ktm

That's 240Hoke's car over at Hybridz.

It is your car and you can do with it as you like. Saying that, I would sell the car on Ebay and then buy a better candidate for the V8 swap. I myself have a hybridized 240z, but my car was already not original (not modified, but many of the original parts were long gone). You could easily sell this 240z and with the money buy a 240z AND the parts for your swap. Hell, you live in Reno, just a few hours from the Bay Area. Check out the Bay Area Craigslist and prepare to be amazed. They have more 240z's for sale than all of So. Cal. combined.

The cover looks nice, but I recommend that in the future you have the valve cover powder coated. Powder coating is MUCH more durable and scratch resistant.

Believe it or not, Krylon's Fusion paint is a great product. It is specifically designed to spray on plastic and comes in Gloss, Satin and Flat black. I restored my center console using the Satin black and it came out great. It actually coats the piece with a chip resistant coat and does not clog the texturing either. bkelly, to fix the hairline cracks, you can use fiberglas or epoxy and some backing material to bridge the crack. Chips are another issue. The console is textured and as such, any chip filler will show up as smooth.

Your fiance needs to slow down and think about the problem, possible causes, solutions, and methods of determination before he throws any more parts at the car. You say you have compression....what are the compression numbers? What block and head does the car have (I am not assuming at this point that it is stock)? I know Steven stated N42 (as that is the stock block). You need to verify fuel pressure. Buy a fuel gauge and install it before the fuel pressure regulator. You may have fuel, but it may not be at the correct pressure. Verify your timing, never assume it is correct. Verify that when the crank pulley is showing TDC, that the distributor is pointing to #1 and that the cam lobes are in the correct position. Verify that the plug wires on installed in the correct order. Check your spark plugs and see if they are fouled. Wet plugs will keep the car from firing, as well as a "flooded" cylinder. This will happen if you keep cranking and do not get any ignition. Once that happens, you either have to wait or pull the plugs and dry them out as well as the cylinder. Check all sensor connections to make sure they are in good condition. You stated your injector clips were in poor shape. The rest of your connections could be in similar shape. Clean all electrical contacts with electrical contact cleaner. Verify that your injectors are working by putting a mechanics stethescope to them (buy from Autozone or just use a long screwdriver). Verify that your fuel pump is working and that your fuel filter is in good condition. Again, you say you have fuel but if the pump is dying or the filter clogged, you may not have the pressure. Verify that the distributor cap is in good condition and that the terminals are free of corrosion. Verify the rotor to contact gap is within spec. Verify that the rotor is in good condition. Verify that the distributor cap terminals are in good condition. I typed all of this up in 3 minutes off the top of my head and covered about half the topics. You have to be methodical.

I will say this on the matter. If you have a numbers matching engine that you are going to keep in order to preserve the car's originality, that will limit your choices of engines to the L28 and carbs. As soon as you go EFI, you need to swap your entire fuel system (pump, fuel lines, tank) and that is something that you only want to do once as it is a royal PITA. You may want to check out an SBC swap as the engine mounts are bolt on, no welding required. I do not think you have to do any cutting, etc. of anything on the car and you can use the stock rear end as well. If you are opposed to that "blasphemy", then a 3.1L stroker is an option. Also, you could do a blow through turbo setup on an L28 if you are adventurous. As long as your horsepower stays below about 250 - 275 fwhp you can use the stock fueling system. If you want to maximize your horsepower cost be damned, have Rebello build you a 3.1L engine. If you want to maximize your horsepower on a budget and have the ability, time, place and tools, then build the 3.1L yourself. If you have a limited budget, then do a simple L28 swap with some headwork. If you have a very limited budget, then just do a L28 swap.

No, no they won't, not for a simple L24 or even simple L28 swap.

Nope, won't lock with the key when the doors are open. The little bar that flips down to lock tumbler is interrupted. When the doors are closed the tumbler is rotated slightly and this allows the doors to lock.

The doors will not lock with the doors open. It is how they are designed. It took me a little while to figure that one out, and then I read it on here that it is how they are designed. One say of not locking your keys in the car.

An engine swap (L28) IS the low budget alternative.

I donated at Hybridz over a year ago and would like to do so here. Both of these sites, and their members, have helped me out immensely. When I go to the donating page, it appears as though the drop down box menus are a little.....fubared. They all either say 1 month or 1 year with various amounts. What is the one time cost for a 1 year donation? $50? Thank you.

Steven, I am not knocking MSA for the padding as they do not manufacture the kit. MSA is just a reseller. However, the padding itself is deserving of our scorn. I'll also add, like others have said, that the MSA rear deck carpet piece did not come with the luggage strap slits. When I mentioned this to Sal one day (MSA is 1 mile from my office), he said that they were aware of the problem and looking for a new vendor. I doubt this went very far since his departure. I cut slits in my carpet for the luggage straps as is shown below. Disregard the wrinkle in the carpet between the shock towers. When I put the spare tire back into the car, the tire cover was slightly warped and thus sticking up causing that wrinkle. I have since removed the tire and the carpet lies flat now.

37 "hopping" on a 19 year old? Do you think that 18 years of age difference should get you a free pass? Get over it kid, you are supposedly an adult now and if you can't take this little bit of heat, life is going to chew you up and spit you out. You say you are in college, what's going to happen when a 50+ year old professor calls you on the carpet in front of 100+ people in a class? You'll have a melt down based on your over-reaction here. Man up. I'm done. Added to the ignore list. turbo240, "If you like starting problems so much then please go to hybridz, (they seem to like it over there)" Actually, as Carl pointed out, Hybridz is heavily moderated. You get a little warning and if you persist, a nice little 30 day timeout. Flaming the site? I do not see any posts flaming the site. I do not see any posts flaming anybody until Ian got his panties in a twist about a comment I made about a prediction.

Yes, I want you to crash. I think all of the money you are spending on this build would be better spent on an education. Reading comprehension fails you. It helps NOT to LIE: From your 11/08/06 post: You hit a wet painted stripe unless you are changing your story now. Secondly, you had your car running all of 4 days based on your 11/04/2006 thread stating that shes on the road. You then crashed on 11/08/2006.

Dryer lint and floor sweeps from a cloth factory are apt descriptions of the "jute" that is attached to the MSA carpet kits.

I predict another "I crashed" thread within a year. Could not handle a relatively mild powered 240z.....

Folks, the "jute" padding that comes with the MSA kit is utter crap. I replaced all of that padding with some nice 6 lb/sf material from Home Depot. I used the same 6 lb/sf material for the tranny tunnel vinyl after I ripped out all of the decrepit, smelly horsehair jute.

Consider towing as part of the painting expense.

Aziza Z over at Hybrid did that dash swap (240sx dash). It looks great and nearly stock when done right.

"$125 last year" I wish they still cost this much. At the Pick Your Part in Sun Valley, they wanted $175 for an 82 5-speed.

It does not have to be a Z shop, just a good "head" shop. Call around to your local hot rod stores/shops and see if they recommend any body. If you get 2 or 3 shops recommending the same place, you are golden. You are not asking them to rebuild the head, simply check for straightness and, if you want, a pressure test.

Your head may be slightyly warped, which is why you had coolant in #3. I experienced the same thing on my car - HG was fine, head showed no cracking, but the head was warped 0.02". Make sure you have the head checked out by a competant shop. The fire ring on #3 does not look round but rather sliiiiiightly oval. This is indicative of a loss of clamping force/pressure which could be a result of a warped head.

You really need to do more reading justin. I am pushing that much horsepower and torque through a stock head, stock N42 non-egr intake, and stock exhaust manifold. There are people pushing over 400 whp on the stock exhaust manifold.

"So on the block, starting from the back nearest the cabin it goes 563241 and then I wire it up correctly to the dizzy?" Huh? Starting from the FRONT of the car, the nearest cylinder is #1, then #2, then #3, #4, #5, and finally #6. The distributor is how you set your firing order. Starting from the FRONT of the car, the electrode CLOSEST to the radiator is #1, #5 is counterclockwise from #1, then #3, #6, #2 and finally #4. "So then TDC is done on the cylinder closest to the radiator. " Yes. Cylinders #1 and #6 are on the same stroke, just 180 degrees out from each other. When #1 is TDC on its compression stroke, #6 is on its intake stroke.