SeafireXV

Even thought this thread is old and my info is not what Carl is looking for, I think the subject is interesting. Over the years I have seen 260Z #97 and #99. Both had production dates of 7/73 and both were painted 907 white. My 260 is #1979 and is also painted 907 white. It seems that the tempo of production was a bit slow for the first few months.

Hey, Leon To change the subject, I noticed that your 260 Z was built in 9/73, same as mine. Mine is 904 white and is #1979. Just out of curiosity how about yours?

As a mechanical engineer freind of mine explained to me a few years ago, by their nature steel alloys have infinite fatigue lives as long as you do not exceed the elastic limit of the metal. If your springs saw normal use then they are probably fine. This is not the case with the family of light metals such as aluminum, magnesium, titanium and so on. They will perform a designed task for a specific number of cycles and will ultimately fail unless they are re-tempered. Any engineers out there please feel free to elaborate.

As the other replies have stated, the '73 240 and the '74 260 had different choke cables, longer and they snaked around under the dash to come out on the right side of the engine. They were always known for not working properly, stiff and difficult to get them to open all the way due to binding. For several years I tried all sorts of things to get them to work right. I finally gave up and bought a pair of 240 cables and drilled a hole in the left firewall, the same diameter as the cable grommet, and installed them. The choke has worked great ever since. I did this conversion probably in 1978 or 79. I know that alot of owners are loathe to start hacking and drilling on their prized babies, but this is one time that I wouldn't hesitate. It is, in my opinion, the only way to make the choke cables work properly. Just be sure to cover up the original hole or you will get engine bay fumes inside your car!

That sounds about right. They sold shocks that were re-valved to their specs. I didn't know that they were made by Tokico, though.

Kontrolle was a company based in Fremont, California that made good quality aftermarket suspension components. I visited their warehouse in about 1980 or 81 through a local Z club. They were introducing their newest product, a modified rear subframe for the 280ZX. It had the trailing arm pivots moved upward about an inch in order to tame the nasty bump steer that the ZX was known for. It was rather pricey for the time at $1k, if I remember correctly, so I don't think you will find many of these around. The company is long gone, though I don't know when.

I stand corrected. I keep forgetting that California is not like the rest of the country, in more ways than one! Leaded fuels have been gone here for a good 25 years, at least in the bay area. I still doubt that there is a buildup of "lead" deposits, at least in amounts to cause health problems. The gunk on the air injection tubes is pretty much the same as the carbon buildup that you get on the valves, which I suppose should'nt be inhaled no matter what they are made of. Maybe if we have a chemist in the group they could shed some specific light on the subject?

As I understand it, a crossover pipe is only necessary if ther are separate cylinder banks, I don't think it makes mutch of a difference with an inline engine.

Even though this is an old thread I'll add my comments for any curious readers. Those tubes are for the air injection system for the smog setup. The trick thing to do back in the 70's was to lightly tap them out with a hammer and then re-attach the air injection rail, if you were staying with the stock manifold. With a header as in the picture they should have been left off. Either way will help the exhaust flow while still allowing the smog setup to work a bit, if that's what you need. Don't worry about the carbon buildup, it should flake off as you push them through the holes. I don't think that there is any "lead" buildup, since leaded fuels have'nt been available for 25+ years. Just be sure not to pound on the tube too hard or you may distort them and you'll have to cut them off.

Don't drill them out! Just push out the small round pin in the center with a small punch. Save the pins and you can reuse the rivets. Done it millions of times.

I'm glad your're painting it silver. I agree that it looks good on the Z. Most light colors do, they show off the lines of the car best. Black is the worst color for the Z for that reason, in my very humble opinion!!

ezzzzzzz, its not quite correct to say that the factory built cars with different parts installed, if I understand you correctly. The factory introduced running changes, which I believe is the right term, throughout the first year and a half of production. But it was a straight forward process. Once the early parts were used up, the newer parts were all you would see. Like you mentioned with the horizontal defroster wires, someone most likely swapped the early hatch for a late hatch to get his defroster wires working again. There may be some mixup of new and old parts within a narrow prodution range but the early hatches were probably used up on the production line sometime in january 1971. But you are right about having all the hardware for the fast idle without it actually being installed. If your car has an early serial number then it is one of the transition cars, at least for this feature. They simply ran out out of the parts to complete the installation!

Since the Hitachi SU that came on the 240z is basically a metric HS6, I don't see why not. As long as the linkage will hook up, that is.

The hot setup in the 70's was the Whisper Power exhaust system by Interpart. It used a 6 to 1 header with a 2 1/2 inch pipe and used the standard "turbo" muffler (as in Corvair turbo) that everyone used back then for high performance applications. It finished with a flared chrome exhaust tip. Anyone that was serious about Z performance in those days used this setup or built something similar. The exhaust systems shown above were more for looks and didn't do much for power. If you look through period car magazines like R&T or Car and Driver you will find their ads. How do I know all this? I was there, dude.

My brother had an early 71 with a production date of 12/70 and it definately did not have a hand throttle. You may want to double check your production date!

Does anyone know if it is possible to find out through Nissan records the actual day a car was produced, like with Ford/GM cars? Of course we all know where to get the month and year. Just thought it would be cool to get the complete info.