I'm seeing a big old spot light at the end of the tunnel, not at all sure what I did but I got the engine running today  the idle wanders up to about 2000 rpm and starts getting kinda lean, but I'll let Matt figure all that out on Monday. I took a little video and the sound quality is not so good, seems to be picking up all the treble with no bass.

I'm going to leave this right here and hopefully some nice young fella will make it inbed  into the thread cause I don't know how to do it. Thanks

MAH02795.MP4

 

Edited June 8, 20177 yr by grannyknot

gotta host it on youchoob

 OK, lets see if this works,

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dR8bHf6C-Qc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Nope, lets try this,

 

Edited June 8, 20177 yr by grannyknot

On my phone it shows your voice in text format but no visual. I can hear the car though and like you say there's no "thumpity thump" mostly treble. 

Like Young Frankenstein, it's ALIVE!!!

Sounds great!  That has got to be very exciting having that baby up and running.   It's a work of art.

On 6/5/2017 at 1:56 AM, RyanT67 said:

 Are you going with a molded carpet kit as well?

Yes, I have a full carpet kit ready to go.

On 6/8/2017 at 7:04 PM, motorman7 said:

Sounds great!  That has got to be very exciting having that baby up and running.   It's a work of art.

Thank you that's very kind, yeah it was beautiful moment when it roared to life.

Started it up today and let it tick away at 2000 rpm until everything was good and hot, burned off oil and cured paint and coatings, checked for coolant and gas leaks, sofar everything is good. There is one oil leak on the timing cover right by the chain tensioner, I have been trying to stop that leak since I got the engine 10 yrs ago with no luck.

The aluminum welding job on the cylinder head seems to be fine, no leaks. I wish I had not extended the oil pan down so much now, I have 2.5" clearance between the skid pan and the road, if it proves to be a problem I will have to pull the engine, remove the oil pan and slice an inch off the bottom of the pan and weld it up again.

Very nice! Wish I could have been there to see it run for the first time!! 

2.5" isn't much clearance. I know some people ride around an inch (literally) from the ground and do fine (I have no idea how), but I like to have at least 4" clearance. I wouldn't want to run the risk to ruining my engine due to lack of oil - especially an S38 - and I like knowing that speed bumps and railroad tracks and what not won't be an issue at normal speed. Road quality makes a big difference too, and I can't imagine your roads up there are any better than ours, which aren't great.

You may not have much issue with it, but if it were me I'd plan on doing that as next winter's project.

2.5" from the bottom of the skid pan, 3.5" from the bottom of the oil pan. Maybe I should attach some Titanium skid blocks and do some spark shows at night.

Well, getting down to it, finished the interior today, still missing a pull knob and a chrome cap but it is pretty much done. Matt is coming to tune the megasquirt tomorrow morning, I get the safety certificate on Tuesday and hopefully licenced that afternoon. Then I get to start slowly driving it around to see if all my steering mods worked and of course then back up to Jody so he can buff out the paint.

I borrowed my wife's good camera to get some better shots than the old shop cam is capable of.

 

Edited June 11, 20177 yr by grannyknot

Luxury Interior!

awesommmmmmmmmmmmmme!

strut tower bar looks pretty neat! i like it. i like ittttttttttt.

how are those plug-n-chug cup holders? I know the one for the Z31 300ZX has the cup holders on the rear, not at the front. I wonder if it would be more like an elbow holder with the seating position of most Z chassis with it at the front. 

 

Edited June 12, 20177 yr by Careless

She is on the road! first time in about 20 yrs, Matt tuned it from idle to about 3200 rpm so I'm trying not to push it too hard until I can get down to his shop this week and finish the tune on the highway. Got the TB's balanced using my old motorcycle manometer, evened out TB 123 and 4 then pulled the tubes from 1&2 and put the on 5&6 and balanced them with 3&4.

I'm leaving as much outside trim and badging off until Jody gets the cut & buff done at the end of the month.

Years ago I read somewhere that you must do a second torquing of the wheel nuts after a few miles when you have installed new wheel studs, that came flooding back into my head after I heard some clicking happening on the front wheels, I was only a mile from home so headed back. Two nuts were loose and all the rest of them needed re torquing

That's one of the reasons I never let myself get too far from home when shaking out the bugs, I had a list of 8 things to work on before I even got out of the driveway. But the thing I have been most concerned about was the 1.75" drop of the steering rack, that the car wasn't going to have that great handling anymore, very pleased to report that the TTT off set tie rods and the bumpsteer spacers did the trick, the handling is spot on, nothing strange, it all feels very familiar.

No bad sounds coming from the LSD OBX rear end and I did lay a little patch just to make sure both tires were leaving rubber on the road, the braking isn't as good as I hoped for but there is still room for tweaking. So far it is feeling very good, very much like the old Z but a lot more power and NO squeaks, pretty sure that is the stitch welding.

Going to try and get the rest of the tuning and window tints done this week and I guess it is time for another appraisal.

Edited June 17, 20177 yr by grannyknot