Zedyone_kenobi

you know this picture does me no good at all. I have been thinking of changing out my black interior for a red one. Ever since I saw a picture of the silver Singer 911 with red interior, that color combo just speaks to me. Not sure why. but I want it!

I attempted to install my Unilite distributer tonight, and had ZERO luck. I am not sure how it is possible to have absolutely NO luck installing something that only has 3 wires. A red one to the ballast, the brown one to a ground somewhere, and the green one to the negative on the coil. Easy peesy. But NO luck starting at all, I mean zero anything, zip. I pulled the coil to dizzy plug wire and laid it against some metal and turned the engine over, and it did not spark one time. When I turned off the key though, it laid out a huge spark... Wait, now that I type that, something just occurred to me. It would not spark from the coil as it needs the rotor to make a connection with the cap to arc. So the coil was charging up, but not sending the energy anywhere! DRAT. I should have pulled the wire to a spark plug and checked for spark. I can try again another night I suppose...

I currently have Installed: 160 Air correctors 130 Mains F11 Emulsion Tube 55F8 Idle Jets 170 air correctors I can loan I have ordered: 180 Air corrector 140 Main jets 50F9 Idle Jet 55F9 idle jet I have to go through all my spares to see what I have available.

Great read! What fun that must have been. It just proves that old cars do not have to be perfect, or flawless to be fun. They endear themselves to us. They want to run, they want to go on and please us. I love a good write up like this and plan to do something that is hopefully as enjoyable on my TEXAS 1000 rally coming in November.

I was thinking that we here at Classic Z cars are a unique bunch that are willing to share knowledge at the slight hint of a question. What I would like to propose is an online collaborative parts sharing for Weber DCOE? Anybody who has triple webers on their cars, has a bunch of spare parts, jets, linkages, rod ends, emulsion tubes, etc. We are all trying to improve the tune of our cars, and for the vast majority of us, we settle on good enough, rather than perfect because the price of jets and air correctors are prohibitively expensive to buy in bulk. 6 of anything is about 40 bucks. however, a padded envelope is not that expensive and a stamp is within all our means. What I propose is a listing of all the spare jet sets, air corrector sets, venturis, chokes, linkages, etc we may have that we would not mind loaning out to other Weber owning members. The purpose of this is to let people try out different configurations on different engines at nothing more than the cost of an envelope so they can find what works and only have to BUY parts once. This will also aid everybody out as people can report back before and after runs with their new set ups and collectively we will all see more cause and effect from a set of mains or idle jets. I am about to place a large order to get my gal dialed in, but what I will not be using I will offer to anybody else to try in their DCOE's. We can all save each other a bunch of money. I will make a list of all the parts I have available for check out. This whole thing will rely solely on the honor system. The payout is a larger data base of information on the effects of what parts do what. Since we are all running L series engines with L24, L26, or L28's we can really narrow down what is a good configuration and what is not. We may find a special setup by accident that really sings.

That is great information, I had no idea! Back to the idle mixture jet information I promised... "...In order of ascending size, the air bleed orifice diameters are F6, F13, F9, F8, F2. (F11 has the same size air bleed orifice as F8 but the axial bore is smaller)... So an F6 would have the smallest air bleed orifice, and an F2 would have the largest air bleed orifice. Meaning if you keep the fuel orifice fixed(the XX in the XXFy idle jet number) , going from F6 to F2 would make you run much leaner. Data taken from the book, "Weber Carburetors tuning tips and techniques", published by Brooklands Books, written by John Passini

Thanks buddy. I fixed the sticky transmission lever, all it needed was some lubrication on the linkage rod connecting the shift lever to the transmission. I am still running way to lean for comfort though. I need a day off work and some jets to get her dialed in. But the idle is great and the cruise is fine. I thought I heard some pinging in 3rd and 4th gear at very low rpm with the engine bogged down, but I think that is more to do with the engine being under load at low rpm while running very lean. We will see. I placed an order for some new idle jets, and I have to wait to see what they will turn up. I am still just driving around the neighborhood testing out things while I am close to home. Also they tore up all the roads leaving my neighborhood and they are a dusty, muddy mess, so you know I am not going to take the pristinely clean z on that and basically trash 2 months of work cleaning the engine with a drive down what is basically a gravel dirty road. Yes I am a bit OCD when it comes to keeping my baby clean! OH one more thing... I was able to play with the throttle a bit more and what can I say... but this. DEAR GOD the torque and that light flywheel is just addictive!!!!!!!!! IT pulls so hard in every single gear!!!

I will make a new movie with the car moving under its own power today if I can. All my other video was showing was a choppy idle, which is not really exciting. It did sound good though.

Awesome post. I have to agree the marriage of the throttle plate and mixture screw is paramount and also convoluted. Both due the same thing. I was able to find a happy idle on my L28, but I want to get the mixture screw back to the magic 1 turn out from fully seated. I am currently running 55F8 idle jets. Now it is important to know what those numbers mean. The 55 is the size of the jet, a bigger number is a larger fuel orifice. The last number is the air orifice. This lets in more air. Now this is where it gets tricky. The Fx numbers are not increasing as numbers go up. In essence, the idle jet is like a miniature Main/emulsion tube/Air corrector. You have to find out where your engine is most happy, and unfortunately, it will be an expensive task. Most expert tuners often fall back on the 'suck it and see' method. There are just too many variables in play to get it right on the first try. But having synchronizes and wide bands give you the information to give you more data with which to make decisions on. A 55F9 will run richer than a 55F8. An F8 has a larger air opening than an F9. Go figure. I have the sizes in ascending order in one of my weber books for the DCOE jets. I will post those tonight. Currently I have the first progression hole totally blocked off, and I am about 2.5 turns out from fully seated on my mixture screws. So my idle needle is doing pretty much all the work, and any movement of my throttle plates will uncover the first progression hole. If I put my mixture screws about 1 turn out , the car will not run, it dies, and I go crazy lean. According to all the literature I have read, I will need to up the idle circuit. I have ordered 50F9 to see where that gets me. I am gambling a bit on reducing the size of my fuel orifice, but I think the smaller air orifice will drive my mixture to the rich side more. I will report back and find out. Getting the idle circuit spot on is so critical as that makes the transition to the mains easier to tune. Also, remember to do all your weber tuning with the engine fully up to temp. You do not want to tune for start up. HA

I am so proud of the JPL guys right now. I work at the Johnson Space center in HOuston for NASA, and you should hear the optimism about this. NASA moral is tanked. We have no mission and our funding just keeps us busy with projects that may see a a launch by 2017 if we are lucky. Manned space flight is at NASA is really suffering. This is a wonderful achievement for mankind, and a technological tour de force to accomplish this task in an automated fashion. I hope this is on the news everywhere and kids and look bright eyed at this and want to get into the maths and sciences. We need this rover so badly for our kids imagination to grow, because the bulk of NASA is doing practically nothing. Without a mission, we are just spending money for no real reason.

how did it go Blue?

actually I have the full video, and meant to post it. HOWEVER, flickr only lets me post 1 minute and 30 seconds of video, and as luck would have it, that was right before the engine fired up. I have no idea how to post the full video to the internet. Everything cuts me off.

We at NASA are very excited about this. And also anxious. Talk about a million things that can go wrong, but if it works will be as significant as Hubble was. Truly amazing engineering!!! We need something to inspire kids these days as NASA has been neutered by the white house. If this does not inspire a generation of kids, there is nothing left to show them for another 10 years.

Forgive me for this Update. I posted this in my transmission VERY stiff thread, but I wanted to give closer here. The other one should be deleted. I did something very simple. I removed the console, and both shifter boots. Then I applied some grease to the rod that the plastic cup on the end of the shift lever rests. That rod was dry. I put the transmission in first gear, and the applied grease. This way when I put it in reverse , it would twist and push the grease into the housing. The first application made a huge difference. IT felt like it was finally able to move smoothly. The gritty and sticky feeling was going and it dropped into and out of all the gears like a brand new car. I also double checked my clutch engagement. It was a bit off. A few more turns on the adjustment screw gave me a more mid pedal clutch engagement, which feels far more normal and ensures full engagement of the clutch as well. It is raining now, so I will get the console back in tonight and give it a drive when it is over, but for the most part, it feels 100% fixed right now. I think I was just being a bit of a hypochondriac with this one. Leon, I had several Speilburg moments planned to video, but nothing until the rain stops, and nothing really sensational until after I get her broken in. But for now, here is a tease!

Update. I did something very simple. I removed the console, and shifter boots. Then I applied some grease to the rod that the plastic cup on the end of the shift lever rests. That rod was dry. I put the transmission in first gear, and the applied grease. This way when I put it in reverse , it would twist and push the grease into the housing. The first application made a huge difference. IT felt like it was finally able to move smoothly. The gritty feeling was going and it dropped into and out of all the gears like a brand new car. I also double checked my clutch engagement. It was a bit off. A few more turns on the adjustment screw gave me a more mid pedal clutch engagement, which feels far more normal. It is raining now, so I will get the console back in tonight and give it a drive when it is over, but for the most part, it feels 100% fixed right now. I think I was just being a bit of a hypochondriac with this one.

Well the baby fired up today. Temp is rock solid at 180 F, oil pressure is higher than my last engine, but do not ask me what it is, as I have no idea due to the wonderful amount of information displayed on the OEM gage! Now how did it go? Well at first she would only spit and sputter and run off of the fuel the accelerator pump put out. Meaning, I was not getting enough gas. (Keep in mind I am running a 55F8 idle jets in the webers) So I opened up the idle mixture screws until she would start which happened at 2 turns out. But she was running very lean 15.1 AFR's. I continued to turn the idle mixture screws until I had a smooth idle and ended up with about 2.7 turns out from fully seated, running 12.5:1 at idle and 1050 rpm. So so far so good. I let her idle as Eiji recommends and did some driving. Engine sounds FANTASTIC. I cannot really comment on performance as I have to keep it under 2500 rpm for a while per my break in instructions. But at slow rolling through the neighborhood in all gears, the AFR is about 15.8:1 just cruising around. So it will be obvious I will need to so some work on the carb tuning from my OEM L24 to my modified L28. NO big surprise there though...Looking forward to it actually. Now on to something far more disconcerting. My transmission shift lever is extremely stiff. I can put it in any gear, but it is hard as the ****ens trying to move it OUT OF 1st gear. From 2nd to 3rd and in and out of any other gear it is easy. But trying to move it out of 1st is extremely hard. Same thing happens for trying to move it out of Reverse. NO idea if this is normal for a newly rebuilt transmission. I will post a video of the completed engine running soon. She starts up immediately, settles to a great idle very well. NO smoke, no issues at all. Feels very torquey, but obviously needs tuning. But the engine install part of this thread is done. Pics coming !!!!! As for what I am going to do for the carbs, well that is going to be a new thread in the Carburetor section.

Just took the Z for its first drive since installing the new engine/rebuilt transmission. THe shifter is incredibly stiff when I try to take it out of first gear. If I just putt around barely revving it, when I go from first to second it is hard to get it to come out of gear. If I rev it up and then try to go from first to second, it is VERY hard to get it out of first gear. All other gears are getting better as I drive it. The whole transmission was very hard to shift at first. But seems to be loosening up the more I drive it. I am assuming that this is normal for a new transmission. I have a thought that this may just be a clutch adjustment. I just ball parked the clutch adjustment on my slave. It is all the way lose right now.

My gosh I love me some panasports! I simply love your car. It is classic.

YOu rock man! Keep it up!!

I am very sorry to hear about your situation. Engineering in Houston is booming, but coming from SF to Houston, is like being taken from cold water to boiling. The culture shock may kill you! HAHA.. but if politics are not an issue, then I promise you can find a job here in Houston. IN the mean time, take care. No situation is as bad as it seems at first glance ( and no situation is as good as it seems at first glance for that matter) Hang in there, and if any of us can help, let us know.

Totally agree there is much left on the table to learn about but going in too deep becomes a parametric discussion on too many variables I just wanted to give people a brief description of what happens when you decide to turn the Air Corrector knob up or down. I find emulsion tubes fascinating, and I bet they were derived more from experiment than calculations Every little bit of knowledge helps us. It is important to get the high level theory right first Happy tuning

That is a head gasket. I have seen that coffee creme color before on two different V8's I have owned. Start planning a new head gasket install and also decide what you want to upgrade while you are in there.

The main jet, emulsion tube and Air corrector all must hold hands in order for the main circuit of the car to act as it should and when it should. Understanding the function of each part is critical to being able to tune the car. Blue has done so many great explanations of carbs, interiors, etc that I thought I would try to add to some of the core knowledge on the board. I am by no means an expert, but at times, I have been told I can explain things in a very easy to understand manner. So lets talk about the air corrector on Webers (or Mikuni's I guess as well). The air corrector allows air to come into contact with the fuel coming form the main jet and then enter the primary circuit to feed the engine along with the idle circuit. You can see the air as shown by the little white arrow coming in through the Air corrector, and then into the Emulsion Tube where it is mixed with the fuel that is pulled up (via engine vacuum) through the main jet. The air and the fuel are mixed together in the E-tube. That is a whole other science in itself, and I will not attempt to explain which E tube is best for you. There are books written on that alone! So back to the Air corrector. It sees atmospheric pressure. So how can I relate the function of the Air correcter? Well how about this. Ever try to drink a beverage with a straw that is cracked? Lets break it down even more. You are the engine. You suck on the straw providing vacuum to the straw Normally, if the straw was solid (Air corrector of Zero) you would raise the beverage to your mouth (primary circuit) with ease - However this is a highly undesirable situation to dump raw fuel into the engine. The job of the carburetor is to mix fuel and air, not dump a stream of gasoline into the intake manifold. So Same situation: You are the engine You suck on the straw providing vacuum to the straw This time the straw has a crack in it right below your lips. So the constant engine vacuum still pulls on the liquid surface but you lose some through the crack. You can raise the liquid level to your lips but is harder to raise it to that level. And when the liquid gets to the crack in the straw you entrain some air into the liquid stream so you get mixture of liquid and air. A air correcter is born. The size of the crack is the air corrector. The larger the number on your Air corrector (the larger the crack), the more air comes in and less fuel, AND the harder it is to raise the fuel in the straw. This can lead to a lean air fuel mixture Lets look at it again with this diagram: Again, the engine is providing a fixed amount of vacuum. The main jet is busy acting as an orifice controlling the flowrate into the Emulsion tube. The Air corrector acts as a vacuum bleed of sorts. The larger the AC, the more air you will get and the harder it will be to raise the liquid level up the E tube. (This is also why it is so critical to get the float level right, as if the fuel level is low, then the engine has to raise the level more before it gets any gas) Hope this helps explain in a very basic manner how the Air correcter works. IF there are any errors, please point them out and we can get some more great info on this website.

I bought KF's float level checking tool. It has a line that is 25mm up from either side. You probably already know all about this, heck you are probably the one who told me about it. I do not think which L series would have any baring on what the level should be, the CARBS dictate that you should have 25mm. If you are 29mm from the top of the surface where the main Emulsion tube screws in you are 4mm too low, which would make your transition really bad to the main circuit. You are making the engine work extra hard to pull the liquid up the Emulsion Tube. Adjusting the floats was the biggest thing I ever did to my Webers in their brief time on my L24. I also went down from the 170 Air Corrector that came with my 151 to 160, which also helped tremendously in the mixture upper RPM in the higher gears.

My most sincere thanks! Tonight was a tale of two stories. I set out tonight and told my lovely wife to expect some noise out of the garage tonight!! Well I finished installing the exhaust, tightened up all hangers, then wired up the dizzy, and went to wire up the O2 sensor. Well Murphy struck again. It would see that since I refused to cut a hole in my new shifter boot, I was left stuck looking for another 'orifice' to stick the ridiculously short O2 sensor through. You see in Innovative's eternal wisdom they decided to make the O2 sensor as big around as a quarter and the plug on the other end of the wires as big around as a shoebox (mild exaggeration). So I decided to cut all the wires and make a long jumper with bullet connectors for future removal. I also decide to run them through the old choke cable grommet on the firewall. As my luck is consistent, I ran completely out of my last connector. So now I am not making smoke and fire because of a dumb 2 dollar electrical connector. I only hope the O2 sensor is not calibrated for a certain length of wire. There is a calibration technique called out in the owners manual for the O2 sensor, so I may do that again.