Bruce Palmer

Rick, We are going through a deal on the engine out of my wagon. The oil rings were stuck and I mean solid. Looked like coked up oil in the divots of the expanders to the point the rings were stuck!! I'd follow your budy's suggestion and give it a "rinse cycle" with something..... Heavy duty diesel oil ya say. Does he have a specific recommendation? Would it be a good break-in oil?

Go to www.ztherapy.com and look at the picture of the Euro style balance tube. All that is left is the PCV and brake booster taps. On an un-euro'd tube just make sure all the holes in the balance tube are plugged after removing the goodies.

Any over filling will just overflow into the engine and get burnt, no big deal. We have had a couple of situations related to us from the field that ought to be discussed. One customer said his carbs were going thru damper oil like crazy. The reason? He was filling clear to the threads at the plunger cap. Yep it'll go thru oil like s**t through a goose because everything above the top of the tube will get sucked right into the engine. Another with "running issues" finally admitted he was doing some tuning by putting 90W gear oil in the dampers.

Correction: The needle should be very straight. The rest of the thought is good. Douche out the dome and clean the outside of the piston so it slides freely. Take out the plunger and clean out any oil that is in the tube and replace to the fill line in the tube with fresh ATF, then go do the other carb. It is fairly important that both piston rise and fall at the same rate. After re-installing the piston raise and drop the piston to insure nothing is in a bind (needle to nozzle)..... If there is some binding move the dome slightly and re-tighten.... Are these carbs unknown to you?? If so, a lot of gains can be made just with a good cleaning. There are very few sources of 30 something year old Hitachis that wear the mantle of "plug and play" and there are variations even among those.

Wasn't one of the east coast road courses opened recently just so he could take a few laps in his Corvette? What a special day that had to be for him and all that were there. What a great man for his craft and for motor racing.....

Arne, Good job with the pictures...... The map thing was pretty funny. Mapquest or who ever, did what they do. They laid out the shortest route from A to B. The fact that the shortest route went through the Corvallis watershed, was gravel and was gated to motor vehicle traffic, had no bearing on it being anything other than the shortest route from A to B. Some times we have to be smarter than the 'puter.

This situation merely points out how easy and necessary it is to jack up a car and get under it and take a look when evaluating a purchase. That deterioration is way too obvious to be spotting it after the purchase.

What a great question. Let me see what I can do with it. Say you run the nozzle up to where you've gained a thou on the needle. I think what you have is a one point improvement on the needle by closing down that gap. What you are left to deal with is the profile on the rest of the needle, all of which are different. In essence you've introduced a new needle to the deal. By going down in size on the nozzle the full range of profile on the needle remains useable as if they were stock. This way you are working with a needle profile that was at one time derived for a particular engine through a full range of RPM. I think running the nozzle up a known needle introduces new characterisitics for that needle across the RPM range which may or may not be right at the new setting. Does that make any sense to ya all? It's early, I tried. Feel free to ask for your money back....

Not needles, nozzles. Stock fuel nozzles are .100" we can supply any size but typically .099" are enough smaller to take the rich out the mix..... $40 for the pair with a $50 core charge because we need the heads back.

Ya know one thing we do for high altitude folks is we supply undersize SU fuel nozzles to compensate for the oxygen deprivation. Reducuing the fuel as a % of the mixture increases the oxygen as a % of the mixture going into the carbs. I'd submit this would make things less blubbery and more crisp. A "lean" mean fighting machine!!

.045" was where we ended when we went electronic..... Set 'em and forget 'em......

The JUST SUs DVD will walk you through the trouble shooting..... front to back top to bottom.

And $624 to do a clutch??

Unless you leave a hole open for a leak I doubt you'll notice any difference. This is one of those things that has been done thousands of times with no ill effects. Any "run quality" issues can be addressed by dialing in the carbs. The condiition of ones carbs? That's another issue.............

You need to leave the PCV fitting in the center of the balance tube and the tap for the brake booster hose. Everything else can go away.... Except the linkage to the carbs of course. We supply a couple of iterations of the cleaned up balance tube if you're interested in taking a look. www.ztherapy.com

Informative, I guess. Applicable to anything Datsun, not so much.

Arne, Whatchoo sayin' 'bout our pictures Willis? Are you coming to the BBQ the 20th? www.datsunsnw.org for details

Tom, This is precisely what happens every time we have a fun run through the back roads of western Oregon. One group will light out like they are on fire and the other group will take things nice and easy looking at the country side. The 20th we'll attack Mary's Peak, the highest point in the Coast Range and I'll guaranty there will be people nearing the top when others are just turning onto the road up the mountain. Different strokes..... but somebody's going to get hurt one of these times....

The only service we offer re: Flat tops is the change over to the earlier round top carbs. Be the flat tops good or bad, we have a big enough problem keeping up with the round top market to try and source another inventory for the flat tops. Couple that with the fact that the inventory doesn't appear to be there and the flat top market would be very small, it makes no sense for us to even try to get involved. We are generally booked out 2 weeks on for new orders and production will only be dealt with by the owner to insure the quality the company is known for. As it stands, we haven't even opened up our offerings of the SU SUs to the British entusiasts. Volvo owners can get their carbs done, but that's it. The balance of our offerings are the Hitachi SUs for the Z car, roadsters, 510, Etc. And, of course, the internet allows eposure world wide which puts a customer multiplier into play like never before...... PS: If anyone has been trying to email us, it seems that none of the emails to the website are working, so if anyone needs to catch up with me via email, use ztherapy@msn.com

My submission is that Datsun dealers replaced many a set of flat top carbs when those cars were new to satisfy unhappy new owners. In answer to your other question... our part number ZT161 will provide what you need to convert to the earlier carbs (70-72) and takes into account the fact that you have no round top cores to send in. www.ztherapy.com

Put a segment of either the 46 or 88 side by side with either of the 30 series manifolds and see if you don't think the later 30 series might not flow better. Bigger, wider, more open inside....... Pretty intuitive.....

There was certainly no slight intended. Guy was on the trail of something in the gas that would have turned it red. We were surmising that perhaps his unknown tank had been treated with "something" that our wonderful gas might be reacting with. Anything that will work trouble free with gas tanks is a welcomed addition to the trade....

Guy, You may want to track down that red Coat product because there is a clue in the name. Know 'ut I mean Vern? Found out what the family of finish is and whether it's a single package product or a catalyzed product.

I have seen instances where water would get by everything and form little beads of water in the bottom of the float bowl essentially blocking the flow of fuel out through the nipple to the nozzle. Why the vacuum wouldn't pull the water droplets through, I have no clue, but "Thar She Lay"..... Just saying, look there also.....

Spares spares spares. On the 610 front, keep that in mind. There weren't many, hence there aren't many "left".........