Countdown to ZCON

[madkaw]

Don't come by this week or I will put you too work:).

Your's is next brother.

[gregs240z]

Seriously, If I didn't have plans this weekend I would love to drive up to help.

[mgmoreau]

Steve,

I look forward to meeting you at the Convention and seeing the beautiful car you are killing yourself to finish in time for Nashville. Look for me in a white 72 240z with red side stripes and Rhode Island plates. 1100 miles to Nashville from RI, I hope the ol girl has it in her to get me there without any problems.

[madkaw]

Hoping to meet all you guys too and exchange war stories:)

Well my son swims at State Competition in Indianapolis, at least it is close to my house. There is 3-4 hour breaks between sessions and my wife and i swap out watching the comp.

The car is finished enough to take to zcon except for that pesky driveline noise. I have consulted one of our driveline gurus(jon morteson) and it sounds like I need to check my pinion angle today for sure.

yesterday was knocking out other things like doing a compression test to see how the rings are seating; 190-195 all the way across, so that was good.

I also had an annoying tick in the motor and found a valve lash needing adj.(by the way, the screwdriver/stethoscope idea really works well)

Also the car smelled rich and the front plugs were pretty dark. So I started looking the SU's over. Found an interested problem. The mixture adjustment knob(3 screw type-large wheel) was hitting the metal strap that holds one of the hoses against the air filter box. What this did was fool me into thinking that when I turned the adjustment all the way in-I was all the way bottomed out-but I wasn't-I was just hitting this strap so I couldn't get anymore turns. Thus I would adjust way too rich------Anyway-make sure nothing is in the way of the adjustment knob!!!!!!!

Besides the driveline noise the only other thing that bothers me is the smell of raw fuel. My build included putting a different gas tank in to accomidate my dreams of dual exhaust. Now in hard left turns I get a raw gas smell as if the fuel is running up my vent hoses into the vent box, or running up the filler neck. I cannot find any trace of fuel visually, but i know that will be tuff to spot.

By the way, I finished buffing!

[geezer]

Your car looks great Steve! Good luck correcting the remaining issues and Good luck to your son at the State competition. Won't be long now, you will be reaping in the well deserved praise and catching up on your sleep. Nice Job!

[gregs240z]

WOW!! Steve, your Z looks gorgeous! I really like the blacked out trim and door handles. What brand side mirrors? They look sharp.

Good luck at ZCon!

[madkaw]

Thanks guys. Greg, I think you will be happy with the paint if you go with Steve. I had to overcome some issues with the clear(which you saw i believe), but it polished out beautifully and the body work was about flawless.

The mirrors were some off brand, not sure I like them for the utility. The passenger side is about useless, but I screwed up the mounting place somehow. I thought I had it all lined out before paint, and when I went to mount the other day it was like--'what the hell did I do, I can't see a thing with this mirror.'

Well off to check my pinion angle.

[madkaw]

Well guys I was sweating it for the whole trip, but she made it with flying colors.The last few days were hairy since I was fretting over a noise in the rear, but the noise never got worse or any better during the trip. I also had a SU problem with the front cylinders running rich, so I decided to adjust the float-well that almost became a disaster. It seemed to get worse, but somehow straightened itself out at the last second.

I was supposed to join up with the Indy z club and come down with them, but I missed the connection by about 5 minutes. It took me about 75 miles to catch up to them, but I finally did-and I felt better traveling in a group incase something went wrong with the car. The pace was faster then I wanted with an untested car, but my car does like to cruise at highway speed. We must have averaged 75mph, which was about 85mph on my speedo. Good thing about that was I couldn't here that damn diff noise.

What was really cool was that I made it all the way on 1 tank of gas. My odometer showed close to 350 miles, which is a little inaccurate because of the speedo being off, but it is pretty close since mapquest showed this to be a 300 mile trip(and I started with about 40 miles on that tank).I didn't fill up to check mileage because I didn't want all that weight, but I must have got +25mpg minimum. That BWt-5 with overdrive is great. I will check the mileage on the trip home.

Everyone is great and this is a lot of fun. Going to the track tomorrow-to watch-I'm not ready for prime time yet. My rear tires bottom out in the wheel well so I guess it's ZG time. If I hadn't got greedy with tire size(245/17/45) and went with maybe 235's I might have cleared. You can't hardly see on the tire where it rubbs, but in an autocross style race it might be worse.

I hope everyone shares the luck I've had in making it here-and back home. I will post some pictures soon.

[Z Speed]

Steve your car looks fantastic. Job well done!