Captain_Zeros

Yep, my lap belts are retractable and the female receptacles are pretty stiff. The strap acts as a limit stop to prevent the female side from falling straight down/forwards between the seats and the transmission tunnel. You can see 'em poking out in this picture, if you can disregard my mess.

My 6/73 240z has one, the straps on mine angle forwards to meet the seatbelts from the centered bolt in the center console.

Not the first time I've heard the comparison... Respect Your Elders: 1971 Datsun 240Z Vs 2013 Scion FR-S - Automobile Magazine

I bought my '73 240Z on craigslist.... paid a cool 1k for it. Granted it had spent a decade sitting and had a hole in the radiator....

if you've got a multimeter you can probe the resistance of the potentiometer and see which direction is more resistance and which direction is less resistance. (I forget which gives you more fuel though, I'm a carburetor guy! I'm sure somebody will chip in)

Make sure your float bowl levels are dead on. The mix screw is really only a fine adjust.

I'd like to see how much (any?) chassis reinforcement there is back there. Chopping the top off a monocoque can't be good for structural stability, much less with an upgraded powerplant.

Just my two cents, not all fan clutches are serviceable, some are sealed units, can't even unscrew 'em to try and replace the goo inside. I do know that I picked up a late mode Altima twin electric fan assembly from the local junkyard for under twenty bucks. Not everybody is gonna have relays and wiring laying around, but even with that stuff it's well under even the cheapest Chinese made replacement fan clutches.

Your battery might be at the end of it's lifespan. It might have voltage, but be lacking the amperage to actually power anything. My guess is it might be a combination of some sketchy corroded connections & a battery that can't flow the needed current. Or a bad battery charger.

If it's only one side of the signal, that points to the turn signal switch on the column, when you have a corroded hazard switch it eats all your turn signals both sides front & back. However, a hit & miss turn signal switch shouldn't have anything to do with losing all of your wiring at once, and I'm pretty sure the dome light has nothing to do with the turn signal wiring (or more accurately, SHOULDN'T). If you've lost everything at once and the battery still has current my hunch wants to say there is either a big short to ground (but that should be blowing fuses, fusable links, or lighting something on fire) or a faulty ground (either not making good contact or there is voltage at the ground. If you put 12 volts to both sides of a lightbulb there is 0 volts difference between each side and no current will flow, ta da no lights) Are you comfortable with a multimeter? Check for voltage between chassis ground & various systems, see if you can find where the fault is. Alternatively disconnect the battery and check resistance (ohms) between things that should be attached (eg there should be close to no resistance between the negative battery cable's battery terminal & chassis ground, they're two ends of the same wire so to speak). If you're not comfortable with a multimeter (many people aren't!) then I'd suggest getting somebody who is to lay eyes on the car. Edit: How did you confirm fuses and fusable links are fine? It's possible for fuses to fail and still pass a visual checkout, for instance if they blow close to one of the ends or blow halfway, it's not real common but it has got plenty of people in the past.

SUs will flow that no problem, if you can dial them in right.

Actually the US market stock '72-'76 4 speed trans and 3.36 combo adds up to some pretty nice short ratios. When you start mixing and matching transmissions and differentials is when you see sluggish performance sometimes, just an aside. To go quick you gotta keep it in the power band is all. Transmission and Rear End Gear Ratios That aside, to be perfectly honest I've never seen a 240z with the smog equipment still installed, I'd be tempted to keep it. Just don't ditch the belt and leave everything else installed for anything more than a quick test, that will destroy the smog pump because it is designed to have positive pressure to prevent backflow of somewhat corrosive hot exhaust gasses. I'd be interested to see some dyno numbers with and without smog pump running, everybody cries about parasitic loss but I have no idea how much power the smog pump actually consumes. EDIT: Whatever you do, don't go hog wild and remove everything. For instance the PCV system is completely beneficial and has no drawbacks.

I do wanna note that 280Z park bench bumpers probably make a huge difference. I'm unnecessarily bitter because two weeks ago I was hit at low speed from behind in my '73 while sitting still at a red light and I'm still rather sore if in one piece. I'm sure my heavier '73 spec bumper & bumper overrider bar are the reason I still have a back end of my car, but it's lighter than the later bumpers and is pre hydraulic bumper shock absorber mounts, which means the impact distorted my bumper and my spine. I expect to spend time in physical therapy over this. If I was in a modern car I wouldn't be at all surprised if I was entirely uninjured. Edit: And no way in hell am I gonna even CONSIDER installing pre-73 style "clean" bumpers or going bumperless, it might look nice but the overrider bar is the only reason I still have (albeit now cracked) taillights that are intact enough to keep driving the car until insurance gets me new ones, and the 2.5 mph impact bumper was probably the difference between having rear fenders and not.

It's a 1970s Japanese car. I'll leave you with this:

dumb question time, have you adjusted your valve lash? Nine times outta ten valve noise is coming from poorly adjusted valve lash, it wears and changes over time.

If you can't find a long enough extension cord, carry your battery inside and charge it near an outlet :ninja: I would strongly suggest the 280ZX distributor, mechanical voltage regulation is pretty objectively terrible from a performance standpoint.

If the ammeter goes to the left of zero, you need a bigger alternator in my book. I've got a used 280zx alternator and it runs everything like a champ. "rewiring" to use an internally regulated alt is wizz easy, it's literally unplugging a connector and jumping the correct wires to each other in the chassis harness (early cars like ours like to have a diode in there to make sure the engine turns off when you take the key out, about a dollar at the local radioshark) . The 280zx alternator conversion kit plug does the same thing and looks sexy doing it, but it's not strictly required for a functional setup. Edit: pictures of all my car's wiring modifications to run a 280zx alternator. The blue weatherproof connector on the white wire is just because it ripped out of the 6 pin harness connector and that was easier than trying to shove it back in.

A little bit of googling leads me to believe the 810 ECU has a slightly different pinout to the 280Z and 280ZX ecu, and another thing to check is if it has the O2 sensor that matches the ECU, if the O2 sensor and the ECU are mismatched it'll muck up your mix. Edit: I found this by finding 810 guys who wanna swap in 280z ECUs/O2-sensors/distributors to gain power

What I would be more concerned about than 5 of 6 bolts holding in the differential would be there being 3 of 4 bolts holding in your right-hand control arm. That front crossmember holds the front side of both control arms, I wouldn't personally want to trust locktite holding the suspension together on my car. However, I don't remember if you can get to the top side of that at all, I'm gonna leave it to somebody else to give suggestions on how to fix it

Not sure if it's relevant, but with stock needle style float valves it's important that the tab hits the needle squarely, if it hits at an angle (easy to do when you're bending stuff around) it can **** the valve sideways and prevent it from operating correctly. If you're running ball style grose jets it doesn't matter though.

The factory electric fuel pump has a filter in it, and if that is clogged up it'll restrict flow for the whole system, whether the electric pump is running or not. Beyond that I'm hesitant to touch this one, there isn't a lot of documentation on people using the 260Z flat-tops for much and this is a pretty non-standard setup. Not sure if they know much about flat tops either, but have you tried hybridz? Aside, have you read the carburetor chapter of the 260Z FSM yet? Available for download here: XenonS30

What zKars said. The only emissions things that came on 240Zs were smog pumps, EGR, and flat top carburetors. Your car has all of these removed (as does mine!) I've got a broken sensor plugging that hole on my car as well, "if it isn't leaking why monkey with it" is my take. I never could find a definitive on whether that plug is 1/4 NPT thread or whether it's 1/4 BSP, a lot of the fittings on these cars are british pipe thread which adds an extra hurdle to be aware of if you're going to start changing things.

'73 Z owner here, I just went through this. It's a thermoswitch for the EGR system so that it won't activate when it's cold out. It's an undocumented change somewhere in '73 to a 260z style thermoswitch, earlier 240z had a thermoswitch inside the cabin for the same feature. See page EC-12 in the 1973 FSM and page EC-16 in the 1974 FSM for specific infos. Edit: my car is build date 6/73 and was wired this way, my switch was non-functional and a previous owner removed the EGR system, so I just left it be. Double edit: It's also nowhere near the temperature range to be useful for much of anything even if it does function, it should activate at a coolant temperature of around 100 degrees F.

Hmm... have you checked the compression on your cylinders? Do you know why the engine came in half of motor in box form?

It's typical to put a small amount of oil inside the strut tube with the sealed unit, check your shock insert's manufacturer documentation, not all are designed to be oiled. The oil is just for helping heat transfer between the insert and the strut tube so specific lubrication & viscosity properties are fairy irrelevant, and general procedure is to use whatever oil is handy, plain old engine oil does the job fine. I don't know of any bolt-in 6 speed solutions. As far as the tach, I'm not sure what you mean, 280Zs should have a three wire tach and it shouldn't matter whether it's hooked up or not as far as making the engine run, not like the early 4 wire 240z current triggered tachs.