1976 280Z Restoration Project

[ConVerTT]

4 minutes ago, zKars said:

Make two, only one about 2/3's as long.  Pls... 

Certainly!  We’ll make sure to cut you in ?

[240260280]

240*2 + 30

[wheee!]

240*2 + 30

Spell it out for us! You’re always nickel and diming your posts! [emoji6]

[Captain Obvious]

I'm still uncomfortable with the bracket design... Six little springs in those coil packs pushing up, and three tiny little aluminum tabs holding the whole mass in place. I'm worried that you hit a certain frequency, and that whole assembly is gonna sing. Stress cracks in the sharp inside corners of the mounting tabs.... Misfiring because the whole thing is lifting off the plug electrodes when you hit bumps... Bedlam.   

Anyway, I hope I'm completely wrong and I'm not going to bring it up again.

[Zed Head]

Re the COP bracket - will you be able to remove the valve cover without stressing the COP's or plugs?

[Captain Obvious]

4 minutes ago, Zed Head said:

Re the COP bracket - will you be able to remove the valve cover without stressing the COP's or plugs?

No, but removing the COPs is easy. Or you could leave all the coils attached to the plate and lift it off as an assembly with the six coil packs still attached. Un-clip six electrical connectors and the whole thing is loose.

[Zed Head]

18 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

No, but removing the COPs is easy. Or you could leave all the coils attached to the plate and lift it off as an assembly with the six coil packs still attached. Un-clip six electrical connectors and the whole thing is loose.

I was asking more about convenience.  Seems like a lot of extra effort just to pop the valve cover.  Is removing the COPS really that easy?  Don't they clip on to the top of the plug like a spark plug boot?  I struggle with a single boot.

Easier than a ZX with its cooling fan though.

[wheee!]

The COPs take a lot of force to “lock” into place on the spark plugs. I can stand them up in position no problem on their own. Once they are bolted to a plate together, they will be even more secure. The tabs will be enough I’m sure. I can always add a brace from below to the bolt holes on the block for the coolant lines.
The trouble of disconnecting the COPs in order to access the valve train are minimal and I don’t expect to be in there all that often...

[Zed Head]

But with the bracket you can't see the full COP.

Why not just use the coolant line bolt holes for the full mount?  You could build a rigid mount, thin so that the COPs are visible and use the coolant line bracket holes to lock it in solid to the block.  More stuff is visible.  With a big bracket you're covering up a lot of good stuff.

Just ideas.  My engine bay is a pilot plant.

[wheee!]

I don’t want to see the COPs really. Just the tops. The plug bodies are more for inserting into a DOHC head.

[Zed Head]

Alrighty.  If you form some small divots in the bracket you can use it to hold nuts and bolts when working in there.  Less slabby. 

Actually, some well-placed bends will make it more rigid.  Carry on...

[Captain Obvious]

Another thought about the mounting of the coil packs... In the original application, the coils are designed to be pressed down all the way "home" against the top of the valve cover and the mounting hole comes into contact with the valve cover itself. Probably with a proud standing boss where the mounting bolt threads into. In addition, there is a sealing surface (might even be a rubber ring?) just below the electronics module portion that is designed to seal the larger hole in the valve cover.

In your design, the holes you have the coil packs poking through is much smaller than the original design and your mounting tabs are hanging in free space. You don't want to stress the mounting tabs by putting a bolt through them and tightening them up while it's unsupported below the pack.

Kinda hard to do without marked-up pics, but here's the issue I'm talking about... See the gap underneath the coil pack where the mounting bolt goes through? That thing is just plastic and you don't want to put a bolt through that and tighten it up. I suggest either using some sort of standoff boss (could be as simple as a tubular spacer) to support the bolt hole, or even better would be to make the holes in the COP bracket larger (like the original application) and have the coils mounting face sit down further (flush) against the plate.

Without some sort of support under the mounting bolts, you are going to cantilever the coil pack body with the bolt and potentially crack the mounting tab off:

On ‎3‎/‎3‎/‎2019 at 12:13 AM, wheee! said: