Ben's Z

I'm not dead, but this is all taking much longer than I thought. I fixed my throwout collar issue by buying a 280zxt bearing collar. With the help of ZCurves we had the trans in and out and the problem solved in about 1 hour. Wrestling the trans on the garage floor is much easier with two dudes. I sourced a 0 mile stock rebuilt T3 Garrett and an MSA S30 swap downpipe unused out of a guy in New Hampshire at hybridz. I got the turbo bolted on but then my oil return tube wouldn't bolt to the turbo and have enough clearance between the return tube on the turbo oil pan. I think my tube may have been bent, during removal from the parts car, either way I got it on there with some Sanford and Son work. I am also using a N42 intake and low and behold the damn PCV valve interferes with the pressurized side of the outlet on the turbo. Well off the intake came AGAIN. I used a brass NPT elbow that gave me more clearance now the PCV rides horizontally off the bottom of the intake. I ordered a FMIC and IC piping kit off of ebay today. Still need a wideband (thinking AEM) manual boost controller, and BOV. I have a 6 week year old baby girl, thank god my mother in law has been here helping out, otherwise this thing would have been put on hold until about 2016. I also found a MSA fiberglass 240z bumper on craigslist that I bought in Austin. Here are some pictures before the motor and trans was installed as a unit about 1 month ago. And some of the other heartache. I also attached a picture of my VHT hightemp exhaust manifold paint. Ok, for starters this will wizz off your wife who gets about 4 hours sleep every night because of your newborn. The aroma in the house is not be confused with anything made by "Toll House" or "Nestle".

Maybe I will go talk to body shop this car is at and see what the guy wants to do. I didn't look at the other side to see their condition. What would these be worth?

These wheels are off of a 260Z that is basically a clapped out shell I saw today. This car will probably go to the scrapyard. These wheels looked vintage and I didn't want them to go to waste. Are these wheels special at all?

Getting my bake on! Been using the oven a lot of the last few weeks. I really recommend VHT high temp paint. I used it on my timing cover, and 280zx AC compressor mount in an aluminum color. I now have my exhaust manifold baking at 400 and then again at 600 in "Cast Iron" color. Should be interesting to see how this holds up with a turbo mounted to it.

I have a 2+2/Turbo throwout bearing collar on the way. Pulling the trans with ZCurves this weekend and reinstalling.

I'm getting ready to bolt up my manifolds on the turbo motor soon. All of my washers are old and I wasn't wanting to know if they are supposed to be concave where the nut is applied, or are they bent from use?

Ok I leveraged my 18" prybar against the fork and got the slave cylinder installed. Fork is now about half way between front and back as you can see. Pedal is stiffer but this is a stage 1 clutch. "Feels" like clutch is "right there", not sure if I need to adjust or I was able to force that slave cylinder on with the prybar so the clutch is technically engaged? Thoughts?

Which collar would I use?

Yes this is the same transmission from my 77. The donor car (1983 280zx turbo) was an automatic. The bearing seems fully seated against the pressure plate fingers, but not compressing them. I was able to put the new bearing on the collar easily. The old collar came off with some light taps with a hammer and socket the same diameter as the collar inside the bearing. No new collar came with the kit. Bearing looked the same in my old set up as it did with the exedy kit.

Got the motor and trans installed as a unit. Ordered a turbo rebuild kit from goop turbo shop, but I found cracks in my turbo housing, so I need another turbo and that needs to go back. I stated in a new thread that I cannot get the clutch fork to move enough to get the slave cylinder to reattach to the bell housing. I hate the thought of having to remove the engine again, this time by itself, to fix the clutch fork and whatever is holding it up. I'm not sure how hard a clutch fork is supposed to be to push on manually.

I am using my stock 77 trans 5 speed with a exedy stage 1 clutch kit for my 1983 turbo block. Using a 240mm turbo flywheel too.

It moves fine I can compress by hand.

After installing my engine and trans as a single unit I cannot compress the slave cylinder enough to bolt it back up. The clutch fork won't move worth a ****, even if I put leverage on it with a wrench. I'd rather pull the motor than the transmission at this point. I hate this car.

Holy **** that was a deal.

Has anyone tried to rebuild their own A/C Compressor? Any luck? I didn't see any reman units at least through RockAuto.com available for my 77. I had some sort of slow freon leak. I got new hoses made and would like to complete the job with a reman compressor.

Ok, took my head to Scroggins Machine in Houston. Let me say what a first class operation they have there. Bobby the lead machinist knows his stuff and is a great guy to talk to. He looked at me head and said. "I owned one of these cars and this cam is going to be fine, don't worry about it. He said one thing you can do is completely remove one set of cam tower alignment dowels to assist in getting the cam to spin better. I had never heard of this but it makes sense. The towers are not going anywhere once bolted down and certainly not when you put the head bolts through it. My disaster story gets even better though. I believe this error is 25% my fault and 75% ARP Fastener's fault. So I open up and install my head studs. The directions say 7/16 head studs, torque to 80 ft lbs (odd factory is 60 N/A Turbo is 65) in a 3 step sequence. Well I had torqued it to 60 before I took the head to Scroggins Machine so I never took it to 80. Well I get it back and because it said 7/16" on the instructions I used 12 pt 1/2 drive socket. I get to nut #9 on the 80 ft lbs. sequence and I ROUND OFF an ARP nut. I couldn't believe how ****ty my life was. Swearing I stomped in to the house and unloaded on ARP and their overpriced crap over on hybridz. Quickly I was called out for being an idiot as it is 12mm and torque to 60 ft lbs. I snapped a picture of the instructions and posted it over there and they said "you got the wrong instruction sheet". OMG! I called ARP, explained I didn't have the box, but just an invoice from one of my customer jobber stores and picture of the instructions. They stepped up and sent me the correct amount of studs and a new nut AND THE CORRECT INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS! Kudos to ARP! I later found out from a buddy at hybrid that sometimes ARP will use SAE nuts on cars that are metric, like the early Datsun convertibles, so while I should have second guessed what was going on....well.... Well, everything is going well again and by Sunday my motor should be all done. I am using some VHT high heat paint to dress up my timing cover and some other items before I put the front cover on. Here are some pictures of the engine tonight. Hoping to install engine and trans as a unit in the next few weekends.

Welcome to my hell and happy new year to all. Update... My cam wouldn't spin they way it should, not when compared to my other cams spinning in my old head. I was told over ay hybridz to have the top of the head milled. I took it to a different shop this time and they cleaned it up .012, they said it wasn't true. They gave it back to me but it just wasn't right. I didn't need that $130 anyhow. I thought I would try one last time to torque it to the block. The cam loaded in the towers but it took some tapping to get it in the last tower. I noticed when I stared through the back of the last cam tower the cam was favoring the 2 o'clock position. I confirmed this by using some prussian blue machinist die later on applied to the inside of the towers. What I found out was this... My head is warped like "(" from front to back. It is parallel top to bottom now but warped and bent like a banana. I put my Stanley level on port side of the head and I could get some drag on a .010 feeler gauge on the center exhaust ports. Some of the resident experts at hybrid tell me now both machine shops should have checked and straightened this before they milled the top and bottom of the head and trying to fix that now will ruin the previous milling. Thus I have about $400 in this awesome paper weight. So I began the search again for another P90 head. I have a guy from the Houston Z club with a P90A and I have the inserts to convert to adjustable lash. I have been told that Westside Machine and Scroggins machine in Houston do excellent work. I am going to go with Scroggin. I may take my bent head down there first and see if they can save that first. If not it will become a parts head and I will get the P90A from the Houston local. What a nightmare.

Ok. Took back to second machine shop and they took .012 off of the top. They did say it was uneven. I get the head home and set on top of the block, alignment dowels in and ARP head studs in the block. This cam is still not spinning like it should. I set the towers on with the bolts finger tight and put the cam in, tapped and torqued in different and multiple sequences. I have the suspicion now that the head is bent like a banana with the center exhaust ports being the inside apex. Like this looking from the sprocket "(" I believe this because when I was getting ready to put the cam in to the last tower it simply does not slide home and is offset from the tower hole. I walked around the back of the motor and looked at the back of the cam as it was about to enter the tower and it is clear as day that the cam is not going in on center. I tried my other cams and it is the same case. All of the cams go in my old head and towers bolted to my old block like butter. My question is why would my head fit down on the alignment dowels if it has this curve to it? I believe now I have over $300 bucks in a large alumnum paper weight. I even tried an extra rear tower I had, it was worse. I also tried retorquing the head to the block and took it up to 60 ft lbs. Unlike before it never got tighter to turn the cam as the torque load increased, no better no worse. Ok I just thought about this again and then went out and checked my thoughts. The head is actually curved in the middle with inside apex being the center exhaust ports. I once again put my Stanley level across the intake surface on the head and indeed their is a gap at the center exhaust ports.

As posted at hybridz Ok. Took back to second machine shop and they took .012 off of the top. They did say it was uneven. I get the head home and set on top of the block, alignment dowels in and ARP head studs in the block. This cam is still not spinning like it should. I set the towers on with the bolts finger tight and put the cam in, tapped and torqued in different and multiple sequences. I have the suspicion now that the head is bent like a banana with the center exhaust ports being the outside apex. Like this looking from the sprocket ")" I believe this because when I was getting ready to put the cam in to the last tower it simply does not slide home and is offset from the tower hole. I walked around the back of the motor and looked at the back of the cam as it was about to enter the tower and it is clear as day that the cam is not going in on center. I tried my other cams and it is the same case. All of the cams go in my old head and towers bolted to my old block like butter. My question is why would my head fit down on the alignment dowels if it has this curve to it? I believe now I have over $300 bucks in a large alumnum paper weight. I even tried an extra rear tower I had, it was worse. I also tried retorquing the head to the block and took it up to 60 ft lbs. Unlike before it never got tighter to turn the cam as the torque load increased, no better no worse.

I concur about everything you are saying but let me say a couple things first and let me know if I should proceed with your tests. 1)The cam I am intending to use worked fine and spins fine my old motor I pulled out. It is out of my 77. 2)I have 2 other P90 cams and they too spin fine in my old head and towers which is still bolted to my old block. They do not spin any better than my N/A cam in the head I am trying to fix.

Did a little more looking. I took all my cam towers off and used my potentially not perfectly straight Stanley 18" level and found that a .010 feeler gauge has a little drag under where the center cam tower would bolt down. I put in 1,2,4,5 cam towers and torqued to spec, and it really didn't seem to make a difference. Odd. From hybrid z.

Keep you day job d0uche bag.

I get it. So because the machine shop first rebuilt the spare parts NA head, I didn't think that out. When the machine shop put in NA exhaust valves when I went to go set the lash, I didn't think that out. Because the machine shop didn't mill the top of the head as well I didn't think that out. Because one ***** from hybridz sold me a 10 pound paper weight cam with a f*cked up dowel, I didn't think that out. I have done all the **** you said about 50 times. It is not spinning like it did in my old head.