Walter Moore

I hate to agree with the man, but he is pretty much correct. What you have is a time bomb, not a car. S30's do not have a "VIN". They have a serial number. The auto theft databases that most (US) states rely upon don't work very well for cars made before 1981. If the paperwork you have in hand matches the serial number on the dash, you may well be able to get a title, but down the road you could still lose the car if it turns out that it was stolen years ago. At the very least you have evidence of tampering. The whole thing sounds very questionable to me.

I had the MSA header and 2 1/2" exhaust on my car, and I also ended up installing a straight through sausage muffler as a resonator right after the header. It was just too loud for me on the highway without the extra muffler. They really should offer that as an option.

I am happy that the correct engine tilt solved your problem.

Thanks for asking. I am OK. Still considering my options. The first generation Zs are getting pricey and I am not sure what I want to do going forward.

I asked because the two things that the header hits, the steering shaft and brake valve would not be there on a RHD car.

Is that header intended for RHD vehicles?

I assumed that the original comment was an attempt at trolling the crowd. Looks like it worked.

I don't drop by much anymore, now that my Z is gone.

Three things: 1. There is no problem with the mechanical advance curve on any of the ZX (S130) distributors. The problem is the vacuum advance for the "Later" cars was crazy high because the second generation electronic module has an electronic retard feature. (Engaged by the knock sensor in the head on an S130) 2. If you don't hook up the vacuum advance, then there is no problem. 3. On my car I mechanically limited the movement of the vacuum advance to limit it to 17 degrees of additional advance. This prevented pinging so long as I used 92 octane or higher fuel. See the attached pictures of my notes.

Do we still have members in New Zealand? I understand that they had another earthquake and tsunami this morning. We are praying for the safety of everyone there.

On my wife's Mustang GT the factory fog lights cannot be turned on unless the low beams are on. When the high beams switch on they shut off.

It indeed looks rough. Be careful out there.

I got busy and forgot to watch the final auction. I hope that whomever bought the car ends up happy with it.

I suspect that would be too slow.

Diesels are un-throttled engines. There is no throttle plate on any diesel, so they do not generate vacuum in the intake. They regulate engine speed via fuel delivery only. So all diesel cars that use vacuum controls have some form of a vacuum pump. The dreaded Oldsmobile diesel's of the 70's and 80's had a mechanical vacuum pump where the distributor would normally be mounted on a gasoline engine. (The EGR, dashboard heat/AC controls, and automatic transmissions of that era were vacuum driven.

Personally, I average 15,000 miles a year on my daily driver. (But I only put 14,000 miles on my 240Z in 9 years.) :-(

Well it is official. I let the insurance company have the car. The buy-back price was $4500, and I am not willing to pay that for what I consider to be a parts car. I sure hope that whomever ends up with the car understands what they are getting.

As far as I know the speedometer gear is tied to the final drive ratio of the differential and the tire size. I don't think that the transmission has anything to do with the selection. At least when I went from a series B 4 speed to a series B 5 speed there was no difference. I cannot drive my car now, but it seems like 2K at 70 mph is about right for the overdrive 5th.

Actually full SS payments for my age bracket start at age 67. Interesting little known fact: You do have to start taking "Mandatory" distributions from your IRA(s) at age 70 1/2, but if you are still working you do not have to take money out of your 401K. I know people who have increased their 401K contributions by the amount of their mandatory distributions to prevent paying taxes on that money until they actually quit working. (Maybe they think that they will live forever?)

Oh, and for the record my car has cheap "Sport/racing" seats and the belts are a 4 point harness. I really think that that combination helped my out a lot because I had the belts tight and I stayed firmly in the center of the seat the whole way through the collision. I didn't flop around like happens with just a lap belt, or a lap and shoulder belt combination. Now if the car had rolled over and the roof collapsed it might have been a bad thing...

OK, sorry for the suspense. I am under doctor's orders to limit my "Screen Time" to 1/2 hour increments a couple of times a day, so I wasn't keeping up on the thread. So I am not supposed to return to work until July 14th. (More doctor's orders.) In the mean time I am recovering OK I think. Hagerty is handling the claim for me so any fault determination is between them and the other driver's insurance. They had an appraiser at my house to look at the car today, and he said I should have a decision within a day or two. He seemed to think that it was fixable, but my agreed value is fairly low and if the estimate is more than 75% of the agreed value they will just total the car. I honestly don't care which way they decide to handle the situation. If they can get it fixed that would be wonderful, because I have the car pretty much setup exactly how I want it to work. If they declare it a total loss, I have my eyes on some other Zs that are not too far away. Or I might just wait a while until I am sure that I want to get back into the same type of car. When I look at what is left of this car, it gives me pause. I thought that the addition of a roll cage might be a good idea, but without a helmet it might just introduce something else to bang my head into in an accident. What has me rattled is that this is the worst that I have ever been hurt in a car accident, and it happened literally right next to my garage! It is like an adventurer who has toured the world and been in many of the most dangerous places that exist, being hospitalized from falling in the bathtub...

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Yesterday evening I was driving my 240Z down the alley next to my house on my way to the car wash in anticipation of the Midwest Z show today, when I was hit broadside by a Ford Explorer that was speeding down the intersecting alley. I have not heard from an Insurance company, but the firewall is bent, the dash is broken, and the driver's door is within a 1/4" of the steering wheel. Not a fun time. I am back from the hospital now, recovering from a concussion and whiplash.

The 240Z "proportioning valve" is a hydraulic timer/delay mechanism. It doesn't proportion the pressure to the rear brakes, it just delays their action so that in a panic stop the front wheels lock first. (To prevent a spin.) It was used from 1970 to sometime around 1973. I believe that the 260Z and later cars had a true proportioning valve that is located in the engine compartment. The early valve is no longer available, or was when I last checked.

I used an ignition coil for a ZX with my ZX distributor. It didn't seem that complicated, just bypass the resistor and take the wires that went to the points to the ignition module. I will have to check my notes again.