JoeinCA Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Well, not actually San Diego, but Oceanside, which is in San Diego County. Ive been out here a few weeks now, settling in, breaking the Z... twice already. I drove out here in my freshly completed 355 Z. getting 17+ miles to the gallon, carbed! (its nice to have an o2 sensor, and a carb equipped with adjust-a-jet) Unfortunately, on good ole Friday the thirteenth, I decided to figure out why i had a new misfire. Apparently a spark plug wire committed suicide by alternator belt... a nice easy repair later and she was back on the road in all her glory. A little back story, I have a 1988 truck engine which I rebuilt back in 04 and put about 3,000 miles on before catastrophic transmission failure abruptly ended the tortured life of my 4x4. The engine was worth more than the truck so it stayed, and the truck left. So enters v8z project #2 just 6 months ago. Everything went smoothly up until it was time to start the car for the first time, and the crummy weiand manifold poured water into the engine creating a wonderful mocha looking froth with my mobil 1 oil. Fast forward a weekend, and the replacement manifold is on, but this time has sealing problems at the intake ports, frustrated, I take the manifold 5'lbs over torque, cracking the manifold slightly. function didnt seem to be impaired, the car ran great, smoking the tires, breaking traction going into 3rd gear. Then it began burning oil, misfiring, and other very odd behavior, like temporary massive vacuum leaks. So I chucked the weiand again, and modified a manifold I had sitting around, Voila. I drove the car all the way from the San Francisco area, to Oceanside, which is about 500 miles, no problems. I forgot to retighten the manifold, so the next day... gasket failure. No problem, i get new gaskets, religously check the manifold bolts... but a week later, getting on the freeway the gasket temporarily fails again (as I chirped tires into 3rd), repairing itself when I restarted the engine by popping the clutch down a hill. SO... On friday I was trying to merge onto the freeway, which is apparently the riced out subaru driver's universal signal for "I want to Race". I jumped on it, easily overtaking Speed Racer, and patting myself on the back for the mature way in which I handled the situation noticed that I had once again killed the manifold gasket. Being the genius that I am, I decided to just shut the ignition off to slow the engine while it was in gear. So there I go, smugly pumping fresh fuel and air into my exhaust system, relatively aware of the potentially explosive potential I was creating. I recall thinking: " Its just a little backfire, it wont hurt anything.". And then my muffler exploded. And the next evening, I lost my keys. And So the Z sits, locked up, broken, and replaced by an equally plagued porsche 914. amazing. So yeah.. SAN DIEGO WOOHOOO. Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thehelix112 Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Hahah.. welcome to socal? I've also had the muffler-explosion-on-the-freeway experience. Fun times. Are you down permanently or just for a visit? Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeinCA Posted November 17, 2009 Author Share Posted November 17, 2009 I moved out here. Hopefully i will be able to buy a house soon, and move all of my tools out here too. Its too bad that summer is over already and all of the good car shows are past. I was looking forward to some southern california shows .Oh well. Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datsun723 Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Sorry, but that was an entertaining story. Welcome to southern California! Nice to have another local. Good luck getting the Z back up to speed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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