And Mikuni's Solex's have removable emulsion tubes as well, mind you there is not a great assortment of them.  " A ", " B " and " O " if I recall correctly. You do not have the assortment of emulsion tubes to mess around with like Webers. I don't know if you would call that an advantage or disadvantage??? 

Mikuni Solex take purpose built Mikuni jets and E tubes, which are not interchangeable with Weber's.

SK/OER are a Mikuni/Weber hybrid. Body of a Mikuni Solex but they take Weber jets and E-Tubes.

Edited February 25, 20169 yr by Chickenman

This quote is from a local wholesaler of Import parts who has been a Weber dealer for about 40 years. May prove helpful in making a choice:

http://www.the510realm.com/viewtopic.php?t=7708

 

Quote

If I can stick my 2 cents in here....I would consider myself an expert on Weber and Mikuni carburetors. The OER/SK are fine if the rebuild parts remain available. There are a number of differences that people should be aware of. With regards to jetting, there has always been an issue with locating new/different size pump jets. They are not the same as DCOE or Mikuni PHH. Most of the other jets are fine. Each carburetor brand has its own issues, you have to to figure what is the best for you.

Weber-best parts availabilty, sometimes hard to tune, lots of people understand and work on them
Mikuni-Parts drying up, no new carburetors, jets are no problem, easy to tune, cheap parts, for whats available, hard to get linkage
Dellorto-Easier to tune, no new carburetors, lack of suppliers for parts, no one knows about tuning
OER/SK- Weber jetting with Mikuni parts. Jets easy to find, tuning should be easier, parts hard to find

 

1 hour ago, grannyknot said:

I had a set of SK/OER 40's for a few years, I really liked them. The externally adjustable float level and accelerator pump are a nice feature while you are setting them up and for tweaking. Much better then pulling everything off and removing the top cover like Webers, but they most certainly do have emulsion tubes, in fact they accept Weber e tubes and jets. Maybe you just mis heard what he said. They are a good set up and if you are starting fresh then SK's or Mikunis would be the way to go.

Chris

I probably misunderstood him. Thanks for sharing!

You don't happen to have any videos of your Z running with those carbs, do you? Would love to hear it!  

It sounds like Weber is still the best gamble for long-term parts availability even though they might not be the easiest/best to work on.

I had a Z with DCOE's years ago and I long to have triples again someday.  

Good luck with your borrowed carbs!

I impressed with how easy everything on my PHH 40 is to adjust, EXCEPT for the accel pump rods. You about have to take the carbs off to reach the rods. Everything else is a 5 minute job.

On 2/25/2016 at 7:12 AM, Jeff G 78 said:

It sounds like Weber is still the best gamble for long-term parts availability even though they might not be the easiest/best to work on.

I had a Z with DCOE's years ago and I long to have triples again someday.  

Good luck with your borrowed carbs!

My engine's builder is always in and out of Japan - seeing as how he was born there and is close with the Z community - and said he can get whatever parts I need. Also, doesn't hurt to buy some rebuild kits/spare parts while they're easily available, if the day ever comes. 

What are you running on your Z now?

Thanks!

I run SU's on my 260 race car and my '78 has the stock L-Jet EFI.

The '72 I had with triples ended up in Paris with forum member "Lazeum".  I was moving and was forced to give up one of my projects.  I should have kept the '72 and sold the '78.  That was about 10 years ago before 240Z prices skyrocketed.  Oh well...

So, I had some exciting interactions with my alternator the other day...

The "incident" has since been mended, but I've been getting funny voltage readings. Any amount of throttle propels the voltage gauge past 16v. The relay under the passenger seat for the "E-Brake" made an annoying whining sound, so I disconnected it for the time being. These issues are not a result of the "mending," but rather have been present since the engine swap. 

I picked one of those Hitachi 60AMP alts. with an internal regulator. The connection look pretty much identical (from what I understand, the "P" doesn't hook up to anything.)

 

As far as the hook up goes - do I need to do anything past hooking up all the wires? Do I just eliminate the external regulator by disconnecting it entirely?
Most of the write ups I've seen are for upgrading a 240Z alternator to one of these, but the only one for the 280Z I've seen (by Atlantic Z) requires soldering some wires. I have a '77, so it's the same year as his write-up. I just don't see why that's needed if the external regulator is getting eliminated entirely anyway. 

Anyone got any ideas? Can I just unplug the external regulator and cap it off? I've read some people have trouble with the engine not turning off when turning off the key - but again, only seen this with 240Z upgrades. 

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

 

The external regulator also routes power to the L terminal and contains the S wire connection.  That's what the rewiring is for, in the AtlanticZ writeup.  I would follow the AtlanticZ writeup, there are others out there that might disable your brake warning lamp relay.

I did this work on my 76 and if I was doing it again, I would just cut the plug from the old bad external regulator (leave a good amount of wire to work with, crimp the relevant wires together there, cover them with heat shrink tubing, and then plug it back in.  Nice, clean, weatherproof.  Don't forget to put the tubing on before the crimping.  Soldering would work also.

2 hours ago, Zed Head said:

The external regulator also routes power to the L terminal and contains the S wire connection.  That's what the rewiring is for, in the AtlanticZ writeup.  I would follow the AtlanticZ writeup, there are others out there that might disable your brake warning lamp relay.

I did this work on my 76 and if I was doing it again, I would just cut the plug from the old bad external regulator (leave a good amount of wire to work with, crimp the relevant wires together there, cover them with heat shrink tubing, and then plug it back in.  Nice, clean, weatherproof.  Don't forget to put the tubing on before the crimping.  Soldering would work also.

Gotcha - I'll be sure to follow it! I was just confused about which wire goes where, because my colors were different. But I am a Computer Tech, so these sort of stuff shouldn't be difficult for me to figure out - as opposed to the mechanical stuff. If I'm right, looking at my old alternator, there's a N and a F connector (is then replaced by the S and the L)
One of the wires (I believe there are six, but I'd have to double check) should have battery voltage even without the car on. I believe this is the wire that connects to what would be the N wire (replaced by the S on the new one)

 

Do your colors match 76?  As you note, the goal is to get the L and S wires what they need and the rest get disconnected.  So a meter will tell you which is L, power with the key On, and which is S, power directly to the battery (actually to all of the loads on the system).  But be careful if you have the 76 wiring, the brake check warning lamp relay is also powered from the yellow wire and will drain your battery.   The external regulator must have competed that connection when the regulator powered up.  I had to rewire the relay.

You'll know if you have that problem because you'll hear the relay click when you reconnect the negative cable after making the connections.

2 minutes ago, Zed Head said:

Do your colors match 76?  As you note, the goal is to get the L and S wires what they need and the rest get disconnected.  So a meter will tell you which is L, power with the key On, and which is S, power directly to the battery (actually to all of the loads on the system).  But be careful if you have the 76 wiring, the brake check warning lamp relay is also powered from the yellow wire and will drain your battery.   The external regulator must have competed that connection when the regulator powered up.  I had to rewire the relay.

You'll know if you have that problem because you'll hear the relay click when you reconnect the negative cable after making the connections.

I'll double check the colours when I can. It's raining pretty hard today, so it'll have to wait.

The brake check relay has been making an awful whining noise since the motor swap and I've also been getting strange voltage readings (my charge light also flickered, depending on RPM)

I eventually disconnected the brake check relay. Is there any harm in just keeping it disconnected?