LeonV

(1) Remove horn pad (2) Loosen nut (3) Remove wheel All is described in the manual and in countless threads.

Put them where the FSM recommends. Under front rails, by the TC bucket and the rear transverse rail in front of the rear wheels. Pictures are in the GI section of the free FSM, probably page 5 or so. Are those spots rusted through?

Before jumping to any conclusions, have the valves recently been adjusted? If not, do so and run another comp check.

Is the swallow African or European?

Take all plugs out and do it again. Crank enough times to stabilize the reading.

What exactly do you mean by "more pedal control"? Dual masters will take quite a bit of work to adapt and you will lose power assist.

Stupid question that must be asked: have you checked the oil level?

I've never heard of differences between early or late '73 240Zs. All 240Z tachs are the same 4-wire inductive loop type, as far as I know.

Exactly. Alignment specs look good, looks like you're using camber plates. You can get more caster with adjustable TC rods and modifying the upper strut mount. Definitely replace the Illuminas with something more well suited for your rates. You can also try dropping the rear to reduce understeer.

Agreed, my most commonly used tools seem to be Craftsman. Well made and I haven't had any problems with them.

If your problems are during transitions, then you must make sure you have good dampers, assuming your alignment settings aren't way off. If you're running something like Tokico HP or Illuminas, you will want to ditch them as they are not designed for high spring rates like yours. However, what you're describing seems to be understeer issues. You need to make up for a lack of front end grip. More caster should somewhat help, but an LSD can exacerbate the issue (depending on type of LSD) since locking the drive-wheels in a turn will tend to make you go straight. However, certain combinations of parts could give terrible results, and others great. Adding just a rear bar will tip the cornering balance towards the rear, but it also further unloads the inside rear wheel resulting in less traction when accelerating out of a corner. If you already have rear traction issues, this could be a problem. You then add the LSD to solve the problem, but that will also change the dynamics of the car's behavior as described earlier. And so on... Definitely add the rear bar and see how it feels. My Z is very similar to yours, since I run a stock front ARB and no rear, and open diff. I've been considering adding the rear bar for autoX as I need more rear cornering stiffness and I don't have serious traction issues yet.

Your charging circuit isn't charging. Blindly replacing parts in an attempt to solve the problem is not recommended. There is a complete testing and troubleshooting procedure in the FSM. You have not even stated what car this is happening to...

You have low voltage to the spade connector on the solenoid. If you can jump the starter and it works every time, you will know for sure that this is your problem. If your battery is strong and your alternator charges (CHECK THESE), there are two solutions: (1) clean all connectors related to starter wiring and hope that you've dropped the resistance enough or (2) incorporate a "starter relay" (as Bruce mentioned) to take the load off the starter circuit and give the solenoid direct battery voltage without running it through 40 feet of wiring and 40 year-old connections.

If the car was sitting for a long time, there is a good chance that the seals in your master (and probably slave) have dried up and no longer work properly. I'd replace/rebuild the master along with the slave. Do the same for the brake system.

Bingo, that's exactly what I'm getting at! That radiused plate will diminish entrance losses to the carb, as good as or better than an air horn (depending on air horn geometry). You can use filters that fit and flow with the benefit of a radiused entrance! That's exactly the thoughts I'm trying to avoid. As I've said, the air is already turbulent, regardless of having a horn or not. There will be more entrance losses without a horn but fuel metering will be unaffected, for all intents and purposes. I've had no problem at all with fuel metering when running SUs without horns, along with many others who have done the same (as Mortensen mentioned and Healey realized). Again, an air horn will be beneficial for performance, but because it decreases entrance losses and increases powerband bandwidth. That's it, that's what it does.

I don't think anything was confusing, and if it is, then I didn't see anyone (but you) chime in about it. I have no problem clarifying any statements that are not well understood. I'm not arguing completeness, I'm just pointing out that what you said is wrong. No, that is incorrect, again. The air flow is not made less turbulent! A rounded inlet decreases flow separation (the vena contracta which you mentioned), not turbulence. If the air flow was made less turbulent then flow separation will be more likely (bad). Even if it did make the airflow a little less turbulent, does that have any effect on engine operation? Nope. Air flow in the intake will always be turbulent, and you really want it to stay that way for fuel atomization purposes. Also, air horns do not directly increase intake velocity, they increase intake pressure. It is not an intake velocity discussion. Intake velocity is another internet term (like backpressure) that is thrown around all the time with disregard to what it really affects... Look, you can say what you want and maybe you were inferring something completely different than what your post seems to say, but such a vague statement like "smooths out airflow" is not nearly describing the actual function of the air horn. Shouldn't someone know what the part does before deciding whether to ditch it or not? All I'm saying is that someone with the right knowledge will be able to make an educated decision. Others will grasp at straws. If the decision in Healey's case involves air horns vs. better filtration, then I think the proper decision is the one that gets you the most torque, power, volumetric efficiency, whatever you want to call it. In his case, it could be a wash and going either way doesn't change things much, whether he uses an air horn with a restrictive filter or no air horn with a less restrictive filter. The gains and losses may cancel each other out, and nothing noticeable happens. So no, he clearly doesn't need an air horn to have a great running car, as he seems to have already found out! I guess by your logic, if you want you L-series to run as Nissan intended, then you really NEED to be running an air pump and stock exhaust too.

Well there you go!

What you're talking about is entrance losses, as I mentioned. I try to give the kind of information that will educate someone as to why something happens, instead of telling them "SUs need air horns". I think the proper knowledge in fact does help his situation! I prefer cause and effect to groupthink reasoning. This is your quote (bold for emphasis): What you said was incorrect, so I corrected it in order to not perpetuate further myths. SUs will work just fine without air horns, or any carb/intake for that matter. It is clear though that air horns do improve performance, but for the reasons previously mentioned. I'm glad someone appreciates it! They will make a difference. I don't know how noticeable the difference will be but it's enough to show up on a dyno. I just don't like the term "smoothing airflow". It's one of those internet/old mechanic's terms, like "backpressure". It's not what the airhorn does, and I'll leave it at that. I completely agree with your point about the filters, Jon, and I don't think that one would come to that conclusion if they thought that SUs need an air horn for "proper function". This is where understanding how the part functions helps make the proper decisions.

Air horns have absolutely nothing to do with making the airflow "smoother". What the air horn does do is increase the overall intake length as well as reflect harmonic pressure waves in the intake over a larger rpm range. A longer intake length shifts the torque curve down (moves toward midrange) and the shape of the air horn will dictate the "bandwidth" of the intake's tuned length (width of torque peak). Air horns are definitely beneficial, it just has nothing to do with "smoothing" out airflow. The air horn will also slightly decrease entrance losses since the SU's mouth is squared off, however, any radiused feature at the carb throat entrance will help that.

Both the R180 and R200 diffs have flange connections to half-shafts (driveshafts in Nissan-speak). Thus, 240Z half-shafts can be used with the R200. They are not the difference. The biggest difference between the R180 and R200 are the physical size (180mm ring gear vs. 200mm ring gear).

My reply was poorly phrased, but looks like it's already locked from editing... In a nutshell, exhaust flow is not only turbulent at the boundary, but is so everywhere else. If you would have said "friction" instead of "turbulence" in your post, then that would make sense. Otherwise, mentioning "turbulence along the boundary" doesn't make any sense.

The engine number on the block is located by the starter, and a plate with the matching number should be in the engine bay. You are correct that a 5-speed never came on a '76 280Z, they started being offered as an option in '77. There is no way to match any numbers of the transmission to the car but we know that a 5-speed was not available in '76, therefore it is not original. Search around and you should find info on identifying different transmissions, usually by the "ears" (exhaust hangers) at the rear of the transmission. With that said, it doesn't really matter if it's numbers matching or not. I don't see that adding much value, especially on a '76 2+2. If the engine and trans are in good shape, there is no reason to toss it aside just because it isn't matching. Conversely, even if engine numbers match, that doesn't mean that all of a sudden a '76 2+2 is worth $1000 more.

I don't know about you, but I don't think putting in a 3.9 R200 was a waste of money in my (non-V8) Z. Many others install the R200 in order to change overall gear ratio, along with the added strength. Aalthough you can find R180 diffs with similar ratios, they are tougher to come by. I don't see any problem with having an R200 in an L-powered Z, it just didn't come from the factory that way.

Flow losses do have something to do with surface area, but not with some sort of boundary turbulence. Flow actually tends to be stationary at the boundary layer, if there is one. Exhaust flow is turbulent, thus there is no boundary layer and turbulence exists everywhere inside the pipe, not just the surface. But this is a tangent to this topic... Frictional losses go up with surface area, so twice pipes with an equivalent total cross-sectional area to a single pipe will suffer more losses. How much more? I have not quantified this with calculations or testing yet, so I don't know how strong the effect will be. Be aware that the inherent differences in design between a single and dual system also have an effect on engine performance.