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Worked on rebuilding the 78 280z seats for local club member Scott M. on and off this winter. Finalized them today. Phew.... glad they are done. The leather covers are from Interior Innovations, new foams were from Classic Datsun. Ran into an issue with the closure of the seat backs... The material was about 1 1/2" too short to make it close properly over the tangs in the bottom of the seat backs. Either the manufacturer screwed up the length, or the 78 seat back frames grew and got longer. Tried every trick in the book to overcome the issue, finally had an upholstery shop sew in a extension to the leather at the seam where the reinforcement is. Worked out perfect, the fit is now tight without it trying to tear the seat material apart. This is the 2nd set of leather covers I have done from interior innovations. The first set that I did for my car 2 years ago was tight, but nothing like this. If I were to order any more covers, I would have them extent the problem area with the 1 1/2" of extra length. Overall, the leather covers are of great quality. The ones I did for my 77 z car are just coming up to 2 years and I will do a 2 year update on them very soon....

Here's what they should do.... Once the companies pushing for this believe they have this thing working, they should do a multi-year long road test. And the owners and employees of the companies involved should be required to be the test subjects. In other words, the people who own the companies, developed the technology, and wrote the code should be required to use these things as their only form of automotive transportation for five years to prove it works correctly. Prove how confident THEY are when they have to put their wife or husband and infant kid in the back seat, close the door, and wave goodbye as they head off two states over to go visit grandma?

I have a fire extinguisher since 3 years ago.

Your new nickname is now "Smokey".

I texted the link to my brother and nephew. They are coming out for The Mitty next month. It would be a hoot if they could bring a Z. My brother lives about 7 miles from the seller.

That car looks great and like others have said it is without a doubt an early 260Z. Yes our cars are quite close in production! You have the original 4 speed shift knob with the green shift pattern insert. I had one of those on my car for a long time and it is a piece not seen regularly. Is your car an air-conditioning car? I am not sure, but it seems that the only factory options offered for us North American's was the colors of the paint and interior, auto or 4 Spd, and with or without air conditioning. My car also had the Webber DGV carburetors and I have since installed a pair of roundup carbs from a 72' 240Z. These cars are great and I look forward to your build. Sincerely, Ben P.S. The last picture was how my car started out in 2001. The other photos are how it looks today.

Here is all you need to know to set the fuel level in a fuel bowl for 240z from 1970 to 1971 inclusive (You will have to deal with the oddball bowl in the 72's however the FSM states that the fuel level will be the same in each bowl). Below are two marks at 20mm & 23mm down from the top lip of the fuel bowl. The FSM shows the fuel to be 23mm down from the roof of the fuel bowl(which is 20mm down from the top lip but it may be a typo. Pick one and be happy. The great Brian Little transposed the 23mm down from the top lip of the fuel bowl to a depth from the top of the bridge in the carb throat. He came up with 10mm down. I repeated the experiment below by using a telephoto camera shot to reduce parallax distortion and arrived at the same result. Here is almost how you should measure fuel level with an installed carb. (I like to scribe a mark on the fuel bowl and use a long clear pipe Tee'd into the rubber line from the bowl to the jet). I then press this line against the fuel bowl scribe and adjust the float tang to set the level). The photo below almost has it correct but the hose is too far away from the side of the fuel bowl for accuracy. Also, there is no scribed fuel level on the bowl to use as a reference. Here is better way to measure: Here is the controversial FSM reference of 23mm down from roof of bowl: Here is Brian Little's work:

I did 23mm from the underside of the lids. Balanced the two at about 400 rpms each I beleive. The rear is 2.5 and the front is 2.750. Runs great with no overflow and I've beat it pretty hard then popped the hood. No gas smell. I think I got 23 from zkars? He's who pointed out that matches the top of that rectangular boss on the side. I did put two rear short ear lids on mine. Rear lid on the front carb too.

Or just buy my CAI and be done with it

What should really be happening is that these self-driving cars should have giant bells and whistles on them so that people understand the danger. Maybe with a big clown head on the top. Just like train horns and crossing gates. People run out in front of drivers, as opposed to cars, all the time, assuming that there will be a certain reaction time and functional brakes. We all assume that there is a person inside the car. We're supposed to make eye contact before stepping off of the curb. Overall though, this is a typical giant corporate effort, with the parties responsible shielded by distance from the reality of the harm it causes. The guy in the car, that was supposed to "take control", is a pawn in a bigger game. Just like all of the people downloading apps that use Facebook for sign in. We're all pawns.

I drove a motorcycle at the age of 15 (could do that before driving a car), so for a year I took the gladiator training of staying alive (this was in Ft. laud, very rough traffic crowd). Nothing will teach you how to defensively drive like a year on a bike. Good driving is way more than obeying traffic laws, its about predicting the unpredictable. This is why concentration is so important (not to mention training and thinking ahead). I have made it clear why I think the push is on for driverless cars, while I don't think much of most of the human drivers on the road due to the distractions of the cellular age (just makes my job as a defensive driver that much harder), I don't think there is a substitute for GOOD undistracted drivers.

The other thing would be crossing a double line. If someone is at their mailbox and no one is coming I will move close to or even cross the double center line to give them lots of room. Same for dogs, kids etc.You can't program the car for this because it's against the law, but it sure is better than hitting a pedestrian!

Ummmm.... I think that might be an old nickname. Crap! He beat me to it!

Yes. A mandatory autonomous cross country drive for the CEO....in the winter.

Wow, that is a Gorgeous ride! I have something to shoot for now... love the color, too! my car has a LONG way to go before it even gets to your STARTING point...

FWIW, I have a set of those same rubber floor mats, and I could be persuaded to sell them. Sandyl, you have first dibs. PM me Cheers, Mike

I read 1/64th of an inch (bad memory..I rechecked and 1/16th). From my experience trying that technique, it is not accurate. The only way to accurately balance SU carbs w/o air fuel meter is to run on one carb at a time and make sure each runs its 3 cylinders at the same rpm as the other carb AT THE SAME AIR FLOW. This is achieved by measuring air flow and adjusting jet heights to match rpms. Then you read the plugs. If you have an a/f meter, do the same and set the a/f for 28 to 29 when running on 3 cylinders at 2000 to 3000 rpm AT THE SAME AIR FLOW and re-check when driving under load. If the needle does not meter the fuel from idle to acceleration under load correctly then there are only a few parameters to tune with (jet height, carb springs, carb piston weights, and damper oil) The only other way to tune is needle re-shape.

David solved my issues. He knows them inside and out. I am guessing by performance he means overall drive ability. If I am on the track at WOT all the time then I would want HP max. I do not like Webers because I never saw anyone that really understands them like David knows Mikuni. Webers just have waaaayyyy too many variables.

It’s gonna look like this ! Kats