sure as hell dont need a choke with them lol. since you wont need all the wiring a aftermarket or standard FI system needs the engine bay will look awesome. nothing wrong with a set of nicely built SU's but if you have the Webb's that would be my suggestion. good power, GREAT sound great looks and reliability to boot.

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I have the engine that you guys are talking about. I built a N/A L28 with carbs. I use it as an everyday driver and its never let me down 3 years and counting. here is my setup...

L28 flat top pistons with 20 thou overbore

N42 head with schnider cam 460 lift 270 duration with performance springs

2mm hks head gasket

SU carbs with SM needles

MSA header 6-2-1

2.5 inch exaust

82 N/A electric E-80 module dizzy (rebuilt) and coil

ZX 60 amp Altinator

ballanced rotating mass

 

I have never had it dyno'ed but it's a quick fun car to drive. I would guess that it has somewhere around 170-180 WHP but I've read other guys with the same setup that dyno at 160. It has 9.2:1 CR and I run it with 15 degrees of advance. I can tell you that with all the rain in cali the past few months I've gotten really good at controlling the throttel responce just a little to much and the tires spine. its a jack rabbit of a car. With all of that said I would probably build it a little different if I was doing it again. I think I would go with a P90 head (or maybe a P79 N/A cam and it suposedly flows just as good, easy to find too) and a 1mm head gasket and a 60 thousands overbore that would give you a CR of 9:1, very pump gas friendly and pretty powerfull N/A engine with no chance of detonation. If you wanted to go FI with MS and a 60 or even 70mm throttle body that would probably be really fun too. The problem with any of the engines you build you will always think ... what if ?..... I think Im gonna keep my N/A Z and build a different turbo Z. Then I can go natural or turbo when ever the mood hits me. One more thing about the SU's vs. Makunis or webbers ... If you don't know anything about carbs (like me) the SU's are totally the way to go. Ztherapy has DVD's about how to strip, rebuild, and tune them. And they tune easy and they stay in tune! Well there's my 2 cents ... enjoy!

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my old set up was bullet proof, aside from the cam goin stupid on it. got about 36 mpg out of the sucker too. all motor with su's and a 5spd

 

thats got to be the highest number I've ever heard out of an L6 in a z. I have to pull the BS flag on you until you provide more info, like how much your speedometer is off by :P

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32 is awesome Jon! I can't compete with that, but I can share a little trick I used when doing long trips with the SU's. When going on a long trip knowing I would be at a constant fairly low rpm speed I would lean out my mixture a bit then dial back when in town again. I know it sounds cheap, but it does work. If memory serves i think I got about 2 or 3 more miles to the gallon.

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half a tank of gas, cruizin at 3100 rpms, lean as all hell. as in 18+ a/f no more then 1/4 throttle at any point in time. i could be wrong, but i know it was at least 30 - 32 mpg

 

14 / 2 = 7

7 gallons divided by around 220-225 miles driven.

 

severely babied the car. it IS possible im not saying its a safe way of doing it, but you can do it.

temperature plays hell with my carbs here in missouri. one day it's great mpg, or runs great, the next day it's sucking down fuel

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haha...lol

I had the same problem. I had my SUs turned to 2.5 turns from full up...I was getting like 12-13 mpg on medium driving not going past 3500...

but I then leaned it up to like 1.5 turns from full up and I got 15-16mpg...driving it pretty hard too. I think I could break 20mpg if I babied it. I tried to baby it one tank but half way through the tank I got a lead foot. Now with gas rising and currently at $3.15 for premium I need to baby it. This 96 FORD Exploder I am driving gets 12-14.5mpg at best baby driving it. and it is no fun to drive but it has COLD A/C and XM...

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