5thhorsemann

My 07 BMW M5 has two smog pumps, granted I seldom work on a car newer than 1991, but they all have the pumps on them. I have an 87 F350 superduty bucket truck originally rated at 11,000 lbs GVW, no cats. I regestered it at 10,000 lbs GVW for insurance purposes which made it subject to emissions testing which it failed. I replaced the two factory smog pumps with two larger pumps designed to work as single pumps on the same size motor and low and behold it pased. I just close a valve and remove the belt after the test and the truck runs fine. The government gets it's $15.00 and the truck still burns the same ammount of gas and pumps out the same amount of exhaust. As for stability controll, if you know how to drive that is "useless crap". Saftey systems are just fine for those who want them, but why should I be forced to buy something I may not want. If the car has air bags (I don't like them) anti-lock brakes (not on all cars yet) and stability controls your insurance is cheaper. Likewise, if you dont crash into things your insurance is cheaper. All I'm saying is the private sector will drive these inovations on it's own, we don't need mandates to develop these things. I can't recall a single automotive inovation designed by a politician, can you? I can however recall lots good things that have been deemed unlawful.

Very nice job, 8 hours well spent.

My understanding of command economics is more of a situation where the government controls the availability, or supply of a product or commodity and dictates the price of that item regardless of market forces. Kind of like what is happening in this country with the oil industry, the government refuses to allow drilling on private land or granting permits for new refineries (controlling supply) and then mandates what additives must be included in the blends (manipulating the price). That’s not really what we are discussing here. If I build a car that is capable of getting 54.5 MPG, but has no smog pump, it would not be street legal because the government has mandated that all cars must have a catalytic converter and a smog pump. If I put the smog pump and cat on the car it will no longer get that 54.5 MPG because the smog system creates a drag on the engine which will bring the MPG down. I am therefore creating more pollution, by burning more fuel, in the name of building a cleaner car. The car will test cleaner because the government tests vehicle emissions, at the tail pipe based on PPM of CO2 and other gasses. Since I have installed a pump that stuffs millions of parts into the PPM sample, I can make the car seem to have very low emissions by virtue of the volume of the pump I install. You see, this is all a racket used by governments to strong arm the auto makers and extort taxes out of us. Obviously, a car capable of getting that kind of MPG is not a going to have hateful emissions, so why mandate that you must have emission controls and a smog system. Such a car will burn approximately 1 GPH at highway speeds, my John Deer lawn tractor burns almost 5 gallons of gas in the 3 hours it takes me to mow my 3.5 acre lawn. So this car has better emissions than my lawn mower. The reason the government mandates these things is not for safety, the environment, or to reduce reliance on foreign oil. These mandates are there to generate funds for their pet projects and government pork. Look at the mess California has made of these regulations, pointing to 1960’s automotive technology as a reason to carry on these ridiculous programs and add further regulatory burdens on owners and manufacturers. I understand that there were smog problems in the larger cities back in the 60’s and 70’s, but those days are 40+ years behind us and the average consumer is so much more sophisticated in today’s reality. A car that gets that kind of mileage, stripped of all the useless crap government says it must have to pass emissions and crash tests, would be an inexpensive reality with current technology, and they would sell like hot cakes. Government will not get out of the way and will continue to over burden and over tax everyone and everything it can get it’s hands on, for our own good.

Whenever government gets involved in private sector endeavors, the result is always negative. Electricity is primarily generated by burning coal or natural gas, and the transmission of that power involves loss. Gasoline is the safest and most economical point of use energy supply around, there is no denying that. Pure gasoline, without additives like ethanol, will give you superior MPG results over the mandated blends the government has imposed on us. In short, if the government removes the ethanol mandate, fuel economy will rise by 3 to 5 real world MPG in every vehicle on the road. The Volt is dead, GM stopped production weeks ago sighting safety and production cost as the primary reasons. First responders are trained to handle these vehicles with great caution in the event of a moderate to severe collision because of the extreme dangers involved with the batteries if a breech or short occurs. What government needs to understand is that this market will work these things out on its own based on demand and competition, just like every other area of the economy does when not subjected to steering regulations and mandates. Politicians love to pick winners and losers for their own benefit, and tell us it’s for our own greater good, which is a flat out lie. Take the new CFL light bulbs as an example. Instead of a bulb that costs pennies to produce on existing production lines, a bulb that consists of a small amount of glass and metal, the reliable old incandescent bulb. The government has seen fit to mandate a bulb that contains plastic (oil), mercury, an iron copper transformer, electrodes that dwarf the material required to form the filament of the old bulb and a new more complicated assembly line that consumes more power (coal and gas) to produce a single unit. If not for the government mandate not one clear thinking person would ever buy one. The winner; the companies that got the taxpayer handout to tool up for production of the CFL. The loser; the taxpayer, the consumer, and the companies that can no longer sell the reliable incandescent bulbs domestically after the mandates take effect. They use our money to screw us for our own good. We can debate the viability of an electric car all day, but the reality is that it is nothing more than a novelty without government’s intrusive overreach into the private sector markets. Likewise, mandating that we MUST own a car that gets 50+ MPG will distort the market, harm trade with foreign nations, harm our GDP, harm our strength as a nation and harm domestic wealth creation. Drill baby, drill.

Electric cars have been the next big thing for the last hundred years. I assure you that the hearse that takes each and every one of us to our final resting place will be powered by an internal combustion engine. I can produce many times the energy by burning farts than I can ever dream of producing with a wind mill or solar panel. These things are Star Trek fantasies and happy dreams, not practical, profitable realities. If our government would step aside and stop making us fund these follies, the private sector markets would crush all of these companies in the wink of an eye.

So you are saying that ugly plastic electric $h!t box's are all we can look forward to if you can't afford to pay $100,000.00 for a car?

The 370Z IS the newest 240Z set them side by side and it is as close as they have come to the original since 78. I have been looking for a 370 for over a year, trying to find one on auction that I can get for a reasonable price. Obama's "cash for clunkers" program drove up the prices on all the used cars at the block and they haven't started to drop even now. I hope Nissan can find a way to get even closer to the S30 in the next round of the Z.

Put a timing light on the plug wires. I think you are loosing spark. The light will stop strobing durring the stall if its electrical, but will continue to strobe if its a fuel issue.

OJ, as usual you miss the entire point of the conversation. No one is saying that a hybirdized car isn't cool, they are saying it is no longer what it was designed to be. Your car for instance is now a Chevzy, not an S30, not that it's not cool, just not a Z car anymore. When I lift my hood people marvel at how a 40 year old power plant can still run so strong and how I keep it running so well. When I see any old car with a new engine, I see someone that has no respect for the original design, or someone that lacks the skills required to keep that old dog in the hunt. There is a difference between improving the original design, and tearing it to the ground and resigning it totally. The Z body is more than just a shell to cover any old motor, the Z is a package. I really don't care what anyone else thinks about my car, it makes ME happy when I drive it. And it never gets parked with the hood open and a sign that says "look at my zness ;)" it gets driven, hard and often and on the twistiest roads I can find. And when I break something, I fix it, and if I don't like the way something works, I modify it to make it better. And if we both enter a car show we will not be competing against each other, they will put you in a catagory with street rods and other highly modified frankinstine monsters. 'Nuf said.

Its a Billy Club, I think he needs it to shoo away all the people ooohing and aaahing around his car........................( * )

This was my first thought as well, do the "smoke test" hold a lit cigarette in front of the radiator and see how the fan pulls. Also feel the clutch resistance cold, then idle the car till it gets hot and recheck the resistance, should be much tighter when it's hot.

.............Yeilded this.... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tyreart-Tyre-Marker-Paint-Pen-WHITE-colour-lettering-highlighter-/290762861604?hash=item43b2d12c24&item=290762861604&pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts&vxp=mtr And everything Walter states RE the molded white lettering is correct, I will add that the white rubber is a very soft compound as well and is easily damaged. But it is laid over the carcase and is not part of the functional workings of the tire itself, If you neglect the tire pressure (or even run the pressure low for comfort or drivability) and get into a hard corner, you could grind the black overlam off. Just one more reason to go with the paint.

Good stuff, thanks for the link. Glad to see that 40 years later the Z still can serve as a "bench mark" for the latest generation of economy sports cars.

You should also consider the chemestry of the new paints as they apply to whats on the car now. The solvents of the newer paints are designed to soften the layer(s) they are applied over as they cure. In other words, the reducers evaporate to atmosphere and leach out into the undercoat to promote adheasion. If you have a really thick area of paint, like in the shugar scoops for instance, the new paints can shrink that old paint and cause it to get waivey, create orange peal or even cause it to crack.

I too am a big fan of the raised white lettering look, brings me back to the day when they still made real cars, not the plastic computers with motors they build today. But if I may offer a bit of advice, don't buy tires for the look, buy them for the performance. Get the best tire to suit your driving "style" and area weather conditions. Then, go to your local tire supplier or Tire Rack on line and buy a white tire paint pen (yellow is also available) and paint the lettering on the best tire choice. I got my tire paint from the local Harley dealer for ~ $12.00, I had to go around the car with two coats the first time to get the coverage but once done it proved to be brilliant white and very durable. It also helps that you can touch up the lettering if you scuff it on a curb or pot hole. It also works on the white lettering and white walls for touch ups.

Bolt on things like the louvers don't really count as a modification as it relates to this pole. You can un-bolt them and put them on the shelf if you so choose. A complete power train or fiberglass body kit on the other hand completely and forever turns the car into something it was never intended to be. Some kits are better looking than others, but they all mutate, or in some cases mutilate, the S30 look. There is a slight difference, or a line in the sand if you will, between georgious restyling, and just plain gaudy bulk when it comes to spoilers, flairs and air dams.

Reminds me of the old AC/DC song........A touch too much.

Obviously the creators of this list were not considering the beauty of the cars to be skin deep. While I like all of the cars on the list, most of them don't belong in a beauty contest. I think the 240Z is more beautiful than any of them. Look at Julio's car in the post above, every body line blends smoothly with the next. The Porsch, while I love these cars for their performance, I can't call it beautiful. The Challenger was my least favorit of the Mopar muscle, the Vette, not in my top 10 by a damn site. If you are looking at strictly the exterrrior lines of the car, the Z, and the TR6 would have to be on the list.

There is just something so wrong with that.

Not the V reg. That mounts up by the alt. There was a thread about a year ago regarding this device, I seem to recall it is an emission related part but I don't remember what it does. I just unpluged mine and it didnt effect the car starting at all. FWIW

Well, you did kick start conversation, just never can tell where those conversations will go.

My car had a noise like that when I got it. I searched high and low on the rear suspension and couldn't find it. When I put the header on and had to cut out the twice pipe I found a bad exhaust hanger, that fixed it.

How is the distributor advance working?

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I got my kit from Bruce yesterday, the parts look awesome. I unfortunatly will not be able to do the install till next week, but i will take picks and post a writeup on the job. Thanks Bruce, can't wait to see the results!!