kingofapes

I just had an "experience" with this Reddat. I had heard of him but had forgotten and wanted to buy stuff off him on Ebay. I asked him to quote for shipping for certain parts, including windshield chrome moulding. He replied saying the shipping for all the other parts would be usd95 but for the chrome moulding it would be usd650… Yes, that's correct, he said six hundred and fifty american dollars for shipping the chrome mouldings. I said I will not take the moulding but will take everything else. So he told me to go through "buy it now" and he'd send me paypal request for the total. I did that and left to run some errands. Meanwhile he had sent me a message saying 2 of the parts had to be sent separately and it would be an additional 65 to send them. He did not wait for my reply, but added that 65 to the total AND he also added a part I had enquired about but HAD NOT BOUGHT, and he sent me a paypal request for all those. The total was about 200usd more than my original order that we had agreed upon. Obviously I did not pay him. The case is still open as I kindly told him I was prepared to take the parts I clicked and to pay 95 for shipping. I think I'll just drop the whole order and probably receive my first ever negative feedback on ebay..

Thanks guys, after initial disgust at my own stupidity I evaluated the damage and would say 1. any self healing miracle product won't work, the whole is small but too big for any of those products to work 2. it is worth keeping the current radiator so 3. have to find a radiator shop 4. found one. only about 45 minute drive away. I must say these shops would surely have more clients if they knew how to make themselves known on the internet.. I mean they have no websites, they don't always even show up in searches.. anyway I found a shop and will take the radiator there next week. I might be ok without the trans cooling but as someone said, if the Datsun engineers put something in the car it was probably for a reason as they tried to keep everything as simple and economical as possible.

Early -74 260z with original auto trans and original type radiator with trans oil cooling line attached at the bottom. My engine fan viscous clutch went and I got a new one online. Turned out the new one's deeper than the original. Checked that it will just slip into its place if carefully done, and as the bolts on the water pump side are about 20mm long, determined that it has enough space once installed. However even though it started to go fine it got totally stuck when the first hole slipped over one of the threaded studs in the pump. Wouldn't move back or forth. And as the radiator won't move at all towards front, all I could do was to try and carefully remove the viscous clutch. Well, the new one had stupid sharp nods in the front part and it punched the radiator which started to leak of course.. And do I feel stupid, stupid, stupid... Damage is done, and the trouble is, no original type radiators readily available where I live (Finland). I have recently ordered so many parts from the States and with the shipping added it is getting pretty darn expensive... So I'm thinking is the trans cooling absolutely necessary as I'm usually driving in 10-25C (50-77f) so it doesn't ever get really hot? Every now and then, but really not often it may max out at 30c or 86f for a day or two. Would be way easier to find a radiator without the auto trans cooling line connector, so I'm wondering if this would be sensible? The hole in the radiator is tiny, and I'm sure it is possible to fix it, but I wouldn't try that myself as I'm not a welder/solderer, don't have the equipment and I heard it is crucial to prepare the copper correctly and to clean the radiator also from inside properly for the solder to hold. And I don't seem to find radiator service in my area either.. Any ideas?

Previously my Z's original oil pressure gauge worked in the usual manner: at idle hardly no pressure shown, at higher revs the pressure would go up. I knew that it is the way these often work and wasn't too concerned. FYI I have Mallory Unilite dizzy and before it was installed with Mallory Coil with NO Ballast (this was done by the PO). Tach wasn't hooked up and wouldn't work even if I connected it. Then the head was off for porting and new cam. Soon after my Mallory coil went bad and I got a new MSD Blaster 2 and Ballast. I installed them and got the tach working too. But next thing that happened was that the oil pressure gauge now works the opposite way: at idle it shows some pressure but when the revs go up, it indicates nothing at all, goes all the way down. Now, I'm not running that engine before I solve this and I am going to get a mechanical gauge to make sure I have pressure. But I would like to know what can cause the oil pressure gauge change the behaviour into completely opposite to what it was before? Is this common and any ideas what might be the reason? I don't know if it is because the tach is now connected but might be. It would be nice to have the original oil pressure gauge working so I'd like to solve this so that I have both tach and oil pressure. As a double security I will have the mechanical gauge too.

took out my triples to adjust the butterflies. they were fine.. the culprit for not being able to close properly was the idle speed stoppers in the linkage. they can only be installed one way, they have no adjustment in their axis, yet they were not allowing the butterflies to close completely even with the idle speed screw completely off. I had put the carbs in place without the linkage after confirming they do close properly, so I was a little flabbergasted about the problem. Simple solution: file half a mm off the stopper e voila: now they close perfectly. Before putting the carbs back, I wanna put in a heat shield or at the very least heat shield wrap around the header.

Found it, thanks!

A couple of days ago when one of my carbs flooded, fuel went into oil and I have to change it before I can continue. Also I don't manage to get my temp gauge working now so I bought a new gauge that I use until I can fix the original one. I'm also having a problem getting idle low enough so I suspect I might have a vacuum leak in the intake. Didn't test it yet as so far I only ran the engine very, very briefly due to not knowing the temp. I ran the engine at a time max about 3 minutes, usually just 20 seconds because the idle has been really high no matter what I did. Today I tried once a minute or so, and played with mixture screws, closed them quite a bit and the idle went down and engine stalled. Turned them out just tiny amount, and next time the idle was really high again. Should I be able to see all progression holes covered completely when the butterflies are closed? I adjusted so that all butterflies are in the same position but since one of them did not completely cover the first hole, I set all the others to the same. Basically the first progression hole is now half open. Could this be enough to make the idle way too fast? The fact that every time the idle is very high is a bit annoying, it would be more reassuring to start tuning with low idle rather than super fast. Also the baseline settings should make the engine run very slow, like a tractor but that's certainly not the case with mine now.

sorry about the typo in my last post.. (Mat...Matt)

thanks Mat I probably have an bad earth connection somewhere because also my fuel gauge doesn't work..

I did notice when adjusting the max that it's not easy. did it several times.. your excel file would be helpful later on. I started doing the timing just now, but when I started the engine, my front carb flooded - I had it open a few days ago and seems like I managed to screw the float height adjustment. adjusted again and will try.. Last 2 weeks every time i wanted to start with the timing, there was some strange problem that prevented me from doing it.

Salut Lazeum, it's been a while Thanks for your tips. I'll give this whole timing thing a go today. My Unilite, by the way, has a system where the max advance is adjusted with a degree key. you loosen 2 screws, turn the plate, insert the appropriate key, turn back until the key fits snugly, then tighten the screws. In my case at the moment I adjusted it to 20degrees of mechanical advance, that will give me approximately 12-14 of initial, and if I end up having to use more initial advance, I can go down to 18 or even less of mechanical advance. I actually had determined that a good starting point might be using 2 orange springs, but of course only time will tell if that will work. At the moment i'm just a little hesitant in letting the engine warm up as for some reason my temp gauge isn't working. it used to but now it doesn't so I am a little worried about it, because I haven't properly ran the engine since I put in the coolant and I can't be 100% sure if there's some air lock in the system or not. shouldn't since i put the coolant slowly when the engine was idling, but you never know.. I've thought about EDIS too, but this summer at least I'll keep the Unilite and maybe in the future I'll get the EDIS.

yeah although I'm not sure if the Unilite is the single best dizzy for a Z, nevertheless it is a handy upgrade because it has more flexibility than the stock one, and mine has worked very well in my previous setup (stock mn47 head with 4barrel Holley). I was going to go for MS too but then came across a set of Webers and was sold. MS is superior for certain aspects, but triples are also great in a Z, once properly tuned.

Thanks guys, I appreciate this input. As for initial advance, I've had many different advices, varying from 10 to 16 degrees. Some people that I know, have dynoed their cars, one of them with somewhat similarly modified L28 and 12degrees initial. I'll definitely make some device to actually hear pinging. The first thing now for me is to get reasonable initial settings and later on take her to dyno.

Yes, I am going to take the car to dyno eventually, but was interested in other people's experience when trying to determine a good starting point in terms of advance curve. I have the spring kit and my dizzy is disassembled right now so it would be a good time to see if someone with more experience could give an advice. My own guess for that starting point would be using something like brown and orange that should start the advance around 1200rpm and max it out around 3000.

L26 stock bore, MN47 head ported, 10,5:1 CR, Mallory Unilite (YH type Vacuum advance model - although VA now not used anymore), triple DCOE 40s, header, 2,5" exhaust, Cam:Intake Duration (gross):284 Exhaust Duration (gross):284 Intake Duration (.050?):240 Exhaust Duration (.050?):240 Intake Valve Lift*: .480" Exhaust Valve Lift*:.480" Intake Valve Lash: .010" Exhaust Valve Lash:* .012" RPM Range: 2800-6000+ I use 98octane unleaded (in Finland, not sure what is the equivalent in the US) I'd like to hear any suggestions as to what type of advance curve to look for, especially if someone has experience on this particular type Unilite dizzy. I try to post photos of the advance curves available on this dizzy for you guys to see. I figure initial advance should be around 10deg, with total max around 33-35 but the guy who did the head, suggested even 33 may cause detonation and said I should aim at 30 which I did (already adjusted the dizzy to max at 20 degrees of mechanical advance+ 10 initial). I have not done this before on this engine, so i don't really have first hand experience of the characteristics, so I'm just guessing it should be fairly linear and as with the triples i guess my idle will be around 900-1000, so mechanical advance starting around 1200 and it'll max out at what ever is that those curves will give. Any ideas? (please pay no attention to my early notes on the paper