clutchdust

hey all, this is a pic of the fender of my current project. this is by far the worst area of the body. given the rest of the car's condition and the need for mechanical restoration, i want to try to seal this off to prevent further rust damage. it was obviously a bad repair from a bad hit. the good news is that i don't have to deal with a lot of rain in my area, it's probably been like this for at least 10 years. i know that sealing it will not improve the cosmetics of the damage but i would like to stop it from progressing. anybody have any suggestions?

i have an engineer friend here locally to do the welding. he'd rather assemble something prefabbed, or rather he has expressed to me the cost benefit to assemble/weld something prefabbed as opposed to fab from scratch. i got some info from autopower. i'll give them a call. thanks

anybody know of any companies still making rollbars or cages for these cars? looking for a good prefabbed job, cage preferably.

not yet, i will though. during disassembly, one of the jet assemblies disassembled alot more than it should have. (woops!) as funky as this particular carb was, i can only imagine how bad this car ran before it was shut down.

bought a basic rebuild kit from a local supply house and was very surprised to find it came with two sets of jets. one marked as **J1 and the other as **J2. i ended up ruining a pair of each just trying to get the old jets out and the new ones in. good news is i'm rebuilding two cars at the same time. so one car is going to be pretty much just a stock 2.4 while the other will be slightly modified (ignition, shaved head and header). which jet size is which? and which jet should i put in the modified car? while we're on the subject, maybe someone can explain what the deal is with the two different needles in the float bowls? the ones in my kit are both the same but the ones that came out of the cars are different. the needle for the rear bowl appears to be some two piece design. any ideas?

remedy, i don't speak from any position of authority on this issue but if you go to the ztherapy website and look up their carb information they say that first set (w/o air filters) are only good for wheel blocks. you should probably ask bruce. i think the site is www.ztherapy.com. but if that doesn't get you there, you should be able to find it through a search.

since i will be running this as a track car, maybe i'll investigate those SM jets. definately don't want the thing falling flat on the top end. dogma, probably a 4.3L odd-fire (if i can find an odd fire). a 4.3 is basically just the old 350 minus two cylinders so there is lots of cheap go-fast out there for them. you can easily build one up to over 300hp N/A and have it completely drivable and damn near bulletproof. not to mention i'm really familiar with the bowtie, it weighs less than the straight six, can be set farther back for better balance. oh, and if you've never heard an odd-fire 4.3 at 7000rpm :devious: just plain wicked.

thanks for the response, bruce. good to hear from someone with some authority in this matter. what are the SM needles? when the time comes for a 'heart transplant', i will definately keep you in mind with the roundtops.

checked it out and just on the home page, it doesn't address those differences. since i plan on making an engine swap sometime in the future, i'm not going to spend alot of money on super zoomy stock carbs. just do the parts store rebuild. so far, the only things i'm planning to do to the stock engine is have a bit milled off the head, do some minor porting and polishing on the ports and bowls and install a header. i figure that will get me running enough so i can do the work i want on chassis and suspension for a good track car. once i have the rest of the car sorted out, i'm going to drop in a nice cheby v-6/t-5.

tokico or KYB? mostly track and hard street use. opinions?

i pulled the carbs off my '73 (allegedly '72 roundtops) and also the carbs off the g/f '71. now i have questions. during disassembly i noticed a couple differences. the ones from the '73 had a four bolt flange for the damper and also had a black plastic jet assembly. the '71 had a three bolt flange for the damper and had a stamped steel jet assembly with some type of locking screw mechanism. otherwise, they appear to be identical. so the questions are, what's the difference? is one better than the other? are the internals interchangable? one other question, how much meat can be removed from the manifold and heads for a little better flow?

dogma, boyd codington has been around for many years doing some serious customs. i,too, am unfamiliar with his t.v. show but he's been doing some outrageous custom rods since the 80's. very talented guy

hey, ed. i assume this is a used header? how much? do you have any pics? is it the MSA header?

going racing. need to build the car. what do you have?

sounds like i'm beginning to build a plan here. :classic: i haven't pulled the valve cover off yet so i don't know which head i have but i hope to do that in the next week or two. still have plenty of projects to tie me up around the house now. would anyone suggest going with a 260 cam then? if i just bought a 260 or even 280 OEM grind cam from one of the aftermarket cam grinders, would i need to change out springs, rockers and retainers? would it even be worth it?

well fellas, the wifey-poo did come through on the manual for christmas. so i've been reading up a bit and noticed a couple things. thing number one: the haynes manual lists the CR for the 240 at 8.8:1 but the CR for the 260 at 8.3:1. from what i've seen so far, it would appear the 240 and 260 share the same deck height, piston diameter and dish size. so did the 260 come with a different head with more open chamber? thing number 2: dispite the lower compression, the manual lists the 260 at 14hp more than the 240, at the same RPM no less. how so? are the peak HP numbers closer at different RPMs? if i went ahead and had the head shaved, say, .020-.030" for an increase of CR, can i take advantage of that with the original cam? or should i consider a new cam while i'm at it. once again, the goal is just a slight bump in power while freshening up a motor that hasn't run since George Bush was in the White House. oh wait! i mean the first one. looking for an honest 165-170hp. is that unreasonable for a mostly stock 2.4L with just headers and some tweaking?

o.k. guys. you've sold me. i may re-ring the original L24 (depending on the condition of the cylinders) and shave the head just a bit, but no more major components. probably just exhaust, pertronix and pretty much call it good. dan, i was and still am talking about the 4.3. it's pretty much a 350 minus two cylinders. in fact, many of the parts interchange: pistons, rockers, lifters, timing chain, well, you get the idea. why the v-6 as opposed to the v-8? well, both GMHP and brodix makes aluminum heads for the 4.3. so now instead of a SBC v-8 that weighs about the same as a stock L24, i'm talking about one that weighs ~100# less. and sits further back. don't forget, for what i want to do, power means alot but balance is everything. speaking of power, it's pretty easy to get 300hp out of a N/A 4.3, even on pump gas. how can you beat that? so i'll get it running and go from there. struts, swaybars, brakes and so on and so forth. once the rest of the car is ready, then i'll drop the v-6.

damn phred, i feel like i've been virtually bitch-slapped! i read your explanation when you first posted but it just didn't register then, got it now. must just take a little rattle of the cage to clean out the cobwebs. so if i now understand you correctly, the L26 pistons had a different wrist pin location than the L24. correct? aside from that, was there any other difference? if so, do you know what the location was for the L24? i'm hoping these are specifications i will find in my manual, when i get it. dan, the only other engine i'm buying to put in here is gonna be a chevy. not that i have anything against the little nissan, but the old hot rodder addage says, "there is no replacement for displacement". 2003 and that still hasn't changed. i was hoping to get a decent bump in compression cheap. i wanted to tinker with this engine and get it putting out some decent power until i had the rest of the chassis sorted out and could put together a good odd-fire v-6. man, if you've never heard an odd-fire chevy v-6 at 6000rpm, you haven't heard anything! it's a creepy sound, cool as hell, but creepy. since i just got the car, i don't even have a manual for it yet. figured i might just as well put it on my christmas list since that's only a week away anyhow. i don't know what the factory rated bore and stroke on these cars is. i was waiting on the manual to get that information just to get some decent ideas of what i was looking at. so apparently, i didn't understand the difference between the L24/L26/L28 engines correctly. hey, it's a learning curve. only owned a Z for a whole week now.

na, i'll just get some centerlines or welds made up with the correct offset and bolt pattern but i'll go 17" for tire availability. gotta put Z's on my Z!

o.k. let me see if i understand how this works. the 240 was the smallest engine they used in the Z (at least in North America). then, to increase to the 260, nissan increased the stroke but the bore dimensions were the same (correct?). does that also mean the pistons in the L24 and L26 are interchangeable? now, when they released the L28, it had the same stroke as the L26 but a bore of 86mm vs. the 83mm used in the L24 and L26. do i have that right? dan, your really raining on my parade here! this is what i've found out so far. the L28 replacement pistons speedpro listed in their catalog are being discontinued so those are out of the equasion. now i'm going back to another idea i had, if the block can hold up. i talked to speedpro yesterday about the comparison of these two pistons and here's what i have. the pistons from the L4 1.8L are a compromise. it's listed for '74 LD truck, '73-'74 car and '76-'71 car and LD truck. these are the dimensions that are the same as what's listed for both this 1.8L and the L6 2.6L: rings: 2-2.00mm, 1-4.00mm pin diameter: 21.0mm piston clearance: .04mm @ 56.3 from head 1.00mm pin offset these are the dimensions that are different: piston diameter: 85.0mm, available with .50,.75, 1.00, 1.50mm overbore vs. 83.00mm for L24/L26 and 86.0mm for L28 recessed head: 1.3mm deep x 73.5mm versus 1.2mm x 71.5mm comp. dist.: 38.3mm vs. 38.2mm. (still unsure what this means) from what i gather, this will yield a displacement in the 2700cc range and compression approximately 9.5:1 without milling of any hard parts. now what i need is an L24/L26 piston to compare. if you have an old, unserviceable piston lying around, i'd like to have it. i'll pay for shipping (US only) and it doesn't have to be in good shape, just needs to be whole. i'll get one of these new pistons, make some measurements and let everybody know what i've found

damn! well, not trying to undercut anybody but if that sale falls through, let me know.

thanks. next time i'm in the bone yard i'll keep my eyes open. in the meantime, i'm trying to find out if the pistons speedpro sells for the 2.8L are on the shelf or if they have to make them at the time of order. if they have to make them then, i'm going to request no dish. should be able to bump the CR pretty significantly without having to mill anything, and that's a good thing.

2nd in line.

hi phred, can't imagine owning a Z in gresham. i used to live in wilsonville, then vancouver, so i guess your Z lives inside quite a bit! still, good input. i really don't want to get into buying new cranks, rods, etc, etc. pistons are not a big deal since cleaning up the bores are good for the oil consumption anyway. the cam i'm looking at (comp cams 280S) is a higher RPM cam anyway. i already have a SBC so it'll be nice to have something that really likes to wrap up to 6k. from what you guys have advised so far, this is what i'm thinking. 86mm pistons. check the block and only mill if required to true the deck. mill the head (and block, if required) no more than .040" (total). fresh bearings, chain and oil pump. new cam, springs, lash caps and rockers (do i need to replace the rockers?). pertronix, MSA 3-2 header (coated) and some port/polish to intake and head ports. like i said, i'm not looking to go out and spank any vipers (yet), that'll come with the SBC. right now i'm just looking to "wake up" the stock engine. i'm trying to get the most bang for the buck and i'm setting a target budget of $1k for this little overhaul. JMT, what would have the N24 head you refer to? if i go to a bone yard, what am i looking for?