Fuel economy shift points ?

[TomoHawk]

The line lock is just the same thing as two-footing a race start- one foot hard on the brake, and one on the gas.

As for the fuel efficiency, just keep your foot off the gas! Or, at least learn to use the foot-pressure VERY lightly and very smoothly when you do. You will wizz off a LOT of people when you drive "slow" but you can increase your gas mileage by up to 20%!

[LeonV]

Thanks for the primers. No problem shifting manually and any mods to the trans would be over my head and way down the list anyway. The Z gets good mileage even with the lead foot but at around $4 per gal for 92 octane in CA (owner's manual recommends 96) every bit helps.

The owner's manual recommends the modern-day equivalent of 87 AKI, no need to use premium unless the engine is modified in a way as to require it.

[Stanley]

So 96 octane from the 70's = 87 today ? Learn something every day. However I'm not running the stock head. Used 87 & 89 octane with the original 73 head with no problem. After it went belly up, my mechanic put a stock top end from a 80-81 Skyline (and who knows what other euro/JDM cars); maybe it has a higher CR but anyway it was pinging on 89 at stock advance setting. Went to 92 octane instead of retarding the timing, no ping with 92 but I think it ran better on 94 (Arizona) gas.

BTW I followed Ozconnection's build thread on that head a couple years ago with great interest. Hope to do similar if the money comes in.

[LeonV]

So 96 octane from the 70's = 87 today ? Learn something every day. However I'm not running the stock head. Used 87 & 89 octane with the original 73 head with no problem. After it went belly up, my mechanic put a stock top end from a 80-81 Skyline (and who knows what other euro/JDM cars); maybe it has a higher CR but anyway it was pinging on 89 at stock advance setting. Went to 92 octane instead of retarding the timing, no ping with 92 but I think it ran better on 94 (Arizona) gas.

BTW I followed Ozconnection's build thread on that head a couple years ago with great interest. Hope to do similar if the money comes in.

Not quite. The octane rating used in the US during the '70s was RON (Research Octane Number). There is another method of determining octane rating called the Motor Octane Rating (MON) which is a more stringent test, i.e. MON is always lower than RON.

Today we use AKI (Anti-Knock Index) which is simply the average of RON and MON. 91 RON is equivalent to 87 AKI.

With that said, I'm not sure where you got the 96 octane number. The 1973 FSM (I surmise your Z is a '73) recommends 87 AKI/91 RON on page GI-3.

With combos different from stock, recommendations are thrown out the window and you use what works, e.g. set timing on the dyno while making sure there is no knock.